Art in a Human Context

"It would be better if art were nameless, and that those of us who write about art in books and the reviews and newspapers, always clacking about art, or Art, or ART, were constrained somehow by good taste or a hickory club either to do art in its appropriate human context, and in doing be it, or keep still. For art suffers more than most activities in being withdrawn from the contexts of living. It is categorized as something special."

Baker Brownell, The Human Community, 1950 

"Modern art activity can provide a new birth and new creative directions of usefulness for such a community. As art activity is developed, the community is recreated The vital roots of every phase of life are touched As the community is awakened to its opportunity in the arts, it becomes a laboratory through which the vision of the region is reformulated and extended And as the small community discovers its role, as the small community generates freshness of aesthetic response across the changing American scene, American art and life are enhanced."

Robert Gard, Arts in The Small Communities, 1967 

On Maturing as an Artist

In a fascinating interview on Huffington Post, Natalie Merchant discusses motherhood, her album Leave Your Sleep, and her development as an artist. Among the many thoughtful things she has to say is this exchange (with emphasis added): 

You just announced some upcoming performances as a guest soloist at orchestral shows. Is this the next direction for you? 

I enjoy working with the wide variety of instruments the symphony provides, and the textures and the emotional resonance of those instruments. I'm trying to find a way to mature in this field called pop music, which really loathes the aging process and loves youth. I just feel like I don't want to do the same thing I did when 25 or 35. The songs have endurance and have retained a lot of validity. But I'm focusing on how to make the experience appropriate for the way I feel now, with new material.It's an awkward thing to talk about, but it's true: It's possible to be a musician, but you can't be a pop musician and be a woman and continue in this forever. There's so much lived experience and some wisdom I've gained in my life, and there must be room for that. Emmylou Harris is still making good records; Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel matured and have grown through pop music -- and nobody expects them to do the same thing as they did in their early 20s.

Merchant is talking about pop music, which is has its own unique issues, but I think it there is also an echo in the theatre. When studies like that of the 2010 OOB Survey of Theatre Practitioners, which Tom Loughlin analyzed in a post entitled "Theatre Facts," shows that

•  67% of all indie actors are between the ages of 21-40, a 19-year span. The highest age group is 26-30 year-olds at 24%. The average age is 36, the median is 33.There is an attrition rate of 50% from the 26-30 age group (24%) to the 36-40 age group (12%). All the percentages over 40 are in single digits. Only 20% of indie actors are between 40-55, a 15-year span.
• You’re single and childless. 51% of you are single, and 18% are living with a partner (not married). 92% of you have no children. I am assuming this 92% childlessness rate runs across all age groups.

It isn't that plays written and performed by young people lack value -- quite the contrary. But there is something to be said for maturing in a field and writing from the lived experience and wisdom that, as Merchant says, is acquired through living. This is what author Chimamanda Adichi calls "The Danger of a Single Story," something which leads to stereotypes and a lack of richness.  Hollywood films in partoicular suffer from a relentless focus on the fantasies and experiences of youth. This is why a film like, say, The Tree of Life that Issac writes about so movingly seems like a miracle -- it actually addresses the issues of a mature character confronting real life. 

So when we talk about the distribution of arts funding, we're not only talking about diversity of race, gender, and geography, but also of age age and experience. If we have a system that drives people out of the art form as they become older, their experiences and their wisdom and their stories are lost. Which leads to two areas that need to develop: 1) a broader and more sustainable business model and infrastructure for professionals, of course, and (perhaps less obviously) 2) a stronger infrastructure for participatory arts in which people who have rich lived experience are encouraged to share their stories, share their wisdom, share their experiences through all of the arts. 

As an educator of theatre students, I care about #1; as the head of CRADLE, I also care about #2. It seems to me that they go together. We need to create a culture that honors all experiences.

Toward an "Organic Theatre"

As many of you have probably recognized over the years, one of my favorite things to write about are analogues to the arts I have found, i.e., other fields that are exploring similar issues as those in the arts that can serve to illuminate our own situation. With that in mind, I have just begun reading a book entitled Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity by Frank Viola. I'm going to quote liberally from the introduction, assuming that you will see the parallels to the arts world, but I'll also make a few halting attempts to make the theatre connection clear.

After declaring a revolution both in theology and practice, Viola writes:

Countless Christians, including theologians, ministers, and scholars, are seeking new ways to renew and reform the church. Others have given up on the concept of church altogether. They have come to the conviction that the institutional church as we know it today is not only ineffective, but it's also without biblical merit. For this reason, they feel it would be a mistake to reform or renew the present church structure. Because the structure is the root problem. (emphasis mine)

Having gestured toward the issue, he then goes on to distinguish between what he calls the "institutional church" and the "organic church." The "institutional church" are

those churches that operate primarily as institutions that exist above, beyond, and independent of the members that populate them. These churches are constructed on programs and rituals more than relationships. They are highly structured, typically building-centered organizations regulated by set-apart professionals ("ministers" and "clergy") who are aided by volunteers (laity). They require staff, building, salaries, and administration. In the institutional church, congregants watch a religious performance once or twice a week led principally by one person (the pastor or minister), and then they retreat home to live in their individual Christian lives.

Viola is quick to add that the term "institutional church" is "not speaking about God's people. I'm speaking about a system. The 'institutional church' is a system -- a way of doing 'church.' It's not the people who populate it. This distinction is important..."

