About a month ago I made brief mention in an entry of NYFA article that discusses how a hospital in Brooklyn is offering low cost health services to artists in NYC.
I actually made Laura Colby's (agent mention in article) acquaintance a year ago and emailed her with praise for her efforts. She told me there are similar efforts being made all over the country and I should keep my eye open for them.
I forgot that suggestion until today when I came across a section on the Folk Alliance website listing all sorts of health resources for artists.
Along with a listing of insurance companies, the website has links to pages dealing with industry hazards like tinnitus, performance anxiety and hand care of musicians. One of the most amusingly titled links is The Accordian: A Back Breaker. The webpage includes a 7 part series of articles on the best way to enjoy playing and how to choose the instrument that is right for you.
Much to my surprise, there was also a link to a Performing Arts Medicine program at Ithaca College. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise. There are sports medicine programs, why not performing arts medicine? I mean, except for the fact that athletic programs in schools and professional sports organizations have more money to toss around than their arts counterparts.
But wouldn't you know it, a Google search on the subject turned up a number of such programs, including a Performing Arts Medicine Association.
Taking up Laura's challenge, I also did a Google Search for non-union entities that offer help with artist health care.
Washington State, Rhode Island and Texas have a mixture of resources and advocacy efforts for artist coverage going on right now.
The Artists Foundation in Boston directs people to some insurance sources. They also make people aware of the hazardous materials they may be coming in contact with depending on the type of art they are pursuing.
Out in LA, the Center for Cultural Innovation offers medical and dental coverage for $19.95 a year. I saw some implication that it is an introductory rate. Still, pretty dang good unless it just covers bandaids and dental floss.
The Actor's Fund provides healthcare and support for all entertainment industry professionals. (I actually didn't know they were a separate entity from Actors' Equity until today.) They even have their own nursing home.
Fractured Atlas seems to offer the largest listing of resources as it contains a database of health insurance providers for their members listed by state.
It is no surprise health coverage is a big issue for artists--heck it is a big issue for most people. Hopefully as time progresses, similar programs will emerge as more and more people realize this is an issue that needs attention.
Programs like the one in Brooklyn is actually win-win. In exchange for the low rates, some artists promise to perform in the various wards. For some people, there may not be any more potent an encounter with the arts than when they are feeling their most weak and vulnerable.
Looking to revisit the idea of audiences reviewing performances, I took a look at some research Greg Beuthin over at Extension 311 had done on the subject. Though I did a Google search similar to the one he lists in addition to using some keywords of my own, I didn't find much more than he. Even worse, the one theatre I found in my last search that appeared to be setting up a way for performers and directors to blog has removed their website entirely. Though others like My London Life , a chronicle of a London based director's experiences, are going ahead strong. (Though understandably with some commentary on the recent bombings.)
In fact, of the sites he links, many of those that offer the opportunity to review don't have any posted. The exceptions are fringe festivals (which he says really encourage their audiences to do so). He uses the examples of San Francisco Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe (The Edinburgh ones are more like advertisements from people who have seen the pieces elsewhere since the festival doesn't actually start for another week.)
One of the best audience review sites in terms of the detail to which people go in discussing the experiences is On The Boards. I have been critical of their editorial policy in the past, but I have never questioned the quality of their entries which seems to remain high.
New York Times had a terrific story (picked up by Artsjournal.com today) about a website that will do for traveling artists what Tripadvisor.com does for hotel seekers. GoTour.org (hosted/sponsored by The Field) provides a place where artists can post and receive advice about how to go about performing at certain venues, how audiences in different parts of North America react to different types of music, where good eats can be found, etc. You can search venues by state or by region--a helpful feature if you are considering regional tours.
The website is well organized and attractive. However, its biggest strength is also its biggest weakness--it depends on people to enter the information. This is a strength in that you get some good practical advice from people who have been there. Their experience is subjective perhaps, but it is much better advice than you will get from buying a book on touring North America.
