A discussion at Live Theatre between, Howard Goodall ( composer) , Ivaldo Bertazzo ( choreographer) , Peter Flannery ( Playwright) and Ros Rigby,  Director of at The Sage Gateshead, 21^st June 2005

Left to right: Ivaldo Bertazzo, Claudia Toni, Ros Rigby, Peter Flannery,  Howard Goodall

Howard Goodall talked about his experiences working with young musicians and observed that we want to engage with the young but the discussion of how to do it takes place without them.  In his current work making a film about young people talking about music he finds that we, as professionals in the arts, talk about diversity of style and culture as something to strive for, whereas for young people, all kinds of diversity, including musical diversity, is already the norm.  If as professionals we try to impose an old definition of diversity then we will fail.  Young people relate to music through personalities, through the passion of a great artist.  When young people talk about what they like, the language they use is physical and emotional. They never talk about music and the arts as cerebral.  Young people are often skeptical of modernism and the avant-garde because they see it as intellectual not emotional or spiritual.  The way to engage young people and to get them to love art is through participation.  When we think to the future, participation and involvement will be of critical importance because young people today are not going to be content to be passive observers.  This is a return to how art used to be.  We have had 300-400 years of deliberate distance between artists and their audiences.  That is all gone.  The artist is now an active component.  Traditional concert activity: come, listen, leave, will die out.  There are too many other ways of passive enjoyment – TV, iPod,, etc.  Participation is the key to all.

You will often hear from classical musicians arguments that Howard thinks are fundamentally flawed

1) that someone else must make audiences come.

2) that the repertoire demands an audience and therefore someone must create one.

The question should be: what is the value to the child/individual?  Music of the future will be driven by the need of the participants – not the other way around.

Peter Flannery told us bout how the local region has influenced his life and work.  He comes originally from Yarrow, a town 5 miles up the river from Newcastle.  YarrowÕs hard-nut attitude and spirit of despair and disappointment goes back to unemployment in the 30Õs.  Peter credits Yarrow with his own strong sense of anger, which is reflected in much of his work.  The place has defined itself in terms of what was denied and who denied it.  In the 60Õs there was an effort to rebuild the region.  Peter was invited back to run Live early on in his career but didnÕt feel drawn to return at that time, even though Tyneside has served as the backdrop for much of his writing.  Back then the Northeast was, artistically speaking, somewhat of an outpost.  Peter is very pleased to be back in Newcastle now, and is excited by its newfound vibrancy.    He feels that the best hope for the future is for the Northeast to see itself as a region within a Federal Europe – finally freed of London.

Ivaldo Bertazzo told us about his work with young people in Brazil, and in particular about the Dance Community Project.  The project was developed in response to what Ivaldo sees as a big problem in working with the young.  Art is on one side of the wall, with young people on the other side doing what they want.  We, as professionals, are still doing refined art – what we can do and they canÕt - and are not giving young people access.  He thinks of the Dance Community Project as an infiltration project.

The schools in Brazil are very weak.  Students are only in class for 2.5 hours a day. Over the past 50 years, the percentage of the population that goes to school has grown form 20% to 97%.  Now 97% also have one meal a day and can be together but there arenÕt enough teachers.  So it is not surprising that when he tried to offer something classical to audiences, the audience canÕt understand the work.  Other countries have many NGOs with a long history of working in the arts.  NGOÕs in Brazil are just starting to use the arts as a means of communication, dance as a way of learning about the body, theatre to improve language, visual arts to think about how they structure their lives.  Art introduces the meaning of pleasure for a young generation who lost or never had a sense of pleasure. We must think about how to do a good project in the arts because we do not want to do just social work.  What is important in the Dance Community Project is opening new doors for these young people to become art educators, and demonstrating what the young people are doing to middle class audiences.  The performances are sold out for months.  Ivaldo prefers to start with teens not children because of their sexuality – their need to understand what is happening with their bodies. For many years he did a project called Dancing Citizen, which was for participants of all ages.   Now he finds he is more interested in the process of what happens to his young students esthetically.

       Ivaldo Bertazzo

Anthony Field commented that young peopleÕs likes and dislikes are tribal. They donÕt analyse and categorise their tastes.

Howard Goodall thinks there is also a need for this kind of training in richer countries because artists are mostly working at their own careers rather than working with young people.  The artists would benefit as well from connecting with young people.

Michael Mao regrets that in US, the creators of dance donÕt go into the community, nor do they send their protˇgˇs.

Anthony stated that since most art and entertainment comes from Hollywood, itÕs very difficult to get the young to pay attention to drama even when itÕs about how they live.

Barbara Scales pointed out that enhancing the development of residency programs should be pursued not just for the benefit of the audience.  The artist also benefits. The very nature of the work is transformed by the interaction with the community.

Michael posed a rhetorical question to Peter Flannery, asking him if he feels the work he does in the Tyneside community makes any difference to the people who live there?

Howard says he enjoys working with young people because they are much more emotionally articulate. It had changed his writing by challenging him to become more emotionally open Ņin your faceÕ. 

Howard Goodall and Peter Flannery

Robyn Archer felt that HowardÕs principle could also be applied to drama. Paths of learning for the younger generation have changed dramatically. The challenge for professionals is getting close to kids and showing how art works.

Peter Stark thinks that finding someone in their lives is a key motivator for young people.  We need a broader definition of key enabling individuals from within arts education who can act as bridge builders to the arts. We live in a period of change driven by technology.  What makes people unhappy is inflexible culture.  The arts are the masseurs of culture.

Howard commented that we must all adapt to young people.  They are more flexible and curious than we are.   Even the top classically trained young musicians do not revere the repertoire the way we do.  They see it as part of a spectrum of possibility. They want to experiment, change things around. Our slavish devotion to tradition runs the risk of killing off classical music.