As it turns out, I’m far too consumed in attending the National Performing Arts Convention to write about its content yet. But I hope to do so over the coming days. In the meanwhile, I’ve been struck by the curious contradictions in the particular part of Denver we’re in. The Colorado Convention Center is a […]
Fixed seating vs. flexible space
As I begin my week at the National Performing Arts Convention in Denver (convention posts likely to start tomorrow), I’m eager to find individuals and organizations rethinking how the performing arts work — how they engage, how they operationalize their vision, how they escape common knowledge and professional habit to find a more sustainable and […]
Prepping for Denver
Sorry to be incommunicado this week, but I’m co-leading a major research project surrounding the National Performing Arts Convention in Denver next week (see my previous post). I hope to be blogging from the convention, if the universe does not conspire against me. If you’re starving for blog content, there are plenty of other bloggers […]
Is the performing arts industry designed to learn?
That’s the question I explore in my guest post over in the National Performing Arts Convention blog. I’ll be attending the upcoming convention in Denver, along with a research team, to inform that very question, and analyze our field’s capacity for collective action. If you’re planning to be in Denver at the NPAC, I look […]
How about a movable performing arts center?
The Guardian reports on an emerging scheme to make London’s stadium for the 2012 Olympic games a portable affair. Post-Olympics, they would deconstruct it, and send it to the next Olympic city host (perhaps Chicago). Reduce, reuse, recycle, indeed. The innovation is driven by the staggering costs of hosting the Olympics — particularly in capital […]
Phase shift
While we’ve all be eyeing the Internet as the transformative social technology of our generation, another less glamorous device has been quietly vying for the title. According to the International Telecommunications Union, almost half of the world’s population had a mobile phone in 2007, with the most significant growth in developing countries. Mobile phones are […]
Do music degree programs create professional musicians?
There’s growing conversation among conservatories and other arts-focused degree programs in higher education about what it is they’re actually preparing students to do. The unspoken assumption has often been that music, theater, and related degrees are intended to develop artists of high technical excellence, prepared (at least technically) for professional work as artists. Of course, […]
Mass creativity
CrowdSpring is a new web resource that hopes to bring ”crowdsourcing” to the daily lives of creative individuals. The site allows any individual or company to post a design need (generally logo designs at the moment), along with escrow funds to pay their promised fee, and then anyone can design and post a response. The […]
Fail early, fail often
Lucy Bernholz flags an important and awkward issue in her Philanthropy 2173 blog: the essential link between innovation and failure. If we’re truly committed to fostering innovation and risk-taking in our organizations’ artistic and management efforts, failure should be a key indicator of our attempts to do so. If you’ve ever taught someone to ice […]
One letter, big difference
Greg Sandow lobs a compelling argument in the National Performing Arts Convention blog, encouraging us to decouple ”art” and ”the arts” in our thinking and our planning. Says Greg: Art is an activity, sometimes sublime, and also the result of that activity. By now we know — or certainly we ought to know — that […]