Depending on user input is also a weakness because, well, there is nothing entered in the website. While there are local guides for New York City, there isn't a single venue listed for the place, nothing at all listed for Philadelphia (or any part of PA except Allentown). I found listing for venues that no longer exist. (The NYT article says the website is celebrating its first anniversary, but I found entries from 2001 and the site has a 2003 copyright.)
Regardless of the shape it is in now, I am posting about it in the hope that readers will contribute to it and flesh it out a bit. It has a great potential for being useful to artists so everyone do your bit and update it!
Again from our friends at Artsjournal.com is a Wired article about how Internet content may not be free for much longer. (But just above it was this blog entry about how classical music fans were overjoyed that downloads of Beethoven from the BBC exceeded that of U2--except the Beethoven was free so it is unfair to compare. People like free stuff.)
The Wired article points out that television was free when it started, but now that the delivery medium has evolved, we pay for it, as basis for claiming at at some point we will regularly pay for internet content as well.
Much of the article is devoted to discussing the pitfalls of transitioning from free to pay-for-content. The worst being alienating all those who currently patronize your site and sending them to your competitor.
The very end of the article mentions that blogs will probably always be free. This might be dangerous for some websites if they cede an opinion shaping position totally over to blogs.
This was interesting and all, but the reason I chose it for today's entry is because it got me thinking that perhaps there were other ways to structure access to performances, museums and the like.
In fact, IDG is a living example of this. The company operates 300 websites and employs about 200 online strategies -- free content, cheap content, expensive content, content that requires an onerous registration process, and content that requires little more than an e-mail address and ZIP code. In some cases, a website may have three-quarters free content and a quarter requiring registration or a subscription. Or, it could offer a subscription for $150 a year but give it away if the reader fills out a detailed registration form.
Obviously applying these ideas for arts organizations where people are present physically is different from the internet where their presence is virtual and easier to limit.
Honestly, the only application I have been able to come up with that is directly associated with the structures the article mentions is for museums. You can peruse this gallery with limited Mucha prints for free, but if you want to see a more detailed exhibit, you have to pay. Unless theatres dance and concert halls let people in for the first half for free and then made them pay to come back in after intermission, I can't see it working exactly the same for live performances.
Though perhaps the perception of some value for free while the suckers paid to go back in would provide an inducement for people to attend where a totally free or totally paid event might not. I will have to think upon this whole subject some more and post about it later.
There is a really fascinating article in the Gotham Gazette this month (It came to my attention via Artsjournal.com)about the arts funding process in NYC.
What makes it fascinating is the history of politics that must be behind the process to have it turn out the way it does.
There are 34 institutions that are guaranteed to share 80% of the funding year after year (ranging from $750,000 to $2 mil). Then there are 175 line item organizations that appear year after year by name that get a smaller piece of the money ($22,000 to $115,000 at this point).
Then there are about 200 groups chosen by city council members to receive money this year with no promise of money next year.
Whatever money remains is available via the Cultural Development Fund. Organizations must fill out a 25 page form that is subject to a peer review panel.
What is really strange though is who are the haves and who are the have nots. The Metropolitian Museum is among the 34 who are guaranteed large amounts of funding ($22 mil this year), the Metropolitian Opera, with a similar budget and high regard, is not (they get $134,000).
The Bronx County Historical Society is among the 34 guaranteed. The historical societies of the other boroughs are not. The Vivian Beaumont in Lincoln Center has as many visitors in a week as the Bronx Historical Society has in a year and the society gets $200,000 to the Beaumont's $17,000.
The answers to many of these puzzles is politics. According to one commentator, the difference in the classifications is that someone lobbied 25 years ago to be numbered among the 34 and others did not.
There are other elements that come together in this situation that I haven't mentioned and there are attempts by some to overhaul the system (apparently some defunct groups were awarded money because they were on the automatic funding list).
The whole article is worth reading. I can't imagine that New York City is alone in this sort of arrangement. It may be educational for people to realize the power of politicking, as demeaning and smarmy as it may feel, could yield funding for life.
