The New York Times: The travel bans — along with escalating costs and delays in the always-fraught visa application process — represent a looming crisis for the American performing arts sector, as many overseas musicians, theater companies and others face new and seemingly insurmountable obstacles to travel. Some, assessing the risks, are electing to avoid coming here altogether, according to talent agents and the American promoters and producers who are now contemplating holes in their calendars.
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While this is not surprising, it is quite disheartening. On the level of performing arts, this is simply not sustainable because art is a form of expression and connection that should be shared around the world. By preventing people from coming in, we are preventing connections and new relationships that have the opportunity to create community on a global scale. This is also frustrating for the artists because they put so much time, money and effort into planning these events just for them to be cancelled. In terms of what this means generally, it is kind of frightening. To trap people inside or outside of a country, to make people scared to speak the truth, to make people fear for their lives when they have done nothing wrong. It is said that America is a place of opportunity where people can come to start afresh and make their dreams come true. I hope that this is true in the future.
We should be more scared over this. This should be inflicting a lot of fear into American people and it’s disheartening that it’s not. The ‘slow’ isolation from the rest of the world is happening, and we should be terrified. If artists can’t afford, can’t legally come here, can’t safely come here, what makes anyone think we are safe? The sheer number of artists I’ve seen completely boycotting the US for the sake of either avoiding support to the US economy or out of genuine fear for their safety should be a much larger point for concern. A fascist regime hates artists, especially educated ones, and let me just say- I bet viewing the US from the outside, I’m sure it’s not too appealing over here. We need the connection to artists abroad now more than ever, we should be fighting for a world in which they feel safe here.
Oddly, I had not thought of how these travel bans would impact the arts. My first thought was the impact on families not being able to see each other in person or the economical impact on tourism. In application to the arts, a group of careers that are comprised of many people who travel for a living, the limits become obvious. With the extensive planning that goes into tours, I wonder just how many US tours are having to be cancelled because of these travel bans. Not only will this negatively impact boat artists and consumers of that art, but this will cut down on the amount of money going into America’s economy. My own oversight is why the consideration of the arts as an economic sector should not be overlooked. Arts have an impact on our everyday life and well being. When those in power dictate how those arts permeate through society, their own economy will see the reactions.
Trump's travel ban has worked exactly how he wanted it to. It has isolated the American people from the rest of the world. While there’s a lot more nuance to it, it feels like America is in a toxic manipulative relationship with Trump. He is cutting off both our access to the outside world and their access to us. The fact that artists are scared to visit America because they might not be allowed to leave is infuriating. Some artists are scared to visit because they have spoken out against Trump publicly which puts them at risk for retaliation if they were to enter the United States. Honestly, I do not blame any international artist who chooses not to come to the United States out of fear for their safety or out of protest against America. Trump is destroying America’s relationship with the world and I do not know how we can come back from this.
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