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Developing New Skills & Capacities

December 9, 2020

by:

Joe Patti

In my post Monday I was wondering what influence Covid might have on dance choreography given the visual range of cameras, etc. Tuesday morning I woke up and saw a link on Artsjournal.com to an NPR interview with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre Artistic Director Robert Battle which partially answered that question.

Battle talks about a lot of the challenges the Ailey company had to navigate while trying to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Alvin Ailey’s “Revelations”, a signature piece created during the Civil Rights era. Many of the challenges they faced were familiar – testing for the virus, changing the spacing between people, rehearsing in unfamiliar spaces and rendering a performance for an unfamiliar medium.

However, Battle also talks about lessons learned that they hope to leverage to their benefit even after Covid restrictions are lifted. This serves as an important example to all in the arts community because it is generally acknowledged that there is no return to the previous operating environment. As a result, new skills and capacities need to be developed. (my emphasis):

BATTLE: I definitely think so because often, you know, necessity is the mother of invention. And sometimes, that thing that you, you know, you have to do differently and rethink and reimagine actually sticks around, you know (laughter)? It’s like, I can’t imagine that once we’re back doing live performance that some of the things we’ve learned about filming dance and embracing that as a thing unto itself rather than only a response to not being able to be in the theater, but to go into the art of filming dance – and I think that’s what’s wonderful about what we did with “Revelations.” You know, we did the “Wade In The Water” part outside in the garden. So it gave you that sense of being more authentic. So it just offered us such opportunities.

And so we want to make the filming look as if that’s what it’s meant to be – that it’s not saying, oh, well, unfortunately, we can’t be in the theater, so we’re going to do this. But we want it to look as if that was the intention all the time. And that’s what I think we’re achieving.

Art(ist) Education, creativity, Working In The Arts

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Germany Would Like You To Perform With Confidence

December 8, 2020

by:

Joe Patti

Big thanks to Rainer Glaap who sent me a link to a news report that Germany has created a $2.5 billion cancellation fund that would allow event organizers to plan shows in the third and fourth quarter of 2021 with some confidence by promising to cover any Covid related losses. They are also working on funding to mitigate against losses due to capacity restrictions.

Scholz said that the federal government would like to reimburse all costs “which were made in optimistic expectation and cannot be realised due to corona restrictions” for events in the second half of 2021. “Otherwise the pandemic will be over at some point, but there will be no concerts. And so the whole machinery with the many self-employed soloists and musicians gets back on its feet,” he added.

Scholz says he is also working on a funding program to support cultural events that are financially impacted by capacity restrictions enforced due to coronavirus, as well as hybrid shows.

Apparently Austria implemented a similar program in October and ended up putting it into practice a short time later:

The protective umbrella was put to use sooner rather than later when Austria went into lockdown on 3 November. The lockdown was lifted today, however leisure facilities and cultural institutions will not be permitted to reopen.

Similarly motivated to stimulate cultural activity, the article reports that Denmark had provided subsidies for organizing socially distanced events in September and October.

The insurance and subsidy approaches both provide interesting models for the Save Our Stages effort in the US. I suspect other countries have arrived at additional plans that would be equally viable and worth exploring.

Advocacy, Finance, Government Relations, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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So Would That Be A Plaque of Plays?

December 7, 2020

by:

Joe Patti

On occasion I have conversations with co-workers and colleagues about how Covid-19 may change the general aesthetics of live performance in the future.

For example: Will lingering concerns about physical contact result in staging and blocking which places people at even greater distances from each other on stage? Will dance choreography change based on the limited visual scope of web cameras? (e.g. movement doesn’t range too far to the left or right) or under the influence of TikTok choreography which is dominated by upper torso movement?

We figured many movie and play scripts and performances in general would contain themes of estrangement and isolation or space, manifested in emotional, mental, physical and spiritual terms.

What hasn’t been mentioned, though it has sort of lurked unspoken at the fringes, is the likelihood of some pretty didactic works about the experience of Covid-19.

Fortunately, the satire site The Beaverton, feels no compunction about addressing this topic in their “story” titled “Health Canada warns of inevitable “spring wave” of terrible COVID-inspired Fringe plays.” (Apologies to whomever tweeted the story. I hadn’t made note of your identity.)

Apparently there is the potential for a pandemic just as virulent as the Covid virus itself:

Case modelling indicates that various poorly-written scripts and “workshop drafts” are currently incubating all across the country. Health Canada warned of asymptomatic carriers who may seem healthy, despite currently using their Notes app to brainstorm ideas for a painfully unfunny sketch comedy revue with premises like “Speed Dating on Zoom” and “rap song about CERB?”.

“These terrible Fringe plays will no doubt ravage the bodies and minds of previously-healthy Canadians,” explained Dr. Tam gravely. “The kind of outbreaks we face might include: amateur actors who just can’t project loud enough while wearing PPE masks; some kind of weird clown thing where they dress up as the coronavirus and force audience members to join them onstage; or even pathetically-misguided attempts to thematically suggest that the real virus all along was ‘social media’.”

Submitted for your amusement (and potentially inspiration for your own Covid-themed show)

General Musings

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What The Hell…Oh Wait That Is A Pre-Covid Picture

December 2, 2020

by:

Joe Patti

I have a post on ArtsHacker today encouraging people to really think about what message their promotional photos are sending as we hopefully will start to move out of Covid restrictions.

ArtsHacker-in-chief Drew McManus praised me for thinking of such a timely topic to write on and I responded that it was largely inspired by a true story.

At my day job we have been able to mount some smaller scale events like movie screenings, storytelling sessions and outdoor concerts using our fire escape as a stage. Even with all the measures we have taken to ensure social distancing, people have a hard time conceiving of themselves seeing indoor events. We had the manager and mascot of our local baseball team introduce a screening of A League of Their Own this summer. When they told a co-worker where they were going, she was interested in attending until she found out the screening was indoors. At the same time, she was willing to go to a restaurant where she would be sitting a lot closer to other people and have worse air circulation.

As a result, my staff and I have been putting time and effort into taking pictures of people attending performances spaced apart at an appropriate distance. We have pictures of parents helping their kids pump hand sanitizer and everyone wearing masks. These pictures pepper our web page and appear at seemingly random intervals on our social media pages. All calculated to present an accurate, reassuring image of an experience at our venue.

It wasn’t long ago that we noticed social media posts by another arts organization promoting an upcoming concert. The image they used depicted a packed indoor concert which I am 90% certain was a stock photo rather than from one of their shows. Later they emblazoned “Sold Out!” across the same image which reinforced the idea that there were shows going on locally where people were crushed together.

The truth is, the show they were doing was at an outdoor amphitheater which employs solid social distancing guidelines. While it was sold out because of social distancing guidelines, attendance didn’t reach the fire code capacity of the space. The post-event pictures reflected this with masked people seated in a grassy area a respectable distance from one another.

While pictures of people spread out across the frame isn’t as sexy as a mass of people with open mouthed expressions of delight, it is a lot more reassuring for audiences during these cautious times. Right now a lot of people are seeking that measure of confidence over a mass communal experience.

Just think about how many times in the last 9 months you have reflexively felt uncomfortable with how blase people in a video or picture were being about masks and social distancing only to realize the performance or gathering depicted was from 18 months ago.

A year ago how I promoted my event didn’t really impact the way people perceived your event. Now the question is much less about which of many activities you want to choose and more about IF you feel comfortable making a choice to participate in a public activity at all. As a result, how other organizations present an experience has a much greater influence on the lens through which people perceive your event.