Large professional conferences can usually drain the life out of you — with the flourescent lighting and recirculated air serving as metaphors for the vague insights and recirculated ideas that comprise their official functions. But around the edges of these events lives the true inspiration (and the true energy) for cynics like me.
Such is the case for the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference I’m still attending through the end of today — a massive gathering of thousands of arts professionals who come to New York to proffer or book performing arts events for the coming seasons. As always, there are the awards, speeches, keynotes, workshops, and exhibit floors (and floors and floors). But I have also found a renewed sense of hope for arts administration from coming here…not from the official conference (which is fine and friendly and well-intentioned), but from the activity at the edges, in the hallways, in the lobby lounge, and in whispers at the back of each group presentation.
It’s clear that we’re all baffled with the complexity of this business, and the radical changes taking place in the forces that make it run (contributed funds, ticket sales, government support, available workforce, volunteers, educated and engaged constitutents, and so on). But the glory here is in the thousands of passionate people doing the work anyway. Even in the face of abject complexity and overwhelming odds, there are wonderful individuals across the United States that are learning their audience, honing their aesthetic senses, growing their communities through performing arts. Most inspiring are the many here from non-metropolitan cities, working with nothing at all but tenacity and faith.
I know it sounds Capra-esque…so forgive me. But I can’t help thinking that if we could only tilt the management, funding, and aesthetic forces even slightly in their favor, these thousands would take off like a shot.
