Community Art Project – Butts In the Seats

As the guy controlling the budget, I often have to either say no or ask people to scale back their plans. Therefore, it gives me great joy when I am in the position of telling artists that they are limiting themselves and need to think bigger. I had that opportunity about a month ago when I was discussing the site specific performance we are developing with a local performance group for next Spring. One of the artistic directors was telling me a board member was encouraging her to limit the action of the show around the theatre building.

My whole intention in approaching her about a site specific work was to get away from the building and exploit the potential in other nearby locations. Also, given that the show is about celebrity and achieving that status is divorced from formal performance settings these days thanks to our ability to record and distribute events from practically anywhere, it seemed counter intuitive to have everything happen in the theatre environs.

Given that we are about nine months out from the performance, I told her I felt it was premature to start eliminating some nearby locations that ignited both our imaginations. It felt great to be telling someone to keep dreaming about a performance.

I did feel a little bad for the nameless board member I was contradicting. Perhaps this person has made valuable suggestions in the past, but for a little while in my mind I was relegating them to the clueless board member bin. While I was feeling the hero, I was envisioning this faceless person as the stereotypical board member who valued the product, but didn’t quite understand the process of the organization which he/she served.

I didn’t think it is was particularly fair that board members end up playing that role in so many organizations. And let me be clear, since I was envisioning a theoretical board member, I certainly can’t say this is the case at all with the board of our partner organization. Let me also say that I realize this little fantasy is not only unfair to the anonymous board member, but likely short lived since the time will come soon enough when I will begin tugging on the reins and conform to the parsimonious administrator stereotype. Allow me this short time in the sun, eh?

There have been many discussions about how board members do it to themselves by not involving themselves enough. It is also true that organizations work to marginalize involvement so that the board is little more than a rubber stamp for their activities and then stays out of the way.

It seems this might be another argument for arts people not the subscribe to the notion that you have to be poor and suffer to be true to your art. In the nascent stages of some arts organizations, boards are comprised of fellow artists who understand and are invested in the work. At a certain point, it becomes clear that if the organization is to expand, it will require people of influence and means. If financial success were frowned upon less in the arts world, there would be less of a need to choose between those who get it and those who got it because they wouldn’t seem so mutually exclusive.

About a year ago I started thinking about doing a project that involved our organization’s immediate artistic community, artists throughout the county and as much of the public at large as we might be able to entice into becoming involved. Bringing different artists who don’t normally work together is one goal. Second, I was thinking that as much as I talk about how groups should offer audiences alternatives to sitting passively in a dark room, I should really put my money where my mouth is. I would also like to break down barriers members of the general public have about their artistic abilities.

When I originally began considering this I was thinking of bringing out an artist who was well-practiced at taking volunteers with little or no experience and producing a show in two days. My thought was to have a site specific show developed over the course of a week to ten days and then have a final performance. The assistant theatre manager suggested a local artist who could spearhead the same sort of effort. Suddenly the necessity of having someone who had experience putting a show together in a short time was less relevant.

It also has the benefit of being less expensive since I don’t have to house, transport and feed guest artists. Ultimately, I may end up spending the same amount of money, but it will be over a longer period of time which will hopefully allow a greater number of people to be involved.

I didn’t really plan it this way, but I think I may be presenting more local artists in the near future. I suspect when I attend my consortium meeting next week, I am going to find that my partners are really scaling back their activities. I will probably have fewer opportunities to partner with them due to scheduling conflicts and differences in our respective audiences’ interests. Buying local won’t be sustainable over the long term because there are few local artists I can present that people can’t see more frequently closer to the city core and drink alcohol while they are doing so. The strength I have is an ability, limited as it may be, to encourage and cultivate some new works.

None of the three artists I have spoken with over the last month about developing performances are new acquaintances. We have had relationships over the last couple years and we have reached a point where broaching the possibility of collaboration was logical. The tough economic times weren’t really a motivation. I haven’t suddenly decided to make due with the local talent because it has become tougher to bring people in from afar.

Anyway, I spoke with the artist today and she was just thrilled by the prospect. I could see the wheels beginning to turn inside her head. I presented the whole concept to her as pretty open ended. I know who I want to have involved, but until we have a core idea I can’t go convince them to sign on. As we spoke today, we realized we can really expand this project out a little bit. There is a possibility to have the produce of workshops, continuing ed courses and street fair craft projects created over the course of a year integrated into the final performance. Some possible workshops might even be designed to begin eroding anxiety and make people comfortable with expressing themselves with the aim of involving them in the final effort.

For example, we talked about mask making classes/workshops. Masks can be fun to make and wearing them allows people to be less self conscious. The artist related a story of how she brought a group of visual artists together to help her with a performance piece and they all protested they weren’t performers. Then they began to tentatively approach the masks and play with them. By the end of two hours the biggest problem was that people couldn’t decide which of the characters they had created for the masks to use in the performance.

Right now I am pretty optimistic about the future of the project even though I don’t know when it might start or finish. The woman with whom I spoke isn’t letting any moss grow on her and wants to get right to planning. We have a meeting on Thursday to look at possible locations around the grounds. I intend to post on the progress we make in the planning and implementation of our little scheme and share some of the challenges we face so that others might avoid them.

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