Courtesy of our friends at Artsjournal.com is a story on the BBC website about how the 21st may become the century of amateur culture. The article cites how podcasting, blogs and digital photos have really empowered people with the ability to share bits of themselves.
The article heavily quotes Lawrence Lessig who created the Creative Commons, basically a way for content creators to state what portions of their creations they will and won't allow other people to use.
The content of my blog, for example, has always had a Creative Commons license on it. Click the icon in the lower right column under the calendar and entry listings to view the details of it.
The story makes the move by many media companies to limit the usage of material they control like the last flare of a fire before it burns itself out. Though they concede that big media will always be in a strong position to create and control, amateurs will find themselves in a much better position to influence tastes than they have ever been before.
The BBC itself is digitizing its archives to allow people to remix their sounds and images in order to create something new. There is no mention about what restrictions they place on the use of the material in terms of giving recognition to the creators of the original pieces, but I imagine they won't be onerous.
Well in my last entry, I guess I must have been too smug about feeling I had achieved a degree of mastery over my domain after a year. The next day I experienced some of the political garbage I mentioned came home to roost. I try to adhere to the rule that one shouldn't blog when angry so I pretty much had to stay away from my computer for a couple days. I am still peeved, but can resist editorializing.
Still, so that I am not tempted, I will talk about something other than work.
As a follow up to my previous entries on the Honolulu Symphony, is this KHPR interview with Gideon Toeplitz, the 17-year head of the Pittsburgh Symphony who has been chosen to oversee the transition to new leadership. (The full interview may be available by podcast, contact the host Noe Tanigawa if you are interested.)
Toeplitz is at the symphony as the member of a consulting group that was contracted to help with the transition. Because he has other projects, Toeplitz will only be available 2 weeks out of the month. He feels that the symphony's problem is that the local audience doesn't feel classical music is relevant. Like many symphonies, the Honolulu pops program makes money and supports the classical programming.
According to a recent article, Toeplitz is looking to straddle classical and pops by perhaps offering light classical. He notes Arthur Fielder made his name on light classical.
The one comment he made in the interview that I found interesting was a story about the Pittsburgh Symphony international travels. Apparently, when the symphony would tour, businesses would tag along to promote commercial opportunities in Pennsylvania. I don't know how well it worked, but it seems like an interesting idea and certainly a way for an arts organization to prove its worth to their home community.
Been a little busy today so I haven't had an opportunity to read things and form intelligent observations. And, you know, it is summer and I am not as motivated as I might usually be to squeeze the time in.
The staff and I have been keeping generally busy, though we find more opportunities to go out for lunch on Fridays. We have been straightening up the theatre lobby a little. We don't have a lot of money for improvements, but we are giving the space cleaner looking lines if nothing else.
There is also an ambitious plan to clean the pack-rat technical director's office and put shelving in. Unfortunately, the technical director isn't co-operating. He won't show up in the building so people know what he doesn't want thrown out. There is a rumor that he had a third daughter who disappeared around the time the pile started to grow in the back of his office. It doesn't look like she will be found any time soon.
I will have been in this job a year in three weeks and I must say this fall promises to be less stressful. Last year, I wasn't here a month and I was flying to Spokane for the WAA conference. Heck, I only had a couple days to register for it when I arrived last year.
Now not only am I registered for it, my hotel and flight arrangements have been made.
Also, the website for the new year is nearly complete (as opposed to the marathon session over one weekend last year where I created it from scratch.
I am also happy to say that I will have a new online ticketing system. I spent most of the day learning how to use it and then programming my season in to it. The interface is not only more attractive than the hobbled together storefront I created last year, but will also end up being cheaper to run. (Unfortunately, I still am not integrated into the university ticketing system which would have been great.) If the ticketing thing goes well, I may sing the company's praises here, but I don't want to state anything prematurely.
I have also been doing site visits of local hotels to assess which would be good to place my performers in this year. Some hotels haven't been interested in my business given that the economy is good and tourism just keeps increasing. Others have been happy to show me around and treat me to lunch to boot.
