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Welcome To The Emporium

October 30, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

There is a method of teaching math colleges have begun using called the Emporium Model. Basically, it is an inversion of the usual classroom experience. The student spends time watching videos of lectures or interacting with teaching software outside of the class period. During the class period, students essentially do “homework” with assistance from each other or the professor. The approach has shown some respectable success, especially with remedial classes.

I was wondering if a similar approach might be constructive for the arts. One of the things audiences say they value most about an arts attendance experience is the social aspect interacting with friends and other people.

It got me to thinking if there might be some value in setting up a situation where people could watch a performance or participate with some sort of massive open online course (MOOC) before gathering in an interactive setting. This interactive setting probably wouldn’t be a full live performance, but rather some sort of workshop/master class/discussion where people would have close contact with an artist/facilitator while also having informal social interactions with their friends.

This is sort of an imperfect application of the Emporium model idea because who would want to spend a few hours viewing a performance or participating in an online class of some sort in preparation for a social occasion with their friends?

Except, maybe they would. To those of us closely involved with providing live performances or opportunities to experience visual arts in person, it may seem absurd to set up a situation where we encourage people to substitute a recording or picture for the full live experience. But if people are increasingly interested in having these experiences on their own schedules, rather than ours, there may be some logic to this solution.

People can watch something in 20 minute segments throughout the week and then have fun with their friends at one of three facilitated sessions scheduled every day over the course of a week.

While this may eliminate the full live performance as we know it, it could also provide an entree to eventual attendance by making it seem like something you would inevitably do at some point. You have been going to workshops and discussions with friends for months now, why not actually attend one of those performances some time?

Peer pressure may not only motivate people to attend, but to pay closer attention to the materials they review in advance. If your friend asks why you fast forwarded past a particularly interesting section, you might be more apt to watch the video all the way through the next time and pay closer attention.

Those discussions about what was skipped can also provide hints about programming decisions to the arts group facilitating the sessions — a workshop and focus group in one!

I don’t claim this idea is full developed. It just struck me as an alternative way to use people’s desire for a positive social experience. Probably the biggest hurdle for arts organizations is making what is now seen to be their central focus ancillary to the education and social mingling.

But if colleges can make the homework the focus of the in class experience and the “lecture” portion secondary, it can be accomplished. Since it will require artists who have the skills to teach and interact as well as perform, it could provide more employment opportunities to artists.

I haven’t looked at the full active offering of MOOCs, but one benefit of this approach that I see is that a fair portion of the educational material and media has already been developed and placed in accessible locations. If the internet doesn’t already host suitable content, the distribution channels are available for anything you might create yourself.

Art(ist) Education, Arts in an Age of Technology, State of the Arts

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The Tao of Kermit the Frog (Be At Ease Making Green)

October 29, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

Over the last two months, I have found myself returning and pondering a review written by Maria Popova of the book, Make Art, Make Money, by Elizabeth Hyde Stevens. The book uses the example of Jim Henson to inform people’s creative careers.

Popova discusses Elizabeth Hyde Stevens’ use of Jim Henson as an example of a person who balanced himself between artistic and commercial success. In particular to “debunk this toxic myth” [that] …tells us art is necessarily bad if commercially successful, and commercial success necessarily unattainable if the art is any good.”

The book apparently start out talking about Henson’s 1968 Muppet appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that sets muppets chanting business jargon against those chanting idealist credos. The idealists knock the business muppets down, but soon begin to take up their jargon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97iZQvyPinQ

Stevens notes that in 1968 Henson was doing commercial work for Getty Oil, IBM, Oscar Mayer and owned a print making business. He started working for Sesame Street in 1968, but didn’t decide to stop making commercials until 1969.

I didn’t take much from the stories about Henson being a capitalist who also walked around barefoot and got together to “sing, laugh, and play with puppets in the kind of collectivism that hippies celebrated.” The social dynamics of that era have passed and there is nothing to be gained by artificially trying to recreate that environment for yourself.

What did catch my attention was a comment made by a collaborator that Henson never saw the money as an end.

“..Fraggle Rock producer Larry Mirkin, who worked with Henson:

He viewed money as energy, the energy that makes concrete things happen out of worthy ideas. Money was not an end in itself. It could provide physical infrastructure or it could help him hire other artists and technicians to realize a nascent idea. I don’t ever recall him being the least bit concerned or afraid of money or obsessed by it, which many people are. It just wasn’t what drove him — at all.

Apparently an artist’s inability to disregard money as an end and find the balance between creative freedom and commercial success is where the perception of art being tainted by money originates, according to Stevens. Finding that balance and resisting the fear or obsession with money is a difficult skill to master.

It didn’t initially occur to me as I wrote this entry, but the Muppet Show might have reflected Henson’s outlook. It was set in an old dingy theater and there were occasionally plotlines where Kermit was worrying about paying the rent, but it wasn’t a constant plot point and the Muppets never seemed to be starving artists. (Granted, they didn’t have to worry about “being stuffed” at the end of the day.)

