The artist-in-residency program sponsors one to three artists a season. The program provides financial support, facilities, marketing and resources, including actors, backstage crews and musicians or backup musicians. Artists come into residency at various stages of their creative projects. Some are in the middle of building, some need support fleshing out the ideas and operations, and some arrive with a complete piece and need a space and audience to receive the final product. This season’s artist-in-residence, Lisa B. Thompson, is a well-known playwright who wears many hats. She is also the Patton Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies and serves as the College of Liberal Arts adviser to the dean for faculty mentoring and support.

“That’s the super lovely thing about being able to be a resident artist,” Hooi says. “You’re committing this relationship to an organization where they say, ‘We’re going to invest time, money, resources. You tell us what you need.’”

For this upcoming 2023-24 season, Texas Performing Arts will expand its partnership with Fusebox to bring more multimedia artists to UT from all over the world. “It’s allowing (artists) to expand their platform and public impact with our partnership,” Bursey says.

The extended partnership grew after Bursey and Ron Berry, the co-artistic director of Fusebox, brainstormed how to extend Fusebox’s vision beyond an annual festival. 

“We’re always wanting to support innovative, imaginative work that’s daring and artistic-minded and forward,” Hooi says. “There is a community within Austin, and there’s this interstitial cross-institutional collaboration to support the culture of arts in Austin.”

The 2023-24 calendar for TPA and Fusebox will include three performances throughout the year. They started Sept. 29 with the musical trio of Grammy-winning vocalist Arooj Aftab, pianist Vijay Iyer and multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily presenting their project “Love in Exile.” 

Later in the fall, TPA and Fusebox will partner with The Contemporary Austin, which is a visual arts center, and the Butler School of Music to present “Tremble Staves,” an outdoor performance in Laguna Gloria by Pulitzer Prize-winning Navajo composer Raven Chacon. The piece is a commentary on the approaching water crisis. It synthesizes mixed media using natural light, sound manipulation and theatrical performances. The show requires a large, local percussion ensemble, so Bursey brought in the Butler School, which will supply about 20 percussion students for the performance.

“(It) really is an almost unclassifiable performance,” Bursey says. “It doesn’t fit into any clear definition of music, or theater, or visual art. It blends them together, and that’s a great example of an artist whose creativity doesn’t fit into any neat box, and that’s the type of work that I’m really excited to be doing through this partnership.”

Back on campus, the three-performance partnership finishes with Geoff Sobelle’s “FOOD” in the McCullough Theatre. Shows will run from Jan. 31 through Feb. 3. 

Bursey is always looking for performances he can bring to Texas Performing Arts. He reads articles in the Austin American-Statesman about aspiring artists and contacts them. He quickly sets up conversations to understand the artists’ needs and what they hope to make possible.

“It’s the genius of Bob,” Hooi says. “Of always having a finger on the pulse and being like, ‘Where are these opportunities to start cultivating relationships and new work?’… I think it’s so important that people do new work and have the space and time to develop and generate new ideas.”