Alas, as a state agency, I also have to go with the lowest bidder. Of the generally decent hotels I have seen, I would love to place people in the second lowest bidding hotel. The difference in price is $20 a night, but the surrounding are a bit nicer than the lowest bidder. Granted, I could change the criteria, but $20/night adds up when you need 17 rooms over 3-4 nights. Suddenly you are talking about giving up major savings.
As much as I like to treat performers well, I need to have enough money left over to treat the next group of performers well too.
Not too much more has happened this summer other than the political garbage every campus has to endure. I don't know if this gives anyone without experience in presenting theatre any insight into what all has to happen when you have a small staff and big plans, but, you know, like any egomanicial theatre manager I like talking about myself.
Courtesy of Artsjournal.com is an article on a topic I have covered before. (And yes, I know I started that entry the same way.)
The Chicago Sun-Times did a story on the benefits and pitfalls for museums presenting blockbuster art shows. While the temporary traveling shows bring in large crowds, more money and help fill out the museum membership, it also creates expectations from the public.
The question became, 'What's on at the museum right now?' Well, what's on at the museum is the extraordinary works of the permanent collection, which in their totality are better than any that can ever be brought here from someplace else."Blockbusters, in Cuno's view, prepare people to visit the Art Institute in a specific time frame and then vanish until the next big show -- which doesn't allow for the sustained visits over time that are necessary to engage with art in more than a touristic way.
In another part of the article, the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art likens the touring shows to the quick fix one gets from drugs like cocaine or heroine. You feel good immediately after the show, he says, because your attendance numbers are up and you are flush with money. But then the next year, you don't approach those attendance numbers with your regular exhibit and you go looking for another blockbuster.
Yet the more special shows you do, the more you dilute the value of what you offer every day in the eyes of the community.
Others like Field Museum CEO John Carter feel that the competition for discretionary income and time necessitate making mission subservient to market forces. "You've got to build an argument as to why they should come and participate in this experience, and if you're only offering your permanent collection, there's no call to action," McCarter says.
Since my background has been in performing arts where every season offers different shows from the last, I am probably not in a position to speak with any expertise. However, it seems like the mere existence of your facility should be a call to action. Every museum I have been to and returned to has been because it is there. I have never been to a blockbuster show. (But then again, I hate crowds.)
I suspect though that the real impetus behind programming blockbuster shows is the cost of staying open. Just depending on members of the community to return every handful of years probably doesn't bring in enough money. Museums need blockbuster shows to bring the same people back on a consistent basis every year or every other year.
Another worrisome development for museums is that big corporations like Clear Channel Communications are getting into the business of handling these blockbusters for a cut of the gate. While it reduces the museum's financial risk, it also means the museums have to hand over control of their building to the corporations.
However, in recognition of the fact that the whole process may not be healthy for the museums in the longrun, some are taking steps to gain control over their ravenous addicitons. The director of the Art Institute is
"...going to be a weaning of the museum off of exhibitions of a narrow range of subject matter with all the attendant hype around them," he says. "Instead, we're going to have exhibitions of a different kind, attracting fewer people in number, where the emphasis is on the benefits of scholarship and the patron experience over that of financial return."
My entry yesterday has received a comment from a somewhat appropriate source. Kevin Smokler has written a book, Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times, which essentially asks, is it worth writing a book if no one is reading them.
He also offers a consulting service to newly published and aspiring authors to help them operate in the current reality of literature. I don't know much about consulting and coaching in this area, but what you get for his rates seems pretty reasonable to me.
But anyway, at first blush his suggestions seemed pretty naive to me. As a society, we are looking for easier ways to do things and aren't about to inconvenience ourselves for the sake of nostalgia. You'd just as soon wish that the Donny and Marie Show were still on so your family would have something wholesome to watch on Friday nights. I am sure there will come a day when we look back nostalgically to the days Home Depot was bustling with excitement and talk about how much we miss the unspoken camraderie and respect when do-it-yourselfers stood side by side with building contractors.
As I thought about it though, I came to realize I had witnessed some community building activities like those he suggested. As a society, we may be moving in a certain direction, but individually, our actions and gestures still have power. Home Depot and Walmart may never notice if you don't shop in their stores, but the places you do shop instead might recognize your gesture.
