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Ignore The Title, Come For The Exuberance

March 18, 2009

by:

Joe Patti

I usually don’t speak specifically about the performers we present for a number of reasons. Among them is my concern that inclusion or omission will make a tacit statement about the quality of the performance or my interactions with the group. The last event we had was so superlative and the positive feedback so strong that I feel the need to single it out by name for what I believe is the first time in my blog’s history.

The performance in question is the India Jazz Suites. The baggage that name brings with it is part of the reason I felt the need to wax rhapsodic about the performance. It needs all the help it can get to overcome the assumptions people make based on the name. While it does have Indian and Jazz elements, the show’s focus is really on the joyful exuberance exhibited by Indian kathak exponent Pandit Chitresh Das and tap dancer Jason Samuels Smith. The problems people seemed to have with the show name is akin to if you had never experienced opera. You would have just as much insight into the nature of Loony Tunes’ “What’s Opera, Doc?” were it billed “Animated Opera Short.”

In promoting the piece, I kept emphasizing the idea of a partnership infused with “joyful exuberance.” Even if people didn’t know anything about kathak and weren’t too big on jazz, I hoped the concept of dancers from two different traditions having fun would make them curious enough to get more information. Jason and Chitresh met backstage at the American Dance Festival in 2004 and became interested in working with one another. Kathak is similar to tap in that it is a percussive dance form performed barefoot with about 10 lbs of bells attached to the ankles. Like tap it lends itself to dramatic flourishes. Pandit Das speaks in interviews of his long desire to work with Gregory Hines, lost upon Hines death, was renewed upon meeting Jason Samuels Smith. The two perform with two trios of musicians. One trio on tabla, sitar and sarangi; the other on piano, drums and bass. The musicians challenge each dancer to match different riffs and the dancers engage in a dance battle to match each other.

But as you can see, unless you already had a sense of the show’s content, it takes a bit of explanation to get people to a place where they understand what the performance will be about. We worked hard on press releases, radio interviews and in media ad buys to communicate all this. I don’t use a lot of unwarranted hyperbole in my ads and releases so I hoped when I emailed our subscription list in earnest that this was the show I had was most excited about and had waited all season to see, they would trust that I sincerely meant it. It was absolutely true. As soon as one of my consortium partners proposed the show, I jumped on it afraid that one of the others in the city would first.

One of my reasons for wanting to host the show was that there was little chance of seeing a collaboration like this, much less with artists of this caliber. Unfortunately, this being absolutely true, people had few frames of references to help them comprehend the performance in advance. People with whom we discussed the performance at length on multiple occasions were having “ah-ha” moments just days before the show about details we mentioned many times before.

What I think explained the show best is this YouTube video of excerpts from the performance:

As you might surmise, the audience wasn’t that large but the show superb. It was easily in the top three performances of the past five years. I can’t help but wonder if the entertainment sector as a whole has poisoned its relations with audiences by diluting language by over promising. I place a lot of the blame on movie ads but pretty much every discipline and area is guilty of employing hyperbolic language. Now when we have an offering which is challenging to understand on the surface but easily enjoyable by the layman without benefit of specialized knowledge, we can’t simply say trust me, you will enjoy it immensely and have people believe you. Even with lengthy explanations, interviews and multimedia support, people are risk averse partially because they have been disappointed by previous promises.

I have no experience with jazz or Indian dance. I jumped on the opportunity because I knew by reputation alone that Chitresh Das was worth seeing. It wasn’t until I watched the YouTube video weeks later that I realized not only did I want to see it, it was intellectually accessible to a very broad audience.

The show started with Smith and Das doing separate solos. One of the points they make is that neither is scaling back his art to accommodate the other. They are both highly accomplished artists. In the first half of the show they make that abundantly clear. To be fair, the musicians make that clear about themselves before the dancers step on the stage. Given that jazz, tap, classical Indian music and dance are all heavily improvised forms, the musicians have to be extremely skilled to operate at the level of the dancers.

