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Understanding The Importance Of The Conductor

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This weekend someone posted a video of Gustavo Dudamel conducting the LA Philharmonic in a rehearsal of Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony 13 years ago in the nextfuckinglevel sub-reddit with the title “The importance of a conductor.”

It brought me great joy to read some of the comments from people who could see the difference in the performance Dudamel was getting from the musicians. The top comment on the post was to that effect.

A guy with the username DanTheDrywall wrote:

Wow what the hell it totally makes sense now. I actually sometimes go to a classical concert but am a complete noob enjoyer. I have always wondered about the role of the conductor. That was a great example!!

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As part of that discussion thread WorryNew3661 wrote and delo357 responded:

Not knowing that is why most people, myself included until this post, either don’t see the point or openly mock the position. Really happy to have learned something new today

I’m not afraid to say im jumping on the learned something new today train

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Someone else posted a video from about 14 years ago of Simon Rattle conducting students from six Berlin school orchestras making a similar observation about the difference in the performance between 1:37 mark compared to the 19:25 mark.

While a lot of the conversation on social media sites can be pretty abrasive, pretty much every comment on this post was praise for the performance, cheering from Dudamel fans, and folks saying they have a much better understanding and appreciation of the process than they had before.

The posting also illustrated the value of letting people discuss their experience through their personal lens and amplifying that rather than depending on the organization’s marketing messaging. Obviously that approach has its hazards because it can come back to bite you.

Not to mention people may not operate on the schedule you want. Both the videos cited in this discussion are over a decade old. I didn’t see any provide a more recent example of a conductor getting a more compelling performances across hundreds of comments on the topic.

What Do You Recommend We Do?

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As ever, I am paying attention to data on various trends, one of which is the level of perceived trust of cultural organizations. Colleen Dilenschneider and the folks at IMPACTS Experience have reported that trust in cultural organizations has increased, particularly since the end of the pandemic.

Last week they released some findings about perceptions during the first quarter of 2025. In general they found that trust of museums has held steady and trust in performing arts organizations has seen an uptick. But they warn that it would be a mistake to assume this trend will continue. (emphasis original)

On average, Americans trust cultural entities more than the daily newspaper, other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), state agencies, and federal agencies – and this has not changed since the administration changed and attendant new policies were issued!

[…]

It is also not reasonable to infer that trust perceptions will continue to increase or remain unchanged. We are looking at national perceptual changes on a short timeline (i.e., one quarter of a year). The American public may still be watching cultural organizations’ reactions closely, or they are trusting that these entities will remain true to their previously stated missions and values.

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One of the aspects most valued in cultural organization is being mission-driven. Dilenschneider and company had reported on this about a year ago and I summarized a bit in a blog post then. At the time they warned not to assume younger audiences valued the mission focused elements of an organization more than other generations because they were deeply invested in the mission of organizations. Rather, IMPACTS suggested it may just be that they haven’t been marketed to for as long as previous generations.

In any case, they recommend organization continue to focus on and communicate their mission as they tackle challenges they may face as they move into the future.

What particularly caught my eye in this latest bit of data analysis is that the survey data reflected a belief that organizations should recommend behavior. This is certainly something to think about.

Generally speaking, Americans do not love being told what to do. However, a majority of Americans “agree” or “strongly agree” that exhibit-based and performing arts organizations should suggest or recommend certain behaviors or ways for the public to support its causes and mission…

Even now, Americans generally expect cultural organizations to recommend behaviors to help elevate their communities as it relates to their missions. Depending on your organization, this may mean suggesting ways to further art education, keep the ocean clean, protect endangered species, cultivate native plants, advocate for theater, bring music to emerging audiences, make science-based decisions, or any number of things. And these action items may range from signing up for a program, to becoming a member, to donating, to attending an event, to telling folks about an organization’s important work.

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You Put It On, You Can’t Write It Off

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Short, interesting piece on the INC magazine site on Tax Day about tax mistakes content creators and influencers make that has a bit of overlap for all creative and arts workers.

The first about realizing you are probably considered self-employed and need to be saving to pay taxes is pretty common and a tip I have heard given at conferences for decades. Early career artists have been overlooking that requirement for quite awhile.

Something I hadn’t known was that the IRS hold expenses related to personal appearance to a higher standard when it comes to writing them off as business expenses.

If creators ever wear clothes they bought for content on their own time, for example, they can’t write the expense off. Moore says creating separation is key here—which is why he advises a makeup artist client to store her personal and professional makeup in two different containers. That way, there’s no risk of personal and business uses overlapping.

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I know many actors and other performers who may have inadvertently been in violation of this. Especially since actors will often be asked to provide many of their costume pieces. You’ll want to write off the expense to at least get a little bit of financial relief…but you also don’t want to let perfectly good clothing go to waste by not wearing them after the show is over.

Similarly, if you were allowed to take clothing home after a show, corporate gig, movie filming, etc., you may need to report that as income in addition to whatever you may or may not have been paid.

Here’s something most content creators probably don’t know: Sometimes, you need to report brand trips and gifts to the IRS. Moore and Gallegos say it depends on whether you received a “true gift” as defined by the IRS. If you did something for the brand—like post a TikTok video—in exchange for the product or trip, it’s not a true gift. It’s taxable income instead.

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Seeing Opportunities To Diversify Revenue

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I was recently drawn to the story of Rock School for Dance Education in Philadelphia opening a retail dancewear store out of their location. They spent $150,000 renovating a space that used to contain two offices into a street level store space. The director of the school noted most dancewear stores stock up to $150,000 in pointe shoes alone and they haven’t reached that level of stock quite yet.

Business Insider had an interesting video in December about the London based pointe shoe maker that supplies the NYC Ballet and the staff at the ballet that maintains the stock.

Rock School made the decision to open the store based on success they have had selling to their own internal constituencies and the fact that a number of longstanding dancewear stores had closed. Those stores had not only supplied the dance community, but also the intricately costumed participants of Philadelphia’s Mummers Parade.

They saw an opportunity to diversify their revenue stream in what they anticipate to be increasingly challenging financial times.

“There’s this perfect storm of already having a successful boutique, seeing the need in Philadelphia, and the potential for a new revenue stream to enable us to do our good work,” he said.

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As a nonprofit, the goal is not to make money, but to cover expenses including maintenance of the buildings. It can be a struggle, says Stark.

“We are anticipating that struggle could get more challenging with what we’re seeing in some of the proposed changes on a federal level,” he said. “We want to be ahead of that, and we don’t want to wait until there’s a problem. We want to proactively step forward and have a solution so that we can keep doing our good work.”

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“Really we’re trying to monetize our asset to support our mission and to support the scholarship and the outreach programming that we do,” he said.

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Go Get My Guitar

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There is a lot of conversation among arts organizations these days about the need to create connection and show the value of arts organizations to the community. I worked with an artist this weekend who really exemplified this aesthetic.

We presented the Masters of Hawaiian Music which is typically George Kahumoku and a rotating roster of 2-3 other notable musicians from Hawaii. In this case it was Herb Ohta, Jr. and Sonny Lim. Kahumoku has been hosting the Maui Slack Key show for over 20 years and has been a musician for far longer than that. He was trained as a visual artist, but is also a farmer, cook, writer in addition to being a sculptor and printmaker. Definitely a renaissance man.

When I initially contracted the show, the local museum was planning having a quilt exhibition around the same time that was going to have 2 out of 20-30 quilts from Hawaii. Over the course of the year that evolved to 100% Hawaiian quilts. I arranged for Uncle George Kahumoku to speak about quilt making the night before the performance and then join the members of a local organization for a potluck and mini-cultural exchange.

The local organization said there would be 15-20 from their group at the talk and potluck and the museum didn’t know how many would attend from their mailing list.

We got to the museum and there were already 40-50 people gathered in the gallery. Uncle George turned around and told me to go back to his hotel room to get his guitar. He really enjoyed the experience because he had never seen so many Hawaiian quilts in one place. He would watch his grandmother and her friends make quilts for every newborn, but he had never seen one placed on a bed and used because they were treated as heirlooms.

He joked when he inherited his father’s quilt, his dad let him look at it and then closed the chest up a few minutes later and told him to never open it again. He didn’t mention if he gave his son the same instructions when he passed it on.

Later at the potluck, upon learning some students of hula came an hour to hear the museum talk, he made everyone move the tables and told them to dance while he played familiar songs on his guitar.

The next night, before the show he was out in the lobby greeting audience members and handing out slips to fill out to “win stuff.” The slips were obviously a way for him to collect address so he could contact people in different parts of the country to attend his shows when he was in the area. But he was also very much making himself available to the audience to chat with him rather than delegating this job to subordinates. (Okay, so he pressed me into helping him so maybe there was a little subordination going on.)

He was back out in the lobby at intermission with Ohta and Lim chatting with the audience. (I had to nudge them back on stage.) Then they were back immediately after the show until everyone left.

It is difficult to communicate the vibe and dynamic via text. His agent may have explained it best when she mentioned his instinct leans toward creating connections and socialization. She mentioned he was likely in his happy place at the museum talk and potluck more than even at the concert.

As much as he was trying to gather people’s contact information, his goal wasn’t to optimize that process. He started drawing names to give things away as soon as I introduced him rather than waiting until the end of the show and taking the opportunity to gather more names at intermission.

Also at some point he managed to collect the names of every staff member and volunteer in the building and acknowledged them all before the performance started. The morning after the public show, I got a long text from Uncle George telling me how much being able to see the quilts meant to him and how he would write about the experience in his memoirs. Again he praised our staff.

I knew by then that he was an exemplar of the level of sincerity and investment that arts organizations need to manifest in their interactions with their community.

It Takes A Village To Get Everyone To Take Vacation

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Another interesting research piece that Bill Byrnes included Management and the Arts was related to burn out in non-profit organizations. A brief excerpt recounting the efforts the behavioral design firm ideas42 embarked on in 2018 appeared on Behavioral Scientist website in September 2024.

What the ideas42 team found was that staffs were engaging in a lot of performative work activity. They would address tasks that were easy to tick off lists or engage in work that made them look busy. The result was that by the end of the day, they were just starting to address the big project they were supposed to be working on.

There is probably a lot in the article that reads like an argument for allowing work at home. Among the things that were slowing people down were calls, emails, and people just dropping by to chat. It took workers an average of 23 minutes, 15 seconds to reset and refocus on their work after being interrupted. Another issue was getting called into meeting that weren’t necessary.

Among the factors contributing to performative working was the mistaken impression that co-workers and supervisors were working as much, if not more, than themselves and they needed to keep up. In fact, others may have been taking lengthy breaks from work and were checking in hours later.

 At work, all people see are others working. When they see late-night emails or texts, they often assume that their coworker or boss has been working all day and night without interruption, when in fact they might have been walking the dog or having dinner with their families. That life outside work doesn’t register because they don’t see it. (Often people don’t want to share their lives outside work with coworkers and bosses to preserve the busyness myth that they’re always working.)

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The folks from ideas42 worked up a number of initiatives to shift the work culture of the organization. One of the things they found was that the interventions that worked least were focused on solving work-life balance issues for an individual whereas the ones that worked best were focused on solving the issues for the whole organization. Essentially, the work-life balance doesn’t get better for the individual if they perceive they are out of synch with the overall behavior of the whole.

