I mentioned previously (Connecting) that I attended the Charlotte Jazz Festival earlier this year. It was a wonderful event with a number of highlights. The one most apropos of this blog was a concert by Sammy Miller and the Congregation. I had seen them perform at the Festival the previous year and they were good. This year, however, they had become a force of nature. Let me begin with a bit of fanboy prose not directly related to this blog. … [Read more...]
Connecting
I recently attended the second annual Charlotte Jazz Festival. I wrote about it last year, too, making blogging about it, I guess, a tradition. (And it has nothing to do with the fact that a picture of my wife and me was used in this year's season brochure.) I find my heart leaning ever more strongly in the jazz direction. It's similarities to classical music and, indeed, all of the nonprofit arts are many: a relatively small group of fans … [Read more...]
Evaluating Engagement
I am developing a training program for people interested in enhancing their skills in guiding organizations toward more effective community engagement. [For details email info@artsengaged.com.] Several small groups have completed or are in the process of helping me beta test it. As part of the process I have been refining my criteria for substantive engagement. I begin with what appear to me to be the four critical elements of relationship … [Read more...]
Voice of the Community
My son is an IT consultant and over the years we have often discovered commonalities between our work. He was the one who first put me on to the concept of UX Design (UX = User Experience). The fact that we kept finding themes relevant to both our professions used to surprise me. Now I realize that he works with professionals in a complicated specialty who have to work with/communicate with end users who have no understanding of the vocabulary or … [Read more...]
Doin’ It: Performing Arts
In my last three posts (Doin' It, Doin' It: Vocabulary, and Doin' It: Museums) I have been exploring participatory experiences as being an important element in the work of arts organizations. This week I want to talk about participatory experiences in the performing arts. Options like pre-performance discussions and post-performance talkbacks have long served as interactive opportunities for event attendees. These are increasingly supplemented … [Read more...]
Doin’ It: Museums
In my last couple of posts, Doin' It and Doin' It: Vocabulary, I introduced the idea of participatory experiences as being a potentially critical element in the work of arts organizations as well as some ways to begin thinking about categories of such experiences. In my next two posts I want to focus on examples of both the practice and practitioners of this type of work. Interactive exhibits and exhibitions are becoming increasingly common in … [Read more...]
Doin’ It: Vocabulary
In my last post, Doin' It, I introduced the idea of participatory experiences as being a potentially critical element in the work of arts organizations. After almost two generations of declining emphasis on the arts in public schools we face communities largely made up of people who have little or no experience participating in the arts. Where once large percentages of students sang, played in band, acted on stage, painted and made murals, … [Read more...]
Doin’ It
After almost two generations of declining emphasis on the arts in public schools we face communities largely made up of people who have little or no experience participating in the arts. Where once large percentages of students sang, played in band, acted on stage, painted and made murals, and/or took private music lessons outside of school, today that is no longer the case. This is certainly not the only obstacle arts organizations face in … [Read more...]
The NEA (and Other Things)
The NEA, along with the NEH, the IMLS, the CPB, etc., etc., is very important for both symbolic and practical reasons. And I know that my professional niche is the nonprofit arts and culture industry. With respect to "Engaging Matters" I have seldom written about issues not directly related to the practice of community engagement, but the fight over funding cultural support mechanisms is vitally important to our industry so I know I should be … [Read more...]
Contextualize First
The tendency to imagine that community engagement demands all kinds of new work, new approaches, and new venues makes the consideration of engagement nearly impossible for some. Last week in Essential Gradualism I pointed out that undertaking no immediate steps is often the best approach. Earlier, in Keep It Simple I made the case that even when programming becomes a part of the engagement process it is best to "go simple." Engagement can often … [Read more...]