Madison, Wisconsin, had a great public conversation with the Kennedy Center’s Michael Kaiser yesterday, who is less than halfway through his 50-state ‘Arts in Crisis’ tour to discuss arts leadership in tough times. I was fortunate to be the on-stage interviewer and facilitator, among the several hundred arts leaders from around the state gathered in the Overture Center for the Arts.
Early coverage of this particular stop is available from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal and Madison’s 77 Square. Attendee Christine Harris of the Cultural Alliance for Greater Milwaukee has already posted her summary and thoughts. And full video and audio are available now on Wisconsin Eye.
My main goals in facilitating the event were twofold:
- to provide a productive forum for arts leaders to engage Mr. Kaiser’s ideas about leadership into their own work and contexts, and
- to encourage Mr. Kaiser to translate those ideas — formed primarily at large, resourced, major-market institutions — to the scope and scale available to small and mid-size arts organizations.
The group assembled made the first goal a breeze. And Mr. Kaiser’s thoughtful responses and reflections on his Kansas City Ballet work, and his mentoring work with smaller organizations, helped engage the second goal, as well.
More thoughts as they evolve. But thanks, in the meanwhile, to the wonderful staff at the Overture Center for the Arts, and to Mr. Kaiser’s extraordinary commitment to what must be a grueling national tour.
It really was a wonderful event, though from the start the idea of bringing so many arts professionals from around Wisconsin together in the name of improving our organizations was inspiring. Mr. Kaiser’s words hit home and I think really encouraged us to focus on what matters.
I do wish the conversation could have strayed a bit more from the book to bring technology into the conversation. The question from the Overture intern about social media was crucial, and though Kaiser said the Kennedy Center primarily uses Facebook for programmatic marketing, I do think by nature social media is institutional marketing. It is a consistent stream of information controlled by the organization. Twitter, blogs and Facebook allow every little educational event or statistical benchmark to become news with an inherently positive spin. It allows the organization to form a distinct, welcoming (hopefully) voice; and posting videos and other multimedia act as the events that aren’t ticketed performances but nonetheless bring attention to general artistic merit.
Thanks for hosting, and hopefully the conversation continues!
Andrew, You did a great job a faciliating a practical conversation – more pratical than I expected in fact, so I was pleasantly surprised. Kaiser’s big picture thinking was refreshing and well-placed during this time of crisis. The emphasis on keeping the message positive is one we all needed to hear.
Thanks for the part you played in honing the message to be appropriate for our marketplace.
Jenni Collins
Madison Children’s Museum