Via a listing on the Chronicle of Higher Education website today, I became aware of The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP). The survey which is entering a trial phase with plans for national reach starting in 2010 will extensively query alumni of arts high schools, college/university programs and conservatories about the training they received and its applicability in their careers.
According to a press release on the SNAAP website,
"Arts alumni who graduated 5, 10, 15 and 20 years earlier will provide information about their formal arts training. They will report the nature of their current arts involvement, reflect on the relevance of arts training to their work and further education, and describe turning points, obstacles, and key relationships and opportunities that influenced their lives and careers.The results of the annual online survey and data analysis system will help schools strengthen their programs of study by tracking what young artists need to advance in their fields."
The press release also acknowledges that upon graduation, artists don't often perform the exact work they for which they trained. The release charitably suggests that "they may work at the boundaries between disciplines." I suspect the survey will find in many cases people end up doing work barely tangentially related to their training in the arts. Long time readers will recall that I covered an attempt by Tom Loughlin, a professor at SUNY-Fredonia to track the success graduates of his program were having getting work in any entertainment related pursuit. While his method wasn't entirely scientific, I suspect the results won't be diametrically opposed to what SNAAP finds.
I am prepared to be encouraged by unsuspected rays of hope that the SNAAP survey uncovers. They note that the approach of the creative economy will generate a demand for people with arts training so if the results do lead training programs to reevaluate their approaches and make their students more employable, it could certainly be worth the costs. The FAQ on the SNAAP website notes other benefits to policy and decision making related to the arts. (Including parents and students considering it as a career path.)
Something I found interesting in the FAQ was the response people had to early versions of the survey.
"The initial testing of the SNAAP questionnaire indicated that arts alumni were frustrated because the survey assumed a linear career, and suggested that all events and experiences were equally important.An interactive graphic interface, the SNAAP lifemap will allow survey respondents to tell their stories and to indicate the relative importance of events and experiences to their careers, whether they work in or outside of the arts. "
The introduction of the lifemap feature as part of the survey is an intriguing approach since it will be generated as people answer. Personally when I fill out surveys it is frequently difficult to decide between the extreme categories. I am faced by the question about whether I strongly (dis)agree or emphatically (dis)agree. I think if I saw a graphical representation of how my answers were being interpreted, in this case the relative importance of chapters in my life, I could answer more accurately. (i.e. Oh no, that's not right, job B had a much greater impact than job A, let me go back and revise). This isn't an approach that can be used with all surveys since it obviously influences responses, but in some cases it can be helpful. In fact, it could actually assist in self reflection if a person came to the realization that Job A actually influenced them more than they realized and they can't honestly massage the numbers to make Job B appear more prominent.
Since my second blog entry ever was about parallels between arts management and religion, I was intrigued by a post Scott Walters made earlier this month suggesting that theatres be built along the same lines that Lutherans build theirs.
The process he outlines is thus:
1. Costs for the first few years are evenly split between the new congregation, the regional organization (synod), and the national organization (ELCA).
2. Money is provided primarily to cover salaries.3. After the first couple years, the new congregation takes on a greater share of the financial burden until it is financially independent.
4. At that point, the congregation begins to make annual contributions back to the regional and national church, which continues as long as the church continues in existence.
5. The congregation is responsible for raising enough money to build a church, if it so desires, but a service organization provides a source of low-interest loans to help with that process.
He compares this with the process for theatres which is basically that you have to exist for three years before anyone will even take a look at your funding request.
The process the Lutherans use is not terribly unique. There are many immigrant groups who have done the same thing pooling their money to fund businesses which were expected to return money to the pot to fund the efforts of others. Upon such things banks were established. I wouldn't be surprised to learn the Lutheran's practice traces its roots back to immigration.
Given that I have had interactions with people wishing to build a theatre that had no concept of what it actually takes to maintain and run one in the manner they plan, I would embrace the idea that nascent theatres would receive informed advice and guidance.
I have it on pretty good authority that there are performing arts organizations of a certain strata which already trade information and collaborate on planning. The problem is that they rarely attend conferences so few of us get to talk to them. Which is too bad because their expertise could provide a starting point for creating and funding this type of project. I am actually involved with a project which could possible provide a partial template for what Walters is suggesting.
