Archive for arts funding
March 17, 2008 at 11:47 pm · Filed under dance, resources, culture, boston, news, SUSAN, research, arts funding, fundraising, issues, america, dance culture, trends, dance companies, funding, arts, future
That the dance community at large has been facing a number of worries is not really news to most of us. (’Tis unfortunate, but true.) For the most part, most of the concerns that dominate the dance headlines have been dollar-focused; the problem of finding consistent funds and finances to pay dancers, commission choreography, license works and underwrite productions is one that will likely (and, sadly) plague us for a while longer. (For those who have not yet heard, Boston Ballet is the most recent company to fall into the financial black hole.)
In order to get a better grasp of what the dance world is facing, it is probably a good idea to get a more distanced perspective of where and how dance stands in relation to its other cultural peers. Towards the end of last year (2007), LaPlaca Cohen published Culture Track 2007, a presentation in which they summarize the results of their fourth national survey of cultural audiences.
The good news: In the past two years, there’s been a slight (2-3%) increase in attendance at classical dance (ballet) and modern dance events. (Yay!)
The bad news: A hefty percentage (52-68%) of people indicated that the genre/period/style to which a “cultural activity” belonged affected their attendance. Might this mean that dance will continue to remain a “lesser attended art form”? (Bummer.)
The hope: A significant number (31-49%) of the surveyed respondents indicated that “supporting a friend or family member” is a “very important” factor in their decision to attend performances and ‘activities.’ We can make a difference! (Hurrah!)
And, just in case your invitations meet resistance, be prepared:
Recent Posts by susan kim
October 23, 2007 at 1:44 am · Filed under SLOAN, dance, music, art, technology, arts funding, school, gary sloan, government, introductions
Me when I was little, getting shot by my dad.
So the other night I wrote a post, asking everyone what they find interesting or engaging about a dance performance, or what would draw them to see a dance performance that they wouldn’t otherwise have sought out.
But let’s go even further back…
What was your first introduction to the arts, or to dance - apart from just observing the world around you? (I’m keeping it loose here)
Was it in school? Were you taken to a performance by your school, did you play an instrument in school, did you study a musician, choreographer or other type of artist which then lead you to discover dance or another art form?
If you didn’t have such arts exposure in school, do you think that if you had it would have changed your interest or involvement in the arts?
Do you think there is a way to change the current tide in the US, and convince the government - or whoever it needs to be - to put more funding into arts education in school, not less?
If everyone shared their stories about how they were first introduced to art or dance (school, family, friends, or some other outside force) could it make a difference?
Here’s some ramblings from me as I sit here typing…
I remember adoring art class in school. I couldn’t get enough.
I remember going to art museums with my parents and on field trips as a little kid (I feel like those experiences still remain as some of my earliest vivid visual memories).
I remember loving music classes. I played the saxophone… Lugging around a saxophone case that was as big as I was in 3rd/4th grade. I played until 6th grade I think - I changed schools and went from a cool jazzy teacher who challenged us, to another teacher who didn’t.
I remember my dad bringing me on photo shoots (involved or just watching) or showing me how to make prints, and thinking it was so amazing to be able to create such beautiful things with subjects and light.
I remember my school going on a field trip to see The Nutcracker, and thinking it was neat that my classmates got excited about and had a better understanding of what I was already doing after school by that point.
I remember my mom playing classical music in the car, and while first thinking it was annoying, starting to develop a taste for styles that I enjoyed more than others (and beginning to feel that WGBH in Boston played it too safe!).
I remember my mom taking me to Boston Ballet performances back when they were still at the Wang Center. I loved seeing the orchestra members warming up before the show, and loved getting to see a lot of the same dancers each time we went.
On another note - I remember my 6th grade class having access to Macintosh computers. They blew my mind. I in turn begged my parents for something similar… my first computer was a Mac Classic, and spawned my (and my family’s) ongoing love for well-designed technology.
That’s just some of my random personal experiences. Everyone comes from a different situation, has different memories, different influences, and different things that got them excited about art and/or dance. The fact is that as a kid, school, family and friends are your entire life. What you are exposed to during that time can have a big effect.
What’s your story or experience?
Did school programs have much play in your exploration?
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
April 24, 2007 at 5:58 pm · Filed under choreographers, KATE, scotland, contemporary, movement research, construction, education, mercecunningham, arts funding, choreographer, scottish ballet, modern dance, choreography, the place, contemporary dance, liv lorent
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| Posted by Kate Bordwell
On Thursday 19 April I went to Stirling, which is a 25-minute train ride north-east out of Glasgow. The reason for my trip was to see Scottish Dance Theatre (SDT) in a mixed programme, and to meet Janet Smith, SDT’s Artistic Director.
