Building Public Will For Arts And Culture

Culture May Often Be A Pawn, But The Importance Transcends

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So in an illustration of the importance of the exercise of soft power, the U.S. has agreed to rejoin UNESCO and pay back dues to the tune of $600+ million. The US stopped paying dues in 2011 when Palestine was included as a member and the Trump administration decided to have the country withdraw entirely in 2017.

The U.S. return to UNESCO is meant to blunt China’s growing influence in the organization.

Undersecretary of State for Management John Bass said in March that the U.S. absence from UNESCO had strengthened China, and ”undercuts our ability to be as effective in promoting our vision of a free world.”

He said UNESCO was key in setting and shaping standards for technology and science teaching around the world, “so if we’re really serious about the digital-age competition with China … we can’t afford to be absent any longer.”

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A UNESCO diplomat expressed hope that the return of the U.S. would bring “more ambition, and more serenity” — and energize programs to regulate artificial intelligence, educate girls in Afghanistan and chronicle victims of slavery in the Caribbean.

While arts and culture are unfortunately subject to a lot of politicization and you never want to be in a position where the only reason someone starts paying more attention to you because their rival is, the fact is, culture is a powerful asset both locally, nationally and internationally.

Having traveled around China, they very publicly cite the UNESCO Cultural Heritage designation for many places you might visit. Seemingly more so than any other place I have visited, even given that their millennia long history has provided many candidates for the designation. Since a cornerstone of China’s identity is tracing the length of their cultural lineage, it would make sense there is a focus on doing a good job of promoting any acknowledgement.

Likewise, UNESCO has expended great effort in cataloguing a lengthy list of intangible cultural heritage which encompass knowledge, practices, crafts and skills specific to communities around the world. For them, the acknowledgment of the importance of the preservation, practice, and transmission of this heritage is no less vindicating.

The Bar That Hosts Open Mic Operaoke Nights

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Fun article I think I found on Artsjournal.com.  There is a bar in Portland, OR called Mendelssohn’s, run by a descendant of composer Felix Mendelssohn who has some opera and classical music cred having been executive director of both types of organizations.  The owner has positioned the bar as a place to demystify opera and classical music by programming a wide variety of musicians and hosting Operaoke nights.

Every other Tuesday night, musicians are given the opportunity to step into the dimly-lit bar and take over the stage, enchanting the audience with their best arias and ballads.
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“We spend so much time preparing and working on this craft,” Lipton said. “You don’t often get the opportunity to play or sing or do these pieces that are lesser known. So this is kind of an avenue to do that.”

In addition to being able to perform lesser known pieces, the a Operaoke host/performer, Alex Trull noted another part of the appeal was being able to perform in a low stakes environment in contrast to the audition/training/performance context that comprises so much of the classical or operatic artist’s relationship with the music.

Dedicated Performance Experiences Not Really Controversial Until Race Is Involved

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Over the weekend I caught a couple news articles out of the UK about a production which is carving out one performance in their run for black audiences only. The show, Tambo & Bones, which runs June 16 to July 15, is said to be taking a page from Jeremy O. Harris’ show Slave Play which included “Black Out” performances whose intent was to fill all the seats with Black identifying audience members in order to provide an environment in which they might feel completely free to interact with the artists and each other.

“The theatre’s website stresses that “no one is excluded”, but the accompanying promotional material hints strongly that white theatre-goers would not be welcome along on July 5.”

In answer to the objection that this constitutes a type of segregation, it was noted that theaters already provide dedicated performance experiences to various groups.

These include a “socially distanced and masked” show, one using British Sign Language, captioned and audio described performances, and a “relaxed environment” version, where those with autistic spectrum conditions are not expected to respect the normal theatre etiquette of remaining in their seats and observing silence.

Granted, most of those types of performances don’t emphasize an exclusivity in messaging as heavily as Tambo & Bones is. This seems to be one of those cases where there is no bad publicity. For one group, being emphatic that this performance is for you has a great appeal…and can create perhaps an even stronger, almost magnetic appeal for those who are explicitly being told one performance out of many isn’t for them.

Slave Play created a dedicated Black Out page to encourage and help others follow the example of the inaugural performances. Among the productions who have hosted Black Out nights are: Long Day’s Journey Into Night; A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet; What to Send Up When It Goes Down; Marie and Rosetta; Choir Boy; as well as Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play and Daddy.

While the page mentions that two of the Black Out nights for Slave Play were invite only performances, it appears tickets for other performances following this approach were more publicly available for sale similar to how the Tambo & Bones tickets are. (Basically, I couldn’t find any news stories specifying they were invite-only private events.)

Creativity Fills In The Blanks

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We were participating in a scavenger hunt for a local 3rd grade class today. The kids were given clues associated with museums, galleries and public art around the downtown area. In addition to an architectural feature of our building, I was asked to reference the ghosts that linger in our 103 year old venue.

As you might imagine, the kids asked a lot of questions about the ghosts.

As they were leaving, they started reporting that the curtains moving by themselves and seeing a figure looming in the projection booth. I asked them what they thought was going on and they started relating all sorts of stories.  One kid forgot her water bottle so I turned the lights back on for her and was chatting with a teacher when she came scurrying nervously out clutching the water bottle.

It isn’t a surprise that people will fill in the blanks with information that isn’t available. Unfortunately, this fact has fueled a lot of conspiracy theories. On the other hand, there may be something to be said for the traditional practice of implying terrible things happened off-stage, both in a literal and metaphorical sense.

There are worries that younger people today won’t be ready for the jobs of tomorrow because they lack the trait of creative thinking.  The blame may be placed on the easy availability of content on the internet, video games, streaming, etc. But it is pretty clear that kids in 3rd grade haven’t lost the capacity to generate creative answers.

Perhaps part of the solution is to ask them to expound upon their ideas and showing that someone is paying attention rather than encouraging them to occupy themselves with phones and other devices.