As I stood watching, I started thinking that the audience was paying far too little to see this performance. I know that had we charged more we would have likely had fewer people so it was good that a greater number of people were able to experience the performance. Still they were getting a hell of a lot of value for their money.

People realized this. Well, perhaps not the money part, though someone did ask how they could donate. The atmosphere in the lobby at intermission was completely energized. We were half way through the show and people were responding at the same level they did at the end of a performance after a big finale. I was engaged in conversations by multiple people who were somewhat at a loss to express their excitement. I had to keep excusing myself as I was continually intercepted on my way backstage to make sure the second half would be starting shortly.

The second half absolutely delivered on the promise made in the first half that the talents of both men together would be greater than the sum of the parts. The interactions between the two dancers and the way they engaged the musicians was exceptional. Everything intertwined so well I forgot that it wasn’t all choreographed in advance.

Lest you imagine that the show had fallen into rote after repeated performances constituting a de facto choreography , it was only supposed to run 1.5 hours and ran 2.5. And no one cared to complain. I hadn’t realized things had expanded until I noticed intermission was getting over when the show was scheduled to end. I think part of it was due to Pandit Das, considers himself as an educator as much a dancer. He did some demonstrations and discussion of the principles behind his art during his solo. I assume seeing people were entranced, he was happy to keep dancing for them.

This week has seen me copied on emails people are sending their friends raving about the performance they attended. When I am stopped on the sidewalk by people, the conversation runs longer than usual about what a wonderful show we brought the previous weekend. I will openly admit that I am contributing much more to the exchange myself.

Again, none of this is meant to detract from any of the other artists we have presented. I think the last two shows of the season went a very long way in creating very positive impressions about our theatre in the community. I suspect that will be worth a lot to us as economic times become more difficult.

So, you know, I can’t help wishing there were more people participating in the experience.

Perhaps some reading this account won’t quite understand my excitement having seen the like often enough. It isn’t all that frequent that someone operating in my budget range gets to present performances of this caliber. So I guess it would only go to prove my point that people weren’t paying enough to see the performance which makes me all the more grateful that we had the opportunity. But even for those accustomed to experiencing exceptional performances, there is always a show that transcends your past experiences to a great degree and provides a “Wow” moment.

General Musings

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NJ Would Rather Go Broke Than Fund The Arts

March 17, 2009

by:

Joe Patti

Via Artsjournal.com comes news that New Jersey Governor John Corzine wants to cut arts spending below the legal minimums. A few years ago, the NJ State legislature decided to set legal minimums for funding the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Historical Commission, the New Jersey Cultural Trust and Shore Preservation Fund.

State treasurer David Rousseau made it clear how the administration feels about those laws. They just don’t apply anymore.

“We will be setting aside those laws,” said Rousseau. “We didn’t want to be bound by laws that were created that say shore protection has to be this amount.

“Same thing with arts. Why should they be held at a higher standard just because some Legislature in the past put a law in that says it can’t go below this amount of money?”

It isn’t terribly surprising given these tight financial times that state governments would make a move to claim monies set aside for funding arts and culture. I think we pretty much expect it. What does raise eyebrows is that by doing so, New Jersey stands to forfeit greater income. The laws which set the funding minimums have poison pill clauses included to prevent just this very thing. (my emphasis)

The law changed the way New Jersey funds arts and culture by replacing their direct appropriation with a portion of the hotel tax. As revenues grew, so would the funds supporting the cultural agencies and tourism advertising. If the tax revenues dropped, the cultural and tourism programs would get less.

The law mandates the four areas receive at least $28.2 million or the tax disappears at the start of the fiscal year. Corzine’s budget allocates just $24.9 million. Similarly, the realty transfer tax has a provision that eliminates the tax if the beach replenishment fund drops below $25 million.

Sen. Kevin O’Toole (R-Essex) wondered why the administration would risk losing a tax that has generated hundreds of millions of dollars since 2003 in order to save a couple million dollars next year.

