Dang it. I forgot my notes from the WAA conference to support my entry tonight at work.
I looked around for a topic to blog upon, but ultimately decided to update the Theatre Blogs section of my site with new links. Enjoy!
As I passed by The Playgoer's blog, I came across a quote of the day from a Terry Teachout entry two years ago. (Unfortunately, because of the change in Artsjournal.com blog structure, the link to Terry's entry is incorrect.)
There was a part of Terry's writing that made me ashamed of myself.
The difference, of course, is that arts bloggers can’t count on a cataclysmic event to stimulate interest in what we’re doing. We’ll have to publicize ourselves, not only by linking to one another (though that’s important) but also by reaching out to potential readers who don’t yet know what a blog is. That’s why I always include the www.terryteachout.com URL in the shirttails to the pieces I write for the print media. That’s why I remind you each morning to tell someone you know about this site. People who come here will go elsewhere, too.
For all my talk about the lack of arts bloggers out there implying the need for more voices and discussion---when I had the opportunity to mention my blog at the WAA conference last week I balked.
I either didn't mention it or glossed it over when I was talking. I don't know why. I can honestly say I often didn't think many of the people who were talking were that much smarter than I was (if at all) and that I didn't want them reading the dumb stuff on my blog. (Though granted, some of my stuff isn't the quality I would like it to be.)
Even if what I write isn't as good as I might want, the things I link to are worthwhile reading. The only reasons I can think I didn't mention it as much as I should have is 1- In some cases I figured I might be writing about the people in the room. 2- In other cases I didn't think the people I was talking with would get what the whole blogging thing was about.
In the second case, I should give people the opportunity to get it or not on their own and not decide for them. In the former case, I am pretty circumspect when it comes to including identifiable details about people with whom I disagree and I also often state my criticisms to people before they ever appear on my blog. People may not like that I discuss problems and challenges here, but they aren't learning about where I stand from my blog.
Foolish people have less reason to worry that what they say and do will show up on my blog in identifiable form and more to worry about from other people in the room gossiping about what they did.
So I am resolving now to talk more about my blogging, the great stuff I am learning through that process and promoting other intelligent bloggers in the process.
Okay, I am preparing to board a plane to Albuquerque in a couple hours to attend the Western Arts Alliance booking conference.
I am a little apprehensive given that my childhood hero Bugs Bunny was constantly taking a wrong turn there and ending up in all sorts of situations that he, as a cartoon could survive, but I doubt I could.
A few days ago, I got an email saying that the keynote speaker, Franc D'Ambrosio, wouldn't be able to make it and instead there would be a presentation on the state of the arts that had previously been scheduled for Thursday.
Given my disappointment last year in the keynote speaker's apparent lack of familiarity with the current operating environment, I have some hopes for the value of this year's opening events.
I will let you all know how things turn out....
Edit: My mistake. The plenary speaker was a secret guest "he who will not be named" who ended up with conflicting obligations. Franc actually spoke at a lunch the next day. There was so much press about him talk and none about the secret guest, I mistook when Franc was speaking.
Only have 10 minutes on the computer bank here. Much blogging to come when I return!
Yes! After griping and whining about the dearth of arts/theatre related blogs, I followed a link to my blog back to Spearbearer Down Left whose writer is not only perceptive enough to see the wisdom in my posts, (the entry alluded to on my blog can be found here), but also has a nice listing of other theatre bloggers in the links section.
From my brief look at Spearbearer, it seems to be a nice mix of commentary and reviews about shows.
From my gleeful initial explorations of the theatre links on Spearbearer, it looks like a good mix of much the same. I look forward to reading around a bit more and having the ability to expand my commentary and exploration of the arts world from what I read.
Look for many new links appearing here soon!
Okay this entry is more for your general information and illumination than necessarily news you can use, mull over and apply. Just fair warning for those seeking gems of wisdom. There may be some here, but they will be unintentional.
So 60ish years ago, where I am sitting was just recovering from being battered by a Japanese air attack. Nowadays, the Japanese are still launching airborne attacks and staging landings. This time they are bringing lots and lots of money to pump into the local economy. It is high vacation season in Japan and they are coming to visit.
Of course, there are plenty of Japanese in residence already. So many in fact, they have to celebrate a summer holiday that falls in July all summer long.
The O-ban is observed as part of Buddhist practice around the middle of July. Usually the celebratory aspect is observed at the same time. However, there are so many temples in Hawaii, they take turns holding celebrations every weekend from June through the start of September.
Some how I have managed to attend a festival four out of the last five years. I got started in an unlikely place--rural South Jersey. This is an unlikely place because there isn't much of anything at all so the existence of a Buddhist temple in the middle of nowhere is rather unexpected. Once you understand the story of how the owner of a large tract of farmland requested the relocation Japanese internees during WW II to his frozen/dried food operation, you can see how the temple ended up down this backcountry road.
The food at these festivals is usually great, but hardly makes it a destination event. The dancing is pretty sedate--people walk slowly around in a circle performing simple steps and hand movements. It is actually a good community building activity because anyone from the audience can and does join in.
I go for the taiko drums though. It is really great to watch a good taiko ensemble practicing their craft. There is so much energy and the sensation of the drums vibrating your entire body is pretty cool. (samples from the group http://www.kodo.or.jp/frame.html here)
No matter where I have attended a Bon Festival though, there is wide community involvement. People of all races, cultures and religions attend, participate in the dancing and even perform. (Though I have to admit, there is an evident poise and discipline expressed by long time taiko practitoners that novices don't have no matter how serious they try to look.)
It may be too late in many place, but if you haven't attended one of these festivals, do a quick Google search of your locale and see if you still have time to check the festival out.
A week or so ago I wondered if a radio ad rep was sabotaging his career at his corporate owned station by spending so much time working with me. I actually emailed him to that effect expressing my appreciation as well as my concern that he not lose his job. He wrote back telling me not to worry.
Today he came to meet with me for a 3rd time in 3 weeks. He has spent close to 6 hours just talking with me now. I feel a little better about his job security for two reasons- 1- He talked money today so he was no longer enshrouded by the aura of unconcerned benevolence and 2- He brought in a sheet from a Post-It self stick easel pad filled with ideas from a brainstorm session.
From the brain storm session I can assume that his company as a stronger customer-service focus than I thought. Ultimately, I think it worked for him. He suggested that I invest twice as much with them this year as last which means I will have to do less print advertising. I was going to anyway, but now it is a necessity since it will eat a big chunk of my markeing budget.
