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An Idea Eight Years In The Making (And Hopefully Not Nine)

February 22, 2012

by:

Joe Patti

Thursday is the 8th anniversary of this blog. I made my first post on February 23, 2004. I wouldn’t normally call attention to an oddly numbered anniversary (though 8 is considered auspicious in China), however an idea I mentioned in my second post may come to fruition. Actually, the bulk of the idea was expressed in a letter to Artful Manager Andrew Taylor which ended up printed on the Artsjournal site.

In that letter I suggested that arts organizations emulate the overtly proselytizing comic book Chick Tracts. While I am generally offended by the tracts, I appreciate their use of illustrations to catch interest and their portability which lend themselves to easy distribution by handing them off to friends or leaving them in public places. I had suggested using the same format, albeit with a less heavy handed approach, to distribute information about the arts.

That idea has been percolating in my mind as I waited for the opportunity to put it into action. That opportunity seems to have presented itself.

If you recall on Monday I mentioned how I haven taken advantage of the enthusiasm my assistant theatre managers have brought to the job to implement some of my ideas. Well this is one of them.

The current assistant theatre manager had an idea to assemble a Student Media Art Collective (SMAC – her idea) to help us promote the performances at the theatre. Our intention is to have discussions about promotion, techniques and art in general. In time we hope to bring in some guest speakers to talk to the group about various topics. I have pretty much left it up to her to organize and run. I just approve the purchase of pizza, distribution of comp tickets and show up at the meetings.

I have to say, I have been pretty impressed with the way she has run it. Even though we want these people’s help promoting the theatre, she hasn’t really mentioned that at all. What she has basically done is created a place for people to meet, eat pizza and talk about their ideas. Today she had us drawing things on file cards and post-it notes.

We have only had two meetings. Between the first one two weeks ago and the one we had today, two of the people have already started collaborating on a project together. They aren’t ready to talk about it yet. From what I have glimpsed of the proposal the one guy wrote, it seems to be some sort of fictional speculation about the origins of chess as a game.

I like the energy that is developing so far. We have provided a forum for these students who are predominantly visual artists that hasn’t been available before. I think it has been good that we have let the participants talk about their ideas rather than pressing our agenda. It has helped people feel comfortable and share their goals with the group.

I had discussed my idea to emulate the Chick Tracts with the assistant theatre manager about a week ago and while I wanted to mention today, I decided to follow her lead in regard to whether we asked them to do something for the theatre. Near the end of the meeting, she invited me to share the basic concept with the group and a number of them really liked it. During the mingling at the end of the meeting, a few approached me with the ideas they had. I was surprised that many of them were interested in producing a hard copy format rather than a digital manifestation as I had suggested. Apparently having something physical to hold is valued a bit more than I had guessed.

I will follow up by sending out some links to some websites that might provide as basis of inspiration for my Arts Tracts. Then I will step back and see what happens in the next two weeks before we meet again. Hopefully something will have been produced by this time next year.

Art(ist) Education, Arts in an Age of Technology, General Musings

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What Values Matter In Arts Grad Training Programs?

February 21, 2012

by:

Joe Patti

This weekend Scott Walters quoted an extensive comment made on another blog about the value of MFA acting programs. The gist is, students are ill served by the programs which need to focus on training students for 21st century opportunities.

This struck a chord with me because I had recently read a Fast Company article about how UC Berkeley’s Business School started to screen applicants based on whether they embodied the school’s core values. The school had decided to embrace these values in the interests of creating a “reduction of overconfidence and self-focus, which are perceived to be excessively present among the business graduates and leaders of the top business schools.”

At the time I read it, I was idly wondering if arts training programs at the master level might do something similar to address any perceived (and real) problems with those they graduate. It had been a long time since I was in grad school so I didn’t feel I knew enough about the state of things write a post about it. Having read Walter’s recent post, I am no more certain than before since it is the view of a single unidentified commenter. I do feel fairly confident in assuming that, as with most things, there is room for improvement.

I will readily admit that given my ignorance of the state of things, I don’t have any concrete suggestions about they might be done differently. I will say that one thing that stood out in the Fast Company piece was that Berkeley-Haas instituted significant changes in their program based on their stated values and then required their applicants to adhere to them.

Most remarkably, they are not simply communication tools but drive operations from the curriculum, research priorities to staff programs, and faculty hiring. The curriculum, for example, has been extensively revamped in order to introduce elements of creativity, innovation, collaboration, ethics, and social responsibility.

They made sure they embodied the values before they required the students to do the same. It would have been much easier for them to decide to implement the change by altering their admission criteria and assuming that choosing the right students would result in producing the right graduates. But that is less likely if the infrastructure surrounding the students doesn’t emulate and reinforce the values the school wishes to cultivate in its graduates.

Successful realization of any goal is easier for any entity if all members are aligned toward attaining it. Probably the most powerful thing an arts training program can do to convince applicants that it can prepare them to ply their craft in the current environment is to point to a major realignment of priorities to that end.

As the commenter that Walters quotes, SayItLoud, notes, theatre training programs often cite successful graduates and places their students have worked or can intern at. As impressive as that is, the reality is the path those graduates took to success may no longer be viable.

What training programs may really need to do is say to applicants, “We’ve changed ourselves from top to bottom and what success requires now is to push you off the conventional path. This is not the place to pursue training in becoming a triple-threat, actor/singer/dancer. You may have become a video editor/painter/acrobat or a ecologist/architect/percussionist or all six plus four things we aren’t mentioning. Do your interests, values and practices align with ours?”

