Category: Art

Seven Ideas to Improve DC’s Creative Economy

A recent strategic plan for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities notes that support for artists reinforces other economic sectors. The plan states, “A 2010 study commissioned by the DC Departments of Planning and Economic Partnership quantified that more than 90,000 individuals are employed in the creative sector. Creative employment provides over $5 billion in earnings and accounts for 10% of the District’s jobs base. Beyond direct jobs, creative industries and talent provide competitive advantage to other key DC industries.” Here are a few small investments that could enhance DC’s creative economy.

  1. Increase half price theater ticket sales

Washington DC has the second largest theater community in the nation, behind only New York City. Whereas New York City has a visually prominent and efficient half-price ticket program it wouldn’t be surprising if you didn’t know that Washington has a similar program. The city should engage the tech community in a competition to increase half price ticket sales, and program results should be monitored closely, quarter by quarter. There is no reason that a tech team, perhaps paired with Theater Washington, Destination DC, or even the Capital Fringe Festival, couldn’t increase half price ticket sales through modest one time support and effective ongoing partnership.

  1. Put DC art in DC public schools

Through the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities the District of Columbia has a wonderful program supporting resident visual artists: DC’s Art Bank. Every year hundreds of DC visual artists apply to have their work purchased at market rate for display in government buildings. A decade into this art acquisition program the government now owns more art than can be displayed in government office buildings. Deaccession of works more than five years in the collection might make sense, and display of the existing collection should be extended into DC Public Schools. A modest capital expenditure to reframe artwork for the public school environment is all that would be necessary to include artwork created by local artists in neighborhood schools.

  1. Make rehearsal space less expensive for local artists

The New York State Council on the Arts’ supports subsidized artist work space through a grant program that encourages those with rehearsal space to provide that space to qualifying artists and productions at a reduced rate. Subsidized rehearsal space makes creation less expensive while increasing rental revenues. At an expected expense under $50,000 per year, it’s a win-win worth trying here in DC.

  1. Make it easier for local artists to make art

When the annual budget for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities was slashed from over $14 million to under $4 million between 2009 and 2012 it was necessary for some granting programs to be eliminated. One such program was the Young Artist granting program that provided grants up to $2500 to artists under 30 years old. Now that the budget for the arts has rebounded — it’s more than $17 million for the coming year – it’s time to consider restoring DC’s Young Artist granting program, which could enliven communities across the District at a total cost of less than $100,000 annually.

  1. Increase support for the largest local arts organizations.

The Federal arts institutions in the District create downward pressure on development of the local arts community, so in 1988 Congress created the National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs (NCACA) granting program to support non-Federal DC-based arts organizations. The Arena Stage, Studio Theater, and Shakespeare Theater wouldn’t exist in their current forms without the past support provided by NCACA. The total value of the NCACA fund is split almost evenly annually between the qualifying organizations but in recent years that support has plummeted from $9.5 million (in 2009) down to just $2 million dollars (for the current year.) The largest operating support award offered this year from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities is just $100,000. Because of NCACA’s decline, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities should create a new “major organization” operating support category. The largest arts institutions in DC should be able to count on some substantial annual support from the city government, and with that support they’ll be able to broaden their programs for residents and non-residents.

  1. Re-award the Franklin School to the ICE

In the last mayoral administration the historic Franklin School was awarded to a development team, led by Dani Levinas, for use as a contemporary arts center (the Institute for Contemporary Expression.) Then, shortly after taking office, Mayor Bowser rescinded the offer and put the Franklin School back into a new competition for re-development. The Washington Post’s Pulitzer-winning art critic Philip Kennicott wrote, “[Mayor Bowser’s] first major arts decision, and perhaps the one that will most profoundly affect culture in the District for years to come — is bizarre and unaccountable. It may seem a small thing, especially in a city where new buildings rise every day, but it portends yet another city administration that will prioritize money over quality of life, developers over children, boutique hotels with rooftop restaurants over cultural amenities.” The Bowser administration has said their decision was based on concerns about the financial viability of any local museum that expects to rely on admission fees. With the recent closure of Arlington’sArtisphere, and the challenges facing the Newseum, they may have a point. When the Corcoran Museum closed last year I argued it was partly due to the past stain of censorship while others saw it as a sign of mismanagement, but perhaps the business model for arts museums that charge admission simply doesn’t exist in DC. Still, the ICE is much more than a museum and the Franklin School should be re-awarded for that use.

  1. Increase support for arts education

At the urging of arts education advocates, including the DC Advocates for the Arts, the Gray administration funded a local study of arts education. The study was designed to provide granular detail about which DC students receive what kinds of arts education opportunities. While the data from the study has not yet been released, every child in DC should have access to ongoing and immersive arts education opportunities, and that goal should be a target for investment in supporting DC’s creative economy.