I felt uneasy about this but because of the relationship I have developed with him, I didn't mind telling him that. However, because I was comfortable telling him that I was uneasy, I felt even more confident that this would be money wisely invested. As the objective part of my brain analyzed this reaction from the subjective part, I realized I was learning a lesson in just how powerful good customer service can be.
Later I got an email from one of my partners saying a group we are presenting in March wanted to know if their CDs could be printed in Hawaii rather than paying the cost to ship them. I called my guy at the radio station, (he is also a local musician so he knows a bit about the publishing side too), and within a fifteen minutes had an answer for me plus an to pass on to the group from a distributor to be their Pacific Rim distributor.
Yeah, I know it is called networking and good customer service, it is probably run of the mill everywhere in the business world. But having worked for non-profits that don't have a lot of cash to toss around, I have rarely been on the receiving end so I will cherish it while I am getting it.
Last Friday I had a stomach wrenching experience. I walked into the lobby of my theatre and saw what appeared to be a long scrape along the entire bottom of the 104 foot long Jean Charlot fresco mural adorning the wall.
The college maintenance crew had been painting the wall below the mural. In our work order to them, we specifically said not to paint the ledge below the mural for fear of damaging it. I initially thought the guy had used a wire brush or a sander on the mural.
However, when the tech director came out to inspect the mural, he pointed to the roll of 2 inch wide masking tape sitting nearby. The width of the tape matched the width of the damage. It appears the guy put masking tape directly on to the mural and unfortunately it wasn't the low adhesive tape 3M puts out for the purpose of edging while painting. It was the regular sticky stuff.
As a result, when he removed the tape it took the paint and chunks of plaster off the wall.
I put in calls to his supervisors to halt further operations and notified the folks up the chain from me. The worst part was notifying the state office of public art which commissioned the work and has been responsible for restorations over the last 30 years.
Actually, I assume things will get more uncomfortable when they come out to survey the damage.
There were some questions that came to mind as a result of this incident. Was this guy a careless idiot or was he ignorant of the import of his actions?
My first impulse was careless idiot. Even if the mural had been painted on a cinderblock wall with plain old interior paint, chances are the tape he used was still going to remove the paint. The damage wouldn't have been as bad, but he would still be defacing the work.
Also, when you start to remove the tape and chunks of the wall are sticking to it, why don't you stop and reconsider what you are doing?
I honestly don't have an answer for the second question, but the first I can give the guy the benefit of the doubt a little. When you are working in an institutional setting, there is more of a focus on the quantity of work you can complete in a day rather than the quality and precision of your work. If you aren't familiar with the the fragile properties of fresco, you don't know not to use the same tape you use everywhere else. Everywhere else, you remove the tape and a few flecks of paint come off, but the job looks decent enough and the scuff marks are no longer visible so it is a good job.
I also can't help thinking this may be a result of the lack of arts in our schools. When faced with a work of art this size with detailed coloring and stylized figures, it is tough to equate it with a cinder block wall of institutional white. One should recognize that there are qualities about it that suggest approaching it with more care than usual.
I have a hard time believing that even a person who has not had formal arts classes hasn't been enculturated enough to pick up on these cues, but perhaps I am mistaking my subjective world view as an objective reality.
Would more exposure to the arts in school prevented this from happening? I don't really know the guy who was painting well enough to know. He may not have had classes in school, but there are strong cultural elements here on the islands that he could have been exposed to growing up that could give him a more intutive sense of beauty than a school could ever hope to.
He just might have just been mindlessly doing what he does every day of the week in building after building not considering that this instance was quite different.
I know this is getting into the whole "what is art" debate, but anyone have any thoughts?
I have to say that sometimes I find great customer service in places I don't expect. About half way through the season last year I started doing radio spots with local stations owned by Cox Broadcasting. The lead ad rep is a really great guy and took the time to sit down and discuss what I was looking for with the ad buy I was doing. I was really impressed by the attention he gave me considering I really wasn't spending much at all.
Last week he sat down with me to discuss what I was envisioning about the next season. We talked about what I felt the competition for the theatre was, what our audience was, how we differed from other theatres on the island. This took about 2-3 hours.
He came back today and had some suggestions for me about increasing our exposure that had nothing to do with buying time on his station. Some of it he could help me with, some we would have to do on our own. He had more questions for me because after our last meeting, he realized he hadn't gotten a full enough picture to make a suggestion. We spent another 2 hours talking today--and he left with a promise to have a plan for our meeting next week.
Now I have to tell you, the ratio of time he is spending talking to me trying to get a good sense of our business so he can build a lasting relationship with my organization to the amount of money I will spend can't be profitable.
At this point I am wondering if this guy is gonna lose his job. His company is very corporate. I sent over a CD for a group we were presenting last year that had been nominated for the local equivalent of the Grammys. The program managers for two stations decided it didn't fit the mix that their market research said people wanted to listen to so they wouldn't play it.
However since they are also the stations closest to the genre of the performers we were hosting, I took air time. We sold the show out based a large part on the ads. Someone listening must have wanted to hear the group.
So based on this, I am thinking the company might be scrutinizing the time management of their sales people to insure they efficiently selling air time. On the other hand, this guy is a lead sales guy. Whenever I am talking about buying time on multiple stations, he brings the reps for the other stations out to meet me and does most of the talking. People pretty much defer to him.
Unless he is pulling a Jerry Maguire and has decided to treat customers like people instead of commodities thereby sabotaging his career, I am thinking whatever he is doing is working for his bosses.
So the lesson I walk away with today- Even if the behemoth corporation's only interest in people seems to be based on what demographic they fall in to, there can be cogs in the great machine whose concern extends beyond that point.
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.
Okay a little side trip here that has some small advice for businesses. I am on a search committee representing my division in a search for a International Studies coordinator. There were some applicatant whose qualifications were so unrelated to the position the only reason I imagine they applied was seeking a job in Hawaii. Other than that, the process has been pretty good.
However, it did remind me of some pet peeves I have with the job application process from the point of view of someone who has applied for jobs.
My first pet peeve is with objective statements on resumes. I think they have to be a cruel joke played on the public by job search web sites, books and advisors. The only reason I could imagine for using it is if you are applying generally for entry level position in a large company that won't read cover letters. These places need an easy way to route resumes so the objective statement helps the human resources department out.
Otherwise, I would tell people applying for a specific job or an upper level position to leave it off. This is because it makes you sound like an idiot without any skills. People write such general, all encompassing objectives they sound useless. I am talking about stuff like "Objective: Aquire a rewarding position that will allow me to apply my skills in marketing, management, advertising or public relations."