I first asked Janet how she got into dancing. ‘I always danced as a child,’ she said, ‘and I remember at school making work to a musical box and getting my mum to make me a costume out of crepe paper and it got rained on – I was furious with her – I had all the artistic temperament at that moment!’
At her local ballet school she also learnt Greek dancing and the creative freeform element inspired her: ‘The pianist would play some Debussy or something and we would do our own thing – like Isadora Duncan, complete with tunic and bare feet, long hair flowing! That was the idea that you can move how you can move, and we have movement that comes out of us and we can express ourselves and the music and whatever through it, which excited me.’
Following her teacher’s advice Smith went to Dartington College to study dance and drama, where she encountered a wide range of dance styles. ‘It wasn’t a conventional education in that period. It was the sixties, and it was quite associated with liberal arts and freethinking. It was wonderful for me because I really found myself and I found this area of dance theatre… We had some very good tutoring, and I came across modern American dance, which is what they were teaching there and so that led me to America after school.’
At Dartington Smith admired Rosemary Butcher, especially because she ‘worked in her own particular way.’ After Dartington she studied in New York at the Cunningham School with Dan Wagoner and Viola Farber, dancers who had both been through Graham and Cunningham but whose ‘own research led them into very strong personal movement signatures and flavours, and that was totally new to me, you know, to the idea that you can authentically dance out of yourself rather than out of the different techniques and styles that had come to the UK.’
She also learnt from Wagoner in St Louis, where she also encountered Hawkins technique, which in a sense brought her back to Isadora Duncan, ‘taking the structure of Graham work but finding a much more free, impulsive way of moving.’ When she returned to England, she worked with musician-composer, Gordon Jones to create a solo show. She took the programme to Dartington, a move which proved to open doors for her. ‘My head of department there wrote to Robin Howard, the founder of The Place, and Bob Cohan, who was the founding Artistic Director, saying, “Give this girl a chance,” and they invited me to show it, first of all, publicly, and then again just to the company and the school. So we took this work to London, then I had my first reviews, and I began to get funding, which led to me forming my first company.’
She worked on her companies in Yorkshire and London from the mid-1970s until the end of the 1980s, touring her work internationally. These were interesting times, and she had the opportunity to work with a variety of choreographers and dancers, from newly graduated students to some big names in British contemporary dance. ‘I was always interested in being a dancer as well as a choreographer and working collaboratively with different people and I invited people like my then husband, Robert North; Christopher Bruce, who was also creating work with Rambert at that time and working internationally; Dan Wagoner, because he had been a first inspiration to me and the first person that showed me that you can have humour in work which was such a delight! And then other company members created work as well.’
Following some funding issues in the late 1980s, she wound up her company and freelanced – both choreographing for companies around the world and teaching. Teaching allowed her to have a dance company as a project, and in 1997 she was invited to Dundee to work on the Scottish Dance Theatre (SDT).
Over the past ten years SDT has evolved from a very small group with limited funds to possibly the most exciting contemporary dance company in Scotland. This year SDT has worked with Adam Benjamin*, founder of CandoCo, and Scottish Ballet, producing works choreographed by young company members who were winners of the Peter Darrell Award. Not only was it a good opportunity for the dancers’ work to be shown publicly but also for the dancers to work together and to learn from each other. ‘It was lovely. It was an opportunity for the two companies to get together – to do class together, to watch each others’ work and to support each other. I think dancers are generous and supportive people – normally with a nice sense of community – and it was great – both sides admired and supported each other’s work and difference.’ Further collaborations are planned for the future, with a Czech company, and with the ‘up-and-coming’ choreographers Hofesh Schechter and Liv Lorent, whose work differs greatly but Janet admires for its energy and humanity.
She would also like to take the work further afield. Not just so that more people can see the company but because it will broaden the dancers’ minds. ‘I think a dancer’s life is a very short life and one of the perks is the chance to go out and meet people from different cultures and see and interact with different cultures. So as well as being good ambassadors for Scotland it’s also a really lovely life experience for the performers and I want to give them that.’
I asked Janet about whether she had a set approach to creating work. She said, ‘More and more I notice that things happen very differently. I haven’t started with music for a while, and that’s what I want to do next time. Music does inspire me and I have been lucky enough to work with composers and I think that that collaboration, often with Chris Benstead, who goes way back to my Dartington roots, and therefore we have a shared language about work, and so in a way you’re working often with the idea and without the music and the music comes in later on so in a sense he has a lot to do then, to follow our structure, although he can often inspire me by a piece of music which I can then get to working to. I think I work in a range of ways, but I have to, even when I’m listening to music, I’m looking to find the idea that I will get really excited about and feel passionate about and really commit to.’