Just in case the analogy isn't clear, speaking in terms of the theatre, the "institutional theatre" would be represented by the regional theatre system, organizations that are highly structured, building-centered, run by professionals who oversee a staff, a building, and give salaries and administer daily activities. The original regional theatres came into existence thanks to the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, and they were structured to look like Ford or Standard Oil -- institutional. Like the "institutional church," the theatre audience comes to the theatre occasionally to watch the professionals perform and then they return home. The "institutional theatre" is a system, a way of "doing theatre," and not the artists and staff who work within it. Neither Viola nor I see the people who populate an institutional church or theatre as somehow unworthy or bad. Most are committed, principled, and creative arts professionals who are passionately devoted to the art form. In addition, Viola writes, and I echo in terms of theatre, "By no means am I criticizing the church. In fact, I'm writing this volume because I love the church very much....Therefore, it's the present practices that I'm seeking to imagine, not the church itself." And he also says he is not saying that an "organic church" is the only right way.

In contrast, the "organic church" operates according to "the same spiritual principles as the church that we read about in our New Testament," the churches of the first century AD. It is "not a theater with a script; it's a gathered community that lives by divine life." An "organic church" as I understand it at this point (and as I said, I've just begun reading and the whole book is devoted to describing an "organic church" -- in fact, Viola wrote an entire book called Finding Organic Church) is small, non-hierarchical, and participatory. There are no specialists -- pastor and minsters -- who organize the service, but instead the service proceeds spontaneously. The meeting place is not a purpose-built building, but rather living rooms and other such places. Early Christians met in small groups in the homes of the congregants and were largely organized collectively, not hierarchically.

An "organic theatre" might follow a similar pathway. Instead of "professional artists" who create a "performance" that the "audience" comes to see in a theatre building, an "organic theatre" would be a small community of people who sometimes perform, sometimes listen -- a sort of ensemble who share their talents with each other in informal spaces. Passive consumption would be unacceptable -- each member would contribute in some way and in a variety of ways -- specialism would not fit. An "organic theatre" wouldn't create a "product" to be sold, but rather members would come together to share gifts, alternately giviing an receiving. There would be no need to spend money on marketing, because the ensemble is both audience and performer -- you would just let the members know about an upcoming event. If there was a desire, performances could be offered outside the group.

In many ways (but not all ways), this is how I conceive of a CRADLE arts organization. The ensemble would encompass as much of the community as possible, and everyone would be alternately audience and participant, giver and receiver, at different times. Events would take place all over the community -- in homes, in church basements, in courthouses, in libraries, in restaurants, in schools, in parks, wherever people might meet, the more creative the place the better. No tickets would be sold, although contributions might be voluntarily made to cover costs. Nobody would "make their living" this way, but together they might make a life, make a community.

This is very much outside the norm, of course, and sounds (even to me) a bit...woo-woo. And yet, I am attracted by the possibility of democratization of creativity, of removing the arts from the market economy and rooting them in the gift economy. I am attracted to the idea of "bringing the arts back home," both literally back into the homes of the community, but also into the hands of the community as well. A consumer culture such as ours relies on a concept of scarcity -- individuals are taught to see themselves as lacking in some regard, and encouraged to fill that lack through a purchase. In this case, we purchase stories about strangers which are told to us by strangers.

What if we proceeded from a concept of abundance? The assumption that we all have things we can share, and that the act of sharing them enriches both giver and gifted. That the value is found in generosity rather than virtuosity, connection rather than quality, circulation rather than specialization.

How might attitudes towards the arts be changed if this possibility were available? How might communities small and large be transformed? How might creativity be enhanced and spread far and wide?

I don't know. I am groping toward an alternative to the institutional system.

In Honor of Martin Luther King

While there will be many tributes today to the vision and determination of Martin Luther King, from artists and non-artists alike, I think the best thing the arts as a field could do would be to take seriously the Fusing Arts, Culture, and Social Change report and address the inequities that are built into the non-profit arts infrastructure.

Lately, we have seen the enormously negative effects of Big Money in politics through the creation of Super Pacs and the lifting of limitations on corporate political contributions as a result of Citizens United. Well, this situation has long been in place in the arts. The wealthy and powerful dominate governing boards, and major institutions court major donations from rich individual donors and their foundations. And then we wonder why the money is centralized in elite, white, urban institutions and why those institutions present art that appeals to that demographic.

It is important that CRADLE not fall prey to this pattern. Local CRADLE organizations should have boards comprised not only of town leaders and elites, but of people representative of the population as a whole. This means choosing board members not for their ability to contribute and raise money, but for the value of their viewpoint and wisdom.

In the book The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods, authors John McKnight and Peter Block call on citizens to create powerful and competent communities based on three "universal properties":

• The Giving of Gifts -- The gifts of the people in our neighborhood are boundless. Our movement calls forth those gifts.
• The Presence of Association -- In association we join our gifts together, and they become amplified, magnified, productive, and celebrated.
• The Compassion of Hospitality -- We welcome strangers because we value their gifts and need to share our own. Our doors are open. There are no strangers here, just friends we haven't met.

The latter is particularly important, as it promotes what Block calls a "welcome at the edge." It isn't only the rich and powerful who have gifts to offer, but those who have been traditional ignored or marginalized. And those must be actively sought out and celebrated.

We must not continue to waste the talents of our people. We must not continue to ignore the stories of our people. We must celebrate the richness that exists in all people. And we must create an artistic infrastructure that promotes these values.