The WHY of Performing Arts

I read a blog yesterday on Mashable. Author Aubrey Beck says that universally identified companies like Apple and Google, “…start with the why and only then do they move on to talk about the how and what portions of what they do.” As I’m thinking about promoting the performing arts in our little corner of the world, I realize that, like many, I tend to start with the WHAT. The author’s claim is that people don’t care about the WHAT until they know the WHY.

As an arts educator, entrepreneur and concert presenter, I live in the WHY and I assume everyone else does, too. According to Beck, it just isn’t so. Because the WHY is always before me, that doesn’t mean it is for everyone  else.

Presenting the performing arts today requires constant energy. For me as a manager, the arts require investment and commitment. Of the artist, they require discipline and sacrifice. Of the audience, they require time and treasure. And Aubrey Beck asks WHY? WHY invest in such a costly pursuit? WHY maintain a concert series at a time when performing arts facilities are commonplace and the field is ripe with competitors?

There are many reasons WHY, but I will focus on these:

LOVE—To quote Michael Ende in the film, The Neverending Story, “There are many kinds of joy, but they all lead to one: the joy to be loved.” First and foremost, performing arts are a fulfillment of the Christian Gospel. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and your neighbor as yourself,” Jesus said. If you’re reading this and do not share that faith tradition, I trust your will still accept my premise regarding love of neighbor.  Amateur or professional, epic or intimate, the performing arts allow an intentional means to express our love of neighbor. We have been loved by those before us who have sacrificed to give gifts of the performing arts. Now we love in the same fashion that we have been taught. When Brandon Ridenour plays his trumpet so sweetly, with such lyrical beauty that it’s hard to bear, we know we are loved. I’m not being sappy; I really believe it. Performing artists today are uncommonly kind and generous to their audiences. They give more for less, they promote and teach. What else would drive them but love? Over 30 years as an arts manager, I have seen this time and time again.

Have you seen the T-shirt that says, “I love you with all of my art?” There is an authenticity to this love, not born of creeds. It is given without qualification. And today, more than ever, the economic fences are disappearing around the performing arts. Because of generous subsidies from individuals and corporations, more art is more accessible to more people than ever before. If it’s not for free, then it’s deeply discounted so that the maximum number of people receive the benefits.  The cynic might conclude that the subsidy is self-serving, but I have met too many generous hearted people to believe that. If they were truly self-serving, they wouldn’t be investing in the performing arts; they’d be buying commercial time.

COMMUNITY—The performing arts are an experiment in community. This means that there’s no substitute for being in the room, listening and watching together, experiencing in real time. Today, audiences are not so much interested in being impressed as they are being blessed. I want to remind you that I am not speaking about inspirational music per se. In fact, the medium of the art form is less important than ever. As Lynne Conner of Colby College wrote in the Project Arts Initiative (The Heinz Endowments, 2008):

We assert that what today’s potential arts audiences most want out of an arts event is the opportunity to co-author meaning. They want the opportunity to participate, in an intelligent and responsible way, in telling the meaning of an arts event.

In the wake of economic and cultural instability since 2008, to co-author meaning, and the need to participate are all the greater. Many of our performance venues were built for “broadcasting” according the Bushnell’s David Fay, where audiences are inclined toward “narrowcasting” in 2014. Narrowcasting certainly makes community easier to experience. 

It would be careless to write as if large venues are obsolete, but they’re not. Venues need to be filled with people and to be well-equipped with digital media to succeed. I have personally been surprised when visiting a large venue, at how intimate the space can become, but digital media is essential.

Equally intriguing is the temporary re-appropriation of a space designed for an entirely different purpose. Volkswagen’s Transparent Factory comes to mind, where, in 2013, the New York Philharmonic performed for dignitaries and factory workers. I believe this achieves community in another sense, bringing performing arts into the marketplace or the commonplace.

No matter the size of the venue, concert goers possess a longing for intimacy that they expect to be fulfilled in some way, as they co-author meaning with the artists on the stage. One of the most successful examples of this was Ellen Degeneres’ at the Academy Awards last spring, when she ordered pizza and passed out slices to surprised audience members. Young Harvard and Juilliard trained pianist Charlie Albright performed on the Wheaton College Artist Series earlier this spring and completely won the audience with his gracious, youthful manner, and his improvisation. When he asked audience members to call out notes that would in turn be the thematic basis of his improvisation, he invited the audience to participate in the meaning of the work on stage.

HOPE—In the final result, performing arts keep hope alive. This probably explains the success of the recent iPad commercial, “What will your verse be?” Conductor/Composer Esa-Pekka Salonen discusses classical music, composition and has even invented The Orchestra app with the hope that he can expand the appreciation of the symphony orchestra. In this instance, technology is the handmaiden of hope, though I’ll be the first to admit, that isn’t always the case. 

The reason I write of hope as the final WHY of the performing arts, is because the absence of the performing arts leaves a vacuum in the life of an individual or a community. That vacuum gets filled with something or other, and it isn’t always good. Doomsaying isn’t my purpose here. Rather, I am obsessed with improving the lives of our citizens and contributing to the cultural treasury of our community. I say fill the vacuum with music and dance and visual art and theater, and yes, purposeful digital media. Hope is really my fundamental reason for pursuing a life in the WHAT of the arts. But today, I am in the WHY. I am here with you, inviting you to join me in this wondrous adventure, perhaps through tears, or joy, or even anger over. No, the performing arts are not a substitute for religious faith, but you can understand the sentiment, when, through the arts, you encounter the sublime or the hilarious.

Most of us will dwell in the middle class of the arts. Beyond the parlor, but shy of the arena. We will, at times, sit in cramped seats for the sake of the totality of the experience. But we will receive the love of the artists and of our neighbors. And we will impart hope to the world. Join me.