Among the things they implemented were having supervisors model they behavior they wanted for the whole organization: visibly going to lunch, taking vacation time, talking about the time they are spending with family and friends. Eliminate the late night emails and texts. Similarly, the number of meetings and those needed to attend the meetings should be reduced.

People should be encouraged to schedule more slack time in their weeks to allow for the fact that tasks will take longer than expected. That way you don’t feel like you are behind because there is unscheduled time in which to make progress. Along the same lines, people were encouraged to schedule vacation months in advance when the future calendar is not cluttered with projects and meetings. Those scheduling time off a couple weeks in advance often try to do so around things already populating their calendars and will either take less time off or feel anxious about doing so and work from their vacation.

Along those lines one of the most interesting intervention ideas mentioned in the article was “vacation roulette.” Everyone that hadn’t taken vacation in a 90 day period would get a note copied to their supervisor listing their vacation balance and encouraging them to take time off.

They then sent them an invitation to take a random Monday or Friday off and signed the note, “From your vacation fairy godmother.” Often, the managers would encourage workers to take a break. 

[…]

….during the “vacation roulette” intervention—where managers were copied on an email encouraging employees with high vacation balances to take a day off—participating organizations saw a boost in days off for over 20 employees, and the highest rate of vacation taking for India-based employees in 5 years. 

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There Will Always Be A Few Successfully Operating At An Elite Level. As For The Rest?

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Seth Godin made a post about elite vs. elitism a couple months ago. His argument is that people can operate on an elite level (i.e. Olympic athletes, surgeons, teachers, etc) but that this doesn’t automatically result in elitism.

Elitism is a barrier, where we use a label to decide who gets to contribute and who is offered dignity. A law firm that only hires from a few law schools is elitist–they have no data to confirm that these recruits are more likely to contribute than others, they’re simply artificially limiting the pool they draw from.

Opening our filters and seeking a diversity of experience undermines elitist insecurity and creates the possibility for even better solutions and connection.

[…]

The scientific method isn’t elitist, nor is a stopwatch used to record the 100 meter dash. Seeking coherent arguments, logical approaches and a contribution that leads to better outcomes isn’t elitist, in fact, it’s precisely the opposite.

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I need to make my usual observation that just because you can measure it, doesn’t mean the number you arrive at has validity to a claim you are making. Sports fans will happily speak for hours on the fact that a high scoring game or high win record doesn’t mean a team is operating at an elite level if they have been facing weak opponents.

Generally his thoughts align with a general conversation among cultural organizations in terms of removing the filters of tradition and past practice to explore other options. Similarly, there is a lot of conversation around making data driven decisions.

As Godin says, elitism often results from limiting the pool from which you draw after defining those pools as the source of the best product. That is one of the challenges arts and cultural organizations face today. There is a self-reinforcing definition of what is superior, but not a lot of evidence gathering about whether the product they offer has any perceived value in the community.

For a time during the pandemic I would see a number of videos of farriers shoeing horses. It was fascinating and somewhat satisfying to watch horses have their hooves cleaned and repaired so they could move about more comfortably. Many of these farriers are among the elite in their trade, but most people don’t keep horses these days so the market for their skills is fairly small. Fortunately, the supply of good farriers probably reflects demand.

A similar thing is happening with piano tuners. As I wrote in 2023, there is definitely an unmet need for piano tuners among arts organizations and the lack threatens performing arts organizations’ ability to host concerts. At the same time, people can’t give pianos away and many are ending up in the dump.

Much of this is due to changing lifestyles and expectations. So while it is likely that there will always be some arts and cultural organizations operating in traditional ways which will always find they are in high demand, the number of organizations are likely to dwindle if they are not responding to the changing lifestyles and expectations.

Heist, Jailbreak, Ambush, Heartbreak, Revenge All In One Concerto

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I got to see a performance of The Rose of Sonora this weekend. It is a concerto in five scenes performed by Holly Mulcahy and composed by George S. Clinton.  I had first written about it around 3 years ago. 

One of the things that piqued my interest was that the piece tells the story of a heist, jail break, ambush, and revenge carried out by a female outlaw in 19th Century Territory of Arizona and had its own narrative and images meant to accompany the performance.

I was a little disappointed that the images weren’t used as part of the performance. That is likely because the composer was there to read each part live.

The composer did an interview with Symphony of the Rockies conductor, Devin Patrick Hughes, about his career. Brief explanation of Rose on Tiktok and longer interview here.

The Rose of Sonora was the last piece performed by the Symphony of the Rockies as part of a whole night of Western themed music. The program included music from The Magnificent Seven and The Good, The Bad, The Ugly; William Tell Overture, and “Hoedown” from Rodeo.

The whole orchestra was dressed in Western themed clothes. At one point 2/3 of the violin section was wearing their bandanas over their mouths. The conductor made a production of drawing his baton from a holster.

It should be noted that the concert was occurring in Denver on the night the Great Western Stock Show started. So it was all very much in theme.

It also bears mentioning that Holly grew up in greater Denver and got paid to perform with the Symphony of the Rockies as a teenager. During the Q&A after the concert a young violinist asked how Holly remained so calm and poised. Holly told her she would let us know in 20 years because not only did she perform before her friends and family, many of her teachers and mentors were in the audience that night so she felt a lot of pressure.

I overheard a lot of positive comments from people around me during Holly’s performance that weren’t made during the rest of the night so the piece seemed well-received.  During the Q&A I really wished there were a way to have gotten up and ask attendees what their thoughts were on having a bit of narration between movements since that doesn’t generally happen during orchestra performances.

The conductor had made some comments at the beginning of the evening suggesting Rose of Sonora would provide an opportunity to create a story in our minds. With the one-two sentence prompts provided at the start of each chapter, I wonder how vividly the story unfolded in each person’s mind’s eye as they listened to the music.

About a year ago Holly performed the Rose of Sonora on the other side of the state in Grand Junction, CO and apparently word of mouth saw a line around the block for the second night of performances.

As I drove home Saturday, I was wondering if that was a reaction to the quality of the piece or that the imagery/narration and topic made the experience accessible. Basically, was the audience for the second day aficionados or people who really want to try the orchestra experience but were intimidated and heard a great deal of the mystery was removed in this piece?

Thinking back to the post I made on Monday about storytelling notes next to visual art works helping people focus better on the work before them, would providing similar storytelling prompts with orchestra pieces help people enjoy the music more if they are able to provide their own mental video accompaniment? Many symphonies have started using video in conjunction with performances. But I wonder if people will feel the music is more relatable if they are creating their own narrative in response to an evocative prompt.

Should You Read The Gallery Labels?

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As a supplement to yesterday’s post regarding how children interact with museum labels, there was a second short piece on The Conversation website about whether it is important to read the labels next to artworks.

Noor Gillani, Digital Culture Editor, at The Conversation interviewed five experts at different Australian universities to get their take. Three of the five said it wasn’t important.

Interestingly, two of the responds cited label content focused on children.

Kit Messham-Muir, a professor at Curtin University voted No, but said:

Curators can spend many hours writing the “why”. Some explanations are great, some are not. Those aimed at kids are usually better. Either way, I’d argue you have all the information you need from the who, what and when.

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Naomi Zouwer, at the University of Canberra, voted Yes and wrote primarily with children in mind. She cited different eye motion studies of how adults and children interact with visual art works than I wrote about yesterday.

When an artwork does grab a kid’s attention, they’ll usually want to know more about it. And my experience shows they’ll likely want to know what it’s about more than other details such as the medium or when it was created (unless it’s really, really old, in which case there’s a “wow” factor).

[..]

However, it’s not one size fits all. My advice is to ask the kid what they want to know and approach it that way. While the label may not answer all their questions, it might help start a different conversation. That’s the great thing about art: it creates opportunities for deeper thinking.

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Other experts focused on the capacity of people to understand the labels as the basis for their response. How long visitors typically engage with a work and the label before moving on factored into their opinion on the value of labels.

Chari Larsson at Griffith University, voted Yes and put the responsibility on the museum to provide meaningful content

Labels should be able to “speak” to a broad range of audiences: from a casual and curious visitor through to a subject-matter expert. Turgid “art jargon” is notoriously difficult to decipher and can negatively impact the visitor’s experience. This is a breach in the museum’s responsibility to their audiences.

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Cherine Fahd at University of Technology Sydney, voted No for similar reasons. Poorly written labels get in the way of understanding the work in front of the visitor. She encourages people to look at the art before the label.

Many artists want viewers to bring themselves to the work, to freely interpret and be active participants. The problem is we aren’t taught how to do that with art. We expect meaning to be handed over and the didactic label sets up this expectation.

Perhaps this is an Australian condition, wherein art is often dismissed as impenetrable, or something to grow out of, or something a “five year old could have made”.

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Storytelling Approach Bolsters Focus And Engagement

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Some research how adults and children focus on visual art pieces in different ways provides some insight into how to write and present introductory and educational information to children. Not only for visual art pieces but things to call attention to with performances and other types of experience.

In an article Francesco Walker, Assistant Professor in Psychology, Leiden University, wrote for The Conversation, he talks about using eye tracking technology to see what children focus on when given different types of descriptions/prompts in advance.

Walker cites some past research which had found that children tend to focus on bright colors and bold shapes in paintings. While adults viewing the same work will call upon existing knowledge and information and orient on other elements like brush strokes.

Walker and his colleagues conducted their study tracking eye motions around three works at Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. They watched how children age 10-12 interacted with the paintings after they had been provided with existing adult oriented explanatory labels, playful storytelling labels, or no labels at all.

What they found was that children who had been provided adult oriented labels interacted with the paintings in the same way as children who had not been provided any labels at all. Whereas children provided with the playful spent more time engaging with the work and were focused on specific areas.

The children provided with child-focused, narrative-driven labels engaged with the artworks in ways we did not see at all with those who read adult-focused descriptions. They directed their gaze towards key elements of the paintings highlighted by the playful descriptions, and spent more time examining them.

In contrast, the children who received adult-oriented explanations behaved in the same way as children who received no information at all. Their attention was scattered and unfocused.

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An example of the adult text:

The high vantage point of this painting turns it into a sampler of human – and animal – activity during a harsh winter. Hundreds of people are out on the ice, most of them for pleasure, others working out of dire necessity. Avercamp did not shy away from grim details: in the left foreground crows and a dog feast on the carcass of a horse that has frozen to death.

The child oriented text for the same painting

He could have painted me anywhere, but where am I? Right in the middle of the picture, with my snout on the ice! The spot where everyone can see me. A man in blue pants almost trips over me. Two girls next to me giggle at my clumsiness. But I won’t give up. I’ll get back on my feet and keep going. Before winter is over, I’ll be skating like a pro!

The article provides heat maps showing where attention focused based on the three content scenarios.

Walker suggests the results of their study suggest that art education classes should shift from textbook based classroom lessons toward a more storytelling mode. He notes that art history students find it difficult to connect with the art when the information is transmitted in lectures or via text book.

And by the way, the two studies I linked to in the previous sentence were studies conducted with undergraduate students, not grade school students so a storytelling approach can positively impact everyone’s experience and engagement

Springboard Into An Ice Rink?

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I have been a big fan of Springboard for the Arts and the work they do for a number of years. I look forward to their annual reports which have been depicted as infographics for the last decade or so.

They recently released the infographic for their 2024 annual report.

