Talking Band has collaborated with artists from multiple fields, including composers Elizabeth Swados, Peter Gordon and “Blue” Gene Tyranny; designers Julie Taymor, Theodora Skipitares, Ralph Lee, Janie Geiser,Nic Ularu, Kiki Smith, Lenore Doxsee, Olivera Gajic, Mary Ellen Stebbins, and Anna Kiraly; choreographers Fay Driscoll, Abigail Browde, Sean Donovan, and Flannery Gregg, writers and performance artist Taylor Mac and David Cale; directors Anne Bogart, Ken Rus Schmoll, and Michael Silvertone; and magician Peter Samelson.
In 1996, the group created The Performance Lab, creating a structure for their collaborative development process.
The Performance Lab has become an ongoing program central to the company’s mission: a creative space where the company convenes to learn alongside established peers and like-minded emerging artists, and to explore questions of theatrical style and technique in an environment free of the deadline pressures of formal production. The Lab responds to the company’s need for longer, more collaborative creative processes required for genuinely experimental multidisciplinary work.