I had a couple concerns about Walters' suggestions. The first is that it would encourage conservative rather than innovative approaches that would move how the performing arts interact with their communities forward. This process is good for Lutherans because they are dealing with people who already subscribe to an orthodoxy and understand what the expected outcome is. This is not necessarily the case with theatre. You have a choice between different formats and genres to focus on or ignore. It would be disappointing to have groups nudged toward some form of what their advisers know or think would be appropriate. It is still their word that releases the money.
I would assume that once the group of artists had been operating for awhile, a team who specialized in the direction they wanted to pursue would shepherd their progress so everyone wouldn't automatically be told they were going to be a 250 seat theatre or a three venue facility. Yet the best option might not be a fixed seat venue be it built, rented or borrowed from another but a partnership with a ballet and gymnastic school resulting in an organization focused as much on physical fitness for the community as performance.
My other concern is that the mechanism be able to financially and more importantly emotionally and mentally weather a lot of early failures before they get the technique refined to the point where there are enough successful organizations replenishing the funds. I believe it takes colleges 40-50 years before their alumni become sufficiently successful that they can make significant donations to the school. Granted, the theatres cultivated by this procedure would be required to give back whereas alumni aren't. Still, it might take 15-20 years before the method is self supporting. Arts organizations and businesses alike fear the inability to show results whether it be to granting organizations or stockholders. This fear could contribute to advocating that new arts groups take a familiar, conservative approach in their activities. And short of someone like Warren Buffet, there aren't too many funding sources that would be prepared to wait 15-20 years for positive results.
Still if the funders, organizers and participants went into the process resolved to be vigilant about their prejudices and fears and accepting the fact that it could be a long time before any return is ever seen, it could certainly work. Frankly, even if the fears and prejudices did come into play, the process would still be a vast improvement over the current system if it established the practice of arts professionals centralizing and sharing knowledge to avoid replication or re-development of procedures refined or discarded by others.
And how great would it be if causing a schism with the Catholic Church eventually resulted in the unification of the arts? (Finally, we take revenge for being placed below beggars by co-opting religion practice for our own purposes!!!)
I received an interesting report in the mail this week created in partnership between the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Dance/USA and Jacob's Pillow Dance. The book, Presenting Dance, written by Mindy N. Levine discusses conversations that transpired at the National Dance Presenters Leadership Forum at Jacob's Pillow between 2002 and 2006. Unfortunately, none of this is online for me to link to or even cut and paste from putting us all in danger from my typing skills.
As always, there were a number of things that piqued my interest and few, if any, could be exclusively applied to dance. A large part of the book was devoted to audiences and how presenters and dance companies could promote and design their offerings, including activities ancillary to the main of a performance, to better serve/connect with them.
It was decided that there are four curatorial approaches when it comes to exposing audiences to new works as a presenter; "A to B", "A and B", "A or B" and "Mini Festival". A to B is essentially starting with accessible works and building toward more challenging works over the years. A and B is referred to as the loss leader approach, letting the more popular show cushion the loss of the less popular. A or B assumes people aren't familiar enough with dance on the whole to discern between challenging and accessible. In this case, you just program what you find compelling and essentially do a lot of work promoting and educating. The suggestion here seems to be to have a sense of how you want to position your organization. The mini-festival approach is where the presenter concentrates dance events along with promotion and education efforts within a short period of time.
I want to back up to the A to B approach. Some of the problems the book points out with this approach is that sometimes the presenter underestimates their audience and thinks they are never ready to be challenged. Likewise, the audience may actually be more receptive to the challenging work than that of presumably more accessible pieces. Finally, some commented that sometimes the community never evolves past the starting point.
One of my first thoughts when reading the A to B approach was of a post Neill Roan made back in 2006 about the high rate of churn arts organizations experience with audiences. Even if the overall attendance numbers look stable, those attending this year may not have been attending two years ago and so may be at square one in their dance/theatre/visual art/music experience whereas your programming is at square five the planned progress.
There was actually one other type of approach discussed, "More is Better." Related somewhat to the festival approach, it involves programming as much and as diversely as possible (of dance in this case.) The hope is that familiarity will breed attempt and people will be more willing to experiment.
"People don't decide never to eat out again because they have one bad meal in a restaurant," said a participant. But audiences often engage in a kind of "one-for-all" thinking with regard to dance; they see one dance performance they don't like and, in the absence of evaluative context, dismiss the entire discipline."