There is a short written annual report that accompanies this graphic which discusses the success of their programs. Among these were the expansion of their basic income program to include 100 artists for five years and their efforts to support the arts in rural locations which included supporting placemaking leaders in rural and Native Nations, hosting a Rural Futures summit, and expanding their Rural Regenerator Fellow program to include artists in Nebraska and Kansas.

Despite the claim that I could read the report to find out more about the programs depicted in the infographic, there was no mention of the 450 square foot mini-ice rink! You can’t tease us with such things and make no further mention of it!

A quick search turned up their Springboard on Ice page which lists some programs and open skate opportunities at the ice rink they set up at their new headquarters.

Music, Lyrics, Comprehension and Memorization

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Pretty interesting article on The Conversation about how different types of music can help or hinder cognitive activity. The target audience for the article it primarily students in relation to their study habits, but it does provide general insight about how tempo and lyrics can impact comprehension and memorization.

For example, I have found that I have a more difficult time creating anything with verbal or written content if music has lyrics. However, if I am working with numbers, say balancing accounts, lyrics don’t inhibit me at all. (Though my singing along might disturb my co-workers.) Though age may also be a factor because I don’t remember having as much difficulty with writing to music with lyrics when I was younger. And the article sort of alludes to the fact that different people have different capacity to multi-task.

Here is some of what the article has to say. A fair bit of space is also devoted to the damage volume can have on hearing.

Numerous studies have discovered how music can affect study and work habits:

  1. Listening to instrumental or familiar music in the background competes less with a study assignment than music with lyrics or unfamiliar music. Instrumental music also seems to interfere less with reading comprehension and assignments requiring verbal and visual memory than does music with lyrics.
  2. One study showed soft, fast music had a positive impact on learning, but loud and fast, loud and slow, and soft and slow hindered learning.
  3. Upbeat music with a higher tempo may help when you’re doing something requiring movement or motivation, such as exercising or cleaning your room.
  4. The more difficult your task is – for instance, memorizing material, problem-solving or learning something new – the more likely the music is distracting and people often need to turn it off.

Doing The STEM Strut

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h/t to my friend Tonja Khabir for linking to a CNN piece about Yamilée Toussaint, the founder of STEM for Dance, a program which integrates dance with STEM subjects to encourage girls of color to pursue careers in STEM fields.

If you are thinking this sounds familiar, I had written a couple of blog posts about Philadelphia based DanceLogic, a program that is also designed to encourage girls of color to enter STEM fields.

For Toussaint, the germ of STEM for Dance started when she was studying mechanical engineering at MIT and was one of two women of color in her major. The article says the organization has programs in nine cities. It appears the activities are a mix of school clubs and camps in which the girls can participate.

The organization’s school and summer programs typically attract girls who identify as dancers but are hesitant about STEM. Through the supportive community and hands-on projects, the girls begin to see themselves as programmers, engineers, and innovators.

[…]

Rather than teach dance and STEM separately, the program combines the two. Working in small groups, the girls choreograph dance routines that include STEM elements, such as LED light strips that they code to light up with the music. The girls also create songs through computer science that they incorporate into their performance.

President Carter & The Arts

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In honor of former President Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday, I thought I would share a piece that appeared in ArtsATL about Carter’s interaction and appreciation for the arts.

The article initially caught my attention due to its focus on Carter’s interactions with musicians who lived in Macon, GA where I had lived for a time:

In that interview, Carter mentioned that when he became governor, he got to know some of the people at Capricorn Records in Macon, Georgia — among them Otis Redding.

“It was they who began to meld the White and Black music industries, and that was quite a sociological change for the region. So as I began to travel around Georgia I made contact a few days every month or so with Capitol Records, just to stay in touch with people in the state, and got to know all the Allman Brothers, Dickey Betts and others. Later on, I met Charlie Daniels and the Marshall Tucker Band.” As time went on, Carter realized the importance of the arts and music to bringing people together, says Paige Alexander, CEO of the Carter Center.

Not everything he did as governor of Georgia was always pro-arts. During his tenure the State Arts Commission was eliminated and arts funding severely cut. Though by the end of his term in 1975, the funding increased from $128,000 to $183,000 ($1,069,256 today).

In 1973, apparently in the wake of the success of the movie Deliverance, he created the State Motion Picture & Television Advisory Commission in an effort to tout Georgia as a filming location. Not quite the movie I would be promoting as a good representation of the people and locations available in the state. But the state has become a very active filming location, especially in recent years.

Carter himself became interested in woodworking and painting when he was in the Navy and took it up more actively after his term as president. And, of course, he was active in wood working of another sort via Habitat for Humanity.

Gorgeous Mountain Vista Costs A Couple Hours Of Heavy Climbing

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Seth Godin recently made a post in which he stated the following:

The end of the trail is usually difficult, but without the long and winding approach, there isn’t much of a mountain.

The greatest hits reel and the stunning photographs leave out most of the hard work.

This aligns with a theme of many posts I have made over the years that creative expression is part of a lengthy development process rather than a lightning bolt moment–something that even artists themselves forget.

About a week ago, Haydn Corrodus posted this fun video from the Beamish Museum on LinkedIn

I appreciated Haydn making the following comment which acknowledges it takes time to achieve a level of virality, especially when employing modern slang with a deadpan delivery:

From looking at their page briefly, it seems like it was only a matter of time before one of their videos went viral.

They consistently post and get decent views.

@beamishmuseum

This is slay #genz #slay #demure #fyp #viral #genzlife #sweet

♬ original sound – Beamish Museum

National Dance and Theater Projects Sunsetting Soon

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There was some disappointing news a week or so ago when the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) announced the sunsetting after 28 years of the National Theater Project and National Dance Project due to a priority shift by the Mellon Foundation.

Across the course of my career, I availed myself of the opportunity to present dance companies supported by the National Dance Project. The support helped to cultivate an audience for dance in a couple communities in which I worked. The funding helped remove some of the risk inherent to introducing dance to communities who had low to no familiarity with the art form.

The deadline for the last phase of the National Theater Project is in October and the final iteration of the National Dance Project will be in Januar/February.

The preliminary application for the final NTP grant cycle in its current form opens on September 6, 2024, and closes on October 10, 2024.
The preliminary application for the final NDP grant cycle in its current form will open in January 2025.

The statement released by NEFA says the following about the Mellon Foundation priority shift:

…Mellon partners as they do the important work of aligning their resources to best serve social justice in the performing arts for future generations

My first impression was that they would be supporting internal capacity of arts organizations to be more equitable and inclusive along the lines of creating a better working environment by establishing fairer pay and work hours. But as I re-read the statement I realized it encompasses one of ten thousand different options. I guess we will see when Mellon chooses to clarify their new goals.

MN Guaranteed Income For Artists Pilot Phase Winds Down

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Hyperallergic wrote about the ending of the pilot phase of Springboard for the Arts’ Guaranteed Basic Income project last month.  I have been following the project since it was launched in 2021 as well as other efforts like it around the world.

Apparently I wasn’t paying close enough attention because I didn’t realize they have had more than one cohort of artists participating in separate 18 month phases. The groups in urban and rural Minnesota received $500/month to do with however they chose. All told, $675,000 was distributed through the program. This month Springboard for the Arts will host an art show compromised of the work of those supported by the project. The artists chosen for the show have received an additional $5000 to create a piece for the show.

There are teams from  Guaranteed Income Pilots Dashboard (GIPD) run by the Stanford Basic Income Lab, the University of Pennsylvania Center for Guaranteed Income Research, and the University of Tennessee who have been tracking what the artists have been spending the money on to get a better sense of how funds were being used. The funds were distributed via pre-paid debt cards which facilitated the tracking.

The GIPD studied Springboard’s guaranteed income program and found that artists used the cash primarily on retail purchases (35.94%), food and groceries (30.26%), and housing and utilities (10.04%).

According to figures Springboard provided to Hyperallergic, 70% of recipients were BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color), LGBTQ+, artists from rural areas, or artists with disabilities.

I will be interested to see if there is additional insight that emerges as they analyze and collect feedback about the pilot program. The value of these funds to the artists seemed best expressed in an article I quoted in an October 2021 blog entry during the pandemic (my emphasis):

Most importantly, the artists say, they feel valued after an incredibly difficult pandemic year. “I feel like people just don’t understand how hard [the pandemic] has hit artists — the arts just went away for over a year,” says Gamble. “It almost feels like a luxury to feel valued, because it usually feels like there’s never enough funds for artists.”

Immersive Art Experiences Require Expansion Of Capacity And Vision

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ArtNews had a piece last month examining the world of Immersive Art shows.  You may have seen ads for these events which animate the works of Van Gogh or Monet and project them on the walls of a large space. To my surprise, those shows represent a small and decreasing share of the market compared to shows that animate the works of living artists or long term installation such experiences like those offered by companies such as Meow Wolf.

Immersive shows for Van Gogh and Monet are somewhat controversial based on the manipulation of artists’ work and the perception that the shows are lightweight and sort of dumb down the art viewing experience.

Museums that are interested in providing these sort of programs run up against capacity issues, both in terms of personnel and physical space:

Adapting or acquiring, and then equipping large amounts of space is one clear constraint. Size matters here. Small spaces simply do not have the same experiential impact. To compete with the big players, a museum will need to build out or otherwise secure several thousand square meters of floor space. Quality projection-based art often requires a 10-meter or even higher ceiling. These are halls that many existing institutions don’t have or can’t justify surrendering for extended periods.

Up next, new skills are needed. Creating an immersive art experience is akin to developing a branded consumer product. It relies on a multidisciplinary team to develop a single large-scale work…

On the other hand, Felix Barber, who authored the ArtNews piece suggests that the immersive art show can be taken out of the museum space to reach new audiences where they live. He cites collaborations in France where ” Grand Palais Immersif, in turn, joined forces with the Opera National de Paris to create an immersive space inside the Opera Bastille.” But also points out that other spaces like warehouses, empty spaces in shopping malls, and churches can provide the requisite physical space for these shows:

To find the space, a museum may not have to build at its existing high-cost, city-center location. Instead, it can look for a more affordable solution, while potentially engaging a new audience where they live. Many immersive studios work with real estate partners that are seeking to invigorate shopping centers and struggling urban areas. Others take over disused industrial premises. Culturespaces in Baux de Provence operates in an old quarry. Eonarium uses churches.

Ultimately those Barber interviews suggest that while museums in the current form will likely always be attractive, more options are becoming available to consumers who may prefer an experiential interaction versus standing in front of a work and reading a plaque.

In the end, it all comes back to the quality of the art. What will unlock museums’ interest in immersive experience is work that embodies beauty and meaning, presented at scale with a powerful sensory flourish.

[…]

Even so, and no matter what, art museums now face new competitors. Sitting back and watching them capture audiences is not a promising option. Museums have to respond. One size will not fit all.

Arts Can Still Be Part Of Your Identity Even After Practice Wanes

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About 10 years ago I wrote about a TED talk Jamie Bennett made where he noted it was easier for people to identify themselves with athletes based on sports they may have actively played years ago than it was to call themselves artists even if they were currently relatively active in creative pursuits.

In the context of that talk, I was encouraged to see an article from Salon where a woman confirmed she still considered herself a dancer even though she didn’t actively practice as much as she once did.

Janine Kovac writes:

Can I be in a traditional marriage and still have a husband who does all the grocery shopping and all the dishes? Because I do.

