Maybe one day when I grow up I’ll get to move to a Big City. I’m tired of this tiny island, where a girl can’t even go to a simple Zumba class without running into someone who works at Carnegie Hall.
As previously mentioned, I am Not Good at Zumba. No one needs to see me bump/grinding in a futile attempt to get skinny, so you can only imagine my internal oh-brother eye-roll when I spied someone from Carnegie in class on Sunday. (Maybe he won’t remember having met me last summer…) oh yes, he does, “You’re Amanda, right?” Fan-zumba-tastic.
Turns out, he usually takes class at Alvin Ailey, but is friends with the teacher who was subbing at my gym that day. I didn’t know Ailey offered dance classes! Their “Extension” (get it?) program is billed as “real classes for real people”:
The Ailey
Extension embodies Mr. Ailey’s legacy that dance comes from the people
and that it should be given back to the people by making dance
accessible to everyone. Whether you haven’t taken a dance class in 20
years, take class regularly, or have never danced a step, The Ailey
Extension has dance and fitness classes designed especially for you.In
the words of our inspirational Artistic Director, Judith Jamison, “If
you can get yourself in the door, you can take a class!”
Having a real-person dance studio in-house is a great way for a company to build young and new audiences. Someone wants to start exercising so they take a dance class; they then feel like they’re part of the Alvin Ailey community, which makes them want to see a performance or participate further. Would/could/does this work for music? I looked through the websites of about ten major orchestras and couldn’t find anything similar to the Ailey program. The orchestras all have education departments, sure, but not actual music schools for the average person. If I wanted to start taking harp lessons again, for example, in all my free time, I could take them through the New York Philharmonic. The classes wouldn’t necessarily be taught by the musicians of the Philharmonic, but they would take place at Lincoln Center, sold through the Philharmonic website, and branded as Philharmonic programs. I, the consumer, would have as sense that there was a level of quality involved because it was the New York Philharmonic (..or Boston Symphony Orchestra or LA Philharmonic), a reputation benefit I’m sure the Ailey program reaps.
Thinking about it, when I was taking harp lessons in Connecticut, my teacher never took me to or told me to go to a New York Philharmonic concert. I think I may have seen one or two of her concerts, but she never assigned a piece and a concert at a same time. “You need to learn the Handel harp concerto in B-flat Major for college auditions, but you also need to see it performed.” Perhaps it’s just my personal experience, but there seems to be a disconnect between learning an instrument and attending actual performances. With that in mind, if the orchestras themselves were offering classes, perhaps class and subscription packages could be sold together, and the lessons could be tied repertoire-wise to the performances.
More and more I think the greatest challenge for arts organizations is simply getting people in the door. And once The People are inside, who cares what they’re doing – taking a class, browsing in the gift shop, having a drink. Of course if you get them there, don’t forget to market everything else the venue has to offer directly to them.
Update 4/23, 2:25pm, from jury duty: Brought to my attention by the wonderful “You’ve Cott Mail” daily newsletter, a piece in today’s Wall Street Journal describes how the Joffrey Ballet is supplementing their income by offering dance classes to the public:
Joffrey Ballet
Generating Income
Nonprofits hard-pressed for donations may consider creating a project to generate income.
In August 2008, the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago faced a 40% decline in
ticket sales and a reduction in corporate sponsorships, leaving a
$300,000 budget shortfall.In January, the Joffrey decided to generate income by offering dance
classes to the public. The classes are taught in the group’s existing
space, by the Joffrey’s dancers, and the ballet’s existing staff
handles marketing, so there are no substantial additional expenses.Since January, the classes have generated $200,000 in revenue, and
the Joffrey is expecting to earn another $300,000 by June. Moreover,
people who take the classes are buying tickets to see their teachers
and the rest of the company perform, says the Joffrey’s executive
director, Christopher Clinton-Conway.Some advisers caution that an economic crisis can be the worst time
to start an income-generating activity. “For a nonprofit to put a lot
of resources into what could be a risky proposition could be
dangerous,” says Ms. Berman of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.She suggests first making sure there is a market for the proposed
business, and then determining how much money would have to be invested
before it became profitable and whether the organization has the skills
and staff to manage the business. Any activity should be directly
related to the organization’s mission and core capabilities, she adds.
As a consumer, this is a great idea, and I wish more institutions would capitalize on this. It’s for the same reason that I looked to see if my favorite company, San Francisco Ballet, offered beginning adult ballet classes (it does not).
I’ve also heard that the Alvin Ailey extension classes are extremely difficult. This is probably beside the point.
Well, my new Carnegie friend has invited me to take a class there this Sunday, so I’ll go and report back. I’m very curious to see if/how the performances are marketed to the classes. -AA
I agree that this is something organizations should take up! My father-in-law played the trombone in high school, and recently asked me if I knew any community band or place that he could pull it out and give it a try again. He contacted a few community-type bands in town, but wasn’t “good enough” to play with them. How many people have instruments in their homes, but no reason or venue to pull them out and play them? What opportunities are being missed here?
On the other hand, as someone sitting in an arts management position, if this idea came up at a staff meeting, it would be all I could do to keep from rolling my eyes. Who would conduct the group? Who would pay for the music? Where would I find the time to do the inevitable administrative paperwork that would come from putting together such a venture? Even if there was some kind of tuition fee involved that covered music, etc, you could never cover the staff time it would take to field phone calls about it. How would you find these people and get them to come? This is the disconnect I constantly feel between having great ideas and trying to implement them. The resources just don’t appear to be there.
This seems to be reasonably common for dance companies. The Sydney Dance Company, for example, offers a variety of classes at its main studio as well as in a suburban location. There are classes for adults (16+) and corporate programs, as well as classes for older people. The teachers are not dancers in the company, so this is an SDC-endorsed rather than SDC-taught program.
I imagine for them it’s a smart way of using additional studio space as well as promoting the company’s reputation. The key thing with dance classes is that they’re classes – done in groups in a single space.
And that’s the thing with orchestras: I don’t know of any orchestras that have sufficient private practice space for their own musicians, let alone providing facilities for private or even small group lessons. In the case of my own orchestra, there isn’t even room for the staff to have offices in the principal venue where we rehearse and perform.
(Lincoln Center, I guess, is different in that it was built with some educational as well as performance functions in mind. Although I’d be curious as to what sort of space they’d have for private music tuition to be offered to the general public.)
So if it wasn’t going to take place in the orchestra’s venue or rehearsal home then you’d need to cement the brand by using your orchestral musicians as the teachers. To have neither location nor teachers linked to the project would really weaken the institutional endorsement.
But in fact, most of the orchestral musicians I know do teach already, and a good many of these are affiliated with the city’s conservatorium, which offers high school and tertiary training as well as an “open academy” for independent private students (mainly children to 18yo, the adult instrumental offerings are fairly limited). This may well be the case in other cities.
Margo – I understand your reticence about the implementation side of something like this, but
I just wanted to make two points:
– once something is up and running, it doesn’t take much as much time/energy to maintain it in the long term. Also, people are prepared to spend a reasonable amount on private music lessons – I’m sure I would spend an extra $5 or so per lesson if I saw it as more prestigous or I knew it had the backing of the local orchestra. Surely that could go into paying the admin side of things.
– aren’t we at risk of stagnating and dying if we don’t implement new ideas?
and Yvonne, what about group music lessons? These are relatively common in community education settings, make the price more accessible and foster a sense of community. Extrapolating further, what if you went along to group music classes, met some people you knew had common interests – what a great market for some new group ticket buyers!