Arts in an Age of Technology

Cultivating Creative Kids

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More and more frequently we read about how the next phase of the economy will be the Creative economy. It is in major magazines, the subject of conferences, and the topic of study for state and regional arts organizations.

But I am wondering if the U.S. as a society is adequately preparing the next generation to take part in this economy. I am not referring to the disappearance of arts from schools or the fact that fewer people are reading. These things are important, to be sure. I am beginning to wonder if children today are even being challenged to use their basic imagination.

As a commute to work and run errands, I often see televisions playing DVDs in cars and SUVs. I hate to lapse into a round of “in my day”, but I wonder if these kids are going to want for not being challenged to entertain themselves on trips around town, much less on long vacation trips. When I was younger, my mother would actually hide our toys about 6 weeks before a long trip and then give me back to us so that they would be new to us and keep us occupied during the trip. (I must have inherited my frugality and cleverness from her.)

Although it tests parents’ patience, there is something to be said for having to develop the self-control not to antagonize your sisters. And there is something to be said for having to invent strange games to keep yourself occupied during the trip. My sisters came up with some rules about holding your breath while passing a cemetery and lifting your feet when crossing train tracks. My father would then pretend to pass out from lack of oxygen while driving by large cemeteries and rolling to a stop on train tracks because his feet were no longer on the accelerator.

Now I will admit that not everyone is as blessed with my ability to read in moving vehicles. I will also never suggest that the television sets on airplanes be removed. I like the distraction of those itty-bitty screens just fine.

DVDs and video games are starting to tout themselves as educational and they might be. But are the games sharpening and improving creativity? Maybe, but I think it is too soon and too tough to tell.

One thing I do know is that boredom, like necessity is the mother of invention. Certainly, much of what I produced while a bored child was destructive as much as it was constructive but there is little gained and learned in the absence of taking that risk. I had acres and acres of fields and forests upon which to wreak havoc without the distraction of color television much less cable to distract me.

Many kids today may not have the physical space to explore and experiment that me and my friends did. But I also suspect and fear that some of the limits they face are barriers of imagination that they haven’t learned to surmount.

Sharing the Gold and Fleece

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In years past I have written about how the members of my block blocking consortium leverage our purchasing power by proposing a tour to performers and their agents. Given the difficulty of finding workable time slots among 3-6 different organizations across the state, we often earn our discounts.

One thing I hadn’t found was a good example of producing organizations who cooperated to cut costs. Among presenters like my consortium, the questions that come up are mainly date and cost related–when are the artists available, are there openings on members’ calendars, can we afford the terms the performers seek.

Among producing organizations, there are so many more questions many potentially related to the artistic differences among the organizations- who does the casting, who designs costumes, lights, sets. Will the artistic quality and value reflect what patrons have come to expect of their local theatre. Will the other theatres have input into any of these elements? How much of the sets travel and how much is built by each organization? Given differences in stage sizes, what set pieces may be cut and still maintain the vision of the directors and designers?

How is it going to be paid for? If the theatres each normally operate under different Equity pay rates, will the actors be paid differently in each theatre?

Presenters face some of these questions on occasion, but to very limited degree compared to groups that are co-producing.

A blog entry on the McCarter Theatre website sheds some light on some of these questions. They are co-producing Argonautika with Berkeley Rep and Shakespeare Theatre Company. The show was rehearsed and first opened in San Francisco though the show was cast from auditions at all three locations. All three organizations are sharing all rehearsal costs (including the brush ups when the show moves) and presumably a portion of many of the other costs.

I liked McCarter Producing Associate, Adam Immerwahr’s reasons for partnering with other organizations.

1) it allows what would otherwise be a local production to have a much broader impact;

2) it allows an artist to continue to develop their work over time (allowing them another chance to make adjustments with each production);

3) it can be a cost-saving measure, allowing each of the theaters to share common costs (like the set, costumes, rehearsal time and casting expenses);

4) it is a way for multiple theaters to each share their expertise (new play development, mounting musicals, building big sets, etc.).

I especially appreciated the final point about shared expertise. I have been talking about cooperative efforts for a long time and while cost-savings is certainly going to be important in increasingly difficult financial times, I have always felt sharing knowledge and effort was going to prove crucial to the survival of many arts organizations because so little occurs among arts entities to begin with.

TOILETS SWIRLING DOWN A HOLE TO CHINA

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I won’t get in to why I came across this website. Suffice to say, some people in the office got sick over the Thanksgiving holidays. The anti-diarrhea medicine maker, Imodium A-D had a fun little feature on their website I hadn’t expected to find– a way to locate public restrooms in the U.S.

