There is a thought experiment I give students in a not-for-profit governance class:
A nameless, generic not-for-profit board recognized the need for more diversity in its membership. Aware that they functioned in a community with a large Hispanic/Latino population but had no members from that group, they placed an add in the local H/L paper to recruit someone to the board.
What is wrong with this picture?
When I first began posing the question, it proved to be a real headscratcher. Today, students more readily see that one answer is another question: “Why does no one on the board know anyone from the Hispanic/Latino community?” That realization is a “Click” moment. A light bulb comes on. A new way of thinking about the world is revealed.
The latest issue of Symphony magazine (Summer 2011: available online here) has many articles on the growing awareness of the need for community engagement on the part of orchestras in the U.S. I highly recommend it. One of my favorite parts of that edition is the point/counterpoint essays from Bruce Coppock and Robert Levine. (Actually, from my point of view, there is very little distance between the two, but that’s a topic for another post.) The pertinent passage here comes from Mr. Levine’s essay, “Change, Sustainability, and First Principles.” Symphony. Summer 2011: 25-31.
A few years ago my orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, was on tour in northern Wisconsin shortly after six teenagers were murdered in a mass shooting in the small town of Crandon. We were 50 miles away and we had a night off. Why didn’t it occur to anyone–staff, board, or musicians–that we could have done something remarkable by going to Crandon and playing a memorial concert? But no one thought of it, I doubt that more than a handful of American orchestras, or managers, or board members, or musicians, would have thought of it. (27)
In the words of Debra Barone on a particularly funny episode of Everybody Love Raymond, “And there it is.”
Click.
It often seems that the arts world–or at least portions of it–does not see itself as a member of the community, although it is difficult to document a negative. Here is a textbook demonstration of the point.
And we wonder about the reasons there is limited support for the arts in this country? [See the previous post “Why?“]
Of course this does not mean that the arts world never sees itself “in community” or that it never shares a community’s joys and sorrows. Far from it. Indeed, here is a great counter balance to the example above: http://blog.artsusa.org/2011/08/04/surviving-the-prairie-tsunami/. Hats off to the Minot (ND) Area Council of the Arts. The point is that such a view has not been typical, not expected, not rewarded by some elements of the current arts infrastructure. That is what needs to be addressed. We will do so regularly here.
Engage!
Doug
Light switch picture (such as it is) by Doug Borwick.
Robert Levine: “A few years ago my orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, was on tour in northern Wisconsin shortly after six teenagers were murdered in a mass shooting in the small town of Crandon. We were 50 miles away and we had a night off. Why didn’t it occur to anyone–staff, board, or musicians–that we could have done something remarkable by going to Crandon and playing a memorial concert?
Why? I’ll hazard a guess: The musicians’ contract already stipulated working hours and days in detail, including a requirement for days off during tours – and negotiating any exception to the work rules, especially on short notice, would be such a headache that administrators would never think of suggesting it.
(I have no idea how good or bad union-management relations are the the Milwaukee Symphony, but for an orchestra with tense relations – Philadelphia leaps to mind – an impromptu concert like the one Levine suggests would be even less likely.)
I’m no union-buster, believe me. But symphony orchestras, by their very size, tend to be too unwieldy for spontaneous schedule changes like that, especially with the work and scheduling rules often written into musicians’ contracts.
Don’t lose sight of the real point of using the example. It was not that structural impediments prevented responding to the tragedy. It was that no one thought of doing so. It is about the mindset of entire organizations with respect to their communities. Now, if someone had thought about it, the next thought might well have been that due to labor rules or management priorities it couldn’t be done. That’s a separate issue. Let’s first think about it.
Click.