The governor and his allies in the legislature are trying to mount challenges to the poison pill provisions. It will be interesting to see if they hold or not. I have personally never heard of such arrangements being used to guarantee funding for arts and cultural purposes. If the laws hold, it might be worth advocating for similar protections in other states. (If they don’t hold on the basis of technicalities, it would be worth advocating for under better written terms.)

My suspicion is the governor figures even if the taxes do automatically disappear, the revenue source will be viewed as too crucial to the operation of the state and the legislature can be prodded into reinstating them without the arts, culture, history and shore preservation encumbrances.

I am interested to learn if any other states or municipalities have similar arrangements to keep funding for non-emergency causes secure from raiding. Comment below.

State of the Arts

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Vital To Discuss: Graduate Preparation

March 11, 2009

by:

Joe Patti

In a confluence of good timing, my Inside the Arts compadre, Jason Heath, touched on a subject yesterday aligned with that of two of my favorite bloggers. In an entry with a self-explanatory title, Music School Enrollment Spikes as Economy Tanks, Jason cites a Chicago Tribune article on that subject. Jason discusses the cons of pursuing a degree in music but seems heartened by the article’s assertion that studying music confers skills applicable to other fields. (Given a recent post, that is good news to me too.) My only concern is that in tough economic times, there are so many people with direct experience with jobs, there is no need for those with skills that carry over.

The article notes that music schools are making sure their graduates have training in addition to performance to make them more capable and prepared for the realities of the industry. Theatre schools are apparently not following suit in the estimation of Theatre Ideas blogger, Scott Walters, and A Poor Player blogger Tom Loughlin who met for the first time this past weekend at the Southeastern Theatre Conference where they presented a session on revamping the way theatre students are prepared.

Both gentlemen reflect on the experience in their respective blogs with some disappointment that the conferences do not really allow serious conversations about the state of the industry and how graduates may be better prepared.

Says Mr. Loughlin:

“At places like SETC, NETC, and ATHE (Association for Theatre in Higher Education) the emphasis is 97% on “how to succeed in the theatre business by trying a little harder.” It’s self-perpetuating, narcissistic, and almost cult-like. Anybody interested in having an adult conversation about what might be wrong, what might need reform, etc., is faced with the reality that everyone else there has drunk the kool-aid of pre-professionalism. You might as well be talking to a wall.”

[….]

“As I walked through the halls of the hotel complex during the afternoon I grew more and more sad watching all these young dressed-up kids with their audition numbers pinned to their chests waiting for their turn to show everyone what they could do and begin their climb up the great Broadway ladder. They know nothing else at all about theatre except this professional business model, and they have no sense of independent thought in terms of thinking about how to push back against it. They’re just buying it hook, line and sinker. And we, the educators, are tossing them the baited hook.”

Both felt the keynote speaker, Beth Leavel, was the worst offender when it came to underplaying the difficulty of making it in theatre and overselling NYC as the sole source and standard for success.

Scott Walters’ observations were most pointed in this respect.

“The crack she peddled was pontent: she had only had to work two weeks in her entire career at anything outside the theatre. I could see young girls texting their parents with this fact, proof that their choice of a major in theatre wasn’t foolhardy in the least.”

[…]

“Not surprisingly, nobody ever asked, and clearly Beth Leavel never considered, the utter insanity of such an arrangement. Nope, it was all about New York, and Beth had made the leap from SETC to Broadway, and you can too. You just have to want it badly enough. Because we are so lucky to do what we do. Why, she burbled, I’ve never worked a day in my life, and I mean that.”

[…]

“It seemed so appallingly irresponsible. To look at all these young, hopeful people with numbers pinned to their chests, I kept thinking of Biff Loman’s pathetic plea at the end of Death of a Salesman: “Will you let me go, for Christ’s sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?” I knew that many, many of these kids were very talented, and that for most of them those talents will go unused and unappreciated in the theatrical Oz to which Ms Leavel had pointed them. And they will limp home thereafter and, like Mr Tanner in Harry Chapin’s heart-breaking ballad of the same name, they’ll never sing again, or dance again, or act again.”

