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Dance As A Gateway Drug To Coding

July 11, 2022

by:

Joe Patti

Via Artsjournal.com was a Chalkbeat story about DanceLogic, a program in Philadelphia “designed to educate, inspire, and cultivate girls of color in STEM.”

The premise: Both coding and dance use repetition and combination, so using dance as a hook to attract girls to the program could lead to an interest in coding.

[…]

Each Saturday, the girls participate in dance class from noon to 1:20 p.m., take a short break, and then go into coding class until 2:30 p.m. Sessions run from October through June, culminating with a performance at the annual West Park Arts Fest.

[…]

For example, she said, the class developed a dance score using coding language to note choreography. “In the future, I hope to expand on this with the girls and see how it progresses with their understanding of both worlds,” she said.

The program has had some indirect, though semi-predictable result such as participants finding their math classes easier understand. There were other beneficial outcomes which illustrate the value of arts based education, but don’t fit neatly into grant applications because they need to be the result of organic decisions by the participants.

Students have shown an eagerness to take charge of the choreography and exchange ideas about what the dances should be. Bridgers said she’s seen many of the girls who participate develop into strong leaders and mentors. “We make a space for these young women to expand their agency and autonomy in the field of STEM,” she said.

One danceLogic student even developed her own coding curriculum and taught younger children in her neighborhood library, said Lindley. DanceLogic also hired the student when the pandemic forced a switch to virtual learning, charging her with designing and implementing a virtual video-game design class for children, Lindley said.

A student taking the initiative to teach coding to younger kids is a powerful testament to the influence of the DanceLogic program in her life. But you couldn’t have written a grant saying that X students would be inspired to start their own programs. (Unless it was a grant to train people to teach others, of course.)

Art(ist) Education, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, creativity

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Similarities, Yes, But Important Differences

July 6, 2022

by:

Joe Patti

” Older audiences will only be around so long. If you teach the rising generation that the theatrical experience is completely extraneous, that experience probably won’t be around for the next one.”

Sentiments like these have been expressed for some time in the performing arts world. In fact, it has been said so often it probably has risen to the level of cliche.

However, I pulled this quote from the end of a Washington Post opinion piece regarding movie theaters. The columnist, Sonny Bunch, placed a lot of the blame on movie studios which were either streaming movies a short time after they were released in theaters or releasing the movies straight to streaming.

Judging from the comments on the piece, older audiences may not attending movies in theaters much longer either. There were complaints that movies aren’t being made for them any longer, rising concessions prices, people eating too loudly and the power recliners being uncomfortable.

While live performances share many of the same issues with movies theaters in terms of rising prices, uncomfortable seating, and being disturbed by others in the space, one advantage live experiences have is greater control of the content and nature of the experience. There is a greater capacity to provide content that engages the community at a time, place and manner suited to the particular needs of that place.

Likewise, there is a greater ability to make a decision to provide better hospitality and experiences customized to the content of a performance, unconstrained by corporate policy. Leaning into that in communications and social media to raise awareness and differentiate yourself rather than constantly promoting upcoming programming are among the best ways to leverage that advantage.

Arts Facilities, Audience Relations, Marketing/PR, Pricing, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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Arts Orgs Are Shifting Approach Post-Pandemic, Will Grantmakers?

July 5, 2022

by:

Joe Patti

A link to a video presentation about a study the Michigan Arts and Culture Council commissioned of SMU DataArts popped up in my feed last week. I am not sure what inspired me to listen all the way through because I am glad I did. There were some small unexpected revelations that popped up.

For instance, right around the 30 min mark director of SMU DataArts Zannie Voss discusses how Michigan arts organizations have a higher median working capital than the national median, however the average working capital was quite a bit lower than the national average. (Reminder of median vs average) But both the median and average were close together which Voss says is unusual. After some investigation she found this was due to Michigan arts organizations having smaller budgets than the national average.

This carried over to organizations who primarily served BIPOC communities versus those who did not primarily serve BIPOC communities. Overall BIPOC serving groups in MI had the same liquidity as non-BIPOC serving groups in MI, whereas nationally BIPOC serving groups are more liquid than non-BIPOC groups. This is due to the fact that in MI the budget size of both groups are closer to each other than their peers nationally. Generally smaller organizations tend to be more liquid than larger ones.

Voss delves more deeply into this factor by noting that smaller BIPOC serving organizations especially tend not to grow large because there is a lot of unrecognized sweat equity being invested by people. This is one of those “you have to have money to make money” situations. If an organization can’t show a cash expense because so many people donate their effort, they don’t meet foundation/donor funding thresholds to receive more money.

She the moves into recommendations for funders as organizations try to recover from Covid restrictions. The first one is to “support grantee defined strategies for recovery and adaptation” and to “place bigger bets on BIPOC serving organizations who have been disproportionately by the pandemic and racial injustice” on the scope of decades rather than a couple years. Another is to provide capacity building by supporting salaries and benefits for staffing and other operational expenses.

Specifically she encourages funders to focus on capacity building over organizational growth. Instead of pushing organizations to add programs, granters should encourage organizations to set down deeper roots to ensure stability.

Likewise she advocates for the exploration of different business models, multi-year grant commitments and encouraging arts organizations to build cash reserves.

None of these suggestions are particularly new, but the pandemic reignited the discussion of many of the issues and created a context for implementing policy changes going forward.

Advocacy, Business Models, Fundraising, Working In The Arts

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When Good Climbing Shoes Are Important For Vocal Warm Ups

June 29, 2022

by:

Joe Patti

The Artsjournal daily newsletter today linked to a Smithsonian Institution article using the title “Warm-Up Vocal Exercises From Three Very Different Classical Singing Disciplines.” From that I assumed the disciplines would be something like opera, choral, and musical theatre and that I would learn about some distinctions I wasn’t aware of.

In fact, it was much more interesting than that. The article compared warm up practices for Western Opera, Chinese Opera, and Carnatic Music, a classical form from southern India I really hadn’t heard about before.

So there was definitely content I hadn’t known. While I was aware that different part of China had different stylistic approaches to the operatic form, I didn’t know that rehearsing in high places was part of the warm up and training regimen.

Li’s parents undertook dantian and vocal warm-ups to a much greater degree than she does today: “My parents would take fabric and tie it like a belt really tightly and go up to the mountain and practice the heptatonic scale”—a seven-note scale common in Xiqu, or traditional Chinese opera. Li tells me that elevation was important. When away from the mountains, her parents would run up to a rooftop to do their exercises.

While there are video clips of singers doing warm ups for western opera and carnatic music, I was disappointed to find there wasn’t one for Chinese Opera. I did some searching and found some video of performances, but not warm ups. I will confess to half wanting to see people scaling mountains or perching themselves on an apartment or performance facility rooftop to do their warm ups.

On the other hand, carnatic music warm ups are apparently traditionally practiced an hour or two before sunrise. The singing technique is apparently contrary to the best practices of western vocal training.

Once, a company Doraiswamy sang with hired a Western-style voice coach to teach her how to take care of her voice. Hearing her sing, the coach claimed Doraiswamy’s vocal cords wouldn’t last two years. Scared by this reaction, she didn’t sing a note for a week. In reality, South Indian singers have sung without injuring themselves for centuries. A warm-up for Western classical vocalists simply would not be used to train the voice of a classical Carnatic singer, although these exercises might seem healthier by Western standards.

Check out the article by Zofia Majewski, especially if you have an interest in vocal performance. You are likely to catch some nuance and revelations that I have missed.

Art(ist) Education, Working In The Arts

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