There is a quote from John Dewey at the beginning of a chapter in this book that probably should appear at the top of the page or as the first slide of a power point presentation for people who are intimidated or anxious over their ignorance of any art form.
"It is quite possible to enjoy flowers in their colored form and delicate fragrance without knowing anything about flowers theoretically."
One participant in the discussions suggested turning things around on people and asking them what they do for a living. "Make them realize that you probably know nothing about their job, but that doesn't necessarily make you feel globally stupid."
The participants came up with a list of ways to help audiences engage.
-1) There are no "secret codes."
-2) Trust your instincts and the work.
-3) Ambiguity can be a source of aesthetic pleasure - Essentially, people are used to movement being intentional and dance frequently is not. Enjoyment can be derived from interpreting for yourself.
-4) There are multiple ways of understanding
-5) There is value in aesthetic dissent- You don't have to like everything you see.
One of the most valuable sections in terms of making dance more intellectually accessible to audiences is in the "Tools of the Trade" in the Cultivating Aesthetic Literacy chapter. This is really where I wish I could link to this online because there is far too much to cut and paste much less type. But I will try to give a taste here.
The chapter suggests presenting different ways for audiences to approach a dance piece, with a Journalist's Eye, Anthropologist's Eye, Linguist/Grammarian Eye and Colleagues and Conversation. Now I think using these terms with audience members probably will add to their anxiety but the suggestions in each area are geared toward getting people past "I liked it," "I didn't like it," or "I didn't understand it" and on to discovering why.
For the Journalist's Eye, they suggest Who, What, Where, When, How questions to help lead to answering Why or Why Not it was good. Some examples deal with what body parts are moving, how speed changes over time, if movement is synced with the music, what connections to everyday activities can be made, how does it make you feel emotionally and physically, what is known about the choreographer and company?
For Anthropologist Eye, the audience approaches dance as if it were an unknown culture being discovered. An attitude which may actually fall closest to the mark. Questions suggested in this area might be whether men move differently from women, if movement is in isolation or groups, are their forces that bring people together or separate them, are there rules applied to the movement and if so, are they flexible or rigid?
When Linguist/Grammarian Eye was used as an exercise, participants wrote adjectives about how they felt, verbs describing the movement and adverbs about the quality of the movement. The book suggests that this exercise can be useful for people involved with the arts to "generate evocative and specific language with which to discuss work." If people start moving away from using "electrifying" to describe their work, that is all right with me.
These approaches aren't necessarily prescribed for novices and can be used at different levels of experience with an art form. Colleagues and Conversation is listed as a tool in professional development among people in the dance field where they talk about performances among themselves to help cultivate their own aesthetic literacy.
What I have severely summarized here is only the first 18 pages out of about 50 pages of observations and ideas. Some of the other chapters deal more with the challenges dance companies face in developing and performing their work. And of course, the challenges presenters face supporting and employing dance companies are also addressed.
Tonight I wanted to cram some of the audience development issues in my entry because tomorrow I am handing the book to my assistant theatre manager so we can have a conversation about what practices might be viable for our community. I hope to come back to the text at a later date but really wish it was available online so I could continue to comment while the ATM reads it.
There is a new buzzword out there called "Murketing", a portmanteau of murky and marketing implying a sort of under the radar effort at increasing market share, cachet, whatever. If you read my entry about the staycation, you know that I am not a fan of what I feel are often attempts to put lipstick on a pig. My problem with the murketing term isn't that the practice is a bad idea but rather that the creation of the term implies there is some hot new trend to adopt or be left behind. I have noted before, not every new approach/technology is appropriate for everyone, but they do bear exploration.
Let me expand a little on this. The way I think the idea should be approached is to say that in the face of changing behavior of consumers which includes rising skepticism about advertising campaigns that take a direct approach, it might be prudent for companies to examine the way they approach their marketing and perhaps even re-evaluate the market to which they are appealing. Instead the coining of terms like murketing makes it sound like you have to discard the practice of marketing altogether and replace with the method of the future. The reality is as I described it -- take the time to re-examine.
I am not sure if he actually created the term or not, but a gentleman named Robert Walker recently wrote a book, Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are which examines the idea. Forbes did a review which appears to sum up Walker's theories about as good as any article I have read on the subject or the book.
