In response to my post last week about the surge of people seeking my advice regarding the open meeting and open records laws of their states based on a 2016 ArtsHacker post I had written, ArtsHacker editor-in-chief suggested I write another post listing some of the resources I had found.
I responded that given every state had its own laws, there really wasn’t any centralized source(s) of information I could point to that a person could reference.
Much to my chagrin, there is still apparently a lot one can say on the matter as I managed to hammer out more than 1000 words of advice regarding how to research open meeting and records laws in your state.
One of the interesting things I have come to realize is that in some states, it appears that technically the members of the board of directors may not have the right to review the records of the organization they govern. There may be more to write on this topic in the future…
The article opens with a video of Joshua Henry taking a phone from an audience member and tossing it under the seating riser (without missing a note in his song), noting that Henry had already been indicating his disapproval with being recorded for three songs.
The New York Times article poses a number of questions for students to consider and discuss. While I feel the questions are a little leading toward certain answers, they, or questions like them, could prove useful as a starting point for arts & cultural organizations as part of a conversation with younger audiences (or potential audiences) about their expectations.
I will say, of the student responses made in the article comments section, there were more inclined against the use of phones than I had expected. Many of the commenters were from the same school so perhaps they were generated by like-minded friends.
There is also an opportunity to have those participating in a discussion you host do a little more research on whatever scenario is being discussed.
For example, when I first learned about Annie-Sophie Mutter stopping the performance, my impression was that the person in the audience had only just started recording a short snippet. In later interviews, Mutter said the woman recorded the whole first movement and then pulled out another phone and an external power source and started recording the second movement. This adds a little more context for a discussion.
Making audiences of all ages feel welcome at performances and other cultural events will inevitably require addressing the issue of recording. I suspect that other than luck and perceptive ability, the more constructive policies will result from having conversations with audiences rather than by straight fiat or debating about it in the comments section of websites.
I basically pointed out that while pretty much every state requires a non-profit organization receiving state funds to comply with open meeting laws, every state is different when it comes to defining at what degree of state support an organization needs to begin complying.
In some states, the existence of your non-profit pretty much needs to be established by an act of the legislature, while in other states being provided with a meeting space in a state owned building is all that is required to make your organization subject to the state open meetings and records laws.
I am not sure what has happened in the last year or so, but pretty much once a month now someone leaves a comment asking if an organization in their state is subject to open meetings or open records laws. I pretty much end up saying, “You should really consult a lawyer on this subject, but here is what I found online about the laws in your state.”
I have yet to find a state that doesn’t have the rules governing non-profits posted online somewhere, pretty clearly labeled. So if you are curious about your state, I encourage you to check online first because that is all I am going to do. (Check both the sections on open meetings and retention and access to records.)
Some states have some pretty good guides created to answer questions about open meetings and non-profits. It is good to have your secretary of state telling you clearly what the state laws do and don’t require.
I call attention to all this because I am wondering why there is a surge in questions on the post. There are far more comments on that post than anything else I have written on the site. Have search engines started giving it better placement in results? Are people seeking greater transparency from the organizations with which they are involved and don’t know where to find answers? (Or perhaps, the closure of so many local newspapers means a lack of people to help them find answers)
If anyone has theories, please share.
I should note, I am not sure any of the queries have come from people involved with arts and culture organizations. Only about half provide any details that identify what sort of organization they are working with and none of them have been arts related.
This weekend we hosted a performance by the dance company Diavolo. You may be familiar with them as a finalist on America’s Got Talent, but they have been around since 1993 and have been on my radar since the early 2000s. They have been on my wishlist of groups to present for nearly two decades so I was happy to have the opportunity to do so this weekend.
They bill themselves as “Diavolo: Architecture in Motion” because they utilize some pretty significantly sized objects as part of their performance. I have included their sizzle reel below so you can get a sense of what that means.
I wouldn’t consider myself a dance person really at all. When I was watching the performance, I started thinking that they, moreso than any other dance or cirque type company I had seen, really honored the size, mass and shape of the objects with which they were working.
Instead of deciding what they wanted to do and then building an apparatus to make it happen, I felt like they started with the object as a partner and then created their work, acknowledged the fact the item blocked our sight at different times to hide and reveal things. I had the sense they were following the existing weight and motion of the objects rather than making the objects serve their purpose.
Almost immediately, I questioned whether it was really true they were among a few focused on synchronizing with the objects and honoring their physical properties to create dance vs. bending objects to their needs. I suspected they weren’t the only dance company that started from the physicality of the object and created from there. I figured it was likely I had seen it happen a dozen times before and had finally accumulated enough experience that I recognized what was happening.
I want to resist a simplistic explanation of experience and exposure. Research is showing that people are not “aging into” an appreciation of classical music. I don’t want to credit what I was recognizing this weekend as simply aging into an appreciation of dance.
I am okay with a complicated explanation of experience and exposure. I just resist an explanation that implies a sense of inevitability.
A month ago as I was traveling to a conference, I realized I was making little stutter steps getting on and off of escalators and moving sidewalks even though I have a lifetime of experience with these mechanisms. I was thinking about that Saturday night when one of the dancers sat lightly down on the huge rocking semi-circle and traveled upward without disturbing its motion or evincing any difficulty or hesitation dealing with the change of inertia.
The fact drawing a connection between mounting airport escalators and hopping on oversized playground equipment was a necessary element in my enlightenment this weekend indicates that the factors involved in growing an appreciation of a creative discipline are numerous and complex.
I also quickly recognized that “honoring the size, mass and shape of the objects,” was exactly the dense terminology that turns people new an experience off of it. (I swear, I was paying close attention to the performance. I am capable of simultaneously processing epiphanies and sitting in rapt attention.)
The “honoring…” phrase was legitimately the way I encapsulated what I was experience for myself in the moment but it definitely sounds like something someone would say to make themselves sound authoritative and perhaps stifle contrary views.
Basically what I am trying to say is there is nothing wrong with finding that dense, sophisticated terminology is necessary to distill the fullness of your experience for yourself. Just realize the weight of those words may feel like a bludgeon to those who hear them. Diluting your impressions with broader, simpler context is probably necessary for people to understand your experience.
I think the issue is that many of us in the arts aren’t very practiced in employing the broader, simpler context familiar to our wider community.
"Though while the author wishes they could buy it in Walmart..." Who is "they"? The kids? The author? Something else?…