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Revisiting Fuzzy Definitions

July 10, 2017

by:

Joe Patti

I am off on vacation to the Canadian Rockies for a week or so. If you don’t hear from me again, it may be that the Banff Centre for the Arts is as awesome as I hear and I am hiding out there.

As always when I am traveling, I have looked back at my archives to see what past thoughts may still have relevance today.

I came across a post I did in 2008 where I spoke about Alan Brown’s observation that in the 1997 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts conducted by the NEA.

Brown lists an admittedly small excerpt of the verbatim responses to the question: “What was the last “classical music” concert that you attended?” Among the answers listed are Tito Puentes, The Stompers, Showboat with Tom Bosley, Music Man, King and I and Oliver.

For the question, “What was the last “opera” that you attended,” Phantom of the Opera appears five times along with Les Miz, Brigadoon and “It was on Broadway” (remember, these are recorded verbatim).

Not having access to all the raw data, I have no idea what percentage of the answers these represent. As I suggested, it does make you wonder when people answer surveys that they enjoy and want to see more classical music or opera, if your concept of classical music/opera is the same as theirs. These results are from 10 years ago so I wonder how much less significant these categories are to people these days.

Now it is 20 years since that survey was conducted so I think what people consider as falling into those categories may be less defined. In that 2008 post, I wondered if it might be better to de-emphasize labels to a great degree.

Acknowledging that people don’t care how performances are categorized as long as they have an enjoyable experience changes the way you market performances. If the definition of classical music is rather nebulous, the fact that the violinist received a Pomme Rouge when they were 17 is nearly bereft of meaning. (As it should be, my mother was giving me pommes rouge before I was 5 years old.) Marketing has to focus on why someone will enjoy the performance and not overly concern itself with convincing someone they like the organization’s definition of classical music or whether the recipient likes classical music at all.

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Of course, the water flows both ways in regard to this sentiment. When asked if they liked opera, someone might say they liked Phantom but didn’t really care for The Magic Flute. A good experience with what they think is opera, classical music, Shakespeare (but really Oscar Wilde), won’t guarantee liking the “real” thing. Nor may it inspire experimentation even if they equate Phantom with opera due to simple lack of name recognition.

At the core the idea is that defining labels allow people to decide whether they like something before they try it. We have done it since we were kids and asked what was in food so we could decide we didn’t like it if it had an ingredient we don’t like. We have probably all run into people who said something along the lines of “you said that was jazz, but that isn’t REAL jazz because…” They can’t enjoy it because it doesn’t fit a slot neatly.

At the same time, I am not suggesting the approach should be, “trust us sight unseen, you will like it.” Provide people with information, video links, etc so they can make a decision. I am just suggesting not to place that information behind a label that allows them to decide without exploring.

Audience Relations, Marketing/PR

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Wait, Look Behind You

July 5, 2017

by:

Joe Patti

I don’t remember where I came across this recently since the story is over a year old. Photographer Oliver Curtis embarked on an interesting project where he started taking pictures with his back to famous landmarks.

The project came about back in 2012, when Curtis was visiting the Pyramids of Giza. Upon turning around, he realized that he had never seen the “hidden side” of that well-known place. So, he began documenting these views in a project of his own…

In each of the photos in the series, captured over the past 4 years, the viewer is told where the photo was captured and is invited to look upon the scene without the smallest glimpse of the actual landmark that people visit from all over the world to see.

The full collection of images for the Volte-Face project are on the artist’s website. If you want the challenge of trying to guess where things are without the benefit of visible captions, you should view it there.

He has images facing away from the Statue of Liberty, The Great Wall of China, Taj Mahal, Buckingham Palace and dozens of other places.

What initially hooked me was his photograph facing away from the Mona Lisa. We hear tales of people rushing through the Louvre and crowding in front of the painting trying to get a picture. It either wasn’t crowded in the gallery when he took the picture or he stood with his back to the crowd. The sense of this is what you are missing if you focus solely on the famous was interesting to me.