I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but I found it interesting that both men reference the audition numbers pinned to each person’s chest in what is probably not even an attempted veiled allusion to the “hopes pinned” phrase. According to Walters, they did their best to dash what for most will be false hopes in their session citing dismal employment and median income figures of Equity union actors.

We urged teachers to ” take that phony dream and burn it before something happens” and replace it with something important, something rooted, something that would enrich our towns and cities and states. We urged theatre teachers (and had we not presented before she did, Beth Leavel) to get out of the export business, in which our purpose is to ship off “goods” to New York City.

None of the entries are terribly long and bear reading in their entirety. If you aren’t familiar with Loughlin and Walters, they are both professors in performing arts programs who have been reflecting for some time on the education processes with which they are involved–and on the fate of their graduates.

As a person who came out of a theatre background, I have always felt a little superior to the other arts disciplines because theatre tends to be a lot more together in many regards. In graduate preparation theatre seems to be lagging. Not all music training programs offer the type of preparation mentioned in the Tribune piece, but there are enough to serve as examples for theatre training programs.

Art(ist) Education, State of the Arts

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Under Pressure To Find Value In Live Performance

March 10, 2009

by:

Joe Patti

Thanks to YouTube I have been thinking a lot about the experience of live performance. A couple months ago, for reasons I can’t remember, I watched this cover of Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure” done by David Bowie and Gail Ann Dorsey.

I thought their rendition was great and a couple weeks later, I wanted to hear it again and ended up with this version.

It was soon clear that it wasn’t the same performance. I liked the first version much better. One of my first thoughts was how interesting it was that the same song, same performers, same tour could have a vastly different quality. It seemed to me a good argument for seeing live performance. Often people say they don’t want to see a play or hear a piece of music again because they have already seen it. People in the arts generally counter that different groups render different interpretations. If that doesn’t work, we break out the old opportunity for disaster option noting that you never know what will happen at a live performance. Even better in this case with almost all things being equal, one performance is so much more exciting than the other which proves another degree of value for live performances. I started checking to see if Bowie was coming to town soon.

Well, come to find out it is not quite all things equal. The second video is from 1997 and the first from 2003. (In my defense, not all of the copies are well dated.) I imagine part of the reason I like the 2003 video is that the sound is much better. I also believe Dorsey got more kickass in that time.

Which brings me to the second revelation about the experience of live performance–the importance of reference points. My sense of where the videos fall on the quality continuum is based on my experience with the original version by Queen and Bowie vs. 2003 Bowie and Dorsey vs. 1997 Bowie and Dorsey. What I have no ability to judge is the relative value of a piece of classical music played by the NY Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, much less the same piece by a single ensemble now and six years ago.

From my perspective, no symphony would allow themselves to take the liberties in interpreting Beethoven Bowie and Dorsey took with Queen’s original music. But I could well be wrong. I have no experience upon which to base that assertion other than my belief that symphonies are too tradition bound to do so. This lack reinforces the importance of regular and repeated exposure to the arts. It also reveals why the belief that people will become enamored of the arts if only they will step through the door is erroneous. People can only judge something is good if they have a basis upon which to make the judgment.

The general implication of making a statement about exposure to the arts is that it has to be in schools. Students are a captive audience and unformed vessels ready to receive. The parents are lost to us. They are too old and too busy at work to pay attention to our lessons. Yes, that is mostly true. But when they take breaks from work they go to things like First Friday’s downtown where they will stop and satisfy their curiosity about Southeast Asian dance if the opportunity presents itself in a easily accessible place.

Cheap dates are important in this economy so First Friday type events may present an opportunity for increased exposure. Expose people often now and maybe they will be prepared to pay for the experience by the time the economy turns around and increases their disposable income.

April is Take A Friend To the Orchestra Month (TAFTO) and provides a good opportunity to position events and opportunities that encourage friends to experience an event together.

(You don’t actually have to be an orchestra to take advantage of April in this manner. Just don’t tell Drew McManus I gave you permission.)

Arts in an Age of Technology, Audience Relations, Marketing/PR, State of the Arts

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