Also, it may be easier than you think to build a community and establish the types of traditions and values I mentioned yesterday. My sister moved into one of those houses in the suburbs Kevin mentioned (though to be fair, the mortage payments on her large house were less than the rent on her two bedroom apartment in Hoboken, NJ). Shortly after they did, they invited their neighbors to a "meet the new folks" bar-b-que.
Come to find out, most of the neighbors had never met each other either. They enjoyed each other's company and decided they should have more parties. The started a themed round the world party at Christmas time. It is now in the 5th year. Right now, the biggest problem is whether to let others in the neighborhood into their circle because they are getting so bloated and drunk from all the food and alcohol available at the half hour stops at participating houses now.
Since then the people in #15 have established that they will have an annual picnic on July 4th and my sister has drawn her neighbors into the annual August summer party tradition she had going when she was living in Hoboken. When I was there in June, another of the neighbors had decided to establish the first annual ice cream social. (Alas, I missed it!)
In a sense, Kevin is correct. If we, as a society are engaging in conspicious consumption far beyond our means, it might be nice to turn it to the benefit of our community and create our own niche traditions and culture. Sure you have a 60' television with an awesome sound system. Pick a night and roll it out on the patio and turn your yard into a drive-in for the neighborhood kids (minus the cars, of course.) The kids are probably amusing themselves with the fact they can watch television through your windows from all the way across the street anyway.
Back in the late 80s, early 90s I read Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know by E.D. Hirsch. While I felt his list was a little on the conservative side politically and basically ignored or glossed over important figures and events in our history, I have come to feel he did have a point.
Though I haven't read the book in at least 15 years, I clearly remember that he wrote that at one time, he could use the phrase "There is a tide" and business associates would know exactly how things stood without explanation. (The quote is from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.)
He bemoaned the fact that he could not do that in the 1980s because of the way students were being educated and the lack of emphasis by families that children be exposed to culturually important things. But times change and old cultural touchstones give way to new.
Just recently I found myself similarly mourning the loss of channels of common culture. Or more precisely, the literal increase in the number of channels. When I was a boy, television was comprised of seven stations the three networks, PBS, two independent stations that 20 odd years later become Fox, WB affliates and the original WWOR. Because there were so few stations, chances were you were watching the same shows as your neighbors and had something in common to talk about.
When I was in 5th or 6th grade, West Side Story was on Sunday afternoon. The next day at recess, my friends and I had a rumble and I got my first black eye. (Matt Mays ducked when James Barry and I were trying to grab him and I hit my face on James' head). The inspiration of violence aside, there was no need for explanations about how to conduct ourselves because we all saw the musical the night before. (Well, actually, the dancing was beyond us so we skipped that part and went straight to rumble.)
I have noted the problems advertisers face these days reaching audiences (here and here) because there are so many television channels as opposed to the handful back in the old days.
While cable television and the internet allow more people to become familiar with new ideas than would have been possible when a handful of stations dictated what we knew, the weakness of this system is that now only a comparative handful of people can become familiar with a particular new idea. A smaller segment of the population witnessed the fall of Bo Bice on American Idolthan watched Roots.
Even worse, with more channels competing for eyeballs, the programming is even more mainstream and pitched to appeal to the widest audience possible so even fewer new ideas are being introduced to the country. Though granted, A&E, the History Channel, Discovery Channel, TLC, etc do give me an opportunity to learn about more than that single PBS station I watched -- but even they have repositioned themselves to appeal to the most people since they arrived on the cable line up. Their stuff is interesting, but doesn't challenge general attitudes and thinking.
Honestly, I am a little confounded by the recent brouhaha over Corporation for Public Broadcasting Chair, Kenneth Tomlinson, attempting to scuttle PBS. Or rather, I am confused by the actual attempt. With so many fewer people watching PBS these days than in Nixon's days when he attempted to interfere with the network of stations, I have to imagine PBS is pretty much preaching to the converted and bringing few new people over to whatever way of thinking he feels is unbalanced.
