Thursday, February 13, 2014
Fears of the Artist Sustain a Dysfunctional System
HowlRound: Some people thought me heroic, even thanked me for being so brave. I had said what others thought but were afraid to speak. Afraid of retribution, afraid of never working again. And it was that expression of fear that I heard over and over again, usually couched within anecdotes, one more disturbing than the next. Had I been whisked away to another sector, I wondered? Was I single-handedly battling Monsanto? For what I did was neither courageous nor controversial. I’m an artistic director. I was doing my job. If theater makers are in the business of representation, but are not allowed to challenge representation, something is terribly wrong. If storytellers can’t call out a storyteller, then how in God’s name will we ever change the world? Yet in speaking out I came to realize that the very structure of our sector is built upon the fears of the artist.
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This was an interesting article to read in tandem with the one about the Minnesota Dance Theater's board. It seems there's a growing discontent with both sides of the NFP art world. I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that theater artists need to stop feeling beholden to producers and artistic directors, but, given that the author also wants to empower the artist class by changing the way poverty is glamorized if you're an artist, I wonder if he has any thoughts on how that can be achieved. There isn't room in the arts world for every artist to be self-producing all of their own work. Indeed, that would have a lot of one-person shows, which I feel would end up limiting the power of artists even more. Perhaps there's a way to create some kind of confederation or co-op of producing artists. That introduces a whole other host of managerial issues, but there must be a way for disenfranchised artists to organize in some meaningful way. I look forward to seeing how this conversation continues.
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