I have been on interviewing committees for everything from intern positions to department chairs and I have never voted to hire someone with one of those silly objectives. (Obviously, by the time they get to department chair, they aren't using them.) I have also never used one on a resume and maybe that is why my last job search took so long, but I can live with that.
It just seems more effective to me that even if you are fishing around companies for unadvertised jobs, it is much better to be very specific about the job you want, preferably in the form of a cover letter where you expound upon your experience in a directed manner, rather than sound anemic with vagueness.
My other pet peeve is the requirement that you send a resume AND fill out an application. Now I understand that some organizations require that the search process be uniform for everyone. My problem is that places use the same forms for everyone no matter what the job is. I honestly feel frustrated and frankly insulted when applying for a desk job requiring a Master's degree and I have to fill out where I went to high school and if I possess a CDL license.
The forms also only provide a tiny space for talking about your experience. This may be good because it forces you to summate your responsibilities and accomplishments into one sentence and doesn't leave room for a lot of BS. On the other hand, the committee I was on was looking at the form as a primary source of people's qualifications. Writing "See Resume" on the application form was strongly scowled upon. I thought people were much more impressive on their resume. I would hate to think that I had been judged for jobs by what I was able to squeeze on that stupid application.
Of course, you can show intiative and recreate the application on your word processor. This is fraught with peril too. Some folks on my committee didn't like the way an applicant had formated the form he/she laboriously duplicated.
Yeah, it is probably arrogant of me to think I am too good to be filling out application forms. On the other hand, if an organization expects that people will draft original letters specific to the position and perhaps take the time to find out the proper name of the managing director to whom they were instructed to send their resume, they should put the energy into customizing the application process as well.
In an age where technology allows people to customize their lives-when and how they experience the world and entertainment, the fact that companies are using outdated application procedures doesn't speak well for them. The same technology also makes it easy for organizations to create uniform online applications or customized .pdf format applications that don't include irrelevant questions.
So that is my rant and my suggestion-- attract high calibre applicants by requiring only relevant and pertinent answers.
I am off until about June 8 so that I may slavishly bestow affection upon my 4 month old nephew.
Come back then!
I am off until about June 8 so that I may slavishly bestow affection upon my 4 month old nephew.
Come back then!
In the course of deleting all the spammy comments the blog gets from day to day advertising poker, viagra and other sites I don't wish to have promoted on my blog, I accidentally deleted a comment from a person associated with the Honolulu Symphony.
All I saw was "As A Member of the Honolulu Symphony.." before my frantic attempts to stop the delete command from executing failed.
I apologize to whomever the author was and hope they will consider sharing their thoughts again.
From time to time I like to make entries about my involvement in the Performing Arts Presenters of Hawaii booking consortium because I have never come across another situation where arts organizations cooperated so closely with each other for the benefit of all.
I spent most of the day at my consortium's annual meeting. Essentially, it was a day to look back and assess the success of our cooperative efforts and project forward to next year.
Since we often share the costs of bringing performers in, there was discussion of who bore what percentage of the total share. Also, since we had applied for a hub grant to support the tour of a New Zealand group, we discussed what expenses that money would cover.
There was also discussion about the membership fee structure, if it was valid and if there should be any changes made to the way fees were assessed and how the monies were used. We actually ended up deciding to apply more money toward supporting the attendance of members at the regional booking conference in September.
A new slate of officers was elected, the structure of the committees was debated and the terms of the board of directors were renewed.
The thing that took the most dang blasted time though was trying to set a time in August to have a pre-conference meeting and then a post conference meeting in October to discuss what type of acts we wanted to see and then what really great groups we saw. There are so many people with their own busy schedules, it was a very time consuming process.
So all in all, sure not an exciting time. But it is instructive as to how to form a cooperative environment. I did, however, get more information on the symphony story I have been following from some musicians who attended the meeting. More on that later..
I know that there is a rumor that Tavis Smiley was not wanted at NPR because he didn't have the "NPR Voice" - that low, sedate, even toned voice that follows one of a limited few candences. The Voice was satired for a long time on a recurring Saturday Night Live skit about the fictional show "Delicious Dish." (My favorites were the ones with Alec Baldwin where double entendres were made especially funny by the deadpan, oblivious delivery of the case members.)
I was a little alarmed though when I heard an entry to Earth & Sky's Young Producers Contest where a fifth grader was using The Voice to narrate his piece.
I imagine kids that age are smart enough to recognize the common elements of all the NPR shows and will put together what they think adults want. While I am glad the kid is listening to the informative NPR program rather than music talking about sex and alcohol, comformity to that ideal is gonna make high school hard on him. Ironically, I have to say I hope it is a phase he grows out of and begins to embrace a little rebellion. (Certainly his parents won't thank me for that sentiment.)
While contests rewarding creativity do have many unwritten expectations, they are about showing yourself off rather than mimicing what you have heard. Thus, I was rather pleased to see that the grand prize winners didn't use The Voice. In fact, it was sort of hard to hear what they were saying because their enunciation was so poor.
Keep up the good work showing off yourselves kids!
Despite not having fulfilled my pledge to add links to the few theatre blogs I have found to my blogroll, I have gone in search of more theatre blogs tonight.
For the most part I was disappointed. Of the blogs I found, most had started with good intentions, but hadn't been maintained on a regular basis.
This is too bad because Sharpe's Theatre Blog has elements of what I envisioned when I suggested blogs be used for reflective exercises in learning. The initial entries make some observations about texts and what acting is. Later there is some feedback to other people in the project group which frankly, having been in theatre for a long time, seems to be heavily self-edited so as not to offend. Not that people need to tear into others or air their dirty laundry publicly. It is just conspicous by its santitation.
Similarly, the Applied & Interactive Theatre Blog starts out with a couple promising entries and then fizzles. (On the other hand, the Applied & Interactive Theatre Website proper has many resources of interest to Theatre folk)
Handcart Ensemble in NYC uses their blog to essentially post press releases online. However, there were a few interesting articles interspersed like this one on how to find a rehearsal/audition/performance space in NYC, (none of the stages may be in the same place) what questions to ask, horror stories and how much it may cost.
On the whole, blogs I have found seem to be predominantly focused on providing space for people to post their events- Ohio Theatre, Culturebot
(it does have news and opinion links, but majority are promotional), and the Washington Post's chic Going out Gurus (actually pretty much newspaper calendar editors posting on line rather than a blog.)