With all the attention the attempted makeover of PBS is getting, I think more people may start thinking that maybe there is something on the stations that they should be watching. It is that old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity. It might have been better to leave well enough alone and let the station be continually overshadowed by competitors rather than give people a reason to yank it into the light, dust it off and examine a lost treasure more closely.
I am not suggesting that cultural values and knowledge be standardized and everyone learn them because you quickly fall into the argument about who decides what is important. I know that the NEA's Shakespeare in American Communities is controversial for this reason. The same is true with the programs where everyone in a city reads the same book over the summer. If you are picking one artist or one book, you are excluding so many others whose equal value can be argued.
At the same time, these program fill a desire in our lives to touch upon the time that humans lived in close knit communities where we found joy in our shared values, stories and traditions. Yes, times change and we have to face that inevitability.
But there is also something noble about thinking back to things like the family traditions of our childhood and wanting to share and create similar memories for others. Comfort and security can be found in these type of practices. The mistake comes when we grasp on these things as the only true ways to find comfort and security and insist on the same to others.
I don't know where and how this common base can be built or found. I don't believe the Shakespeare initiative and all Chicagoans reading A Raisin in the Sun was intended as a declaration of the true things citizens should know about the exclusion of all others. I am not as sure about Hirsch's book, though there are certainly things in there worth knowing. With so many options for entertainment and information, I don't know that any of these programs could have a wide enough an influence to create a common base.
It would sure be nice if we had some stronger common cultural ties beyond reality TV these days though.
I usually spend my Saturday mornings watching cartoons. But, you know, they are into repeats now so the last few weekends, I have been flipping through the channels. On one of the local public access channels, I have come across a series of programs put together by Annenberg/CPB about teaching the arts to elementary school children.
The programs for Arts in Every Classroom are really fantastic. But let me first promote the above link to those readers who may not read to the end of the entry. You can watch all the 8 one hour programs over a high speed connection by video on demand for free.
So off with you if you have to go or want to watch the shows immediately. Everyone else, let me tell you why I liked watching the shows. (Keeping in mind, I haven't watched them all.)
What I liked was that the programs alternate showing the teachers discussing and executing the activities in the workshop and then working with the students back in the classroom. And really, while it is fun to see how silly adults look doing some of these things, the rewarding part is realizing the kids really get it!
One of my favorite activities is watching the students make hats that express an idea, integrate that idea into movement while wearing the hat and then discuss how the construction of the hat dictated the way they moved (they moved carefully so that pieces didn't fall off or perhaps wiggle too much indicating more joy than they intended, etc).
Leading up to the hat construction, the students were shown period costumes and were asked what sort of person would wear those clothes. The students responded with observations about everything from social class to the climate of the place in which the person lived.
This is what I thought was so fantastic about the program--it was crossing so many subject areas. In just one or two episodes, the classes were touching upon dance, visual arts, history, physics, acting, teamwork, etc.
Even though the observation about climate was based on the fact that the costume had layers upon layers dictated more by fashion than weather, the students did show some good critical thinking skills. Another example that pops to mind was that the students attributed a costume as belonging to either a poet or a prince. When asked why they felt the clothing would be worn by people of two distinctly separate classes, the students' answer showed that they had a sense that a person would want to dress to the level of the company they hoped to keep. (The old adage of dressing for the job you want, not the one you have.)
The other thing I liked was the fact you couldn't dismiss these activities as ones only a school with money and resources could afford to engage in. In many of the in-school segments, you can clearly see the classes are occuring on the floor of the cafeteria with the tables pushed up against the walls.
These are schools that don't have the resources for an arts room of any size and have to squeeze classes in around lunch. I have taken programs into a number of these schools. In some, the transformation from classroom to lunchroom and back is pulled off with astounding coordination in the course of 3-5 minutes.
Anyway, it looks as if the program may have run its course on the cable access channel so I may have to watch the show on the 'Net if I want to see more. I will let you know if I am impressed further.