In May I had occasion to attend two music festivals of very different kinds. One was a country music event titled HoustonFest held in Galax, VA. The other was Greensboro, NC's 29th Annual Carolina Blues Festival. I went to the former largely for family reasons. The blues festival was one I've been wanting to take in for a long time. The back-to-back juxtaposition of two such focused celebrations inevitably led to a number of comparisons and an … [Read more...]
Engage Now!
It has been some time since I first hinted that another book was coming out. And I am happy, nay ecstatic, to say, it's here. Engage Now! A Guide to Making the Arts Indispensable is now available in paperback. The ebook version will be out very soon. It's wonderful to have this completed. Two years in the making is a pretty long gestation period. Regular readers of Engaging Matters have seen a good deal of it in draft form in this location. I'm … [Read more...]
Call for Mini Stories
In April I posted the Robert E. Gard Foundation's call for stories about the arts and community engagement. Many have been received. We are working on editing them and others for inclusion on our website. However, this work is important and examples are one of the best ways of explaining the concepts. So, in the interest of expanding the pool of examples, we are seeking responses to a new call for "mini stories." These are even shorter examples, … [Read more...]
Call for Stories
In advocating for community engagement work, one of the most important elements is identifying and sharing stories of examples of what works (and of projects that could have been improved). For years, the Community Arts Network (CAN) was a great source of such stories. Unfortunately they had to close up shop. Fortunately, the good work they did is still accessible in an online archive sponsored by Indiana University. (This is not just stories but … [Read more...]
Irrigate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oePXcW6axk Springboard for the Arts has been developing buzz in the creative placemaking world of late. I've heard presentations about their work at several conferences this year. At the Americans for the Arts conference in Pittsburgh in June I got to meet Laura Zabel, Springboard's extremely energetic ED. Springboard began life as a resource center for individual artists. It has expanded its work to find … [Read more...]
Heard NY
Some time ago I commented [Engaged Mission: I], in response to a NY Times article, that social practice art–art with an explicit social service intent, while admirable, is not the only way to approach community engagement. It's a good and valuable way to engage, but it is not the sole means to do so. When I discuss community engagement I talk about the "issue" being addressed by a project, but an issue need not be a problem or something in need … [Read more...]
Inside Out in Illinois
Inside Out: Arts and Community, was the biennial One State Together in the Arts conference presented by Arts Alliance Illinois and the Illinois Arts Council Agency. Held June 24-25 in Moline, I was privileged to have been invited to speak and present a mini-workshop. OK. Imagine me at a statewide conference devoted exclusively to the arts and community engagement. Got the picture? Yep. Hog heaven. But as an indication of how much I've been on … [Read more...]
Rural Communities, Urban Neighborhoods
(Note: I'm just back from a fascinating trip to Beijing, speaking to arts management educators from around China at the China Conservatory of Music. I'll have some to say about what I learned in the future. For now, I was struck, once again, by how the concern for community engagement in the arts is by no means limited to the U.S.) -------------------- Last time (Lessons from the Road) I gave an overview of the lessons of my last four months of … [Read more...]
Lessons from the Road
Since mid-January I have been on a whirlwind tour of the U.S. (and Toronto). I have kept thinking I am going to stop and reflect on all I've learned. So far, though, there's not been time. But I thought I'd at least take a few moments to thank all of those with whom I have worked and offer a couple of significant takeaways. I've commented previously on the cool examples of hip-hop, Hispanic, and Indian (as in subcontinent) dance … [Read more...]
Engagement Vocabulary in Action
In an effort to clarify the points from my last two posts (Engagement Vocabulary and Parsing Vocabulary), I'm going to try to describe the differences among audience development, audience engagement, and community engagement by using a specific work produced by an arts organization as an example. [But first, to re-repeat, here are the operating definitions I'm using: Audience Development is a marketing strategy designed for immediate … [Read more...]