One unrelated, but interesting link I came across was Eric James Stone's blog on the progress he is making writing his first novel. A therometer bar currently indicates that he has 139,641 out of 150,000 words written. There is actually more reflection on short stories he has written while writing the novel than the novel itself. Some interesting stuff though, including some simple reflections on theatre attendance.
Recent events have kept me from writing entries of late. Some have been tiring, but others rather energizing. I don't think I am going out on a limb when I say that some times when arts folks talk about how much what they do/are planning on doing is going to deeply impact the lives of others, they feel a little dishonest.
You propose a group on a grant application or to your board of directors talking about how exposing audiences to X is going to influence the thinking of people. But when the artist(s) perform, the results aren't too much different from the groups that came before or those that follow. Attendance might have been up a little, but comments aren't any different than those you get for the shows that weren't billed as being extra special. The whole experience could be interchanged with any other experience.
One can be fairly confident that at least one or more people were touched and perhaps inspired by the work in a significant way. But even the most idealistic among us needs a little concrete proof that efforts made were worthwhile.
Then you get that one show that removes all doubt and I had that experience this past week.
We had a band from New Zealand called Te Vaka perform this past week. The group presents Polynesian music and dance from Tokelau, Tuvalu and Samoa. They use traditional log drums along with electric, acoustic and bass guitars.
Given that there is a fair population on O'ahu from each of these island groups along with regular fans, we easily sold out the performance. (Which did not please those who procrastinated about buying tickets.) I could have set up extra seats, but I heard the audience liked to dance---and good lord did they--so I left some room.
Honestly, a performance where ex-patriots got to hear music from home and watch traditional dance and would have been enough. Especially since the rest of the audience got carried along with the enthusiasm and could recognize some value in a culture that was somewhat similar, but not entirely so to the one in Hawaii.
However, our co-producing partner arranged for a school lecture-demo this morning. There was no doubt in my mind that the event was what funders had in mind when they sought to provide arts opportunities for at-risk kids.
The program was well suited for the school groups we had. It was familiar enough to them that they had a frame of reference (unlike, say if we had a modern dance program which they might not know enough about to begin comprehending.) and yet different enough to hold their attention for an hour. One of the teachers was almost in tears from gratitude.
Apparently, the last time Te Vaka was in Hawaii back in 2002, they received an email from a kid saying he was inspired by the group and was going to devote more time to his music. Today they actually got a similar email from a friend of a woman who attended Saturday night saying much the same thing.
After the performance, Te Vaka was invited to lunch by the students in the college's halau (a type of school of Hawaiian culture). The students did a welcoming ceremony in Hawaiian chant and then had a lot of great conversation over lunch comparing notes about the similarities in each other's languages and culture. An ukelele was broken out and the students performed some music and hula for Te Vaka.
As I started to urge the group toward the door so we could make it to the airport, the kumu (teacher of Hawaiian culture) offered a fairwell chant which one member of the group returned. Native Hawaiian instruments and dictionaries were pressed into hands as parting gifts and pictures were taken (as I chanted "To the airport, to the airport.")
These wonderful and poignant moments reminded me that art doesn't have to be a one directional exchange (the portraits on money notwithstanding). There is so much emphasis on going somewhere to stand or sit passively absorbing what someone else has produced.
This might be why people are intimidated by what they hear or see. They aren't quite sure if they are receiving what is being transmitted correctly and if they are getting their money's worth. There have been frequently observations which theorize that people often give standing ovations to good, but not exception performances, out of a need to convince themselves they have received something worth the money they paid.
I wonder if it would help matters if young students, knowing they were going to see a performance in a week, were required to create something of their own to exchange. I wonder if people's view of art would change if they found themselves empower to create art that had value in an exchange for a different type of art.
Obviously, you don't want to have it happen every day lest it devolve into a ceremony of motions empty of meaning and significance. Say a student creates something and then presents it with a sort of understanding of "You are a master artist and I am merely a beginner, yet we share the same spark. I present this thing that has meaning to me unto you as a symbol of my respect for sharing your gift with us."
I wonder if that action, only performed a handful of times in the formative years, could plant the seed of a greater respect and comprehension of the artistic exchange in the adult.
I was listening to NPR today (it is somewhat depressing for me to think that at my age, I consider commercial radio to be crap and am tuning to NPR, the old people's station.) and caught an All Things Considered piece on "Big Picture Schools." While the story isn't specifically arts management connected, it is related to something arts people know about--passion.
As you might imagine, the schools, the flagship of which is in Providence, R.I., are alternative high schools where the class size ratio is 15:1. The surpring thing is though that they are wildly successful running only on the same public funding that every other school gets and running admissions on a lottery system. The criticism of most alternative schools is that they are tuition based and that they can pick and choose to admit the best and brightest insuring high test scores.
The Met School in Providence has 65% of its students qualifying for free/reduced lunch. They may be best and brightest, but it isn't immediately apparent. One student interviewed admitted she initially acted out and hid under desks because she didn't know how to cope with the transition from "regular school."
Students are allowed to follow their passions and do internships two days a week with different organizations whose work they believe they are interested in. The teachers work with the students and internship sites to answer that age old protest--"I am never going to have to use this in the real world" by emphasizing the applications of math, science, etc.
Every 9 weeks the students have to participate in a portfoilo review of materials that relate to what they have learned and their internship experience. The evaluation is gradeless. The teachers provide lengthy written feedback on a number of elements, including the student's development.
The results are impressive. 100% are accepted to college, 85% choose to go, 75% graduate a post secondary program.(The national rate is 6% chance of graduating college if you come from low income setting regardless of race.) Their placement on standardized tests improves every year. They have an extremely low rate of absence, a high rate of parental involvement and the second lowest percentage of students reporting that someone tried to sell them drugs in school in the state.
The thing that really stuck with me was a comment co-founder Dennis Littky made in one of the audio extras NPR provided on their website. He talked about the fact that even in the good schools, the kids who do well may just have learned how to play the game. How to generate the product that will get them a good grade. In many cases, they are more excited about the afterschool activities than what they are doing during the school day.
Littky posits that if you asked the students who did well if they were passionate about learning, they would probably say no for the most part except for a few subjects they might have been particularly interested in.
I can relate to all this to a great degree. I can point to papers I wrote in high school and college that I knew would fit the criteria for getting a good grade and nothing more. There were classes where I got a C on the first test and then all As because I figured out what type of facts were important to study.
On the other hand, if there was ever an open ended option for a paper or an essay to take what I learned and say what happened next or write in the style of time, etc, I always took that option. It was chancier than giving 3 examples of irony, but much more exciting, even in a timed testing environment.
