Jumper

Diane Ragsdale on what the arts do and why

Archives for February 2012

On my Soapbox: Digitization of Live Performance

The Wooster Group

Clay Lord has written a provocative and rather erudite post, The Work of Presentational Art in the Age of On-Demand Technological Empowerment, in which he cautions that as arts organizations embrace or respond to pressure to record and disseminate their live work that they not lose their identity and the core of what live performance (and theater in particular, perhaps) is all about.

Clay mentions my post from last week in which I wrote: “If our goal for the next century is to hold onto our marginalized position and maintain our minuscule reach—rather than being part of the cultural zeitgeist, actively addressing the social inequities in our country, and reaching exponentially greater numbers of people— then our goal is not only too small, I would suggest that it may not merit the vast amounts of time, money, or enthusiasm we would require from talented staffers and artists, governments, foundations, corporations, and private individuals to achieve it.” In response, Clay comments, “I’m not sure I can simply agree, much as I might want to. This, more than anything, reminds me of Veruca Salt, forever simply wanting more without pausing to ask whether that was going to truly get her someplace she wanted to be at the end.”

My encouragement towards reaching greater numbers of people through other channels (generally and in the post quoted) is not meant to be a rejection of the importance and distinctive joy of an intimate, high quality, live arts experience. Those opportunities exist in great numbers in many cities in the US, for those interested and able to attend. But perhaps a personal anecdote will help to illustrate my excitement over the possibilities of recording and streaming live performances.

Despite being a ‘theater person’ I did not encounter the Wooster Group until I was in my 30s when I was working at On the Boards. Why? Because the Wooster Group didn’t travel to Kansas City when I was in graduate school. Or Idaho, when I moved there in my 20s to work in theater and run a music festival.The Woosters have never traveled to more than a select number of cities in the US (for perhaps obvious reasons). I had read about the Woosters in my edition of Brockett back in the late 80s/early 90s (a few paragraphs, as I recall) but never experienced ‘that kind of theater’. When I finally saw the Woosters, live, in my 30s, it was a seminal experience.

The same with Anne Bogart, Miranda July, Felix Ruckert, John Moran, Deja Donne, Richard Maxwell and many other artists that I was fortunate to encounter only because I had the good fortune to live in Seattle and work at On the Boards and, in particular, with Lane Czaplinski. Eventually, I moved to NY and saw 150 performances per year and it was a pretty heady period of my life. And now I’m living in a small village in the Netherlands and for many reasons (financial limitations because I’m a student, transportation issues, family obligations, etc.) it is quite difficult for me to see even the great work that is happening here in the Netherlands, much less venture to various festivals around Europe. No more Wooster Group for me.

Thus, I am (now more than ever) incredibly enthused that (for example) the the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts and OtB TV now exist. I wish to God OtB TV existed in 1990 when I was trying to find a place for myself in the arts world and develop an aesthetic. If I were running an arts aministration or MFA program of any kind I would make such broadcasts/channels mandatory viewing. When I was in graduate school one of my professors screened a film of Laurie Anderson’s UNITED STATES LIVE. I had not yet seen Laurie Anderson live. It prompted me to buy a ticket to her next concert, in Lawrence, Kansas. That, too, was a seminal experience for me.

Enough with the nostalgia … Yes, hold onto the core. But, to be honest, I think the ‘core’ of theater is far more threatened by the preponderance of rather deadly small-scale teledramas that pass as ‘dynamic live theater’ in many of the regional theaters in the US than by, for instance, a broadcast of the fabulous Young Jean Lee’s SHIPMENT on OtB TV.

If the ‘live’ experience is still mattering to people I believe it will compel people to go to the theater, buy a ticket (or stand in line for free tickets) and attend in person. But I would implore you not to dismiss these mediated experiences by assuming that they still generally ‘look like shit’ (as Clay suggests in his post and as they mostly did in the 20th century). Have you seen one of the Met HD Broadcasts? Personally, I think they are amazing and, as a ‘theater person’, I prefer them to the live experience as I can see the faces of the performers. Furthermore, having seen the broadcasts I now find the live experience all the richer. Not only is the technology improving but so are our skills at capturing the ‘liveness’ in a digital medium. And OtB TV is showing us that it can be done well without the price tag of the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts.

The major institutions in this country are now quite large and hungry beasts, demanding incredible resources to be sustained. It is quite hard for me to imagine how we can continue to justify such expenditures in the face of the declining live audience trend (that seems to have begun in the 80s according to the various studies). But if we could begin to talk about a rising ‘online’ or ‘cinema’ or ‘DVD’ audience (which the Metropolitan Opera and others have been able to do) then I begin to see the logic of ongoing large investments in these institutions. And these recordings are not just about reaching audiences that can’t access the live work. Arguably, they could play a crucial role in helping artists (more easily or quickly) build a larger global audience, be ‘in dialogue with’ other artists, and have greater impact.

