Dannie-Lu Carr, the pioneer of Crestworks recently hosted a dinner with us to introduce Crestworks, a new methodology and approach to valuing and creating a shared language around the creative process. We caught up with Dannie-Lu to hear more about her new business, Crestworks.

What were you doing before you started work on your project?
I have worked for 20 years in the Performance industry as an actor, writer, director, acting coach and business coach. Crestworks is a response to much of my experience in this field.

What’s the elevator pitch for your project? 
We are living in a world where creative works are released into the public domain too soon, en masse and without any distinction. In short, Hypercycling.If we continue down this road then soon we will end up with a cultural wasteland with no transcending leading figures or work emerging whatsoever.

Crestworks seeks to re-orientate culture by putting the process rather then the result at the core of the work. In doing this then the emerging work, when it is ready to be released into the public domain, has a different charge to it, engaging audiences and creators in a deeper way.

If we were to look to emphasise and invest in the process, the thing which, to date, has mainly been mysterious and unspoken, then we seek to emphasise what is the most valuable thing to our culture now. We also seek to address the cultural malaise of being Crestfallen which is a result of too much Hypercycling.

If we start to have the conversations about our own experiences of these states and we begin to refocus our own practise, then we stand a good chance of re-orientating culture and rebuilding the wasteland we currently find ourselves in.

If you have co-founders, where did you meet them?
I have no co-founders per se but I have been working with Propelia, a leading thought agency, on the concepts of Crestworks since Dec 2013. We were introduced by a mutual friend.

What’s your biggest ‘hindsight’ moment?
That nothing can be hurried if it isn’t ready. You have to go through a lot of vulnerability and discomfort if you want to get to the real heart of any matter.

What will 2015 bring?
A big engagement of people working with Crestworks, some keynote speaking engagements and the development of an animation.

One piece of advice for someone working in your sector?
Keep your integrity and speak up when you think something is important, wrong or right.

Convince someone to buy into what you’re working on in under 50 words.
Imagine what would be possible if we put our energy and resources into the creative process rather than all of our focus on the end product. We would have pieces of work emerging that would be progressive and smart. Without them our futures look pretty scary.

What’s your favourite London restaurant?
L’Auberge in Putney – but sadly I haven’t been for years.

You can read more business spotlights here.