I still have the paper I wrote almost 20 years ago in a freshman seminar where I extended Homer's Odyssey. "The grammatical errors are legion" the professor wrote. But he was very impressed with my ability to passably mimic Homer's translated writing style. The second most memorable B I have ever gotten. I haven't looked at the paper in years, and I still remember the comments and the grade.
My most memorable B was on a paper where, inspired by Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I argued against grades and for extensive commentary on papers. The professor took me at my word and didn't grade the paper but invited me to her office to discuss the paper further. She had to give me a grade and said she would be bound totally by whatever grade I assigned it after reflecting on her comments. I gave myself the B.
It is this sort of fair treatment that set me up for disappointment. I minored in education and was certified to teach in NY. I left for grad school soon after but ended up teaching in college. Most of my classes were great, but the Theatre Appreciation class with 400 students that thought it an easy A killed me a bit inside. (You think my theatre horror stories are bad. Don't get me started on teaching.) Not only the talking and disrespect during class, but the calls from parents because their kids were failing a course they weren't showing up for! Argghhh!
If schools like this one keep popping up and also produce students adept in subject areas standardized tests don't examine like social sciences, it might renew my idealism about what teaching and learning can be.
I had a topic for today, but decided to take a different tack. I thought I would have a little reader participation.
If you have ever had a performance before a live audience (or even had patrons come to an art gallery or museum) you have some horror story that you just know you want to share to commiserate with other arts folks who can empathize with you.
Here is your chance, send me your tales (or just add them to the entry by clicking the comments link below) and I will feature them here.
To get things started, I will offer up a couple of my own.
I was running the light board for a production of Vaclav Havel's Faust play, Temptation. The theatre had a flexible seating configuration so the set of the play was on two levels- the stage and then on the floor in front of the proscenium. The director asked that we remove the guard rails along the front of the seating risers so there would be nothing between the first row and the action but a few feet.
In the middle of the show, a gentleman gets up from the front row, walks on to the playing area, touches one of the actors on the shoulder and says "Excuse me, son." Thinking that there might be a medical emergency, I prepare to bring the lights up and the stage manager starts to alert the backstage crew that they may have to call an ambulance.
The guy turns to the audience and says "I was once an alcoholic and had back problems until I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savoir and I suggest you do the same," and then walks quickly out of the theatre while everyone sits there stunned for a moment. (Turns out he did that sort of thing all over town and not because Faust and the Devil were on stage.)
The actors were thrown off and couldn't remember the lines. Because the actors were on the floor 20 feet out in front of the proscenium, there was no way for the stage crew to feed them lines prompted by the stage manager's frantic hissing over the communications system.
For some reason, the department chair pro-temp's girlfriend ended up feeding them the correct line from the audience and the show went on.
I have a bunch of these, but here is one more of my favorites.
We were doing a concert at a former workplace with a female vocalist of some renown. A woman and her boyfriend came in the lobby and even from 15 feet away, I could immediately smell the alcohol. The audiences for our shows were really well behaved so all I did was keep an eye on them. The woman was holding a painting that she wanted to give the performer. This is probably what caused me to miss whatever bottle of alcohol they had secreted upon themselves because they weren't any more sober at the end of the show.
Artists usually come down to the lobby to see their fans shortly after a performance. However, since Sony had offices nearby, representatives of the performer's label came to meet her and she stayed in her dressing room.
The drunken woman had approached the stage handed the painting up to the performer at the end of the show. However, she wanted a picture of the singer with herself and the painting. She hadn't really been annoying so a half-hour after the show ended, I sent the security guy home because there were only about 6-10 fans lingering and I figured I could keep an eye on things.
Boy, was I wrong.
About five minutes later, the drunken couple tries to sneak around the stage door. I send them back the front of the theatre. The rest of the evening is spent with her edging toward the stage door while I am distracted and me glaring/chasing her back.
Finally, I warn the road manager that there might be a stalking situation arising. He pooh-poohs me saying that the singer's music touches people in such a way that they feel they have an intimate personal connection with her. I don't chase them away as I had planned.
The drunken couple finally loudly declares that they have waited long enough and walk away down the sidewalk. I suspiciously watch them until they get around the corner. Then I take care of a few things and go back outside to breath in the lovely fresh autumn night air.
It is at this point I hear the drunken shuffling through the leaves made by the couple trying to sneak around the far side of the theatre. I head around to the backstage by the faster route and get there just in time to see the woman jump out from behind a car and scream BOO! at the drummer.
It is at this point the road manager begins to reconsider his pooh-poohing. However, the beneficent performer chose that moment to descend and agree to a photo while I gave a smoldering glare at the couple. Other well-behaved fans came out of the lobby to shower praise on the performance and all ended well.
But the story doesn't end there!
A year or so after, I just happen to be the one who picks up the phone. The drunken woman has lost the photo and wants us to give her the performer's address so she can get another one taken of the two of them with her painiting.
Good Lord!
So again---lemme share your favorite stories from the trenches.
Back in January I praised how easy it was to complete a grant follow up. Lord knows I would love for them all to be that easy.
However, I have seen some value lately in the long, drawn out, detailed grant proposals. I am writing up a grant for the National Endowment for the Arts' Challenge America fast track grant program. I have created a partnership with another arts organization to create a multi-disciplinary (though heavily dance) piece to premiere in the Fall 2006 based on the Hawaiian Naupaka myth.
The grant isn't due until June, but there is a great deal of work to do and then a great deal of photocopying to do of that work so I am laboring away at it. (And incidentally, working on the NEA grant reminded me that I have a final grant report due for another proposal in May. In searching for the CD with the form on it, I realized I may have thrown it away and was able to ask to have another CD sent to me.)
It is 18 months until the performance and while we have discussed the show a number of times, there are some aspects of our partnership we haven't clarified. I say this because in the course of writing the grant, a few questions have arisen that I couldn't answer. There are also a few paragraphs that I want to run by the other guy to make sure we are of the same mind in some instances (or if he has ideas about rewording to make things sound better!)
I am going to meet with him on Friday to discuss these things. In my mind, the grant is sort of like a pre-Canaan session where engaged couples are asked to think about all sorts of matters such as kids, finances, where to spend holidays, etc--essentially clairfying the details of what their relationship is going to be.
These are all topics we would have gotten around to discussing, but some of them might not have come up--or at least not talked about in specific enough terms--until we were faced with a situation where the other guy assumed the other was taking care of the arrangements and neither does.