At the very least, it will get everyone thinking about the whole training process. Given that the current conversation is that arts organizations need to change the way they operate and interact with audiences, you aren’t leading students astray by telling them they need to obtain a wider spectrum of skills. Like as not, they will be the ones helping to drive the change with the types of works they develop.

Art(ist) Education, Arts in an Age of Technology, Business Models, Management Philosophy, State of the Arts

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Info You Can Use: Point Some Strong Light At Your Brainstorm

February 20, 2012

by:

Joe Patti

Hat tip to Ian David Moss at Createquity who linked to a New Yorker article on brainstorming in one of his “around the horn” summaries.

The article talks about how the whole idea of brainstorming without criticism for fear of causing someone to censor themselves is less effective at generating good ideas than having someone work alone or engage in brainstorming with debate.

What was really interesting to me was how the importance of opposing ideas applied to artistic collaborations.

According to the data, the relationships among collaborators emerged as a reliable predictor of Broadway success. When the Q was low—less than 1.7 on Uzzi’s five-point scale—the musicals were likely to fail. Because the artists didn’t know one another, they struggled to work together and exchange ideas. “This wasn’t so surprising,” Uzzi says. “It takes time to develop a successful collaboration.” But, when the Q was too high (above 3.2), the work also suffered. The artists all thought in similar ways, which crushed innovation.

[…]

The best Broadway shows were produced by networks with an intermediate level of social intimacy…A show produced by a team whose Q was within this range was three times more likely to be a commercial success…It was also three times more likely to be lauded by the critics. “The best Broadway teams, by far, were those with a mix of relationships,” Uzzi says. “These teams had some old friends, but they also had newbies. This mixture meant that the artists could interact efficiently—they had a familiar structure to fall back on—but they also managed to incorporate some new ideas. They were comfortable with each other, but they weren’t too comfortable.”

Brian Uzzi, the sociologist who is cited in the story attributes the success of West Side Story to the fact that Broadway veterans Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents brought the novice Stephen Sondheim on board.

So the lesson for arts organizations might be to keep turn over down so you maintain a good team of artistic/administrative collaborators but introduce people/concepts that take everyone out of their comfort zone a little bit. This applies to boards as much as administrative staff and artistic teams.

Adding an unknown factor to spice things up isn’t a new concept and obviously not the only ingredient for success, but still good to have a little evidence to support the practice.

The New Yorker article resonates with me because I have recently been thinking about the people who have been in the assistant theatre manager position the last few years. We have had three in the 7.5 years I have been running the facility. The first two left to enter graduate school in southeast Asia. Each one of them has brought a different set of skills and interests. I view this as an opportunity to employ their enthusiasm to implement some programs and ideas I have. (I have a few in the works I hope are successful enough to blog on in the next few months.)

Info You Can Use, Leadership, New Initiatives, Terms and Ideas

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What Must They Think Of Us

February 15, 2012

by:

Joe Patti

In diplomacy terms, soft power is a nation’s culture and values as opposed to their economic and military power. Some institutions like McDonalds and Apple cross some of the boundaries between these three areas. For better or for worse, they represent aspects of both U.S. culture and economic power. This week I came across a blog post on the Voice of America (another channel of U.S. soft power) by a student from China who is studying in North Dakota.

I was a little chagrined to learn that everything Dandan knew about the U.S. before coming here, she learned from soap operas.

“When I was still in China, the only American art or entertainment I knew about was the American soap operas. In fact, I got my initial impression of America from “Criminal Minds,” “Sex and the City,” “Gossip Girl” and so on. Although these soap operas were quite ridiculous, even to my eyes, I still believed that most often they presented what was really going on in America.

These soap operas told me that the crimes in America almost existed everywhere and could be extremely disgusting, that everyone has sex and is open about talking about it, and that people in the Upper East Side were presumptuous and arrogant.

Yet when I came to America, the first lesson I learned from my classmates was that soap operas are not as popular as I expected, at least not amongst college students. Lots of people I know haven’t even watched one episode of those “famous” soap operas.

She goes on to talk about how impressed she was by a college theatre production. She also quite taken with her participation in a slavery simulation where she was sold in slave auction and escaped into the night hiding with others in basements until they reached freedom in Minnesota.

I think the arts community may need to add “tools of positive diplomacy” to the rationale for funding and look into getting on the State Department’s cultural ambassador program expanded. There is a lot of counteracting of our national image that apparently needs to be done abroad and we don’t always have to send the big symphonies, Broadway tours and ballets overseas in order to accomplish it. Not everyone is going to be able to see the big American company in the big performance hall in the major city. Smaller groups can bring interesting experiences to other places within countries.

Sure, it is in the best interests of some countries if the citizens have a poor impression of the United States. I figure if we can negotiate to have our military based placed on foreign soil, we must have the skills to create more opportunities for expressions of U.S. culture abroad. China, France and Germany have their Confucius Institutes, Alliance Francaise, and Goethe-Institut, respectively. The U.S. has the Peace Corps as one of its exemplar soft power organizations. Maybe we need an Arts and Culture Corps, too.

Honestly, I think the need and benefit of cultural exposure is probably mutual. U.S. citizens need the experience of traveling and performing abroad as much as people of other cultures need to be exposed to something other than our television programs.

General Musings, State of the Arts

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