When I had kids, I knew I’d never go back to dancing. Am I still a ballet dancer? I think so. In our marriage, my husband and I make all our decisions together, and yet, I have no financial independence. Are we still equals? You bet.

She goes on to cite the example of Ingrid Silva and Celia Fushille who paused their careers to have families and then returned to dancing, choreography, and artistic direction of a dance company.

She also mentions she is on her way to Berlin with her daughter and her friend to attend a dance intensive program which is actually cheaper than attending a similar program near her home in the US. Like her, her friend:

My friend is also a former dancer and mother of three. In her world, she is the stable paycheck, and it is her partner who does the household logistics. Her job flies her to Barcelona and Munich, and in her spare time, she started a ballet photography company. Her life looks very different from mine but she too, has it all. Wife. Mother. Artist.

Whether they passed on their interest to their kids or their kids helped to keep it alive in their parents, it doesn’t matter. I am encouraged that people with any story about people who continue to feel connected with earlier artistic practice.

Obviously, a few examples is not indicative of a trend of a shift in sentiment. But I do think the opportunity and availability of seeing people outside your immediate social circle on social media, videos, etc who are not necessarily full-blown celebrated professions continuing to engage in creative and artistic practice in some way will help people feel that it is valid to maintain their own practice as part of their identity.

Handling All Your Festival, Concert, And Theatrical Touring Needs

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Earlier this month a piece on The Conversation site called attention to the often unseen contributions roadies make to the success of festivals, concerts, and theatrical tours.  There is often a lot written about the artists performing, but scant content about the people who literally do the heavy listing. The article’s author, Gabrielle Kielich, has recently released a book road crew on tours.

One of the things she emphasizes is that the catch all term roadie tends to obfuscate the diversity of jobs touring crews perform and creates the impression they only contribute physical strength rather than a high degree of technical skill.

The size of a crew is determined by the scale of a tour and the needs of musicians, but they typically include the following: tour manager, production manager, instrument technicians, monitor engineer, front of house engineer, lighting technician and merchandise staff (known as “merch”).

[…]

The term “roadie” falsely suggests that crew members’ roles are interchangeable and undifferentiated. For this reason, although “roadie” was once the accepted term, it has generally fallen out of favour. Now, many crew members prefer a more specific occupational title.

The rejection of the term “roadie” also represents a wider shift in the culture and professionalism of live music and distances these workers from the stereotypes and cliches associated with the mythologising of rock music culture.

Trust In Cultural Organizations Continues To Grow

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A recent post from Colleen Dilenschneider and the folks at IMPACTS analyzes survey data that shows trust in cultural organizations has grown since the pandemic.  Trust in cultural entities exceeds that of media sources, state and federal agencies and non-governmental organizations. Among the more interesting insights from the data is that from 2010 to 2019, the level of trust for cultural organizations held relatively steady with values indicating mild agreement with the concept of trust associated with these organizations. Since 2020 however, the values increased to the level of agree and strongly agree with being able to trust those types of organizations.

I usually make relatively lengthy posts when writing about research results from Dilenschneider and her colleagues, but today I am going to offer a single excerpt that stood out to me regarding the cause of this shift in sentiment: (my emphasis)

At the same time, many cultural organizations experienced business disruptions. Some were closed for weeks or months at a time and unable to deliver the usual “visit us today” messaging. Instead, many cultural institutions began offering online experiences like virtual curator talks and trips behind the scenes. They put on educational programs and developed materials for families and schools grappling with virtual learning. In short, they proved relevance beyond their walls. They weren’t only talking about being places anymore. They also proved they were community resources.

Last May I posted about research showing that communicating on organization mission resulted in return visitation for cultural organizations.

Readers will probably also note that by shifting from visit us messaging to delivering content to communities, the organizations were focusing externally rather than internally.  The organizations were trying to offer content they felt would entertain, educated, and engage people rather than primarily focus the artistic excellence of the organization and artists.

I saw a lot of organizations develop fun, clever, engaging voices for themselves through digital offerings during the pandemic. Much of the content was new information for me and I didn’t find it dumbed down. If anything, it often made me do some additional research.  I am thinking maybe I need to go back and see if they are  maintaining or expanded  on that voice after restrictions lifted or did they shift back to more internally focused visit us today approach.

What Is Behind Philly’s University of the Arts Abrupt Closure?

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You may have heard the disconcerting news that the 150 year old University of the Arts (UArts) in Philadelphia abruptly announced their closure last week, less than a year after Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts announced they were discontinuing their bachelor and master of fine arts degrees.  What is particularly galling about the closure is that faculty and students weren’t informed that the school would be closing a few days later and heard about it via media sources.

In addition, the manner in which they made the announcement resulted in the school immediately losing its accreditation.  Apparently, the accrediting agency told them on May 28 that their accreditation was renewed for another few years. The next day UArts told the agency they were going to close in a few days and the agency pulled accreditation pretty much immediately in response to the fact the school was giving such short notice and had not arranged for teach out agreements to help students transfer to other schools.

This reminded me of the closure of Sweet Briar College that I wrote about in 2015.  There were all sorts of questions about how that decision came about, especially since the school had accepted a million dollar gift two weeks before the board decided to close the school. In that case, the alumnae rallied to call for the resignation of the president and board for not properly exploring options to keep the school open.  The school continues to operate today.

I am not suggesting UArts is in a position to be saved. A number of universities have been closing in recent years. Last week Marymount Manhattan merged with Northeastern University due to declining enrollments.  The merger was a result of discussions over the course of a number of years.

Clearly the difficulties UArts faced didn’t just emerge over the course of a week. The faculty just ratified its first contract in February after three years of negotiation, but according to a recent article on the closure, there was no indication of financial problems at that time.

“Part of what makes this so shocking and outrageous is that at no point was there any indication from the senior leaders at the university … that the university’s finances were this precarious,” faculty member and union representative Bradley Philbert told Hyperallergic, adding that within the last three months, the university has hired between four and six staffers.

“This is not just something that happened overnight,” Philbert said.

Others have mentioned the abrupt closure is likely a violation of the WARN Act which requires large employers to provide 60 days notice of layoffs and closures.

Instances like these make me wonder what sort of legal advice and guidance these boards have been receiving. Likewise, who was making decisions about internal and external communications that none of this information was shared with any of the school’s constituencies.  In the end, I wonder if there are parallels with Sweet Briar in that the UArts board may have decided to shut everything down without due consideration about the process.

Creativity Isn’t Locked Away In This Shed

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Rochester Institute of Technology (RTI) has a new building that puts creative spaces right next to each other. The Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) has acting and and dance studios with transparent walls as featured spaces in the building next to maker spaces with equally transparent walls and garage style doors which open to a common space embracing the philosophy that arts and STEM practices can inform each other.

“Placing performing arts facilities so close to tech-project spaces encourages a unique kind of cross-fertilization. For a play presented in the Glass Box Theater called Ada and the Engine, fourth-year mechanical engineering major Catherine Hampp used the SHED’s 3D printing technology to build a stage version of Charles Babbage’s 1832 calculating device, a precursor of today’s computers. The textile lab can aid costumers of theatrical productions, then turn to the task of crafting headgear that can comfortably support devices that allow facial and eye movements to control a wheelchair. These are refined by student researchers in the co-located electronics lab.”

These spaces open on to an atrium with tables and chairs where students can socialize. The building connects the library and student union which results in about 15,000 students passing by all this creative activity and displays on a daily basis.

Right from the start of the article, I immediately thought of the way Steve Jobs designed Pixar Studios building with the restroom and mail room at a central hub so that people from different parts of the company would bump into each other and talk about what they are working on. His goal was to spur innovation with cross-pollination of ideas. The story I linked to in my 2014 post on the topic isn’t available any longer, but my recollection was that employees at the outskirts rebelled at having to walk so far to use the restroom and Jobs eventually relented and installed some in other parts of the complex.

Interestingly in that same 2014 post, I wrote about the segregation of the creative class from the rest of the community in many cities, especially in college towns. This sort of dynamic manifests in a cultural divide because there isn’t intermixing between the general community and the creatives who gather near the campuses. One of the places where the divide is least present are places in the Midwest and Sunbelt. In 2014, Rochester, NY was the second least segregated community behind Minneapolis-St. Paul.  RTI’s approach with the SHED isn’t new to the institution so I wouldn’t be surprised if they contributed to the overall culture of of the city in this respect.

 

 

Choose Yourself Over The Long Haul

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Seth Godin had posted on the 150th anniversary of Impressionism which is benchmarked from the April 15, 1874 art exhibition organized by a number of artists whose work had been refused by the prestigious Salon de Paris.  The original show by the “Refused,” as Godin terms them, included 31 artists, among them were Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Berthe Morisot and Paul Cézanne.

Godin notes that first exhibition was a failure, not even attracting 1% of the Salon show and garnering largely negative reviews.

One of the most positive things to come from the exhibit was a scathing satirical piece, the one that gave the impressionists their name. The insecure critics came to regret their inability to see what was possible.

And yet, the artists persisted. Year after year, eight times, gaining momentum each time, they returned, working their way from outsiders to become the dominant form of artistic expression of their time.

But most of all, so much easier today than in Paris 150 years ago, these individual painters did two things: They picked themselves and they did it together.

I am amused to learn that the Impressionist name actually came from a satiric piece.

I am not sure the moral of this story is to stick with it and one day you will succeed. There were 31 people who participated in the first event, but most of their names are unknown.

While I agree with Godin that it is important to pick yourself and that it is easier to do today than it was 150 years ago, eight years is an eternity in terms of trend and tastes and people’s expectations of results. Success might be possible sooner, but how many people have the endurance to wait that long to gain recognition.

That said, I still remember seeing Sen. John Fetterman speak at an APAP conference when he was still mayor of Braddock, PA and spoke about an observation Sen. Arlen Spector made about it taking seven years for any sort of policy to garner enough momentum and support to become implemented.

Benefits Of Incorporating Your Arts Career

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h/t Artsjournal.com for linking to a really valuable article on Observer about considering creating a limited liability corporation (LLC) if you are an artist.  I recently created a post on ArtsHacker summarizing some of the ways in which an LLC protects artist’s personal assets in the case of lawsuits and in some cases, divorce proceedings.

This excerpt from Observer article summarizes how an artist would operate after forming an LLC:

….but most artists operating as one-man shops set up limited liability companies, according to Powers, where the LLC is the employer and the artist is technically the employee. When a sale or commission is made, the money is paid directly to the corporate entity, which then pays the artist, either in a lump sum or in increments (as a salary), and the artist pays taxes on that money as ordinary income. But not all the money transfers directly through to the artist. The corporate entity retains some cash to purchase art supplies, health insurance, workmen’s compensation to protect employees who may get injured during transit or installation, commercial premises and liability insurance—and, assuming the artist is successful enough, to hire employees or consultants.

The article discusses a number of legal scenarios an artist might find themselves in which the buffer of an LLC would be beneficial. More than just providing legal protection, they also note that forming an LLC would allow the artist to solicit investment to support their work.  Take a look at the ArtsHacker post or go straight to the article to learn more.

 

Should Your Work Be Protected By An LLC?

Toward A More Shared Curation Experience

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I’m not really a big fan of improv, but I was intrigued by the concept of a show called The Worst Cafe in the World, which has transferred from Belfast to Off-Broadway this month.