It always just seemed like a place Kermit was running to give his friends a place to express themselves, from the borderline inept Fozzie Bear and Gonzo to the hard rocking, enthusiastic Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.

What I appreciated was Popova’s closing paragraph,

“…concept of “selling out” is just as oppressive as the very commercial ideology which it purports to defy, and that pitting doing good work against doing well robs culture of its dimension, flattening both art and financial stability into mere caricatures of real life.”

I liked the thought that extreme devotion to any ideal, whether it be art, money, fame, justice, education, becomes a “caricature of real life,” despite the frequent insistence that we are living authentically.

Art(ist) Education, Working In The Arts

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Do U.S. Arts Suffer From A Lack of Working Class Voices?

October 28, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

Earlier this month, The Independent asked “Are drama schools just for the middle classes?” The question lead a story about a youth program in England that seeks to provide training regardless of social class. The article cites:

“The domination of public school accents on stage and screen was already raising concerns about a thinning of the acting profession’s social spectrum…”

and later

“Dominic Dromgoole, the artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe, describes the lack of working-class children in the industry as a “real worry”, arguing that English theatre’s portrayal of the proletariat is what makes it distinct from its French and German counterparts.”

I tried to think about whether there is a similar concern in the U.S. about a lack of representation from all social strata in the arts.

There is an ongoing conversation that all children be exposed to the arts and be taught creative expression in school. While affluent communities are no guarantee of arts education in schools, there is a better chance of experiencing the arts in an affluent school district.

There has been concern expressed that only those with means of support are able to participate in a career enhancing internship experience. Certainly, living in certain cities provides more opportunities for employment and ability to contend with the higher cost of living may be a function of social class.

What I haven’t seen a lot of discussion about is whether there are enough actors, dancers, musicians and visual artists emerging from an appropriate cross-section of social strata. I am not sure if it is a problem, much less if anyone feels the situation is a detriment to our cultural landscape.

My first inclination is to think that the environment in the U.S. is inadvertently democratic. It is so difficult to be able to support yourself as an artist, those privileged with an extensive arts education may not enjoy a significant advantage in becoming employed in their area of study over someone with less training. As a result, few people mutter about opportunities lost to someone with a prep school education.

Is this something to examine and be concerned about? When we talk about programming not connecting with today’s audiences, could it be a result of training too many artists who come from the same narrow social strata as the audiences?

Or are people from a good cross section of society being trained and the problem is, as we often say, that those with the money have had the greatest influence on what new artists are being taught to perform?

Art(ist) Education, General Musings, Working In The Arts

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Stuff To Ponder: Bring Back The Claques

October 23, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

A few months back, Gizmodo posted a video by VSauce on the subject of clapping as a form of expression.

At about the five minute point in the VSauce video, they talk about how in the early 19th century people hired themselves out as professional “claques.” They would learn operas and then applaud and laugh at the correct places as a way to prompt the rest of the audience. Today, television shows have signs that prompt people when to respond.

I was interested to learn that while babies will naturally learn to clap, parents are encouraged to teach their children to connect clapping to an enjoyable event. Even though we might unconsciously start clapping when we see something we like, we have been socialized to do it rather than it being a natural reaction.

The big question that came to mind was, why are people so intimidated by not knowing when to clap during a symphony? Since it is a socialized practice, they can just wait until everyone else starts, right?

The place that really trips people up is the pause between movements. For a few moments, I wondered if society had betrayed classical music by creating an expectation that you start clapping immediately at the end of a piece.

Perhaps earlier audiences had more patience and let things simmer a moment before clapping and that had evolved to an ever shorter period of time?

But there was a New Yorker piece pictured in the VSauce video by Joseph Wechsberg who was a member of a claque during the mid-1920s in Vienna. He talks about how hard it was to be part of the claque for operas like Carmen because the audience was likely to break into “wild applause” at the incorrect moments and it was the job of the claque to influence the audience “into orderly channels.”

Clearly, people were no less apt to clap at the wrong times nearly 100 years ago. According to Wechsberg, even young boys followed opera and thought wild clapping was heresy so I am sure there were a lot more venomous stares being delivered in concert halls then versus now.

Individual singers would pay to have people clap for them, but it basically was just enough to cover tickets to the show so the claques were essentially just doing it for free tickets.

With that in mind, I wondered if there was any value in reviving the practice of giving people comp tickets in return for their leadership in applause? Or perhaps more constructively, to act as mentors for new attendees?

With email and social media, people with the knowledge claques possessed could be used to much greater effect than a dependable source of applause.

Since Joseph Wechsberg’s description of his claque was basically that of poor artists and students, having them act as guides in return for tickets might be an interesting and productive arrangement.

Audience Relations, Info You Can Use, New Initiatives, Volunteers

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