The NEA of course wants to make sure you have thought about these things before they hand you the taxpayers' money. (The per captia amount of which won't get you a Coke). If you really want to know what these topics are, take a look at the 29 page grant application (half of which are instructions)
There will be plenty of things my partner in this endeavor and I will have to discuss and make mistaken assumptions about that the grant doesn't cover. In some sense, it is helpful to have the process of this grant there to start the conversation. (In another sense, of course, the process is a pain in the butt. But you probably already knew that.)
I have been talking to my assistant about sprucing up the theatre website over the summer in preparation for next year. In my quest to make the website a welcoming point of contact, I would like to add some fun fact type links to each of the events. The point would be to add some interesting fact about the band, their instruments, place the came from, how the musical form developed, etc. Perhaps the tidbits will help people make decisions about attending shows with names and terms they don't recognize.
While I said I didn't want to have look like a website for kids, I did comment that many of the presentation techniques and design elements those websites used were similar to what I was thinking about.
I didn't visit those websites myself of course having lots of important and serious work to do. I did have to walk behind my assistant many times today though and just happened to see some interesting things over her shoulder.
Many of the websites she visited had some fun online activites for kids like the Chicago Children's Museum (love the build a bug!)and the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. (some really excellent educational pieces)
Others had activities families could do together at home like the Lincoln Children Museum.
WXPN radio's Kid's Corner is sort of fun and inviting too
Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis didn't have Flash driven activities, but they do have a scavenger hunt contest that encourages kids to explore the entire webpage and offers a free ticket to a show as a reward with the chance to win in a drawing for additional prizes.
I was really surprised that other children's theatres like those of Seattle, Birmingham and Charlotte didn't have webpages that were more exciting to kids. The same with the Boston Children's Museum. While their kids' activities are educational, they are a little serious and not really geared to get 'em coming back for more. Even more surprising was the Please Touch Museum which had a bright graphic, but was otherwise kinda sterile.
Sure, parents are the ones who have to do the driving and make the decision to go to these places. But kids start surfing the web around 8-10 years old and there is a good chance they might type children and their town name in to Google. Having an exciting webpage that makes them nag their parents can help get people in the door.
My favorite web page hands down then is ---Children's Museum of Pittsburgh. Right from the beginning it has a fun chicken you can make dance around. The sublinks "For Kids" "For Parents" "For Educators" and my favorite title- "For Museum Geeks" have been specifically designed to be appealing for those groups.
The kid's link has lots of funny images and loud goofy noises and links that lead you to all sorts of fun stuff. The parent's link is a bit more sedate, but clearly communicates that this is a place that will be fun for your kids and of course has many more links than the kid's section to answer all those questions adults have.
The educator's link is actually a chalk rendering of the museum with gold stars for links. Maybe not as exciting as the previous sections, but certainly has an appropriate motif. The museum geek section is the most sedate, but has all sorts of trivia along with facts and figures. Still, pretty dang interesting and informative.
I am still rather cranky about my technology problems mentioned in yesterday's entry. So I leave you with some light, entertaining thoughts and images.
The first is this article and picture of notes streaming both figuratively and literally like water.
Second, a quote from Yo-Yo Ma in Time magazine. When asked what section of the orchestra was most likely to contain the most egomaniacs, he chose to diplomatically opine on the most fun sections. According to the cellist it is the percussion, lower brass and bass players. I seem to recall that Drew McManus over at Adaptistration played the tuba. I wonder if he would concur.
Actually, to continue on this fun with music theme--check out the San Francisco Symphony Kids page. Even if you are only a kid at heart, it makes learning about music a lot of fun.
A couple incidents today reminded me about the short attention spans people have these days. There is so little time to catch people's attention and hardly more to hold it.
I was in a session today where the college marketing director was unveiling the new website design. She mentioned that one tip she recently picked up is that no sentence on a website should have more than eight words in it. (Something I haven't managed to do yet in this entry)
The second example comes in the form of Harriet Klausner, a woman who has reviewed the most books on Amazon.com. She reads 4-5 books each day. So much stock is put in her opinions, publishers send her boxes of books each day to read.
It brings to mind two years ago when Michael Kinsley caught a lot of flak for admitting he didn't read all 400+ books sent him to judge for the National Book Prize. He said it was impossible to be expected to read them all. He admitted he didn't even crack the spine on many having judged his interest in them from the covers.
Harriet says much the same thing. There are books and authors she doesn't care much about reading. She writes mostly positive reviews because she doesn't get too far into the ones she doesn't like or doesn't feel there is any value in writing poor reviews.
People say the schools are failing us, but it is tough not to see a little shared responsibility about the values being communicated when the President boasts about being a C student and not reading; literary prize judges who boast about judging books by covers and voting for the book everyone presumed would win anyway; and a woman who is voted top Amazon.com reviewer for saying generally positive things about books she rushes through.
I imagine we will reach a point soon (if we haven't already) where plot development can only span the length of the average music video or else people start to tune out. (On the other hand, the success of shows like 24 where it takes half a year to resolve a story arc gives some hope perhaps)
I would expound a bit more, but I don't want my post to become too long *wink*
I have a icky cold today and don't feel very self-inspired to write. However, I was so inspired by another's great idea. I thought the Artful Manager's idea to use iTunes in the place of doing promotional DVD/CDs, I sent the link to his blog to all the members of my booking consortium rather than keeping it to myself. (They don't know I blog. I am sure they would be in too much awe of my insights to hold meaningful conversations. Why don't I trot out those self-same insights at meetings? Well, then I wouldn't have anything to blog about!)
I have also been enjoying reading Adapistration's "Something Special In St. Louis" series (read follow his links to all the installments) where Drew McManus talks to musicians and audience members at a free concert by the St. Louis Symphony with 30 musicians from 14 other orchestras to thank the public for staying faithful to me through the contentious strike the symphony just underwent. (Drew chronicles the horrid mess here)
The thing that struck me most was that the event seemed to humanize the orchestra to their patrons and the patrons to the orchestra. In fact, the event seemed to solidify the idea of the arts community as including both the artists and the patrons.
On the other hand, there was a frank recognition that there is some serious healing that has to be done between the musicians and management. One also hopes that the bond they now feel for each other doesn't melt away too quickly and revert to business as usual where the audience feels intimidated and the orchestra regarding them with mild disdain.
As I said, I liked what I saw on the Amazing Things Arts Center so much, I am not only publishing a Friday entry, but I am writing it on Thursday night and setting to it post tomorrow!
One of the things that really impressed me was their Governance Center link. Not only did they have their bylaws on there for people to peruse, but they other great resources as well.
The first is a great letter to the prospective Board of Directors member that outlines what will be expected of them, references the MA state laws under which they operate with a hyperlink and also talks about what sort of dedication the director can expect from the membership.