I won’t claim to always be observant and absorb all my surroundings when I am visiting a famous place, but I think I do a pretty good job of taking in my surroundings.

What is sometimes surprising is just how mundane and unassuming some of the places appear when you have your back turned to them. The bench and pool in front of the Taj Mahal, you would expect based on pictures of the landmark. However, the fresh tree stump and apartment buildings taken while facing away from the Eiffel Tower makes you wonder how close to the structure he was when he took the picture. The same with the utterly unremarkable view away from the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

creativity

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Pronouncing Citizenship

July 4, 2017

by:

Joe Patti

Here is a cool tidbit for the 4th of July.

A friend of mine owns a business that provides the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) pronunciations and translations for operas and Latin masses. So if you need to sing an aria but don’t speak Italian, German, French, etc, you can purchase a guide to the correct pronunciation and literal translation of the work from him.

What I never really thought about is that people who don’t speak English also need help singing songs in that language as well.

This week, my friend posted about how the US State Department had contacted him back in 2013 to get the IPA pronunciation for the “Star Spangled Banner” and “Pledge of Allegiance” so that immigrants seeking naturalization would have help with both.

Like the rest of us, they are left on their own to wrestle with the vocal range of the national anthem.

Uncategorized

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Cycling With Your Board’s Soul

July 3, 2017

by:

Joe Patti

I don’t think I could have timed it any better…

Last week, Anne Midgette wrote a piece in the Washington Post about the various and confusing roles boards of directors play in the performing arts.

What do boards do? It varies from one company to another. Some performing arts boards serve in a purely advisory function — voting on new hires, for example, sometimes only nominally rubber-stamping choices made by the artistic staff. Other boards, though, have fiduciary responsibility, providing vital financial support to keep the doors open.

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Yet there’s an odd disconnect between the size and financial heft of performing-arts boards and their actual function. Some board members would laugh at the idea that they exercise considerable influence on an organization; some, indeed, resent being viewed as “walking checkbooks,” with the implication that they should pony up and shut up. Although board members often bring considerable business expertise to the table, the attitude often prevails that they don’t really understand art and shouldn’t sully it with mundane business considerations. This leads to a Catch-22, whereby board members are branded as Philistines by harping on issues such as financial viability and ticket sales, but are kept at arms’ length from creative mandates — or from exercising oversight in a meaningful way.

Where the good timing comes in relates to a piece that I tossed in the hopper at ArtsHacker.com that ended up published today, the same day I saw Midgette’s article. (h/t Artsjournal.com).

The ArtsHacker post calls attention a fascinating article from the Non-Profit Quarterly about the cyclical stages a board will go through. I have rarely, if ever, seen the topic discussed. This is regrettable because it brings clarity to a topic that is replete with stereotypes, assumptions and misunderstandings.

According to the article boards tend to go from deferring to the executive staff to becoming more involved in the wake of a crisis to really being engaged with the organization to ceding authority to the executive staff and then becoming more engaged again after a crisis.

Many of the issues Midgette mentions pop up at different points in the cycle. At some points the board sees their role as bringing expertise to the organization. At a different point, the board is mostly about prestige and the members only start thinking about the challenges facing the organization about 30 minutes before the meeting.

At their best, the board is engaged and focused on good governance, working in active partnership with the staff and holding them to account for decisions. At worst, they are relatively disengaged and unfocused on the concerns of the organization.

By and large, I don’t know staffs or boards of directors of non-profits are really aware that this cycle of changing dynamics exists. Those in a bad situation grouse reinforcing established stereotypes and those in a good situation count their blessings and pray it continues until they retire or cycle off the board. There is no sense that one can actually exert influence over the situation.

By understanding the characteristics of each stage, you can better identify where your organization’s relationship with its board is. Knowing that, you can work on moving things toward a more productive stage or work to prevent a good environment from souring.

Boards, Leadership, Management Philosophy, Working In The Arts

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