We can also avoid that path, preserve the current experience, and hunker down with the goal of serving the people that (again) have the interest and ability to join us at our venues. But if that’s the case then we probably need to be prepared to downsize our infrastructure over time if the audience for what we do continues to diminish over time.

I would argue that if organizations with the potential for wider reach (that is, they are producing work for which there is demand beyond their local community) can do it well, and affordably, and strategically, and ethically (paying artists their fare share), then they should embrace the possibility of mediated experiences, trusting that they can live side-by-side with the live performance (and decades of recordings by musicians that primarily make their money doing live concerts should give us some hope here). Or even better, that new, exciting art forms may emerge (think Dance on Film) geared especially to the medium.

While the recording may be a substitute for some, I also believe it will be a complementary good for others. Do I think that if mediated experiences grow in number and reach that we will necessarily maintain our current (some would say ‘overbuilt’) infrastructure in the US? I don’t. But like others, I think that some of that infrastructure needed to be dismantled anyway – long before the Met broadcasts disrupted our sector.

If I had seen a recording of the Wooster Group in my 20s I would have beaten a path to NYC or the next nearest city where they were performing to see them live. But I couldn’t conceive of what that experience would be before seeing it. (I was trying to place the Woosters within my rather limited LORT theater experiences.) That is, after all, why we call them experience goods. Giving more people an experience (even if it is a mediated experience) is better in my mind than having them sit outside the venues wondering what goes on inside or, even worse, being pretty sure they know and that they wouldn’t find it interesting.

POST SCRIPT: Coincidentally, I just came across an email about an opportunity to experience the Wooster Group on film and video. Anthology Film Archives are hosting a 7-day series that ends on the 23rd. Info here.

If you’re still awake at the end of this post (sorry for the length) grab a cup of coffee and make the time to read Clay’s thoughtful post as well as truly smart comments by Polly Carl and Linda Essig.

If our goal is simply to preserve our current reality, why pursue it?

About a month ago I read an article in the Atlantic (recommended to me by LINKED IN) on the phenomenal success of Finland’s primary and secondary education public school system—a success which, the article suggests, the US has failed to understand.

There are some notable differences between the US system and Finland’s:

  1. Teachers in Finland are given prestige, decent pay and a lot of responsibility.
  2. Finland has no standardized tests; teachers are trained to create tests and assess students independently. (Periodically the government assesses all schools.)
  3. The system is cooperative rather than competitive. Schools are not ranked or measured against one another.
  4. There are no private schools in Finland. You can shop around at different public schools, but they are all of the same high quality.
  5. Finland pursued education reform by aiming its teachers and schools at the goal of achieving social equity (“every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location”), not excellence.

This last point (no surprise) is the one that Americans studying the success in Finland seem to miss. Education in Finland “is seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.” Finland has achieved excellence through the pursuit of equity.

A couple weeks later, with Finland’s approach and success still on my mind, I came across another intriguing article on education reform, this one at the university level.

The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a piece on Sebastian Thrun, a research professor of computer science at Stanford University, who recently gave up his tenure track position to found, Udacity, a start-up offering low-cost online education. What prompted Thrun’s move? Evidently the professor watched as the IRL enrollment for his artificial intelligence class dwindled while its popularity (among students at Stanford and around the globe) exploded online, eventually reaching 160,000. Thrun has set a goal of reaching 500,000 people with one of Udacity’s first course offerings.

When addressing his motivations for the move, Thrun commented that when universities were first being created, “the lecture was the most effective way to convey information” but that despite the invention of new tools (like film and digital technology) “professors today teach exactly the same way they taught a thousand years ago.”

Here’s what I’ve been thinking the past couple weeks, in large part because of these two articles.

In ten or twenty more years does the nonprofit arts and culture sector want to be the US education system: excellent art for rich people and mediocrity, lack of resources, and lack of opportunity for everyone else? Or do we want to be Finland’s: high quality artistic experiences (or “an expressive life’ as Bill Ivey might say) for every man, woman, and child? Like most universities, do we want to limit our reach to those that have the time, money, privilege, proximity, and courage/comfort (see Nina Simon’s brilliant post Come On In and Make Yourself Uncomfortable) to access us at our venues? Or do we want to collaborate as a sector with the goal of making it possible for anyone to have affordable (online, big screen, small screen, gaming system, etc.) access to high quality arts education and performances?

