In my last two posts, Arts Predispositions I: Yeses; Arts Predispositions II: Maybes, I introduced the notion of categories in the universe of those who do not take advantage of the arts we present. This thinking is based on work of Bradley Morrison and Julie Dalgleish in the early 1990’s presented in Waiting in the Wings. A central feature of that book was an understanding of the population as a whole being divided into Yeses, Maybes, and Noes with respect to arts participation. Yeses were those predisposed to be arts patrons. Noes were infants, the infirmed, and the incarcerated. All others were considered to be Maybes.
My gloss on that is to further subdivide those groups and, to an extent, expand the range of Noes. This is the outline of the current state of my thinking:
Arts Predispositions
Yeses
Maybes
- Backsliders
- Blissfully Unaware
- Apathetes/Agnostics
Noes
- Cultural
- Structural
- Actual
What follow picks up from my last post.
Noes
Noes, with the exception of Actual Noes, can be “won” if relationship-building efforts are well thought out, sincere, and persistent. The brief discussions that follow offer an introduction to each that can serve as a basis upon which to build engagement plans.
- Cultural
Arts organizations that focus on work of the European aristocratic tradition are often “blissfully unaware” that their offerings are not of interest to some communities because what they present is literally foreign. Majority cultures can have the luxury of being unaware of their hegemony. This does not mean that the arts presented by these groups cannot have meaning for those from other cultures; it does mean that the presenting organization must make extraordinary efforts to understand those cultures and to devise means of making the work meaningful and accessible to them if it hopes to engage with them. Organizations presenting art of other cultural traditions have identical issues reaching those not from their tradition, but it is far less likely that they will be oblivious to the gulf between themselves and people for whom their work is foreign.
- Structural
Historically, segregation by law and by social convention excluded some populations from participation in the arts. While this is a legacy that continues to have an impact on the arts, these forms of structural exclusion are not the primary ones with which arts organizations must deal today.
The lack of arts education in the schools creates a very real, though less conscious, barrier. The arts industry can and does lobby for change and supports arts education efforts. However, since educational policy lies outside of the purview of arts organizations, simply lamenting the situation is not productive. In order to reach those with little educational background real effort must be expended to provide means by which they can benefit from arts experiences.
The associations with wealth that are common in some arts organizations create another structural barrier to participation by those of relatively modest means or those for whom those associations are simply annoying. These barriers have an impact regardless of whether they are simply imagined or real. As one very small example, impressions that arts attendance requires tuxedos and gowns keep people away even if no one actually wears such attire. Of course, if some do attend in formal wear that discourages some in spite of anything they might be told by the organization that all are welcome.
- Actual
As presented by Morrison and Dalgleish, there are categories of people who are incapable of going to arts events. However, even some in their categories–infants, the infirm, and the incarcerated–can and do benefit from arts activities, especially participatory ones. This category, unlike almost all the others, however, bears little potential for earned revenue increases. Support for programming with this category is most frequently supplied by individual/corporate donations or government/foundation funding.
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Each potential community with which an organization seeks a relationship will likely have members in each category, although they will not be evenly distributed among the three. Awareness of the “predispositional” categories in those communities can be helpful both in relationship building and in developing experiences that will be meaningful to them.
So, there it is. Knowing which group most nearly describes the community you are trying to reach can help prepare your approaches (relationship-building, programming, and marketing) for reaching them.
Engage!
Doug
Photo:
Some rights reserved by Kyle Taylor, Dream It. Do It.
Hi Doug. Thank you for this wonderful articulation of presumptions that prevent us from drawing a mass of new audience to say, classical music. As an African-American, I have pointed to the flip side of the authenticity coin to open non-core music lovers to the potential for such music to complement other music, if only as an alternative. Whether this music was elitist or not, everyone today has had a positive encounter with art music, if only in the context of a TV commercial, a movie, the Hallelujah Chorus, or the 1812 Overture. To expand those positive associations, and it would take MANY of them to really open the Noes, CutTime envisions replicating a series of Classical Revolution-style events hiring creative young musicians across the Midwest in bars, clubs, homes and schools. The methods we use to place the audience in the CENTER of music-making creates indelible experiences with the musicians’ mindset. Here’s hoping that the arts industry agrees to validate new audience before it validates itself. This allows the openness required to build trust with Maybes and Noes.