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A Harvest of Performers

July 9, 2019

by:

Joe Patti

My summer vacation this year took me back to China. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet with China arts administrators on this trip, though I did try to secure some introductions and arrangements.

One arts related thing that struck me this time was the Impressions: Lijiang performance I attended. The show is directed by Zhang Yimou (Raise The Red Lantern, Hero, 2008 Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies) and was the second of seven shows he and his collaborators created for scenic places around China. The show in Lijiang is performed in full daylight in a 2000 seat open amphitheater on Jade Dragon Snow Mountain near Lijiang.

There are about 500 performers and 100 horses in the show. As you will see from some of the pictures below, some of the performance happens in the aisles and the horses gallop around the entire rim of the amphitheater.

The interesting thing about this production is that all the performers have been cast from the local farmers, representing about 10 different ethnic minorities that live in the region, (including the Muoso, one of the few matrilineal societies in the world). So the cast is telling the story of their people who have lived there for generations. Historically, the people of Lijiang and Yunnan province in which the city is located have participated in the Ancient Horse-Tea Road trading route, thus the significant presence of horses in the show.

As far as I have been able to tell from what I can find in promotional content about the other six “Impressions” productions, it appears this show may be the only one that is performed by “amateurs.” I put the term in quotes because that is how many information sources about the show refer to them.

However, because everyone kept mentioning they were farmers, I asked if the show needed to be scaled back or cancelled during harvest and planting time to allow the performers to return home to help their families. I was told performing was their full time job now and was assured they were making better money than if they were still living on the farm. As best I can tell the amateur term is likely a translation of the idea the performers haven’t received formal training rather than a reference to lack of skill or salary.

I wondered if the casting of farmers was intentional in order to help stimulate the economy by increasing the income of residents or was a practical matter due to the difficulty of finding 500+ trained performers in southwestern China, (though they likely didn’t need to be trained to handle and ride horses), or a combination of both. Given the way things operate in China, all the shows in the Impressions series were likely instigated by, and receive significant support from, the government. As much as I would love to use this as an example of government support for minority cultures, it wasn’t all that long ago that official policy was to suppress the cultural practices of these same ethnic minorities.

As you may have surmised from my pictures, it was raining the day we saw the show so the spectacular majesty of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the background is not apparent. Check out the video below which was taken during better weather.

Arts Facilities, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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Just To Take The Edge Off

July 8, 2019

by:

Joe Patti

A couple weeks back, Slate had a long form article on people using beta-blockers to help with nervousness and stage fright. Just seeing the title, I immediately recalled a piece Drew McManus wrote 15 years ago wondering if the use of beta blockers among orchestra musicians was akin to athletes using performance enhancing drugs.

The Slate article made me wonder about the pressures orchestra musicians face because both performing artists quoted in the article were orchestra musicians. One was a performance psychologist on faculty at Juilliard who was against their use. The other was a cellist who actually founded a company that provides online consultations with doctors to help people access medicines. He is a frequent user of beta-blockers.

A 2015 study the Slate article links to shows that 72% of musicians have tried beta-blockers. 92% of responses indicated beta-blockers were most effective at dealing with nervousness (91% indicated experience was most effective). All those surveyed were orchestra/chamber/opera musicians since the survey was an update of a 1987 survey for International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians.

Use of beta-blockers is growing according to the commentary on the 2015 survey,

With regard to beta-blockers, the study shows that 72% of ICSOM musicians have tried using beta blockers for performance anxiety. Out of that group, 90% said they would consider using them for auditions, 74% would consider them for solo or featured performances, and 36% would consider them for orchestra performances. By comparison, in 1987 a reported 27% of ICSOM musicians had tried beta-blockers, representing a significant uptick (45%) over the last 28 years. Also in 1987 of those who’d tried beta-blockers 72% said they would use them for auditions while only 4% would use them for orchestra performances compared to today’s 36%.

While there has been an increase in the number of those who have or intend to use beta blockers, on a positive note, musicians have increased efforts at lead healthy lifestyles and pursue alternatives,

Today’s classical musician also reported better than average health and there was major increase in physical exercise as a method to address performance anxiety. In 1987 61% of musicians reported regular exercise and in 2015, 68% reported regular exercise. As a means for addressing performance anxiety, however, exercise was used by 17% in 1987 and 74% in 2015, a striking increase.

In both Drew’s 2004 piece and the recent Slate piece, there are people who swear beta-blockers are the best thing in the world and pretty much survive day to day by using them.

There are two big issues, however. The first is the obvious point that the pills are just masking the effects so that the root cause of stage fright/anxiety is never addressed so it is no wonder that people feel they need to continue to use them.

The second, and perhaps bigger problem is that the FDA has not approved the use of beta blockers for anxiety. They were created to address chest pain and heart arrhythmias. Taking them incorrectly or if you have a medical condition you are unaware of could result in everything from fainting from low blood pressure to heart attacks.