As much as I dislike the term, I have to say I like sections of Walker's blog, namely Subculture, Inc and The Murketing Arts. While his book deals with the efforts of Pabst Blue Ribbon and Red Bull as well as some smaller operations, these sections are devoted to Q&As with people involved in small scale efforts to advance their products. Given that arts organizations often fall into the small scale category, these sections of the blog along with Walker's "Consumed" column in the New York Times Magazine and of course, the book might provide some inspiration. (Yes, I have to acknowledge that the site's sort of anti-guru vibe might actually be calculated, per murketing, to cater to my skepticism.)
I am reluctant to mention some of the ideas that popped into my head while reading about some of those interviewed because they essentially tap into the forces other people have discovered rather than finding some local characteristic. Sure there were women who tapped into the skateboarder market despite not selling any skateboarding gear. It doesn't mean that is an appropriate target group for your organization. (Except the stars will align for some symphony in Idaho and suddenly California arts groups will be banging their heads trying to figure out why a state replete with skateboarders can't win with them.)
While catching up on the Fractured Atlas blog, I caught this link to WNYC's Soundcheck Smackdown about the need for arts organizations to cultivate younger leaders. One of the first phrases tossed around was about being on the "wrong side of 60" meaning that the leaders of some of the most prestigious/large organizations need someone with the gravitas of experience leading things.
One interesting comment that was made was that the appointment of 27 year old Gustavo Dudamel as conductor of the L.A. Philharmonic might alienate the audience who would be concerned by his apparent lack of experience. It was immediately noted that given there is such a concern about the graying of orchestra audiences, you may not want to continue to cater to their perceptions. (Though they do fund the organization in the short term and that can't be ignored.) Later in the program a caller noted that Zubin Mehta was only 26 when he became music director of the L.A. Philharmonic and host John Schaefer opined that perhaps LA has a talent for identifying promising leaders.
Some of the issues that come up in the discussion between Schaefer and guests Lee Rosenbaum and Barry Hessenius had to do with pay, both that younger people have an expectation of making more but will accept less than A - list leaders. Given the finite resources of the 90% of organizations that don't operate at the level of the elites, it can be difficult to attract and retain talent. But this much we knew already, eh? Hessenius notes what I have discussed in earlier entries. The organizations with the most youth involvement are those who allow young people a greater role in decision making -- something the arts haven't done as a whole.
Because copyright is a confusing issue, the folks over at the American Library Association have created this nifty little slider tool to help you determine if something is in the public domain or not. Frankly, at one time I thought there were some pretty simple rules of thumb you could use but now that I have seen this device, I am even more confused.
For instance, if you created a work before 1979 and published it before 2003, you might be protected. However, if during that time period, you happened to publish it between 1978 and March 1, 1989 and didn't put a copyright notice on your work and never registered it, it is not protected and the work is in the public domain. Now given that I wrote a short story for school back in 1983 and did put a copyright notice on it, I think I am covered even though it was never registered or officially published. (Unless the photocopying of proud parents counts.)
Now I happened across an interesting situation. According to the chart, any work published before 1923 needs no permission and is in the public domain. Elmer Rice's Adding Machine was first published in 1922 as noted here. While it was faithfully renewed, it should still be in the public domain. However, if you go over to the Samuel French website, they want $75 a performance for it.
So the question is, does Samuel French have the right to do so or not? The answer probably requires consulting experts. So despite the best intentions, this little device doesn't really simplify matters at all and only serves to show us how little most of us really understand about copyright protection.
This weekend I was a guest on the Your Neighborhood Stage podcast. (July 14 episode, number 3.21). The folks over there let me talk for a real long time on a lot of issues. In the course of the conversation, I promoted the iPod idea I had blogged on before. I had listened to some of their earlier podcasts to get a sense of what I was in for and one of the on going issues they have discussed is inverting the idea that "all good things must percolate down from Broadway." They were trying to find a way that things could be developed at a local level and percolate up in much the same way niche interests suddenly explode into popular consciousness via YouTube.
It occurred to me that while local theatres couldn't really hope to get anything on Broadway via the current development path, they could be the place where the innovations that reinvigorate the performing arts are cultivated. As I note in my interview, the stakes are pretty high on Broadway but somewhat less so on the local level. (Not to understate the impact of even small financial losses on local theatres.) But with the rise of Pro-Ams (Professional Amateurs) who have both passion and increased access to technology, there exists the potential for great things to result from unorthodox approaches and experimentation.