They are careful to assure you that you won’t need the map while using their product, but it is always good to know where you find facilities while traveling. You don’t want to depend on the map because it isn’t comprehensive. Imodium grabs the information from a site called The Bathroom Diaries which allows people to rate restrooms across the world. People don’t tend to share those experiences as much as say, hotel stays.

It wouldn’t hurt if you were like the Portland (Oregon) Center for the Performing Arts and had people evaluate your restrooms and point out that there was a long bench that was handy as a changing room. Or perhaps you could write something yourself. In searching for a city that had an arts organization reviewed, I noticed that every Old Navy across the country was listed as “A great place to go” and every Starbucks included the observation that “The pleasant Starbucks barristas are cool. You should buy a drink but if you don’t, they won’t mind. Ask for a key if its locked.” Apparently these corporations thought mention of their restroom situation was important enough for their business to have someone place a duplicate entry for every one of their locations. (Or at least up to a point. None of the branches of either company in my city are listed.)

There are many websites out there at aggregate obscure data into interesting data that clever arts organizations can use to their benefit. For example, this site answers the question it asks “If you dig straight down, where will you end up?” Fortunately, I never completed that hole in my backyard. I just discovered I would have ended up in the ocean about 3000 miles southwest of Perth, AUS. instead of China. It turns out, the most direct route to Beijing is through Argentina.

This handy “hole through the world” map can be employed during shows like Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing where a character begs to be sent on an errand to the Antipodes in order to avoid someone. It can be fun (and educational) to use the site to illustrate for audiences that if he had traveled to the literal antipodes of Messina (where the play is set) or London (where it was originally performed), he would have ended up in the ocean east of New Zealand.

Unfortunately, with two exceptions, there is no place in North America that corresponds with land at its antipodal point. It would be fun to point out the location opposite the theatre where the show was being performed. The antipodes of North America is the Indian Ocean. Only the State of Hawaii which corresponds to Botswana and a corner of Namibia and a point in the Alberta plains just north of Montana which corresponds to the French and Southern Antarctic Lands match up with any landmass.

Which isn’t to say it isn’t fun to learn that you can’t reach China by digging in your backyard. It can just be interesting to have a connection with a people and land opposite you. Maybe you can research the best public restrooms in their city! (Though they don’t flush in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere.)

The real moral of this entry is that it can be useful to bookmark websites with goofy, but interesting information because you can never tell how it might be useful in creating a connection with your activities.

Succession Expectations

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The cultivation of young, emerging arts leaders is a topic of growing importance these days. Two weeks ago, Andrew Taylor quoted as speech by Ben Cameron of the Doris Duke Foundation in which Cameron noted

“….expectations from young people around higher compensation, shorter hours, in essence less patience for the sacrificed lives of dignity and the financial masochism that were the givens for so many in my own generation — this conversation brought to my ears, at least, a new strand: the unwillingness of emerging leaders to be mere custodians of organizations they inherit.

“There are plenty of us eager to give ourselves to the arts.” they said, “But unless we are given the same authority to reinvent and reshape organizations as you yourselves were given, we are not interested.”

The current issue of Inside Arts magazine addresses the same topic. (free registration required) The article, Leading into the Future, starts out talking about a young woman who becomes involved with an arts organization, ends up working 90 hour weeks and finally quits and starts working for a finance firm because the pay and opportunities to pursue her musical interests are much better. Fortunately, the story has a happy ending as the woman ends up working for the Future of Music Coalition.

The general theme of the piece is that arts organizations need to recognize what the interests and goals of young people in the arts are. While the arts can’t offer good pay, the industry can provide people with a means of expressing themselves. Only, they need to be allowed the time to do so.

The article quotes Andrew Taylor in his role as head of the Arts Management program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“We have an astounding resource in terms of the value and power of the work, but we’ve created rigid structures that are not the kind of places young people want to work. My students are passionate, skilled and trained, but when they get into a place with an apprentice mindset, and they don’t get meaningful work for the first three to five years, it’s a waste on both sides.”

and later is quoted as saying

“Some experienced leaders say there aren’t people ready to step up, but that’s because they don’t see people exactly like them,” Taylor said. “The perception is that the younger generation is not as committed . . . [but] there are young people all over the place who are passionate and ready to lead.”

This is definitely an area to keep an eye on. As arts leadership approach retirement age, succession issues are going to come to the fore. Questions will emerge about not only who will take over but how these new leaders expect their organizations to operate in relation to employees.