At the end of the Chronicle of Higher Education article Thrun is quoted saying:

I feel like there’s a red pill and a blue pill … and you can take the blue pill and go back to your classroom and lecture your 20 students. But I’ve taken the red pill and I’ve seen Wonderland.

The clock is ticking.

The arts and culture sector in the US needs to be reformed.

Just because the arts have been an elitist form of entertainment as long as most of us can remember is no excuse for that to continue to be our story in the future.

Just because we have wrongly and self-servingly bought into and sold to others the idea that to be ‘talented’ you had to be a ‘professional’ and to make ‘art’ you had to be a ‘nonprofit’ doesn’t mean we need to continue to make the same mistake.

We got it wrong the first time.

If our goal for the next century is to hold onto our marginalized position and maintain our minuscule reach—rather than being part of the cultural zeitgeist, actively addressing the social inequities in our country, and reaching exponentially greater numbers of people— then our goal is not only too small, I would suggest that it may not merit the vast amounts of time, money, or enthusiasm we would require from talented staffers and artists, governments, foundations, corporations, and private individuals to achieve it.

Let’s be Finland. Let’s pursue Wonderland.

PS: In an impromptu video chat with Doug McLennan a few weeks back as part of the Lead or Follow debate, I rambled on somewhat incoherently about the article on Sebastian Thrun. There is not much new information in the video, but if you read the comments section William Osborne has written a very interesting reflection on the Matrix red pill blue pill metaphor and the arts.

Image downloaded from Lenny’s Alice in Wonderland Site.

Making donor dollars stretch and perform miracles

The other day I received an email alert from the Philanthropy News Digest, which mentioned that a theater company had announced a $7 million endowment challenge grant. When matched, the 3:1 challenge grant (which requires the theater to raise $2.5 million) will boost its endowment from $500,000 to $10 million. Putting aside for a moment debates over the pros and cons of endowments for performing arts organizations, I was struck by the following quote by theater’s artistic director in the press:

When reached, this unprecedented offer will enable the theatre to continue growing far into the future. […] It will ensure the theatre’s ability to continue producing classic musicals and dramatic works, develop visionary new work, maintain state-of-the-art facilities for our theatre and conservatory, and remain a cultural treasure in the community.

My first (rather cheeky) thought was, “They understand they only get to spend the interest, right?” Of course, I know the theater has a smart staff and smart board and that it has accurately projected the annual income from a $10 million endowment. I do not doubt that the endowment will prove useful; and any midsized organization that can raise $10 million in this economy is to be commended. However, unless there is a crucial part of this equation I am failing to understand, a $10 million endowment cannot deliver all that is promised in that press statement.

According to Guidestar the theater mentioned in the article has an operating budget of approximately $4.5 million. Depending on how long the theater waits to begin drawing income from the endowment, and how its investments perform, it seems that the endowment will basically give the theater a boost of about 10% on its operating budget. When I glanced back through a few 990s I noted that total expenses were $4.9 million on its 2008 filing, $4.3 million for 2009, and $4.5 million for 2010. I also noted in its 2010 filing that the organization had interest payments of $271,336 related, one presumes, to the approximately $6 million debt that appears on the balance sheet (some or all of which may be for the state-of-the-art-facility).

And actually, an endowment to cover facility-related costs could be a smart strategy – though this doesn’t appear to be the primary purpose of the endowment in this case.

I recognize that the reason arts organizations put statements like the one above in materials and press announcements for endowment, ‘advancement’ and other capital campaigns is often because they feel they must do so to attract donors. But do donors believe such statements? For that matter, do the staffs and boards of organizations believe them? If so, is everyone confused five or ten years later when another capital campaign is required just to sustain current programs and put the organization on even footing again? If not, is there any reason to continue the charade?

While it may make everyone feel better in the short term is it possible this tendency to make it appear that donor gifts (large and small) can accomplish far more than is realistic has long term negative impacts on the organization and its relationship with its donors and the community-at-large? Is it possible we avoid telling the real truth because we don’t want to confront or invite others to look to closely at the total cost of ownership of our buildings, or the real costs of running our institutions and particular programs, or how much and how little (relatively speaking) is spent on various areas of operation and resources?

And on the other side of the table, it’s been more than a year since the lengthy discourse emerging out of GIA on under- and mis-capitalization of arts organizations. As we head into 2012, I’m curious whether the climate is changing and funders or individual donors (two different animals, I know) are more willing to support costs like debt service, deficits, cash reserves, sinking funds, or general operating?

If not, I’d be curious to know why not?

Image of hands stretching dollar by Sergej Khakimullin licensed from Shutterstock.

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