{"id":4870,"date":"2017-04-05T02:00:27","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T06:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=4870"},"modified":"2017-03-29T15:32:17","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T19:32:17","slug":"doin-it-vocabulary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2017\/04\/doin-it-vocabulary\/","title":{"rendered":"Doin’ It: Vocabulary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In my last post, Doin’ It<\/a>, I introduced the idea of participatory experiences as being a potentially critical element in the work of arts organizations.<\/p>\n

After almost two generations of declining emphasis on the arts in public schools we face communities largely made up of people who have little or no experience participating in the arts. Where once large percentages of students sang, played in band, acted on stage, painted and made murals, and\/or\u00a0 took private music lessons outside of school, today that is no longer the case. This is certainly not the only obstacle arts organizations face in drawing people in to performances and exhibitions but it certainly makes the task no easier. Today, our industry as a whole is in desperate need of larger percentages of the population “doing” the arts.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last fall (in ABCD and Community Engagement<\/a>) I even floated a label\u2013Community Based Artistic Development\u2013for this work. CBAD implies, rightly, that participatory projects can be important to the health of the arts and to arts organizations.<\/p>\n

But in order to craft participatory experiences, it helps to have language that guides understanding of the options. So, a vocabulary (or, forgive me, a taxonomy) of participation is helpful. The best-known effort in this regard is in Alan Brown and Jennifer Novak-Leonard’s Getting in on the Act<\/em><\/a> commissioned by the James Irvine foundation. They lay out a continuum of participation that is extremely helpful. However (and you suspected there was a however coming, didn’t you), some of the language of it strikes me as a bit “academic.” Yes, I know. That’s funny coming from someone who spent thirty years as a college professor and used the word “taxonomy” three sentences ago. Nevertheless, here is my translation of the what are essentially their concepts:<\/p>\n