There were some other issues we discussed like censorship in a production of Ragtime near Chicago, copyright infringement in an Akron production of Urinetown (the earlier case from the 90s I refer to is L! V! C! in Boca Raton- covered in NY Times, 8th paragraph down) and whether bloggers who review can be sued for defamation.
If ever you wanted to hear my voice, albeit a little distorted (my fault, mostly) or simply just want to sip at the fount of my wisdom in audio form, give it a listen.
Oh, I just also note. When co-host Staci Cobb was praising me and said "Go You!" I thought she said "Go UF" and was tweaking me as a Florida State University grad by cheering on the University of Florida. It is only as I listened to the podcast that I realized I misheard her. I am sure both hosts were a little perplexed when I joked about her razzing me.
Recently I have been talking about the needs of the next generation of leaders in comparison with those of earlier generations. On the whole I think that those who feel the next generation lacks the commitment to the cause exhibited by theirs can respect the desire for a better work-life balance.
There is a characteristic of the next generation that might be a thornier problem for arts organizations--their parents. The term helicopter parents was originally applied to parents who "hovered" over their children when they went to college. The parents would bug professors about their children's grades, dorm staff about room mates and in some extreme situations, would actually complete assignments for them.
As the students graduated, the parents began showing up at the work place, at interviews and going so far as to fill out applications and negotiate salaries for their children.
Now I don't quite know if this is necessarily going to be anything new for performing arts organizations who have always had stage parents hovering around. However, a decision needs to be made on the organization's policy on parental involvement. As the Forbes article I linked to above notes, some companies are embracing parents. Others feel it is not appropriate for parents to be involving themselves in decisions being made at work and have generated formal responses to the issue.
Fortunately, my mother restricts her complaints about how many hours I am putting in at work to me.
While I have known about helicopter parents for quite awhile now, I haven't run across any cases anywhere I worked. (Well, one intern's parents followed him cross country to check out his work site but didn't contact us past that point except to make a donation.) What impelled me to cover the subject was a video the Next Generation Consulting blog linked to in the entry on mentoring I cited last week. The video is about an hour or so long on the subject of mentoring at accounting firms.
As the speaker, Rita Keller, discussed the issue of parental involvement, she noted that employers needed to be prepared to have the new employees making a lot of personal calls or texting throughout the day. Now if the parents are prodding their kids to get to bed and wake up on time, this can be beneficial to a company. The area she mentions that I believe would be the biggest concern for employers is lack of initiative and decision making skills. Because these young people have consulted with their parents and friends on so many issues in their lives multiple times a day, they tend to crave/require specific guidance or advice and lack the ability to act independently.
The results of helicopter parenting and the general technological environment the next generation of workers have grown up in is the subject of a really good article from HR Magazine that addresses the issue and how to structure the work environment to best channel younger workers' energies. There are some benefits these folks bring like familiarity with technology and a facility of working with groups and multi-tasking. But there are also some disadvantages too like indiscretion, unrealistic expectations and impatience.
Over at her blog on the Next Generation Consulting website, Rebecca Ryan asks, Is Mentoring a Coverup for Poor Management? According to an article she links to at the end of her entry, most companies are actually coaching rather than mentoring. Coaching essentially consists of helping someone fulfill their function for the company whereas mentoring is more of a customize relationship aimed at growing the person.
In Ryan's view, most mentoring programs are essentially buddy programs. Whereas:
"True Mentoring occurs when an elder's intention is to entrust another with the welfare of her or his estate (or something similarly signigicant.) In business, this means that one generation of leaders takes the next generation under its wing and over time, teaches them everything they know....So you see, Mentoring is intended to occur alongside a transfer of responsibility. Most Mentoring programs have no such intention."
The problem she feels lies in the fact that companies try to use mentoring to fill in gaps but don't commit to designing and implementing the program resulting in low retention and burn out.
The next generation of leaders are looking for mentoring and presumably want it to be high quality. Just as interns don't want to just be a photocopier, new employees don't want a coaching only experience. So if you have a mentoring program, the question to ask is, Is it any good?
While I have been encouraging arts organizations to create opportunities for local citizens who have decided fuel costs are too high to travel this summer, it has only been because I don't have a direct line of appeal to the local citizens. One of the things I am wondering is if people will look for entertainment closer to home if they have decided not to travel or if they will simply look for entertainment at home on the 72 inch television they wisely purchased when times were better.