Going off them abruptly—say, if you took them for a string of presentations, then stopped—is dangerous, too, because blood pressure can spike in response, argues LeRoy.

This is a topic that bubbles up every few years that bears paying some attention. Since there are so many musicians using beta-blockers with apparently no ill-effects, (unless there are unreported incidents at auditions and performances), I imagine people will continue to use and swear by the pills. But this focuses on the symptoms without questioning the causes.

Perhaps the easiest place to start investigating is the training process itself to see if that might be engendering anxiety. The 2015 report asked the age people experienced their first performance anxiety and the largest response was approximately 33% between 11-15 years old. Approximately 25%-28% between 16-20 years old and 15% of respondents between 5-10 years old.

Art(ist) Education, Working In The Arts

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Bring Your Trash To My Open House

July 3, 2019

by:

Joe Patti

This will be the last retrospective post of the series covering the time I am on vacation. I should be back at the helm Monday, hopefully with pictures and thoughts to share.

I am writing this post two days before I go on vacation but I am wishing I saw this old entry sooner.

The day before I am going on vacation, we are having an open house at my theater. A number of people haven’t seen the space since the most recent renovation in the Fall so we want to provide an opportunity to get in and look around. For those that have been to a show since then, we wanted to provide an opportunity to look around and ask questions without the pressure of getting to your seat in time for a performance.

We will be offering snacks, refreshments and such. However, I just came across an old post I made that suggested we encourage people to bring stuff to us, too.

In a post titled, Destroy Your Way To New Audiences, I had a brief moment of inspiration where I suggested renting a mobile paper shredder and inviting people to check out your organization and bring their boxes of documents that were too sensitive to just throw away.

Nowadays, another option might be to bring computers and phones to be recycled.

It struck me that this is the type of community service an organization could offer that will NEVER in a million years show up on a survey as something you could do to help the community. It is one of those things people need but don’t realize they need when asked.

This is also the sort of thing that breaks down barriers to attendance. You advertise an open house barbecue picnic at your organization and as someone who has never been to an arts organization, I might figure the only difference between the picnic and attending a performance is good ribs. Faced with the prospect of being the only person there who doesn’t know how to speak theatre/ballet/classical music/visual art, there may still be a high anxiety factor even if I don’t have to go into the building.

A shredder truck in the parking lot on the other hand is a service I can actually use. While I am there, maybe I grab some hamburgers and look around a little. If things get a little uncomfortable, the shredder provides my excuse as I notice the line is getting shorter, excuse myself and go over there. Heck, there isn’t much danger in bringing the kids either. Even if the arts stuff doesn’t appeal to them, watching papers get consumed by a giant machine is always interesting.

Audience Relations

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Signs Of When Seeds Were Planted

July 2, 2019

by:

Joe Patti

So 2009 was long before ArtsMidwest started their Creating Connection initiative and before I started my correspondence with Carter Gillies regarding the value of the arts, but I found a blog post that made me think the underlying philosophy behind Creating Connect was already entering the collective unconscious.

Writing on a blog post by The Nonprofiteer (which unfortunately does not exist any longer, it appears a consultancy has her URL), I quoted part of her post,

Let’s get the discussion about public funding for the arts to the level of conceptual agreement we have for public education, and then we can engage in any further battles that might need to be fought.

In other words, brethren in the arts community: stop talking about public funding for the arts as if the point were for the public to support YOU. No one cares about you. What we care about as a society is US, and how exposure to what you do will improve us.

Given that support of public funding education has begun to flag, or is at least less stable than it was a decade ago, it is probably good that Creating Connection evokes the grassroots movement to ban smoking in public places as a model for building public will for the arts.

The idea that exposure to the arts will improve us as a society is a core part of Creating Connection which cites researching finding:

…people believe that the benefits of engaging in or experiencing creative expression are related to their quality of life: increased happiness, reduced stress, improved health, and more time spent with family and friends.

When asked what would be different if we had more opportunity to express or experience culture in our lives, respondents indicated a range of personal benefits that span concepts around growth, voice, well-being, and happiness.

One of things I like about doing these retrospective posts is discovering that these ideas had occurred to me long before I began regularly voicing them. (my emphasis today)

While improving test scores, reasoning skills and developing geniuses in the womb are probably part of what she is suggesting we talk about, it can’t be the entirety for the simple reason that it excludes anyone who is not a child. People care about their kids, yes, but everyone will only be persuaded when they perceive they are included in the benefits. I think it is pretty clear that the reasons we give can’t be about what we want people to experience but what they want to experience.

We want people to experience transcendent moments and there is a good chance the first time they sit down to hear a symphony play, they won’t have a transcendent experience. The measure of their satisfaction with the experience that night may simply be that no one caught on to their utter cluelessness.

Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, creativity

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