The document with the aforementioned state laws they operate under is great. I wish all states put out such a wonderful guide for potential non-profit board members. Actually, it the document isn't really state specific and can be used as the basis of any good board information document.
Also included on the website is a code of ethics any non-profit board member should follow.
And they have a checklist to help the directors perform an organizational self-evaluation as to how well they are performing essential, recommended and suggested functions of a non-profit board.
I have to really applaud the Center. They really seem to have done their homework and put a lot of thought into the structure and organization of their institution. And they want to make it easy for people to educate themselves about what it means to be a member of the organization and the board.
As I am looking over my web statistics, I have noticed amidst all the trash links, (ones that supposedly indicate that people are visiting me via links on poker, viagra and sex sites), I noticed that the blog is attracting visitors from interesting locations.
I have cited Worker Bees blog a couple times in the last few weeks of course. (Okay, this weekend, I gotta add some reciprocal links in my sidebar--especially after reading her most recent entry and links about how men never link to women's blogs)
However, I have found that my blog is listed in a Diva Marketing entry citing my tag line of "Musings on Practical Solutions For Arts Management" as a good way to carve out my niche.
I also have my first evident reader from overseas (may be readers since people have been following the link on his blog) in Peter Jentzsch who lives in Copenhagen and included my blog in the sidebar of his dance diffusion blog. He doesn't actually say anything about me in the blog, but he did comment on one of my blog entries.
However, I did discover by reading his blog that Artsmarketing.org has recently started a blog of their own. In fact, today's Artsmarketing.org entry links to an NPR story that addresses the RAND "Gift of A Muse" study that has spurred the debate on Artsjournal.com
C'mon, did you really think you were gonna read an entry this week where I didn't mention it?
Somehow it escaped me that my entry on February 23 marked the one year anniversary of my blog. Hopefully I have been generally informative and entertaining in that period. (Here is the first entry from way back when)
It has been very interesting taking part in this facet of self-publishing. More and more these days you read how blogs are trumping Mainstream Media and handling subjects they are afraid to engage.
I have a feeling there is going to be a big surge in popularity (along with some big scandal or controversy) in blogs beyond where it is these days and then the bubble will pop as it were and the form will begin to mature and find its niche in the culture.
Hopefully that niche will be one in which people can make actual money doing it!
Okay, I was looking at the NEA site today looking for more information on their Fast Track grant program and one link led to another and a found a number of interesting links I thought I would share.
The first is the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive. This is a sorta interesting place to visit because as the name suggests, it has a lot of statistical survey data that researchers might be interested in. But it also has a quick facts section with reports on some interesting things like how dancers transition from a career in that field into another area of activity (dancers apparently retire at age 34).
It also contains sections on topics like the public's perception of arts, change of newspaper arts coverage from 1998 to 2003, religious buildings and libraries as cultural programming venues. There is a lot of generally interesting stuff and this site could provide a source of info for those doing arts advocacy.
Another really interesting site was Arts Anonymous. The site applies the classic 12 step program to the arts to provide support to those practioners of art who feel guilty about doing it and enjoying it.
The problem signs which indicate one might need help are:
1. We grew up in an atmosphere of invalidation which resulted in ambivalence about our artistic expression.2. In any given twenty-four hour period we find ways, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid doing that which gives us the most joy -- expressing our creativity.
3. We have withdrawn from our art by investing ourselves in lifestyles, relationships and work activities incompatible with our artistic purpose. Our creative energy has often been diverted into destructive compulsions toward alcohol, food, sex, money, drugs, gambling and preoccupation with the past.
4. We have made needless sacrifices for our art and yet are afraid to make the necessary sacrifices. We are unable to balance the significant areas of our lives -- Physical, Financial, Social, Love, Family, Spiritual and Creative.
5. Self-defeating thoughts and societal myths turn in our heads: It's too late -- I'm too old -- I'm not ready -- I am not enough -- Art is not practical -- Artists are neurotic -- You'll starve. We have accepted these as true when, in fact, they are not.
6. We have felt intimidated by other artists' success. Jealousy, envy, fear, self-pity, perfectionism, resentment and other character defects block our creative expression.
7. We stand always on the edge of a beginning, afraid of commitment. Fearful of pursuing our creativity as a means of earning a living, we get caught in the Amateur syndrome. The concept of supporting ourselves through our art has seemed overwhelming. We are unable to determine the monetary market value of our art.
8. We have thought of our art as divorced from reality, denying ourselves the right to follow our dream. We forget that artists are entitled to their right work and deserve the happiness and success that right work brings.
9. We deny our responsibility to fully develop and realize our talent. We do not feel worthy of the success we achieve or desire. We feel like a fraud.
10. Being multi-talented, we have difficulty discerning our true artistic vision, making a commitment to it and establishing the priorities to fulfill it.
11. We have difficulty following through on projects and frequently sabotage our efforts. We want to work at our art but don't know how. We become impatient with the process, forgetting that the results come in God's time, not ours. Our time is unmanageable.
12. We have been afraid of our creative energy and have mistrusted our creative instincts. Lacking spiritual awareness, we have not seen ourselves as channels for the infinite creative process. Our art is a gift to be shared.
Gotta admit, I have been there on most of the points and quite a few occasions.
I think I have mentioned the NY Foundation for the Arts. Though they are nominally focussed on the arts in NY State, I have to say that 80% of what you find on their website is pretty helpful in the rest of the country. You will find some of that information on this links page which has some interesting pages listed like the Support Center for Non-profit Management and Alliance for Nonprofit Management , Alliance for Nonprofit Governance and The Nonprofit Genie (among others, of course)
Another NYFA link I wanted to point out was their Marketing the Arts In Nonprofit Organizations. It has some sample press releases, promotional materials and a marketing guide. Mostly, I just like it because the page opens with the line "If you present a program and no one comes, did it really happen?" and I am easily amused.
In the spirit of my entry praising easy grant applicant processes, my award for the easiest, most organized company to work with this year goes to....Dayton Contemporary Dance Company.
Actually, I may be a bit too premature since they won't arrive for another couple months. However, I have to say they are the most organized group I have worked with this year. Not only do I have the contracts and riders returned and signed, back in November they sent me a rooming list and a list of all those flying out so I can make interisland airline arrangements for them. They actually forgot they had been so efficient and in an attempt to be organized, sent me another copy this week.
Actually, truth be told, they are almost frighteningly well organized. They have been ready to have a discussion about outreach programs with me since the fall and have been eager to set up a call with their artistic director to make sure the outreach program suits my needs.