The show is described as:

The show actually gives audience members a menu of theatrical moments to choose from, and based on their selections, the cast will piece together the show. Menu items include an inspiring monologue, an improvisation calling for audience involvement and a digital experience focusing on the power of technology.

According to a press release, ticket holders should also expect different nightly specials to define their experience: think pop-up guests, delectable food and more. Even better, every guest will receive a complimentary beverage and snack upon entry—treats that sound even more exciting given that tickets only cost $25.

And I agree. All this for $25 in NYC? Amazing.

Granted, the concept isn’t really new or novel. I presented a concert nearly a decade ago where the singers provided a menu of songs the audience could choose from. It was around Christmas time so there was a good mix of operatic pieces along with sacred and secular carols. The menus were numbered so the production used a random number generator to determine what audience member got to choose the next song. I have seen groups use the choose your own aria format for fundraising events.

Despite this, I feel like this type of interactive option is under used for many performing arts events outside of improv. I am not sure why given that you can easily control the list from which people select in order to ensure a high quality experience. It is an opportunity to provide the experience of a shared curation and increase audience investment and involvement.

Dancing And Singing Scientific Study Data

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I recently caught this story about an anthropologist at the University of South Florida (USF) who studied the impact of algae blooms in the Gulf of Mexico and was concerned no one would read her reports which indicated consequences for the tourism industry.  She was concerned no one would read the study and wondered if there was a way to raise awareness. (I am going to say a more accessible title than “Non-linear impacts of harmful algae blooms on the coastal tourism economy” might have helped.

However, the story aligns with the recent trend of my posts about the intersection of art and science because the professor ended up collaborating with the USF school of music to compose a work based on the data.

Indeed there was. Composition professor Paul Reller worked with students to map pitch, rhythm and duration to the data. It came alive, O’Leary says, in ways it simply does not on a spreadsheet.

“My students were really excited to start thinking about how the other students, the music students, heard patterns that we did not see in some of the repetitions,” she says. With music, she added, “you can start to sense with different parts of your mind and your body that there are patterns happening and that they’re important.”

You can watch a video of the composition via the link to the story or right here. Other departments are getting involved, including an effort to create an augmented reality experience based on the data and composition.

This story reminded me of the Dance Your Ph.D. contest that was started years ago with the same intent of translating a summary of doctoral theses in the sciences into a visual format. It was originally intended as a one off event to lighten things up for students who were defending their theses, but people started asking when the next competition deadline would be.

This year was the 16th iteration. I found an article announcing the 2024 winners and it seems like things have evolved since the last time I watched. The one on the “Epigenetics of Early Life Adversity“, depicting how stressors in childhood can impact adult health really caught my attention.

However, the winner, “Personality, Social Environment, and Maternal-level Effects: Insights from a Wild Kangaroo Population”, aka “Kangaroo Time” is far, far, far, more fun than it’s title would suggest. I am glad the NPR story reminded of the contest and lead me to check it out.

 

Art Is Everywhere When You Look At The World Through A Creative Lens

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Sort of dovetailing with my post yesterday about art and science nourishing each other, you may have seen that scientists have named a new species of gecko after Vincent Van Gogh.

Yes, everyone reporting on this is calling it Vincent Van Gecko.

The scientists were inspired by the markings on the lizard which reminded them of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.”

This is one of those instances when having a smidge of artistic exposure allows you to create an engaging story around a scientific advancement which may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

In the conversation between the Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts and Director of the Census Bureau I posted about yesterday, they talk about the importance of good data collection methodology to decision making and reporting about the impact of arts and creativity on society. But they also discussed how creativity and artistic expression facilitates effective storytelling and communication about the relevance of  scientific discoveries and achievement in our lives.

How Important Is Creativity? Let The Census Director Count The Ways

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The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) posted a slightly longer than usual podcast episode a few weeks back with a conversation between NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson and US Census Bureau Director Robert Santos.

If you missed the introductions at the art, you might be forgiven for thinking Santos was the NEA Chair the way he went on about the importance and value of creative practice in one’s life. He talked at some length about being a live music photographer at the SXSW festivals in Austin, TX for eight years and the different perspectives he received while watching all the creatives present their work. He talked about how innovation doesn’t just emerge from scientific hypothesis and data, but by creativity fueled by an artful life.

Later, he discusses the use of art and creativity in healing, relating it to his time as President of American Statistical Association during the pandemic and using his monthly newsletter to depart from the usual messages about checking out webinars about statistic practice, but rather

“…send personal messages and reflections that would help folks understand that we’re all in this together and that we need to help each other out and we can do so virtually. So I would tell stories about of resilience and how we need to tap into them and I told stories of creativity and mentoring and it was specifically focused on thinking as creatively as I could to help the folks that were suffering so much because they were stuck in their homes.”

At another point, he mentioned the way the Census Bureau had used familiar cultural touchstones to engage with people to navigate the challenges Covid presented during the 2020 Census:

…we had artistic reincarnations of things like the Loteria, — there are cards that have little icons, very colorful, of different types of characters, and birds, and skeletons, and scorpions, and things of that sort. And because of the pandemic, we could not use our usual face-to-face methods, or community organizations couldn’t do that. So rather than having a table in a grocery store saying, “Come fill out a census,” they were going out and distributing in community centers that were giving out water, and talking about best practices for vaccines and things. They were handing out these Loteria cards that, instead of the usual icons, they had different census characters on them, like an enumerator, or a little graph, or things of that sort. So it was reinforcing the necessity and the importance of civic participation, but doing it in an artistic way that was very pleasing to the eye, and got you to think, “Oh, this is really interesting.”

The example of Albert Einstein playing violin is often used as an example of a scientist who embraced his creative side, but I am thinking it is time to find new examples to amplify this concept, starting with Santos and anyone else he might identify. Not to relieve the NEA and other creative entities from doing the same, but Santos seems really adept at identifying the bridges between creative and science based approaches and is a vocal advocate.  I mean, there was a point where he was saying, credit where credit is due, the NEA inspired me to think all federal departments should have artist-in-residence programs.

Looking Like The Hero, But Feeling Like The Imposter Of Our Story

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Seth Godin recently made a post reminding us that even those who seem like they are well-established in their career as artists may not feel that secure. He cites an article on a recent documentary about the recording of “We Are The World” 40 years ago.

The article recounts how Huey Lewis’ knees were shaking when he sang a solo that had been intended for Prince who was a no-show.  Stevie Wonder was the MVP of the effort, intentionally flubbing his part to make other artists feel at ease and coaching Bob Dylan through his part–doing his Dylan impression–to help Dylan through his anxiety to hit his solo. Waylon Jennings ducked out when Wonder suggested inserting a Swahili phrase.  Shelia E. felt a little disaffected when she began to suspect she was invited to entice Prince to participate.

Godin notes that we assume all we need to feel confident is the recognition and validation of hundreds or thousands of people:

We’d like to believe that if we only had the adulation, market success, and fan support of superstars like these, then we’d finally be comfortable and able to do our best.

In fact, it seems the opposite is true. Imposter syndrome shows up because we are imposters, imposters acting ‘as if’ in search of making something better.

Need To Create Promotional Content Competes With Need To Create Creative Content

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A few years ago I wrote a post about how actors were discovering that how many followers you had on social media was being taken into account during casting decisions. Vox recently had an article talking about how the same dynamic exists for authors and musicians.  Your book or music might be great, but the publisher may not be willing to take you on if your social media engagement is low.

It used to be that record labels wanted to control all aspects of promotion and prohibited the artist from taking their own initiative. Now it is the other way around where the publishers and record labels put the entire burden of marketing on the artist. The Vox article contains a couple Tiktok videos of musicians talking about this issue. They feel their artistic practice is suffering because they constantly have to be worried about whether they are posting too late in the day to get good reaction. Another said she had to use a spreadsheet to keep track of when and what she should be posting.

One of the big challenges about social media is that you have to balance looking interesting and polished, without looking too polished lest you appear to be engaged in inauthentic self-promotion. The musician Ricky Montgomery alludes to his video where he mentions that you can’t go into the woods to record for three months because you need to be posting “candid” video and photos from your sessions–his air quotes around candid.

To compound the issue as the article points out, consolidation of media and publishing has eliminated competition so writers are being paid less. Similarly, the prevalence of platforms like Spotify for listening to music means musicians are paid less as well. So the rewards for all this effort are less than before even as more people are able to participate as creators.

It wasn’t long ago that many people, myself included, were talking about the need for artists to become more business minded. This is still true in terms of things like better understanding the market in which you wish to sell your work, knowing how to speak to those without insider knowledge about your work, not getting cheated in contracts and payments, etc. But in some respects, the pendulum has perhaps swung in the other direction to far and too quickly where the burden of knowing all these things and more is required on day one without the space to transition into the knowledge and expertise gradually as your career grows.

 

Getting Into Art Can Require Seeking Something Of Yourself In Art

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Last month Vox had a piece by Courtney Tenz about how to interpret art. It isn’t the sort of article you can simply link a social media post to for your audiences to read. One of Tenz’s core points is that art often isn’t immediately digestible at a glance. But there are takeaways organizations can use when having conversations like “If art’s such a central tenet of our culture, though, why do so many of us feel like we just don’t get it?”

Tenz says one of the barriers she likely faces is being told by a teacher she would never truly understand the beauty of Monet. But she still desired a relationship with visual art:

I realized, I had to build a relationship with art. I not only had to take it in regularly — akin to something the writer Julia Cameron calls “artists’ dates” in her book on creativity, The Artist’s Way — but I would also need to sit with it when I did.

The first step she lists for learning to interpret art is to view it as an interactive adventure where you as the viewer have license to decide what is interesting and meaningful about the piece. In that vein, take the time to evaluate what you think about the work rather than just give it a passing glance.

Correspondingly, the second step is to be open to feeling discomfort with the experience:

…And truthful art can make people wildly uncomfortable. “But that discomfort is such an important part of the work,” Deal says.

In this case, part of not getting the art could stem from a reluctance to confront that discomfort. As Langer writes, teaching art is an education in feeling; when art gives rise to emotions that we do not always have access to, it can feel too tough to manage. Yet it is in grappling with those emotions that the connection to art — and, ultimately, understanding it — is forged.

“How do you teach a willingness to be uncomfortable?” asks Ovenden. Even as an avid lover of art, she finds the emotional response doesn’t always come easy. “It can be really overwhelming.”

The third step Tenz lists is related to the first – “Keep an eye out for glimmers of your own experience.” Finding what is relatable to your life and seeing yourself reflected in something contributes to an increased comfort and perhaps increased understanding.

“Or, as Karen K. Ho told me, if you start to think about the arts as a way of transforming time or transforming your experience — if you move beyond the surface response of “this is a nice picture” or “this is a picture that sucks” — then looking at art can be a really interesting endeavor”

ASL As Part Of The Performance Rather Than Reporting The Performance

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There was a really interesting article in Dance Magazine about artists using American Sign Language (ASL) as part of dance performances or to underscore movement in shows. One choreographer, Bailey Ann Vincent, says that she knows most of the audience is hearing, but if there is someone that communicates using ASL, they will have a richer experience:

For Vincent, using ASL in her choreography—which might mean incorporating a sign to emphasize an emotion a character is feeling, or to communicate what a lyric is saying—is both an artistic choice and an accessibility-related one. Though her audience is mostly hearing, “I still try to approach all our shows assuming there might be someone who is Deaf in the audience,” she says.