I have been wondering if I should promote the fact that knowing costs were on the rise, we are keeping our ticket prices the same as last year. This is absolutely true. I figured we could probably weather another season at the same prices if it made our shows more accessible to our community. But I wonder if people would care that we were trying to strengthen our relationship with them. Given that people no longer subscribe and wait until a few days before an event to buy tickets, will our attempt to stay affordable even register?
I am pretty sure I know the answer. I have read a number of studies on customer service and retention which I have cited in talks that show price does not develop relationships. This is mostly in terms of customer loyalty in situations where you and a competitor offer a comparable product. If someone defects to your competitor and says it is price, chances are the reasons run much deeper and price is the easiest excuse to use. With that in mind, it seems price should be a minor player in a campaign to win loyalty.
Another complicating factor-- with the rise in fuel prices my partners and I are beginning to get requests to re-negotiate performance fees. So now I wonder if I can keep the prices the same or not and whether we will be able to afford to present as many artists come next year. I sense the developments over the next year or so will instigate a sea change in the way we do business in the future (as well as if.)
Going off on a little tangent from the topic of booking, one of the artists I was excited to be presenting decided they wanted to change the time frame that they toured. This will put them outside our planned season. We hadn't gone to contract but thought we did have an understanding with their agent. This wasn't related at all to fuel costs but rather the timing of other projects the artists were involved in. My partner presenters decided not to replace the group. I have a smaller schedule than they so I have been seeking a replacement and hoping I can do so before it is time for the brochure to go to press.
A substitute was suggested by some staff people and their friends. YouTube videos were reviewed and the artist judged to be of good quality. The sole booking contact channel turns out to essentially be the artist's email address. An email is sent inquiring about availability and bounces back because the artist hasn't been reading their email and is over quota. We may go back to them to inquire, but probably only if others don't pan out.
Word to the wise all ye starving artists. Keep your lines of communication open and your email boxes clear! Rising fuel costs and declining attendance ain't gonna be increasing opportunities to perform, there is no need to provide impediments to the process.
Some disclosure right from the beginning. While most of my involvement with the project I am about to describe will be voluntary, I am receiving some travel and lodging in return for my participation.
I have recently been chosen to participate as a lead partner in an very intriguing project. There is a new arts facility being planned for Bellevue, WA and I have been asked to provide input into it's planning and construction. I assume I was chosen for my past work experience but especially because I provided input into the theatre portion of a community center the Salvation Army is building with a bequest from Ray and Joan Kroc.
But providing input into building projects is no big deal, right? What makes this so intriguing is the process the organization is using to gather and integrate the input. All ten of the lead partners (later phases will involve additional people) were chosen from among those who have participated in the Association of Performing Arts Presenters Emerging Leadership Institute. The thought behind involving ELI alumni is to tap into the collective knowledge and experience of people in mid and senior level positions who are involved in both overall policy making as well as day to day operations.
What is deemed of additional importance is providing professional development opportunities for people in these positions. The lack of these opportunities has been a concern since I first attended ELI. In explaining this need, the pilot project document quotes an address Ben Cameron of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation made to International Association of Assembly Managers about the next generation of leaders' view of careers in the arts which appears to be pretty much what he said to the Southern Arts Federation.
In addition to providing excellent career advancement opportunities, they hope to create a template with which future projects may be built. While I will be traveling to learn more about the site and talk with those involved, a lot of the work I will perform will apparently be online discussions and reactions to materials posted by staff. Perhaps the fact that I actively use a blog was also a factor in being chosen since that will be one of the tools that will be used.
I have signed a non-disclosure agreement agreeing to keep many of the details confidential. From my experience on the Kroc Center project I understand that there is some information that can also prevent the organization from receiving the most competitive bids for services too. I am generally pretty conservative about revealing what I really know about situations so I don't perceive any difficulties in my participation.
What I do hope to be able to do is report on some of the general topics that are discussed that are worthy of consideration by arts organizations everywhere-- "How does the design make passersby feel welcomed?" "How does the design facilitate emergency evacuation." Though I will steer clear of publicizing some questions that while valuable to ponder and a valid part of the design process, might cause people to lose confidence in the organization without reason--"Aren't you concerned that that placement there might have a potent for a toxic spill?"
