Rare Relaxing Residencies for Arts and Culture Managers

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Always on the look out for programs that benefit arts managers, I came across the following listing offering residencies to arts and cultural managers at a location in Key West. For some reason, they don’t promote the opportunity on their website. You need a subscription to reach the website on which it was listed. But such is my desire to make people aware of the opportunity, I am reproducing selected portions of the listing here. If you are interested, you can contact them and they can regale you with all the benefits of their facility.

Artists and Managers in Their Natural Environment!
I am aware of numerous organizations that provide residency to artists but this is the first I have encountered that offers them to leaders and administrators. Since you would theoretically go alone, it wouldn’t be a staff retreat where you engage in group strategizing or team building activities. It might be beneficial for administrators to mix with creative artists for whom they would have no responsibility. There would be no pressure to rein in, budget money for or contract the services of the creative artists. It is not often arts managers have an extended time in an arts environment free of these considerations. It might actually help managers and artists develop healthier attitudes toward each other. From my experiences in performing arts and from what I have read on blogs and articles, I don’t think there is an arts discipline where the relationships aren’t at least guarded.

Anyhow, here is the listing. Hopefully one of my intrepid readers or their friends will have the opportunity to engage in a constructive stay.

Mull Management in Mango Tree House

IT’S NOT A JOB, IT’S A CREATIVE ISLAND ADVENTURE The Studios of Key West, an emerging creative community at America’s Southernmost Point, seeks cultural managers and innovative arts administrators for 1 to 2 week residencies in our Mango Tree House. This residency requires no work, no problem solving, no meetings or presentations, and no reporting of any kind. Directors, program officers, and Alliance of Artists Communities’ leaders: Tell us your dates, plan your travel, and think Zen.

A SHORT TROPICAL RETREAT FOR ARTS ADMINISTRATORS As a companion to our longer-term Artist-in-Residence program, this short-term stay in Key West’s Old Town can include project research, program planning, networking and collaborating; or it can simply be a retreat-like hermitage on a warm and libertarian island, away from the usual workaday environment. TSKW is currently considering the short-term residency needs of academics, cultural managers, critics, instituional officers, museum professionals, and other professional people involved in forging high, low, popular, and obscure culture. Time and space in Key West will provide new influences and fresh experiences, and an appreciation for life here in the Conch Republic, 30 leagues North of Havana, America’s Mile Marker 0, Cayo Hueso

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The Studios of Key West is proud to offer a handful of 1 to 2 week residencies for America’s Cultural Managers and Arts Administrators each year. If you have time off to travel to the Southernmost Point, and are interested in a singular retreat opportunity, please contact us for details on how to proceed.

IS THIS A VACATION? Yes, but it’s also a new form of professional development, in a place that will welcome and honor your presence, at a new kind of creative community. Learn about us here www.tskw.org, then contact Eric Vaughn Holowacz Executive Director at eric@tskw.org

THE FINE PRINT Cultural managers, arts administrators, artistic directors and producers, program officers and curators who can get away from their busy roles for a week or two are welcome to express interest in the TSKW Cultural Manager Residency. Participants must be able to cover travel to and from Key West, as well as some living expenses while on the island. […]

Come Early And Watch

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I really love watching productions come together. Last night I was watching a dress rehearsal for a show we are opening on Friday. I always do so around this time so I can spot any audience related concerns that didn’t occur to anyone to tell me. I usually watch for things like strobe use, characters entering from the audience that will necessitate holding late seating or people returning from restrooms. I also keep an eye out for things that might offend audiences despite assurances that there is nothing offensive in the show. (Yeah, right)

I give feedback on the production. I don’t engage in any of the meddling for which producers are stereotypically infamous. Generally I just talk about things that confused me because of costuming, point out some overacting that went on while the director was looking elsewhere or note that people were bumping the scrim during backstage crossovers.

A recent development I have been pleased to see is the migration of staging techniques from our smaller experimental Lab Theatre space to our Mainstage. In that space activity begins as people are being seated prior to the performance, segues in the performance proper and through the intermission. What I have liked is that the action has been appropriate for the performance and has engaged the audience’s interest. Seats are filled well before the show begins so there is no need to chase people in from the lobby or wait while stragglers pick up tickets.

Beyond guaranteeing order and promptness, I appreciate that this is a step away from the pattern of arrive, sit quietly during the show, leave. People can talk during the pre-show and intermission or watch as they please. It also gives the performers an opportunity to create something original within the bounds of the production circumstances. They can develop their character a little more. Infrequently seen characters can get a little more performance time.