Another dancer said when he was asked to move beyond the role of an interpreter for a performance, it changed his perception about the role of ASL as a medium of communication.

…“She asked me to represent all sounds in sign language, and also use my body as a dancer,” says Kazen-Maddox. “It was the most mind-shifting thing for me, because I was seen as an artist and a dancer and a performer, and was also representing in sign language everything that was happening.”

The experience was the beginning of a shift in Kazen-Maddox’s career, away from simply facilitating communication between­ Deaf and hearing individuals as an interpreter­ and towards an emerging genre Kazen-Maddox calls “American Sign Language dance theater.” But it was also indicative of a wider shift in the performing arts, one that is more artistically fulfilling for Deaf and ASL-fluent artists and that also repositions accessibility: Rather than something tacked on to and separate from the performance, it is something deeply ingrained and integrated.

But as you might imagine, as the use of ASL as an artistic element increases, there are concerns about it being co-opted. It is important to remain conscious and thoughtful about the intent behind the use of ASL as an artistic element and avoid employing it in a superficial manner or in the service of ill-considered goals.

…And when hearing artists and audiences value how signs look over what they mean, the fusion of dance and ASL can become offensive rather than enriching. Antoine Hunter..gives the example of a hearing choreographer asking him to “reverse” a sign because it would look cool, which then made it meaningless or changed it into a distasteful word.

“When people who are not native signers see ASL incorporated with movement, they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s so beautiful,’ ” says Alexandria Wailes, a Deaf dancer and actor, through an interpreter. “Which is valid in its own right, but ASL is a language that is tied to culture, communities, and history. It’s not just something that you look at or do because it feels cool and it’s beautiful.”

Who Will Make Classical Music The Next Old Spice?

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So hattip to Ruth Hartt who linked to a piece by David Taylor who argues that we shouldn’t be linking the lack of music education in schools to diminishing audiences for classical music. He points to the fact that other musical genres enjoy a fairly good level of support despite not being included in a formal curriculum.

….classical music education continues to be invested in significantly higher than other music genres. If you drive past a school, you will see students carrying violins, tubas, flutes, cellos, and all manner of classical instruments. But you won’t see some poor kid dragging along a set of turntables to school. I don’t think there is a person alive who has said “I’m not really into Electronic Dance Music, and that’s probably because I didn’t have access to DJ lessons as a child”.

EDM, Dubstep, Grime, and Hip-Hop have all thrived over the years despite there being no formalised music education. The significant majority of people who enjoy pop and rock music won’t have come to enjoy it through music education.

[…]

It is counterproductive, elitist, and dangerous for us to keep shouting about how we need music education to save classical music audiences as it reinforces the idea that you need to be educated in it to enjoy it, and if you are not then classical music is not for you.

He goes on to cite a number of studies which have been published over the last five years that find that younger generations (under 35) actually listen to classical music more frequently than their parents. From a quick scan of some of the studies, this listening seems to be happening outside of concert halls.

But they are listening and their numbers are growing, Taylor notes. What needs to happen is to give these audiences a reason to enter the concert hall, if that is where organizations want them to be.  He cites brands with uncool images like Old Spice which have worked to re-position themselves. (I would add Stanley cups to this). He points to Marvel which expanded their audience from consumers of print media to movies and television.

It certainly isn’t fast or easy to accomplish this sort of shift. It took Marvel awhile to hit their stride. I remember a number of misses and flubs before the first Iron Man and Avengers movies came out.

There is a fear that any changes that are implemented may alienate current audiences who provide admittedly dwindling support. But younger generations may have different ideas about how and where they want to experience classical music. The most effective approach may not typically put both groups in the same spaces as each other.

Secret Lonely Lives Of Arts Loving Kids

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Artsjournal.com linked to a Hudson Review piece by poet and former NEA Chair, Dana Gioia, talking about how he became entranced by opera and classical music as a child, but realized it was not an interest shared by adults and peers in his life. Granted, his younger brother Ted is  a noted jazz critic and music historian, but their shared adult affinity for arts and culture probably was not apparent when Dana was in elementary school.

Gioia’s piece evokes the bittersweet feeling shared by so many who fall in love with forms of creative expression but perceive themselves alone in these passions unshared by those around them. This is not to say that his family didn’t have an appreciation of such things. He talks about his mother reciting poetry when they did housework. He also admits to being a snob and turning his nose up at the popular music of his youth. But he did see record collections of deceased a uncle sold off with only a couple classical music albums saved. Likewise, he managed to assemble a collection of opera records before his mother cancelled their subscription to a record club after two months.

Gioia discusses his furtive attempts to grab fixes of classical music after school when the apartment was empty and on other occasions with such evocative language, I am afraid the excerpting I am about to do is going to ruin its impact.

At the same time, I feel I may have pasted too much text below to hold some readers’ attention.  But I feel like so many of us have experienced these dismal, lonely feelings about experiences that enliven and energize us, that cutting much more would deny readers the realization of a more broadly shared experience than they might have recognized.

My conniving continued and worsened. When I was eleven, my school was given four free tickets for a Los Angeles Symphony youth concert featuring selections from the Ring. I had already gone the year before—… but I asked the sister who taught me piano if I could go again. She was appalled. She told me I was impossibly greedy and advised me to confess the sin. I knew she was right. My desire was selfish and disgraceful. I left her office embarrassed. On Saturday morning two hours before the concert, she called me. One of the chosen kids had decided not to go. While the other kids and parents sat bored beside me, I had the most thrilling musical experience of my young life….

In the car home, I wanted to talk about the concert, but I knew it would be a mistake. Everyone else had already forgotten it. It was best to hide my enthusiasm. I had already been exposed as greedy. Why add weak and weird to the list? Many children lead secret lives. Mine was simply more elaborate than most….

Keeping my mouth shut in the back seat of the car was an important moment. I knew the practical people were right. To treat art as anything but a brief diversion was dangerous. It made everyday living more difficult. Beauty had an effect on me I didn’t understand, but I recognized it made me cultivate a vulnerability that everyone else suppressed. There was no one to ask for advice. I could only wait and watch….

What Other Dwindling Skillsets Threaten Arts and Culture?

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Last August, I called attention to the dwindling number of qualified piano tuners posing a threat to arts organizations’ ability to host concerts.  Along those same lines, Artsjournal.com posted a story last week about the shortage of engineers posing a threat to the continued operation of public radio stations. Where radio stations used to have 4-5 engineers in their employ, now they are lucky to have more than one according to Dave Edwards, the author of the piece.

The United States is projected to require 5,100 broadcast engineers over the next decade due to the retirement of 6,200 existing professionals. This anticipated shortage is particularly pronounced in the RF (Radio Frequency) knowledge domain. Factors contributing to the absence of new entrants include:

  • The allure of competing technical fields offers higher pay and more straightforward work conditions.
  • Broadcast engineering requires a broad knowledge base.
  • There is a need for more awareness among major stakeholders.

Among the things Edwards suggests are breaking out the skillsets required into more specialized areas. For example, making Radio Frequency (RF) engineering, Internet Broadcast engineering, and Office Internet Engineering into separate roles versus seeking someone versed in Radio and Broadcast Internet or Broadcast and Office Internet to fulfill a single role. Separating these broadens the pool of qualified people and ensuring people don’t get burned out trying to juggle too many tasks. Likewise, some of tasks can be outsourced while leaving internal staff to concentrate on crucial work only someone who knows broadcast regulations and troubleshooting specialized equipment can perform.

Reading stories about diminishing numbers of piano tuners and broadcast engineers makes me wonder what other important, but overlooked skillsets readers have identified as threatened?  Many of these roles don’t seem replaceable by AI. In some cases, these are the guys making sure the AI is functioning.

Music To Your Beers

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I was kinda thrilled to hear the melodious voice of conductor Bill Eddins on the Marketplace Morning Report this morning. Bill had written the Sticks and Drones blog here on Inside the Arts alongside Ron Spigelman for a number of years.

Bill was on Marketplace talking about MetroNOME, the brewery he started in St. Paul, MN. Their goal is to funnel proceeds from sales into local music education programs.

Eddins and his co-founder, Matt Engstrom, aspire to grow their business to the size of a small regional brewery. When their goal is realized, they plan to filter funding from the brewery toward local music education programs.

“We believe that we would be able to funnel as much as half a million or even maybe a million dollars a year into the local music education programs here in the Twin Cities metro,” said Eddins.

MetroNOME has already racked up close to 400 performances at their brewery, including a concert with jazz legend Wynton Marsalis. True to his music education philosophy, Eddins recruited a trio young musicians, two of whom were too young to drink his product, to play with Marsalis.

Eddins admits he and his partner don’t necessarily have the acumen and experience to take the organization to the level it needs to in order to generate the funds required to support local music education, but he believes there are people in the Twin Cities area that can help make it happen.

They do, however, have a secret ingredient that provides a competitive advantage. I encourage everyone to watch the video on their homepage. It starts out looking like a typical brewery video, but it takes an entertaining turn. My thanks to Drew McManus for nudging me to watch the video.

Artists, They Aren’t Making The Community Any Worse

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Title of the post today is intentionally leveraging a statement in a study conducted by Jennifer Novak-Leonard and Rachel Skaggs for the National Endowment for the Arts of public perception of the arts during Covid. It was the topic of an interview/post with Sunil Iyengar who heads up research and analysis at the NEA.

The full quote is:

Nearly two out of three respondents shared the opinion that, quote, “Artists who work or live in their area make it better to live,” and roughly one third affirmed that it doesn’t necessarily make communities better, but artists certainly don’t make them worse.

The encouraging takeaway is that people have a positive view of the artists across all demographics:

In 2022, however, over half of adults expressed the perception that artists uniquely contribute to U.S. communities healing and recovery from the pandemic. Fifty three percent in open-ended responses offered specific ways that artists promote that healing and recovery. I will say, Jo, that one of the surprises of the study to me is that it found virtually zero differences in social or demographic characteristics as playing a factor in the likelihood of respondents to identify positively with artists.

As the authors say, quote, “Most adults in the United States across its many socio demographic groups and perceptions of artists, roles, and communities view artists as being able to contribute to the healing and recovery of communities directly and positively from the pandemic.”

Another interesting takeaway from the research is that people are equally likely to view artists as hobbyists (30%) as they are to perceive them as wage earners (27%). I may have to seek the report out to discover what the perceptions of the other 43% are. Perhaps a combination of some hybrid perception and/or not having any opinion on the matter.

More Ballet And Body Weight Related Legal Action

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Apropos to my post yesterday about Richmond Ballet dancers suing the organization for exerting so much pressure about their weight, there was another story a couple weeks ago that I forgot where the Executive Director and Artistic Director of the Cleveland Ballet were suspended after they chose not to renew the contract of a dancer who was hired to teach outreach classes at the Boys and Girls Club due to her weight.  After advocating to retain the dancer, the Outreach Director was told his contract would not be renewed either.

The events that led up to learning that news from Becker started at a School of Cleveland Ballet staff meeting on Aug.  1, where Guadalupe saw a photo of Harris teaching the tendu movement that was included in Becker’s outreach newsletter.