Needless to say I am pleased to be involved with the project. But also gratified to learn that people are seriously thinking about ways to create opportunities for leaders to attain career and personal growth.
There are times during the year where I find myself singing "Where Are The Simple Joys of Maidenhood" from Camelot. Now if you have seen my picture on Inside the Arts, you know Julie Andrews I ain't. Part of the reason I start singing the song is because I spent half a summer in my younger days running spot light for a production. Another reason is that the image of me singing this song amuses me so. But really I can often identify with the raw romantic innocence Guenevere exhibits singing lines like
"Are those sweet, gentle pleasures gone for good? Shall a feud not begin for me? Shall kith not kill their kin for me? Oh where are the trivial joys? Harmless, convivial joys? Where are the simple joys of maidenhood?"
Now given those lines fall at the end of the song, I rarely get to them for all the laughing going on by that point -- mostly mine.
When people hear what my job is they view it with the same romantic innocence. Surely such a cool job is not susceptible to mundane concerns like bugging agents for contracts and images so you can put a website and brochure together. Or if the mundane does intrude, it must be over shadowed by the joy of working with such amazing artists. Actually, the last bit is true except for the "mundane" concern about why people who praise the artists aren't buying tickets to see them. So yeah, when I am singing songs like that one, I am trying to get back in touch with the idealism that made me pursuit this path to begin with.
Fortunately, people are familiar enough with the basic functions I fulfill that they don't assume I should do my job for fun.
And there is the tricky part. Last week, Artful Manager Andrew Taylor cited a comment from the Americans for the Arts conference that, "'We need to stop making the arts so special.'' It occurs to me that the arts community needs to be in control of the way the arts are demystified. With auditioning for American Idol essentially a rite of passage being a good performer appears to be a matter of hard work, luck and getting enough people to vote for you. Anyone can do it if the stars align correctly. The necessity of talent and hard work over decades to hone one's skill rather than a few weeks doesn't seem to register.
The scenario shows like "Dancing with the Stars" and "So You Think You Can Dance" promote is that amateurs thrown into a crash course in a subject can compete and be winners. Even Bravo's "Step It Up And Dance" where the contestants were trained and danced professionally had episodes where a choreographer would say they usually worked on rehearsing a piece for 5 days and the show gave the contestants 2 hours. This isn't just limited to performing arts. MTV has/had a show called "Made" where high school kids wanting to be basketball players, cheerleaders, stars of the Spring musical, beauty queens, lose weight, promo queen or whatever worked toward their goal for a couple months. Usually the video shot during the first 3-4 weeks consisted of the person resisting the discipline of their coach. This left 3-4 weeks at most to cram the rest of the effort in. Most had some credible results probably helped by the fact that television cameras were following them around for so long.
So what is the narrative the arts world can offer?- "You can cram a lot of training in a short time and win prizes and recognition but honestly only be mediocre or you can devote your life to excellence and barely make a living." You thought practicing scales was boring for students before? What about now that you can become a virtuoso in six weeks? Sure eliminating one kid from your school/lesson roster a week will add drama and tension and may motivate to practice harder but it will subtract from your earnings.
I agree that we have to stop making the arts so special in regard to putting it on a pedestal. But the message that accompanies it always has to be that you can absolutely participate, have fun, find fulfillment and recognition with a little training in a short period of time so come join in. However, even given great talent to start with there is a certain level you can only attain with long study and practice.
This isn't just true of stodgy classical music and ballet. There was an article on Salon last week about the emergence of South Korea as a power in the world of hip hop dance. The South Korean dance crews practice 5 hours a day, seven days a week because they know someone is always trying to catch up. Yet the article notes, long hours of hard work on the flashiest moves aren't enough if you don't truly understand your art.
"When Koreans first emerged, Americans praised them for their power moves -- the highflying crowd-pleasing spins, freezes and gymnastics moves -- but criticized the Seoul b-boys for lacking soul. They were thought to be mechanical, unable to rock with the beat, and lacking in "foundation skills," such as the top-rock and footwork moves that form the historical roots of the dance."
Even in the idealistic world of Camelot, Guenevere comes to realize it takes hard work to bring dreams to fruition. (She also realizes the hazards of youthful folly, indiscretion and why bitter half sisters of the king shouldn't be taught magic, but at least some of that can be avoided.)