This is all rather annoying--I am used to be feeling smug and superior to the performers I have contracted by being more organized than they. I am usually the one asking for information and having people get back to me!
Having the illusion that I am better than everyone else is the only bright spot of my day that makes all the crap I face tolerable! Damn them for stealing that from me!!!
Hee hee, this is kinda fun. Though it does occur to me that we haven't discussed catering yet broaching that subject with them tomorrow will allow me to salvage a little arrogance.
In any case, the old adage that forewarned is forearmed is so very true when you are presenting performances. Knowing stuff like this so far in advance makes doing a show so much easier -- unless you have no intention of providing what the performer asks for and like to take advantage of lack of organization to plead ignorance.
So far, DCDC is a model of organization and professionalism and I would recommend them on that basis alone. However, I will try to remember to do a follow up report on them in April.
The title of today's entry is something of an addendum to the "grass is always greener..." saying. Today I found myself watering my neighbor's lawn as I wrote a letter of support for a grant application.
The artist in residence for my theatre is the artistic director of a contemporary dance company We will be developing a new dance work for 2006 based on a Hawaiian myth. Right now he is applying for a Rockefeller Foundation grant to help underwrite the development of the piece. As one of the organizations involved with the work, I was asked to write a letter of support.
I spent about 4 hours on this letter polishing and honing it to sing the praises of the group with which I was going to partner. At around hour 3 I realized, much to my chagrin, that I had spent more time discussing the value of the dance company's work in terms that were aligned with the foundation's goals than I did on the last grant I wrote.
I don't know if it was because I had a little more time to write than I did when my last grant application was due (and I didn't have the budgetary questions looming ahead of me) or because as an outsider who doesn't know all organizational flaws the dance company has it was easier to be effusive. Or maybe it just feels less sincere when you are writing about all the ambitious plans you have while there is a voice in your head that wonders whether you actually have the organizational capacity to pull it off.
On the flipside though, even though the money won't go to me directly, I will benefit if the company receives the grant because I have a greater assurance that the show will be good if they aren't focussed on fundraising.
And I will say one thing--this guy is good about lining up support early. In his playbill this past weekend, he had a flyer soliciting funds for the development of this piece two seasons hence, perhaps at the expense of his upcoming seasons.
One of the things I really like about Hawaii is the opportunity (when I get it) to see a wide variety of culturally diverse performances. Since I have been hear, I have gone to a Gamelan concert (music from Bali and Java) and presented a show that melded traditional hula and modern dance to celebrate the arrival of a new Hawaiian island Loihi/Kama'ehu (in 30-50,000 years). (And just as an aside, there is hula that Hollywood portrays, the actual hula that Hawaiians dance and low postured, bombastic hula 'aiha'a that originates from the Big Island. Very awe inspiring and powerful. Only time I have imagined that a hula dancer could kick my ass.)
This weekend I went to see a Randai production (search for that term on Google and every English language book and article was written by the show's director.) Randai is a really amazing Sumatran theatre form that integrates the martial art of silak with song and dialogue. It also features wearing pants where one can stretch the fabric between the legs taut to create a booming drumming sound when struck. (And article from a production done 3 years ago can be found here.)
It is really fantastic stuff and easily accessible to Western audiences (the songs are sung in English in this production and the stories are pretty much universal) Where Western theatre is generally encompassed in 4 walls, Randai action occurs within a circle of performers (which is also how the martial art silak is taught rather than in the parallel rows you see in Japanese and Chinese martial arts)
Since the Randai form is so much a part of Sumatran life, children pretty much practice the martial arts moves from birth. The student actors at the University of Hawaii have actually been practicing the movement and drumming component 3 hours a day for 6 months in order to gain at least a rudimentary mastery of the techniques. I actually heard and audience member saying he would see the cast outside slapping their pants when he went to his morning class so they definitely were a dedicated group.
It made me a little sad though to think that it would be tough to translate this experience and dedication into an acting job on the Mainland. You look at a person's resume saying they were part of a Randai ensemble and unless it is in your personal experience, you group their experience in with wacky fringe performance art. Nevermind the students have better control of their bodies now than most musical theatre students pursuing the "triple threat" of sing/dance/act. Without the frame of reference of having seen Randai, most directors wouldn't know how to evaluate that experience though.
To be honest, faced with such a resume credit, I wouldn't either. I have been excited to see it since August when I read about it in the brochure. But you don't get show description on a resume.
Truth is, on the Mainland, Randai is wacky fringe performance art. (Actually some performance art I have seen is so derivative of other performance art, Randai would actually be on the fringe of the fringe.) On Hawaii it is actually pretty much mainstream. The university does it in a 3 year rotation with kabuki (which I really want to see!) and I believe Chinese opera.
When I say it Randai would be on the fringe of fringe, I don't mean to imply it is "out there." As I said, it is actually very easy to understand. I simply meant that people looking in the Friday arts listing would probably feel more comfortable going to something listed as performance art rather than taking a chance on something noted as coming from Sumatra.
Performing in the show sorta falls in that category of things that are great for you to have done as a person, but probably not perceived as having much value by others. Actors have a hard enough time making a go of it with regular performance credits to have to face someone looking at 6 months of their life as being without merit.
I certainly don't think that it was a mistake for the students to do. Physical shows like Stomp, Cirque de Soleil, The Blue Man Group, etc, that aren't formed around the framework of acting technique will certainly view the experience as valuable. But mainstream stage and television...maybe not so much. You can only sell to the masses (or the slim percentage of the masses that attend live performances) what the masses are prepared to consume. Casting sessions tend to be driven by this.
On the other hand, with something as visually interesting as martial arts on stage, all it takes is a rave revue of a Broadway or major regional theatre show. Suddenly Randai is en vogue and someone is developing a show for Vegas.
Even before I took my current position, I was familiar with the unique situations one might run into while working for a theatre in a university setting. There are the competitive bids you must solicit for everything, the triplicate forms, the purchase order process and four week wait for people to be paid.
Then there is the fact the state doesn't like to pay for services in advance of receiving them. If you are using Equity actors you often must post a bond and as I noted yesterday, when you present performances, you often have to pay deposits in advance. Many times you end up explaining that this is the usual way of doing business over and over to people.
Today there was a bit of a new twist. A person from the business office comes over and says I have to sign a statement on the purchase order saying that I will personally reimburse the university if it pays the deposit and the artist doesn't perform. Now given that the deposit is usually at least $5,000 or more, that isn't something I really want to be responsible for.
I have neve