“[Gladisa] told me that she could not release the newsletter I had been working on, that the mockup was no good. She simply said, ‘the tendu picture,’ and I knew what she was gunning for at that point,” Becker said.  “I even asked the Artistic Director, ‘It seems like you’re insinuating that someone’s size or body weight would somehow be able to disqualify them,’ and before I could even finish my sentence, she’s just nodding. I was told that this fine teacher did not have the physical aesthetic required to teach tendu and pliés to the Boys and Girls Club children.”

[…]

Two days later, Becker wrote down what happened at the meeting and hand-delivered his account in a letter to Lilia Shtarkman in the Cleveland Ballet’s human resources department, but he never received a reply. He also tried but failed to meet with their HR consultant, Lana Krasnyansky Sokolinsky — who is Michael Krasnyansky’s daughter and Guadalupe’s step-daughter — before Becker was told his own contract would not be renewed as manager of the outreach program.

The news article goes on to note that while Cleveland Ballet has a policy of not discriminating against people who are members of protected classes, body size is not a protected class. Still the Ballet board conducted an internal investigation and engaged outside counsel to also investigate. Ultimately, the board decided to suspend the artistic and executive director pending the results of that investigation.

Ballet Dancers Sue After Pressure Leads To Eating Disorders And Health Impact

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Last week Artsjournal.com linked to an article that may represent a significant continuation in the discussion about body weight expectations in ballet and dance in general.  Two Richmond Ballet dancers are suing the company for exerting so much pressure regarding their body weight that harmed their health and lead to them developing eating disorders.

According to the Axios article:

One of the dancers attended Richmond Ballet’s school from ages 6 to 15, per court filings. A second was a member of the ballet’s trainee program for adult dancers pursuing a professional career.

The lawsuits allege the ballet’s artistic staff set an “optimum Body Mass Index” for each trainee upon entering the program and that staff reserves the right to terminate trainees if they are unable to maintain that BMI.

[…]

Also, staff warned dancers who gained weight after being cast in roles that they would be replaced if they didn’t lose weight, and students as young as 10 who didn’t meet the ballet’s “skinny body” standard received what were commonly referred to as “fat letters,” the lawsuits allege.

In the ballet’s response, they noted that actors are often asked to lose weight for roles. While it may be true that not all actors are expected to have a certain body type and weight from the moment they walk in the door to start their training, there is some truth to weight, height and other elements of physical appearance being significant criteria by which actors, especially women, are judged and factor into career success.

Unfortunately, the Ballet made some rather cavalier statements abrogating responsibility for the emotional health of their students and trainees.

The ballet has denied all of the above allegations and has argued that, even if they were true, the conduct described wouldn’t violate state law.

During a hearing earlier this month, the ballet’s lawyer, Lindsey Lewis, argued that the ballet setting weight requirements for a role is “no different than an actor being asked to undergo a body transformation.”

The ballet argues it had no legal duty to provide for the dancers’ emotional wellbeing and happiness, noting the trainee was an adult and the minor student was under the care of her parents.

Studies Indicate Arts Degrees May Be Worth It

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Recently on the NEA Quick Study podcast Sunil Iyengar, Director of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts shared data that indicated getting an arts degree can be worth it for artists.   For the purpose of these studies, arts industries were defined as “motion picture, video industries, sound recording, architecture, design services, performing arts and related industries, museums, art galleries, historical sites and similar institutions.”

It will come as no surprise to anyone that the most recent employment data (from mid-Covid 2021) showed that people with undergraduate degrees in the arts had an unemployment rate of 7.5% vs the 4.3% rate for general undergraduate degree holders.

However, those who had arts degrees fared better than artists who didn’t have specialized arts degrees in both employment and earnings. (my emphasis)

“…artists who lack a college degree are more likely to be unemployed than those who do not. Also, artists without college degrees have lower average incomes than non-degree holders. Again, not surprising. We know that education is highly correlated with income for most types of worker. But then Woronkowicz finds that artists who have arts degrees have higher incomes on average than those with a non-arts bachelor’s degree. She also finds that artists with arts degrees are more likely than non-arts degree holders to work in an arts industry. This tells us perhaps that when it comes to occupations and industries, the arts are very similar to other fields of specialized knowledge in at least this respect. The pursuit of a degree in an arts field improves on average the career prospects of those who want to take a job in an arts industry and stick with it.

It should be noted that the data for these findings came from pre-Covid period of 2015-2019.

What I really found interesting were the results of interviews with early, mid, and late stage artists regarding how their network of relationships that helped advance their career opportunities fared during the pandemic. Most artists worked on maintaining existing relationships during the pandemic rather than working on developing new connections. What caught my eye was that early and late career artists indicated having problems maintaining or developing their connections.

My theory is that colleagues of those in the early stages hadn’t yet developed foundational relationships that were useful to themselves and others. Late career artists may have relationships with people who were retiring or leaving their positions resulting in a loss of a useful relationship for an artist.

Reading the following from the podcast transcript emphasized the importance of networking and resource sharing is to developing a career in the arts.

But as Skaggs observes, there were different implications of these findings across different career stages. She describes early career artists, those in their 20s, as being socially adrift during year one of the pandemic. They were finding a hard time building new connections with others in their field and even struggling to maintain their current professional relationships. They also tended to gravitate to social media and online communities to access resources that could solve real world problems like financial difficulties. But those connections didn’t seem to help necessarily in advancing their artistic careers as a whole.

More established artists, meanwhile, in their 30s through 50s, were generally better connected than were early career artists, and often use these long-standing ties to, quote, gather in person or discuss art, network and socialize. Not only were these artists better able to draw upon their networks for support and for progress in their careers, they also reciprocated the support by sharing resources within their own social and professional networks.

…and then late career artists, here defined as in their 60s or 70s, felt largely isolated in their work and personal lives, even though they seemed adept at using social media during the pandemic, according to Skaggs. They expressed concern about losing touch with their professional ties during the pandemic, yet they persisted in their careers and interestingly, Jo, this is the only age group the researchers found where the artists said they were, in her words, losing touch with existing professional connections that they had before the pandemic.

The Bell Works, But It Needs You

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A couple weeks ago, I caught a story on NPR about a temporary monument exhibit that has been placed on the National Mall in Washington, DC.  While a little more permanent than a pop-up exhibit, it is only meant to appear on the Mall for a limited time.   The project, Beyond Granite, was initiated by Monument Lab which commissioned six artists “.…to think about histories that haven’t been commemorated by the Mall and to look to moments when the Mall was charged by people, not statues.”

One of the pieces is a playground inspired by a picture of a Baltimore playground taken a few days after it was segregated showing black and white children playing together. Young visitors are able to play on the equipment which comprises the piece.

Another is a piece commemorating Marian Anderson’s 1939 Easter Day concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after she was prohibited from performing in Constitution Hall because she was Black.

The piece that caught my ear was “Let Freedom Ring,” that plays “My Country Tis of Thee,” a song Anderson sang in her concert. The installation plays all but the last note leaving a bystander to step forward and pull a lever to complete the song.

“The piece is simply saying, America is not America without you as an active citizen,” Ramírez Jonas says. “It needs you in some way.”

Doing a little more research, I discovered the sculptor, Paul Ramírez Jonas, is chair of the Art Department at Cornell University. An article on Cornell’s website provided more information on the philosophy behind the piece and the bystander’s role.

Before participants pull the lever to ring the last bell measuring more than two feet tall and wide, Ramírez Jonas asks them to declare why they are doing it: Are they celebrating “freedom to” do something, or “freedom from” something? They can preserve their choice in a graphite rubbing of one of those two prompts, inscribed on opposite sides of the bell.

“I’m not telling you what your idea of freedom is,” Ramírez Jonas said. “I’m just suggesting that there’s flexibility, that there’s room for inserting yourself.”

Another inscription shows the song’s first verse with selected words missing, inviting participants to modify the lyrics – as Anderson did when she sang “our country” instead of “my country,” and “we sing” instead of “I sing.”

The process of “pulling together,” Ramírez Jonas said, occurs through awareness of others’ expressions of freedom and a sense of collective responsibility. Reflecting a bias toward optimism, Ramírez Jonas said, he never contemplated a design that might have rendered “America” unable to be completed.

“The bell works,” he said, “but it needs you.”

Reading a Bloomberg article on the project, I became aware of another piece by Wendy Red Star, an Apsáalooke (Crow) artist. It features an enlarged version of the artist’s thumbprint encased in glass and outlined in red soil. The names of 50 Crow leaders who signed agreements with the US government, often by using their thumbprints. The name of the piece, “The Soil You See…” comes from the words of one of the few survivors of Battle of Little Bighorn

“The soil you see is not ordinary soil — it is the dust of the blood, the flesh and bones of our ancestors. . . . You will have to dig down through the surface before you can find nature’s earth as the upper portion is Crow.”

August Wilson Biography Causing Some Buzz

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The Atlantic recently ran a piece by Imani Perry reviewing a biography of playwright August Wilson by Patti Hartigan. The book has been getting a lot of notice over the last few weeks. This is one of many reviews.

To some extent Wilson’s story is not unexpected or surprising. A child voracious for knowledge who is poorly served by the education system. A playwright who struggles to get his work seen because audiences aren’t interested in the stories he wants to tell. When he does become successful, he feels the conflict between staying true versus selling out and is criticized for making white audiences feel uncomfortable, but not pushing so far as to cause them not to see his plays.

It was interesting to read that Wilson and his collaborators may have among the first to pioneer using regional theaters to develop works before moving them to Broadway.

Not least, Richards took on the challenge of attracting a producer. “Serious plays concerning minorities … are not considered a good risk,” he observed,…Together, Richards and Wilson came up with an unusual strategy, and in the process helped inaugurate a new and closer relationship between commercial and nonprofit theater in America. Work was first staged in regional theaters, which were free of Broadway’s commercial pressures and able to take chances, and Wilson got the kind of “long development process” he knew he needed, revising tirelessly in rehearsals and in reaction to performances.

His 1987 play, Fences, was the one he liked the least and felt he had compromised on to please audiences and critics. It was Robert Brustein who was among those who criticized Wislon most strongly and suggested Wilson was being too polite with audiences.

“Brustein implied that Wilson’s work in general was calibrated to elicit white guilt without jeopardizing white acceptance. Any Black artist who has acquired a modicum of mainstream acclaim while sustaining a sincere interest in Black life knows this kind of criticism intimately. Wilson’s experience is an aching reminder that no amount of professional stature insulates one from it. In fact, quite the contrary.”

Broadway Books Babysitters To Bolster Attendance

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Ken Davenport recently posted that the Broadway Production of Here Lies Love was working on lowering barriers to attendance by offering babysitting during four upcoming performances.

“Here Lies Love” has teamed up with the Parent Artist Advocacy League (PAAL), Broadway Babysitters and Open Jar Studios to offer free childcare services at the Sept. 23 matinée as well as three additional dates to be announced. Any ticket holder for the Sept. 23 performance is eligible to sign up for the complimentary benefit.

[…]

“After years of partnering with Off-Broadway and regional theaters to offer caregiver support, the historical significance of ‘Here Lies Love’ being the first Broadway show to offer ethical, accessible childcare to their caregiver theater patrons is not only incredibly exciting, but long awaited by our team,” said a representative of Broadway Babysitters in a statement.

