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Artistic Citizenship – Is It Valued, Who Will Teach It?

March 7, 2023

by:

Joe Patti

A couple months back, Arts Professional had an article by Jonathan Vaughan, Principal of Guildhall School of Music & Drama, asking if “artistic citizenship” could be taught.

Defining artistic citizenship, the academic David Elliott takes Aristotle’s concept of Praxis (‘to do’ or ‘to make’) and expands it to mean active reflection and action “dedicated to human well-being… the ethical care of others, and the positive empowerment and transformation of people and their everyday lives”.

Vaughan cites things like activism, critical thinking, disruption, civic responsibility, social value. Just as he comes around to mentioning a parallel with liberal arts education, I had a similar thought about liberal arts education having many of these same goals. The fact that I have been reading about the shrinking of liberal arts degree programs in colleges across the country made me question if these were qualities that were actually valued any more. There is certainly the ability to teach these skills, but does the will to instill these qualities still exist?

Vaughan asks an additional question about whether people would pursue an artistic curriculum focused on cultivating better citizenship over artistic excellence.

“Questions remain about how to include this training in an already busy, arguably overcrowded, curriculum. Where does it fit when the primary imperative of performance training must always be the production of outstanding performers who excel in their craft and artistry?

How can institutions avoid indoctrinating their students when introducing political or ideological concepts? Can the development of students’ independent critical thinking avoid that? And is the very concept of citizenship problematic or limiting to those it excludes?

To be clear, I don’t doubt for a moment that there are people who do want to acquire these skillsets in order to improve civil society. I just wonder if they will look to these institutions to provide this training as well as if the institutions, embroiled as they are in various levels of politics and internal inertia, would be prepared to provide the training students seek.

Art(ist) Education, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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“The Slap Is Only One Syllable In A Long Story”

March 6, 2023

by:

Joe Patti

Interesting article on Slate today written by Patrick Vala-Haynes, who teaches stage combat to middle and high school age students. If you aren’t familiar with the practice, stage combat training is focused on creating the illusion of violence while ensuring the safety of the participants. For example, when someone is grabbed by the head and thrown across the room, the basic practice is that the person being thrown has primary control over the act, not the thrower.

Vala-Haynes notes that recently he has been asked to stop teaching the contact face slap because it may trigger students and make them feel uncomfortable. The subtext seems to be that the face slap is more likely to be part of a student’s lived experience versus other stage combat scenarios like choreographed sword fights, kicks, gut punches, Shakespearean suicides by poison and daggers.

Vala-Haynes notes that even after 35 years, he is occasionally taken by surprise by a perfectly executed slap delivered by his students so there is always an opportunity to be injured physically, mentally and emotionally during stage combat.

Throughout the article he goes into great detail about the value of learning stage combat. While he doesn’t mention professional wrestling, you can see parallels in his mention of how stage combatants need to be responsible for the welfare of each other as they bring a heightened sense of excitement to the storytelling.

I don’t know these young people’s families or backgrounds. I can’t know everything they bring to a scene. And quite frankly, I don’t want them to experience the violence; I work with them to project the intent of the movement, to act with proficiency and care, and to understand that telling a story involves elements of morality, of choice. I give them tools to which they can refer when emotions might overwhelm them and threaten their control.

At its best, stage violence is dialogue, both between actors and among actors and their audience. It can be mumbled and misunderstood just as words can. The actors’ comfort with what I’ve given them is paramount to their craft. A slap is craft. All of us in theater, no matter the level, search for those perfect moments that elevate a writer’s words to epiphany. The slap is only one syllable in a long story, but one we work to get right.

Art(ist) Education, Working In The Arts

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So Is Broadway Still Burning Its Workers Out?

March 1, 2023

by:

Joe Patti

Last month CNBC had a profile of an assistant company manager working on the Broadway show “& Juliet.” If you don’t know what a company manager on a theatrical production does, it is a good illustration of the broad range of activities the role fulfills.

Schroeder’s main task every show is checking ticket sales and sending numbers up to the producers. But as assistant company manager, she has her hands in much of the behind-the-scenes logistics of the show as well….

[…]

This includes hiring the company managers, who are responsible for payroll, policy enforcement and meeting the day-to-day needs of select patrons, cast and crew.

[…]

“One of our actors, Mel, came from England,” she says as an example of a recent workday. “At one point I was balancing a payroll sheet, budgeting, and at the same time I’m unpacking, like, 200 boxes from Amazon actually moving this woman into her apartment.”

One of the reasons this article caught my attention was that people on social media were commenting that despite all the changes to work practices that supposedly occurred as Broadway moved out of Covid restrictions, this was a story of a theater professional being worked to exhaustion.

Technically, she gets one day off per week. Often she’s roped into last-minute duties even on that day, though.

“Sunday was my day off and I think we got four or five last-minute house seat orders,” she says, referring to seats booked privately through the show for VIPs or people in the company. “I spent the morning getting those last bits of ticketing in.”

The next line in the article is the subtitle ‘I’m barely breaking even’

Certainly there are a lot of people grateful to be back working on Broadway who want to pour every bit of their heart and soul into the renewed opportunities. But from this story, it doesn’t quite seem like there has been much investment into creating a better work environment for people.

Working In The Arts

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Got A Good Beat, You Can Dance To It…And It’s Taking Our Jobs

February 28, 2023

by:

Joe Patti

I was listening to an episode of the Code Switch podcast this weekend while I was out walking. The topic was about how merengue was the basis for a culture war in Puerto Rico. What, at first on the surface seemed to be a resistance to the introduction of a new type of pop music to compete with salsa gets entangled with cultural identity.

Merengue was essentially carried to Puerto Rico by waves of immigration from the Dominican Republic. The music had a different energy and was easier to dance to than salsa. One of the hosts mentioned her mother was embarrassed by how poorly her husband danced, but that he was able to do a passable job dancing to merengue rhythms.

However, in time there were violent protests and demands that merengue be outlawed because it was putting salsa musicians out of work. One merengue musician had his car set on fire. There was a lot of suspicion that it was salsa musicians, but the owner had no proof and so never filed a complaint.

The podcast hosts admit there may have been some nationalism and classism associated with the resistance since merengue was initially being introduced and performed by immigrants who may not arrived in Puerto Rico legally. Many of them seeking to use the island as a way to continue on to the U.S. There may have been a sense that these folks from the Dominican Republic were interlopers who were not invested in advancing the future of the island.

The most interesting element is that in time Puerto Rican musicians made merengue their own. The merengue song, “Suavemente,” which became ubiquitous in the late nineties was performed by a Puerto Rican musician. The guy whose car was burned was invited to the home of one of the prime suspects for the arson who admitted merengue ultimately made it possible to own the house he had.

I have been trying to think if there have been similar stories with other music forms. I know there have been plenty of protests about music being obscene or diverging from standard expectations, but has there been other instances where performers of an emerging music style have been accused of robbing other musicians of their livelihood by virtue of being more popular?

Art(ist) Education, Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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