What other ideas should be considered to support the Creative Economy?

This was originally published on Urban Scrawl here.

What is the Future of Arts Journalism?

Arts journalism is changing rapidly. Newspaper coverage has shifted, and the number of blogs and small magazines covering the arts has grown exponentially. While it’s uncertain what the structural changes in arts journalism will mean for the arts over the next twenty years, changes are happening and affecting audience participation.

As an artist, editor, arts writer and arts advocate, I was right at home moderating the “Future of Arts Journalism” panel at the recent Dance Critics Association (DCA) conference held in downtown Philadelphia at the Gershman Y. The DCA was created in 1973, “when a group of dance critics attending a Philadelphia arts conference saw a need for an organization that represented working dance critics.” The annual DCA conference draws leading arts writers from across the country for a weekend of panels, performances, and trainings. As she has before, critic Elizabeth Zimmer led the “Kamikaze Dance Writing Workshop”, which is a two-day boot camp for young and aspiring dance critics, and as he has before DCA Board Chair Robert Abrams organized the conference volunteers, and panelists.

The “Future of Arts Journalism” panel included Michael Norris, interim executive director of the Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, Merilyn Jackson, Philadelphia Inquirer dance critic, and Lois Welk, DanceUSA Philadelphia executive director. During the panel, Michael Norris noted that newspapers and classical arts organizations are similarly suffering from aging and shrinking audiences. Merilyn Jackson articulated that making a living as an arts writer can’t be a goal of professionals today. And Lois Welk brought in Clay Shirky, who argues that dialogue, not content, is now king.

Attendees agreed that today, as opposed to even ten years ago, there is uncomfortably both less and more criticism written by professional writers. Individuals that have been covering our profession for generations are being drowned out, and silenced. Will a similarly professional pool of dance critics exist to convene in twenty years?

Looking back on the panel, I’ve come up with a small set of questions that I think can help advocates investigate the impact of arts journalism in their communities:

1. What are the changes in content serving the arts in your community? Do the changes in content matter, to whom and why — artists, arts writers, the public?

2. Is there a historic relationship in your community between arts participation, and a community of independent evaluators/arts critics?

3. Are there differences, for your community, between coverage written by a talented 25-year-old, versus a talented 50-year-old with 20 years of writing experience? What are those differences?

4. How are the changes in arts journalism asymmetric in impact to communities of color, women, emerging artists, and/or classical artists in your area?

Advocates should push to ensure that communities invest in mechanisms to support the arts journalism necessary for a healthy arts ecosystem. Additionally, advocates can support best practices in the field for the next generation of critics. As just one example, the magazine that I founded has for four years managed a ‘Student Arts Journalism Challenge’, designed to identify and support talented young arts writers.

The business model that once supported a career in arts writing no longer exists. Arts journalism is arts education for adults, and advocates should spend more time considering the impact of arts writing within the arts ecosystem, and shaping future supports for the field.

Read on Americans for the Arts ArtsBlog here: http://blog.artsusa.org/2014/07/02/what-is-the-future-of-arts-journalism/

Diversity in Arts Leadership and Arts Management with the DeVos Institute

I freelanced this piece on assignment from DanceUSA thanks to their editor (and mine) Lisa Traiger.

The arts is a field represented by stars and a March 2015 DeVos Institute event at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland College Park brought together six major luminaries. Arthur Mitchell (founder of Dance Theatre of Harlem), Tina Ramirez (founder of Ballet Hispanico), Carmen de Lavallade (dancer, choreographer and actress), Lou Bellamy (founder of Penumbra Theater), Miriam Colon (founder of Puerto Rican Travelling Company), and Rita Moreno (stage and screen actress) shared the stage and a conversation under the umbrella “Diversity in the Arts: Legends of the Field.” The purpose of the event was to celebrate the panelists and provide a platform to discuss how their cultures informed their careers. Ford Foundation president Darren Walker moderated the discussion and noted: “How fitting that our first symposia brings together pioneers who brought down the barriers in the arts.”

The “Legends of the Field” discussion was the first in a series of diversity symposia the DeVos Institute of Arts Management will be convening. These DeVos Institute symposia on diversity resonated with the observances of the 50th anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The march became a watershed in the Civil Rights movement that in some ways enabled the careers enjoyed by the panelists. Walker noted that while diversity in the arts have come a long way since Selma and 1965, our continued focus on diversity in the field remains necessary to expand the boundaries of inclusiveness.

George Balanchine to Arthur Mitchell: “You’ll Always Be in the Middle”

The leaders celebrated in this DeVos Institute event were among the first generation of non-white arts leaders. Arthur Mitchell, the first African American male principal dancer in the New York City Ballet, recalled that he was in a taxi on the way to the airport to perform in Brazil when he heard that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot and killed. He decided then that he needed to bring ballet back to his neighborhood, Harlem, and went on to found the Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH), just a year after Dr. King’s assassination. Mitchell recalled that George Balanchine, who served on the DTH board, told him, “You’ll always be in the middle. Black people will be upset, because you’re not doing their dance, and white people will be angry because you’re getting in on their territory.”