As you may have noted in the quote above, other venues had been partnering with Broadway Babysitters, which is based in and around NYC and Chicago, to provide childcare in conjunction with performances. The PAAL website notes the off-Broadway show, “Mary Gets Hers” will be offering babysitting for the September 30 performance.

This reminded me of a post I did in 2009 on a company called Sitters Studio which employed performing and visual artists to provide childcare in a manner similar to Broadway Babysitters. I received a database error when trying to visit their website so I am not sure if they are still in business or suffering technical difficulties.

Will Dwindling Supply Of Trained Piano Tuners Also Threaten Arts Orgs

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Caught a timely article from The Guardian about the dwindling number of piano tuners in Australia. I am fairly certain arts and cultural organizations in other countries are having a similar experience when trying to schedule piano tuners. Personally, I have been in a situation where we had a choice of two-three tuners which dwindled to one that lives a two hour drive away and covers a large geographic area.

I am not sure what the situation is in the US and other countries, but people interviewed for the article note that there aren’t a lot of training programs in the country and a lack of effort to make people aware that training opportunities exist. It isn’t a profession that is entered lightly.

“People think, ‘I’ll learn to tune a piano, I’ll do it in a year and that’s it’, but no, it takes 10 years to learn how to tune a piano, and 20 years to master it,” Kinney says.

The training takes even longer for piano technicians who do broader work on repairing and refurbishing pianos. Tuning can only do so much before the instrument needs a major overhaul.

By “good tuners”, Kinney means piano technicians. These are people who have undergone a year of training as piano tuners before developing their skills at international piano factories or with mentors, learning action regulation, voicing, diagnosis and complex problem solving.

[…]

When Scott Davie, an Australian concert pianist, has toured through Australia, he’s played regional shows where the pianos had been tuned but not properly maintained. When this is the case, he must work hard to alter the way he plays to finish the show.

“I’d be remembering which notes are going out of tune and which notes are really badly out of tune, and leaving them out of chords or trying to play them so softly that you couldn’t hear them,” he says. “But it gets to a point where it sounds horrible, if a piano is really starting to break down.”

This article made me think–we are hearing about all the arts organizations that are closing or having a difficult time, but there are other elements of the infrastructure that are probably being overlooked that may cause on going issues as well.

When Trying To Break Boundaries Threatens To Break Your Spirit

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Last week on the Association of Performing Arts Professional’s (APAP) podcast, Emily Isaacson of Classical Uprising talked about some of the frustrating experiences she has had trying to advance her goal of changing the context through which classical music is viewed and experienced.

One of the biggest impediments she has experienced was the view that she isn’t a serious artists because she is a woman and a mother. She shared, apparently for the first time publicly, that a family friend whom she had known since she was a child asked her to partner on creating a music festival, but when they got together to plan their second season, he dismissed her efforts and professionalism.

“He started to call me randomly to tell me that I would never be taken seriously as a musician that because I was a mom, I was distracted that if I thought that my degrees were worth anything, I was kidding myself because real musicians don’t care about degrees,. That I made, I was making a fool of myself on the podium.”

She said the conversation got a lot worse from there. She said she has run up against similar sentiments regarding other programming she has done:

So people wanna label me as a woman conductor, and that’s my whole soapbox. The other thing is they say, “Oh, well, the fact that she wants to do, you know, Hayden’s creation in a park must mean that she’s really not that sophisticated a musician. She’s doing it differently because she can’t hang with the big boys and the old club and you know, this, that, and the other thing.”

Or like, “Oh, isn’t it cute that she wants to do things that are not just four kids, but intergenerational because she’s a mom and so focused on being a mommy and mommy music”, …

I’m advocating for a different way of presenting and producing classical music, so that it is more social and more interactive and more casual, in the way that actually it was originally conceived.

The other thing she says she runs into is the echo chamber type thinking among different organizations. She talks about how when she attended the 2023 APAP conference, she struck up a conversation with the representative of an organization promoting a Breaking Boundaries series. She was somewhat disappointed to learn that their concept of breaking boundaries was presenting works by female composers one year and works by minority composers the next year. This essentially mirrored what so many other orchestra organizations were doing.

I’m good quick on my feet, so I pivoted and I was like, “Another way that you could think about like pushing boundaries, is by thinking about like who we’re performing for, how we’re performing and what, what are the things that we include in the performance that make people feel either included to be there or more connected to the music than they did before?” And I start giving examples from my programs about, doing Flight of the Bumble Beer where you do music flights alongside five-ounce pours of beer or doing Bach Bends Yoga.

Like really, here’s some like con this is not lofty ideas. Here’s some concrete ideas and this person could just not understand what I was talking about. That was so frustrating for me because it made me realize that the national conversation and the conversation that I’m trying to have is just ships passing in the night…

You can listen to the podcast or read the transcript to learn more. Isaacson starts the episode so her story is easy to find.

Is Bottom Up Funding Of The Arts The Next Business Model?

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There was another editorial about how the arts should be funded that is getting a lot of notice this week. You may recall I had posted about Isaac Butler’s editorial in the NY Times a couple weeks ago calling for greater public funding of the arts.  This week novelist, playwright and screenwriter Monica Byrne advocated for a bottom up funding model in the Washington Post.

She notes that the artists often get short shrift when it comes to attention and funding. When organizations get funded, it is often administrators and buildings which benefit before the artists do. She doesn’t specifically call for increased federal funding. Given that the culture wars of the 80s basically ended NEA funding of individual artists, that is probably a non-starter. Instead, she is advocating for the creation of works to be driven by artists who decide where to site their performances rather than the venue deciding what they want to do and then contracting artists.

For theater, as we know it, to have any future at all, a new economic model must take its place, founded on a simple principle: fund artists directly. Then let the artists produce their own work, rent their own venues and pay their own collaborators.

[…]

It’s true that scaling down would mean prioritizing certain kinds of theater over others. But this is the case in every era: Some aesthetics thrive while others die out. Instead of a world in which you pay astronomical prices to see another tired revival from the mezzanine, imagine there are a dozen theater cells in your area, performing new work in backyards and parks and city squares and empty storefronts. Art that is fresh, fluid, immediate, accessible and affordable — to make and to see — all because we collectively decided to fund the artists directly.

Is there any place for existing nonprofit theaters in this model? Sure. Reshape them into direct granting agencies and public resources somewhat like libraries, offering artists and companies production slots on a lottery basis…It would also mean that existing artistic directors understand that, not only are they not the ordained curators of culture, they are only useful to the art form insofar they serve artists — the creators of the form.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? The idea of turning theaters into public resources like libraries is interesting on paper. If non-profits were in a place to provide advice and support about audience cultivation and marketing practices attuned to the local conditions, that could be a valuable resource. Though my concern would be that we might end up having the same conversations we currently are about funders having priorities that are out of synch with the changing needs of the operating environment. It may not start out that way, but I could see things creeping toward “arts need to be run like a business” as staff turned over, etc.

Tyger Tyger, Burning Bright

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There was an interesting and rather lengthy article in the Chronicle of Higher Education last week about the puppetry program at West Virginia University. It is apparently one of the few degree programs in puppetry in the country. As you might imagine, it is in danger of being shutdown.

The article notes that while puppetry is held in high regard in many cultures, it is considered low culture and content for children in the U.S.

In Indonesia, wayang kulit, or shadow-puppet shows, would stretch from night until dawn, illuminated by oil lamps. In Japan’s Bunraku theater, which originated in the 17th century, apprentices toiled for 10 years to master manipulating just the feet of dignified puppets.

Yet is appears in more sophisticated content evoking delight from mass audiences:

That perception has staying power, even in the midst of a multidecade renaissance. The Lion King and its dazzling animal puppets became the highest-grossing Broadway musical of all time. The internet erupted when it first saw Baby Yoda, who is brought to life in the television series The Mandalorian, in part, by a puppet.

[…]

Puppetry abounds. And yet it remains peripheral. Puppet theater has “never fully established a fixed role for itself in contemporary American society,” writes John Bell, a prolific puppet scholar, in his 2000 book Strings, Hands, Shadows: A Modern Puppet History. It “has had to constantly reinvent itself in order to survive.”

Of course there is also the recent production of Life of Pi that also uses life sized puppetry rather effectively. I saw this video of a lecture using the tiger puppet from the production on Reddit a few months ago. In some respects it is a more effective illustration of the work that went into the show than some of the promotional videos the production put out. Even though people can clearly see the three people manipulating the puppet within arm’s reach, the coordination and motion study the team invested sends people scurrying back.

Quotas For Low Value Degrees

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This morning Arts Emergency, a UK based organization which advocates for the arts & humanities and puts a lot of effort into finding mentors for young creatives, post the following on Twitter:

“Hands up who took a ‘low value degree’ & wouldn’t be where you are without it. Hands up who thinks EVERY young person should have the opportunity to do the same. Hands up who thinks higher education shouldn’t be reduced to ‘produces high earners’.”

This was in response to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s proposal that cap the number of students universities can accept into “low value” degree programs according to The Guardian.

Courses will be capped that do not have a high proportion of graduates getting a professional job, going into postgraduate study or starting a business, the prime minister will announce on Monday.

[…]

The numbers cap is unlikely to affect the bulk of courses offered by Oxbridge or Russell Group universities, whose students tend to go on to “highly skilled” jobs requiring a degree and above-average earnings.

Critics of the move say that it effectively penalises universities and courses with a high proportion of working-class students, who have fewer financial resources or family support and so are more likely to drop out.

“This will effectively act as a red flag to students. Who wants to apply to a ‘low value’ course?” said one vice-chancellor, who added that universities might also become more cautious over admitting students who might be less likely to graduate or want professional careers.

I don’t know if it was the enthusiasm for the topic or the low level of traffic on Twitter, but my feed was solidly filled by this topic with only a smattering of posts on other topics. It was hard to believe this wasn’t listed as trending.  After scrolling and scrolling I was surprised to see I saw still on posts from seven hours prior. I began to worry I would hit the 600 post limit recently announced for people who didn’t pay to be verified before I got to the original post that started it all.

There were a lot of great responses and I probably missed some of the deeper words of wisdom in the mix, but a very clear, obvious response from Milo Harries caught my eye:

I obviously have a ton of thoughts on this, but really they boil down to:

Does anyone that has ever met me really think I’d have added more value to the world if I’d based my career decisions on money?

If you haven’t seen it already, a similar conversation is bouncing around in the US and I suspect other countries around the world. So it is something to which to pay attention.

Will Irish Artists Sleep Better With A Guaranteed Basic Income

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I have written before about Ireland’s plan to provide a guaranteed basic income for artists. A couple weeks ago, NBC News posted a story about the program on their website. In all, 2000 artists, including architects and circus professionals, were chosen from 8000 applicants to receive €325 ($326) a week unconditionally for three years.

There is a breakdown of artists’ disciplines and where they live in a press release the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and the Media put out in September 2022.

What caught my attention in the NBC article was the type of data the Ministry was collecting on artists who were selected and not selected for the program.

Participants have to complete a survey every six months, which asks them about their artistic output and working hours, as well as their sleeping habits and the state of their mental health. The survey also asks about their societal participation, which can include activities like volunteering and caring for relatives. A control group of artists who did not receive funding will also be surveyed and tracked to compare results of those of received funding against those who didn’t.

I would be interested to learn more about what they find from this trail program. Hopefully it will come back on my radar again in 2025-2026 when the pilot is over.

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Butts In The Seats by Joe Patti is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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