My hope is that something more evolves out of it and takes theatre to the next stage in engaging the audience. My fear is that the practice will move from appropriate to gratuitous as people decide it is a cool thing to do and attempt to include it in every performance. Not only will it be ill considered artistically, but it can also halt the evolution I hope for if people get stuck in the rut.

The mainstage production we are opening doesn’t actually incorporate original work but rather uses a song from the script as a musical interlude during the intermission to lead back into the show. One consideration in attempting what I have described here is that inclusion of original work before and in the middle of a performance may run counter to the intent of the creator and invalidate your performance license. You may also run into copyright infringement. Our Lab space has done out of copyright works or added the action with the approval (and some times participation) of the playwright.

None of things mean it is a bad idea. I am sure this not a unique idea and other theatres regularly use these techniques. In fact, I am pretty sure at best it may be a new take on a very old idea.

Bullets and Hooks For The Arts!

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Amid all the press about the Obama victory last week and the extremely slim margin of votes separating Norm Coleman and Al Franken in Minnesota, you may have missed the news that Minnesotans passed a constitutional amendment to increase the sales tax 3/8 of 1% to fund the cleaning and maintenance of Minnesotan lakes, parks and wildlife areas and to fund the arts.

Arts Go Fishing And Catch Some Money
You may be wondering, as I was, how the arts and culture became a part of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment. According to a couple sources, sport fishermen and hunters found a common cause with the arts. On the Pioneer Press website, Chris Niskanen writes (my emphasis)

“A small part of the general fund (about $10 million) goes toward arts funding (out of the state’s $34 billion budget), but about one-third was cut during the state’s budget crisis in 2003. The hunting and fishing community at first opposed arts being added to the amendment, but saw arts supporters had similar arguments for funding. The alliance ultimately helped the amendment pass the Legislature and, perhaps, will help it pass on Nov. 4.”


Bait Your Hook With A Powerful Lure-Arts and Culture

But the quote I really liked came from an article Artsjournal.com linked to in which columnist Jay Weiner writes,

“As it was, the pioneers of the amendment idea — the sportsmen with bullets and hooks — were wary enough of the arts being included … until they saw the political power of the statewide arts and cultural organizations.”

My first thought upon reading this was that if this is true, the Minnesota arts community should be the envy of the rest of the country. Every state should be lucky enough to have an arts community with enough political clout to help get a constitutional amendment passed. Of course, that influence didn’t magically appear, the state arts community would have been working on cultivating it over the course of years and probably decades.

If you have any ambition of trying something like this in your state, read Niskanen’s piece which addresses the arguments for and against the amendment.

You may also want to read Weiner’s article which addresses the apparently mocking suggestion that the Minnesota Vikings should have gotten on board the amendment so they could get a stadium. Weiner points out first that as fervent as sports fans in Minnesota are, they never seem to rally behind their teams politically. The other thing he mentions is that berating the arts and parks people perpetuates an environment which keeps sports fans from forming coalitions. Some interesting thoughts on the whole from a sports writer.

Work For Obama? Yes, You Can!

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Get Your Plum
The presidential transition team has set up a website at Change.gov where you can actually apply for a non-career position with the new government. There is a link to the transition directory in the lower right hand corner to give you an idea of what to expect if you apply. Even though it is a similar color, it apparently is not the famed Plum Book though you probably can use it to get a sense of the general department for which you may want to work.

I mention this in hopes some passionate people interested in government service will step forward for the NEA, NEH and other cultural and educational departments. There is certainly a need for competent people to enter public service. A foundation endowing the Wilson School at Princeton University is suing the school for not preparing enough people to enter government.

What You Should Really Look At
Even if you have no ambition to work for the government, you may want to contribute at the American Moment: Share Your Vision link. I am sure there are a lot of people with millions of ideas who will contribute via this page and anything we send may get lost in the crush. Still there is a better chance of something happening than if nothing is said.

The page provides the ability to upload a photo or video. My immediate thought was that if someone knows of a great program out there they should create a well written document supported by images and video. Share your vision for an arts education program based on something that works in at a school district in Montana. Talk about the way the local government partnered with industry to lead community investment in that arts center overlooking Lake Erie. Tell them about your idea for changing the tax code to provide arts organizations with other alternatives to the 501 (c) (3) structure. I had no intent of submitting anything myself, but now as I write, I begin to have some ideas.