Looking back on their careers, several panelists discussed ways their ethnicity made career development more difficult. Rita Moreno, famous for being one of only 12 performers to have won the “EGOT” quartet of major entertainment awards –– an Emmy, a Golden Globe, an Oscar, and a Tony –– moved to Hollywood at age 16, signed to a “starlet” contract with Metro Goldwyn Mayer. But Moreno described spending her early career cast over and over in the role of the “dusky maiden” or “native girl” – usually a scantily clad individual of questionable moral character. Moreno recalled one movie, shot in Mexico, in which her character was murdered by being thrown over a cliff into the ocean. The director wanted a shot of the lifeless body floating in the water, but the ocean was filled with stinging jellyfish. Moreno tried to float “lifeless” as the director wanted, but the painful stinging kept causing her to jerk. The director screamed at her to stay still, and Moreno recalled feeling that the director was not actually seeing her, but was treating her like the characters she was always cast to play – a woman less valuable than her white counterparts.

Miriam Colon and Tina Ramirez each articulated that part of their urge to create Latino companies was to show what the Hispanic community could really do, which Darren Walker noted was necessary because systematic exclusion existed, which kept many Latino and Hispanic voices from pursuing arts careers. Lou Bellamy, known for producing (and in some instances directing) the original productions of August Wilson’s plays, revealed that when he started it seemed like all that was necessary was to bring diverse stories forward, but now that mission feels insufficient.

Carmen de Lavallade and Arthur Mitchell noted their continuing commitment to reaching out to youngsters of all races, national origins, and abilities. In a world that continues to exclude many students in a multitude of ways, de Lavallade said the arts can help young people realize that they are worth a great deal and that they, too, can do great things.

Looking Past the Top (To the Middle)

Even an anecdotal survey of the arts management field demonstrates that administrative and artistic leadership is not demographically representative of the communities served (in both for-profit and non-profit entertainment.) Current conversations about diversity in the arts are looking beyond top positions and lead roles to overall employment numbers. Within major arts institutions, in many communities, minorities are under-represented not only on stage but also as a percentage of total employees.

A recently launched initiative by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs is scanning for granular detail on the issue of diversifying the ranks of arts administration workers in that city. An article about the initiative in The Wall Street Journal notes, “Whites make up nearly 80 percent of the workforce at U.S. museums, according to an analysis of 2009 census data by the American Alliance of Museums. But in New York City, non-Hispanic whites account for just one-third of the total population.” The article quotes New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl, “For the long-term vitality and relevancy of cultural institutions, it makes sense to have the staffs reflect that …. The intent is not to point fingers or have administrators replace their current workforce, it’s about finding ways going forward to talk about how it could be more inclusive.”

Since the march at Selma, the arts field has followed the public in embracing multicultural companies and stars. Still, in cities and communities across the country, including New York and Washington, D.C., the arts industry as a collective employer is far less diverse than the populations it serves. Writing about an initiative underway in the Greater Washington D.C. area, Abe Flores, a education director for Americans for the Arts, wrote, “This is the effect of poverty, inequality, disenfranchisement, oppression, distrust, and the legacy of racism.”

When Arthur Mitchell recounted Balanchine’s statement about how Mitchell would be regarded in his own community and by the ballet establishment, he also recalled that Balanchine was tremendously forward thinking in many respects. In the mid-1960s Balanchine didn’t think twice about casting Mitchell, an African-American man, to partner a white woman ballerina in major pas de deux. Mitchell and other panelists acknowledged that conversations about diversity in the arts continue to be complicated by the competitiveness of the non-profit and entertainment fields, as well as social and cultural expectations related to ethnicity. When one panelist noted that funding for her work was unstable, Carmen de Lavallade chimed in that funding is unstable for all non-profits.

Balancing the Scales

The DeVos Institute “Diversity in the Arts: Legends of the Field” panel provided an opportunity to celebrate some of the real progress on racial inclusion made in the arts in the past half century, and the artistic accomplishments that followed from it. Now, inclusiveness is concerned with institutional diversity as much as institutional leadership. Black girls and boys can become ballet dancers, and Hispanic girls and boys can become movie stars, and more of them should, just like Mitchell and Moreno. But equally important, if not more so, in creating an arts field that truly looks like America is the challenge to provide opportunities for black, Hispanic and other children to become grant writers, program managers, curators, critics, and stage hands. When we do, then our arts will truly reflect our American ideals. Initiatives like those led by Michael Kaiser, chairman of the DeVos Institute, and Darren Walker, president at the Ford Foundation, are critical for that to occur.