This Week: A philanthropic model might make more sense for your audience… Should you feel guilty watching big-screen movies on your phone?… Seeing your art as a lens on the world… Does putting opera on Stephen Colbert’s show do any good?… Some questions about the arts’ role as a “social good.”
- A Dance Company Rethinks Its Model For Support: If most of your funding is coming from “unearned” sources, does it make sense to be primarily focused on ticket sales? Most arts organizations get a greater percentage of their income from non-ticket sources. So what if instead of thinking about your business as a transactional model, you focused on philanthropy? England’s Northern Ballet rethought its support model for donors and found it difficult but rewarding. “The greatest challenge was to try to change the existing culture from one that was transactional to philanthropic, removing the need for tiers and associated benefits.
- Audiences Want What They Want How They Want It: Some movie directors bristle at the idea their work is being seen not in theatres on the big screen, but on iPads and phones. So should you feel guilty that you’re watching on a small screen? Not really: “I’m against the idea of ‘sacrilege,’ historically. I’m skeptical of a purist approach; there’s a lot to be said for encouraging adventurousness. And I think that as a result of broader accessibility film culture is livelier than it’s been in decades.”
- Dance At The Center Of Everything: When legendary radio producer Jim Russell was pitching the idea for the public radio show “Marketplace” decades ago, the powers that be told him that no one was interested in a show about business. He replied that it wasn’t a show about business but a show about the world as seen through a business lens. Twenty-four-year-old LA choreographer Jacob Jonas sees the world through a dance lens, and he thinks there’s an audience for it. “Artists fail when they aren’t able to make their art a brand,” says the choreographer and dancer, who is lean in an almost feline way, with thick muscles that propel him into lithe motion at the slightest provocation. “We want to be at the intersection of dance and fashion — of dance and advertising. How do we get dance to a wider audience?”
- Opera On Stephen Colbert? Seriously? Yup. Of course high culture stars used to be on pop TV fairly regularly. But not for a while now. The Met sent Pretty Yende over to sing “Una voce poco fa” from Barber of Seville, and both the studio audience and the Twitterverse were thrilled. “The question is, did the diva appearance foster any new opera fans, or was this just hopeful thinking?” Some critics weren’t so sure. “The sad truth is that classical music on Colbert’s Late Show helps burnish Colbert, but not really the artists. The audience gives standing ovations and they love and appreciate the ‘class’ that classical musicians or ballet dancers bestow, just not enough to buy the product or develop an interest in it. When they stand and ovate, they’re standing in appreciation of Colbert and themselves for showing good taste…”
- Arts As Social Healer. Can It Work? A pair of stories address this ideas this week. Kentucky is a politically divided state – cities versus rural. Teddy Abrams, music director of the Louisville symphony, thinks that his orchestra should be a vehicle for helping people talk to one another: “It blows my mind, because Louisville, and Lexington, are incredibly liberal (both mayors are democrats) while the rest of the state is conservative. In fact, the rest of the state sees Louisville the way the red part of America sees the coasts — as completely elitist, which is ironic, because of course the rest of the country hardly sees Louisville as liberal. But the point is that Kentucky has become a metaphor for America.” Meanwhile, Eric Booth, an evangelist for El Sistema in the orchestra world, wonders why the Sistema idea hasn’t migrated to theatre. “I can see no reason why the principles that work in music wouldn’t work in theatre, as long as the same values are rigorously explored. José Antonio Abreu, the founder of El Sistema, has said for years that all art forms should form El Sistema programs. There is one school-based program in Los Angeles that has parallel programs in music and dance, and they see similar positive results in the dance group as they do in the orchestra. So why not theatre?”
Image: Eric Booth
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