‘My works don’t always have a story behind them, but I am into making a comment on culture and it happens through comparison because of that idea of travelling somewhere and it triggering your thoughts. I made a piece called High Land after I’d lived in Scotland for four years and it was my response to the whole thing – Scottish culture and the way it plays the tourism thing – Nessie and the way that the landscape affects us and the influences of psalming and step dancing… I have made pieces that are always about people – they’re not always narrative at all but they are more thematic, they take you through to dreamscape or memory, or sense of identity or culture. Those are the areas that excite me a lot – who we are, what we’re doing, where are we going?! On a personal level, rather than politicising.’
We spoke about dance in Scotland more generally. She believes there is a dance equivalent of a ‘brain drain’ because dance education in this country is limited in some fairly crucial ways. There is not enough offered in terms of degree and postgraduate education, but ‘Equally not far enough qualitatively, not maturing dancers, and that bothers me a lot. So it’s been a history of underfunding or not putting the funds in the right places. There’s space and opportunity for more support to be given to individual makers of work and directors of small companies that have ideas and are working and are going somewhere who often struggle on the breadline. I feel that we can train our own dancers better and there’s a really good dancing tradition in Scotland and I think that if we can put dance more into the heart of education so that we could really study it and get a qualification at school we could build confidence and capacity for our teachers at school level to take up dance, just like you can with drama or English or music I think that would do the world of good – not just fitness, but real love of the dance and then audiences for dance would grow and there would be more audiences for more dance companies.’
‘Dance keeps you sane – it’s a thing for life. It keeps you active and creatively engaged and it helps all sorts of social skills and relationships and trust. I think it is undervalued in education at the moment and that’s the core, the starting place from which all else follows.’
We finished with a piece of advice for any dancer or choreographer starting out, which she had heard one of her young dancers give to a school pupil earlier that day. ‘If you like something, just follow it as much as you can. In dance, try all kinds of dance, because something you think is not for you might become for you, and anyway it will feed what you do. Try to see as much dance as you can, and that will inform you about what you really love, about what you’d love to do.’
I enjoyed meeting Janet Smith, especially since it gave me such an insight into the life of a choreographer and company director, and it made me think a lot about movement and what it’s all about - what it can do… I will post about the programme I saw on Thursday night in my next entry.
*More about this collaboration and the integrated work will follow in a separate entry…
Recent Posts by kate bordwell
January 26, 2007 at 6:32 pm · Filed under SLOAN, culture, art, new york city, arts funding, politics
Posted by Sloan
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, with Roy Lichtenstein’s “Element E”.
Photo courtesy NYTimes.com
Good news for New York City cultural institutions!
From AM NewYork:
“NEW YORK — The hundreds of cultural groups that fight for public funding from City Hall each year will now get equal access to a larger pool of money, officials said Wednesday.
A day before Mayor Michael Bloomberg was set to outline his preliminary budget for the next fiscal year, he and his cultural affairs commissioner, Kate Levin, announced along with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn that they are revamping the funding scheme for the scores of arts groups that rely on city support.”
Sounds like the city will both simplify the process by which cultural organizations apply and receive funds (no more lobbying), and increase the pool of money available to those organizations. They are also using a peer review system as a fair way of choosing which organizations are awarded funding, and are requiring a more transparent view of how this money is being used.
“The Bloomberg administration also is increasing the pot of money that it spreads to the 34 city-owned cultural facilities for operating support. Those include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York City Ballet and Carnegie Hall. […]
However, those groups will be more accountable, the city said Wednesday. With this budget, the data-reliant Bloomberg administration also is creating a monitoring program for them.
They will be graded on such criteria as how well they manage their own finances and maintain their facilities. How much information and access they grant the public also will be considered.”
There is so much creativity in this city. New York draws the best of the best in their creative fields and is a world stage for anything taking place within its bounds. To cultivate and nurture this environment, it only makes sense for the city to try to support these organizations in a bigger and more efficient way.
Reviewing the financial and business practices of organizations receiving money is also important to help those organizations be more efficient, as well as give fair opportunities for everyone seeking funding. Sounds like a step in the right direction to me. But then again, I don’t know what it’s like to manage a cultural institution. Any thoughts?
“Public arts funding is important—for better or worse, money is how government signals what it thinks is important.” - Douglas McLennan
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
