January 23, 2007

Amateur Art Making and Its Impact on Professional Presenters

During the APAP conference, I attended an educational session, "Professional Presenters and the Amateur Arts." Andrew Taylor, director of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration, and a group of his students shared research about how presenters should respond to the growth of participatory and amateur art-making. And they also explored whether this explosion in non-professional art-making represents a competitive threat or possible partnership opportunity for presenters.

To digress a bit, it was great to meet Andrew Taylor in person after reading and enjoying his Artful Manager blog for quite awhile.

On the Bolz Center for Arts Administration website, you can read more about this research project that was the basis for this session. I also believe that the full presentation will soon be posted to this site. What would also be very helpful is if the student researchers could recap the session and integrate some of the ideas discussed during this program.

I thought the four students - Leigh Henderson, Joanne Jacobson, Jara Kern and Maggie Marquardt - did an excellent job of uncovering real-world examples of the many diverse ways that amateurs are creating art and, in a number of cases, collaborating with professional artists.

Here are some of the types of amateur art-making the students highlighted:

Knitting circles, community ensembles, web-based songwriter networks, weekend warrior musicians, webloggers, photographers, ethnic dance and handicraft groups, filmmakers, podcasters, poetry slammers, hip-hop and scratch artists, and others.

The question of how presenters (theaters, performing arts venues, festival organizers) should respond to the growth in amateur art-making is a critical issue that is worthwhile to address so that presenters can better determine how they can continue to play an important role within the arts and cultural life of their communities.

The current mindset of many presenters is still one that primarily envisions passive audiences coming to a venue to sit quietly while watching a performance. This perspective simply can't survive in a world where audiences expect to be engaged and involved, and want to experience the arts in a more concrete and participatory manner. At the same time, there definitely are presenters who are embracing this move towards participatory art making and some shared their experiences during this session.

Some thoughts and ideas I jotted down that were shared during this session:

- How do presenters go about inviting amateur artists to perform at their venues/festivals when they are primarily in the business of hosting professional artists? Will audiences be confused? Do you offer different ticket pricing for professional groups and amateur groups?

- What are the best ways for presenters to support amateur art-making in their communities? Low cost/free rehearsal space? Marketing support? Fundraising assistance? But then how do presenters cover their costs?

- How many presenters today are working with amateur groups or mixed professional/amateur groups?

- If, as I said above, audiences want more participatory experiences, what types of performances should presenters be booking? Should there be more interactive opportunities for audiences before, during or after the program? Should these interactive opportunities be brought online? (I'll explore this topic of online community when I write about other educational sessions I attended.)

- What types of threats - if any - does amateur art-making really pose to presenters? Will smaller audiences go to "traditional" performances because more and more people are spending time making art with their friends and artist collaborators? Or, is the spread in participatory art-making really a trend that can be wholeheartedly embraced by presenters so that everybody benefits?

Actually, during the sessions some of these questions were explored and specific examples were offered, and I'm hoping the students will recap some of the recommended ideas.

One area where I'd like to see more research in is how the use by amateur artists of Web 2.0 tools (social media and networking sites - often with a strong focus on multimedia content) is having or will have an impact on presenters. For instance, millions of musicians, videographers, photographers - both amateur and professional - are using YouTube, Flickr, MySpace and many other applications to communicate directly with their audiences. Is it possible that some presenters will somehow get cut-out of the picture and will not play their traditional role of bringing together artists and audiences? And if there is a possibility that presenters will be marginalized, what steps should they take now so that this does not happen?

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