New York 2006 - International Society for the Performing Arts

I attended the 58th Congress of the International Society for the Performing Arts as a scholar last week and found it an extremely useful and stimulating experience. I feel that many of the current Clore fellows would have also greatly benefited from the opportunity to attend the conference and would recommend that the Clore Leadership Programme considers becoming a member of ISPA. This would allow future fellows to attend their conferences at reduced rates. I was lucky to have had my attendance fees (not travel or accommodation costs) covered by ISPA, but this was very much an exception as they normally award such scholarships to new participants from developing countries. I have compiled a report which I hope clearly demonstrates how useful membership of ISPA would be to future fellows on the Clore Leadership Programme: not only are the topics covered in the presentations of central relevance to the core concerns of the Clore programme, but ISPA meetings provide excellent opportunities for fellows to network internationally and to make the Clore Leadership Programme more widely known in the performance arts world.

Opening Keynote Address:
John Kani, Ubuntu: I am because we are
Internationally renowned South African actor, director and playwright, John Kani, took the Zulu word ubuntu, meaning kindness, tolerance, respect and humanity, as the starting point for a speech that extolled the capacity of the arts to enrich the souls of nations and to bring about mutual understanding between races and peoples. Drawing on examples from his own personal experiences during the Apartheid regime of South Africa and from the ensuing period of truth and reconciliation, Kani spoke movingly of the common thread of humanity uniting peoples and nations, stressing the importance of storytelling in teaching/inspiring people to understand, forgive, aspire and create. He discussed the role of heritage in helping us to understand who we are, where we come from, what we stand for and how culture can enable us to identify both what differentiates us from our neighbours and what links us. He also discussed the importance of humane and holistic leadership in the arts, pragmatic, but motivated chiefly by artistic concerns. He advocated the servant leader as the ideal model, whom he characterized as one sensitive and receptive to personal, local and international issues and the environment. He stressed that one’s personal relationships and one’s assumption of personal responsibility towards one’s fellow human beings, ubuntu, should lie at the core of everything one did and in turn provide the motivation for positive global change.

As a practical artistic demonstration of Ubuntu in action we were then treated to a wonderful performance by singer and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Angélique Kidjo, who has cross-pollinated the West African traditions of her childhood in Benin with elements of American R&B, funk and jazz as well as influences from Europe and Latin America. The Brazilian guitarist, Rubens de la Corte, accompanied her.

Daily Keynote: Liz Lerman and members of Dance Exchange, Making Rules, Breaking Rules: The Artist of the 21st Century
Founding artistic director of Dance Exchange, dancer and choreographer Liz Lerman praised the power of art. She argued that art is one of the most powerful tools humans have: God’s first action in the Bible is one of creation, primitive peoples danced to understand things and she in turn now studies and choreographs works inspired by genetic research to help make sense of the modern world. She contrasted the tendency of finding comfort and communality in the past with the anxiety/excitement of looking towards the future and finding fragmentation and confusing diversity leading to the question, how does one deal with the challenge of diversity? Her answer was to avoid walls, be flexible, avoid hierarchies to balance process and product, individuality and communal responsibility. She pointed out that if one operated in hierarchies one had to put someone else down in order to go up oneself if one accorded equal respect to all on the same level such behaviour was unnecessary. She stressed the importance of flexibility for freshness of thought, while maintaining that it is fundamentalists who need hierarchies. At the same time she argued that one should constantly re-examine what constituted good art, advising that three factors should always be present: that the artists should be 100% committed, that they should understand why they were doing what they were doing and that something should always be revealed. She also warned that one should always be careful to work in an appropriate and sensitive manner depending on the groups and sites with which one was working: citing as an example that a joyous and moving collaborative dance project in an old people’s home might appear condescending if put on stage. She went on to describe projects she had worked on recently including a project inspired by the Nuremberg Trials and more contemporary genocides, commissioned by the Harvard Law School, where she demonstrated how she and her group of dancers (who danced excerpts from scenes, interacting with the audience) had had to break rules to realise the basic idea that one must be upstanding and refuse to be a bystander. She went on to make the point that artistic skills could greatly benefit the wider community, citing, for example the power of rehearsals (eg: if Bush had rehearsed the war in Iraq he might have realised it was not such a good idea!). She also advised that we should try to unbundle our assumptions, as previous rules or ideas may not work in new situations. Again drawing parallels with the genome project, she pointed out that although we are common we are also composed of many different pieces. Similarly in art we do not need to dumb down or reduce to the lowest common denominator but can more usefully break things into smaller pieces to aid perception and accessibility. She also urged that participation was for all including the wealthy, pointing out that if one could involve those with status others would follow - if one really wants to change the world one has to influence those with power, wealth and status. We need to grasp the fact that the world is changing, turn any discomfort we feel to enquiry and not preach but be in a relationship with all members of our audience. Finally she pointed out that in Hebrew the words angel and messenger have the same root; she urged artists to be both.

Closing Keynote Address: Min. Gilberto Gil
Brazilian Minister for Culture, and internationally acclaimed musician, Gilberto Gil, closed the conference with his own reflections on the theme of ubuntu. Stating that we are the measure of our differences and our similarities, he underlined the importance of culture to help us understand both, maintaining that it was the duty of every state and every citizen to be actively involved in the culture of their nation that culture was the priority of all priorities. That while enthusiasm, ‘having the God within you’, was vital, positive practical action was also needed. Using the example of Brazil, he argued the case for placing culture at the centre of progressive 21st century society, that there could be no citizenship without cultural citizenship, that culture was a basic human right, that it was vital to build both personal and national self-esteem and dignity and that positive national transformation had greater chance of permanence and success if underpinned by cultural value. He talked of culture, not as an elitist concept for the few but as a set of shared signs for each community and nation as a whole, maintaining that good government should aim to provide the stimulus for cultural production. At the same time he warned against grandiose nationalistic schemes imposed from above, but argued the case for local community involvement, saying that cultural programmes should evolve from real situations and needs and thus be integrated into the fabric of daily life. In Brazil he claimed that this was effecting a silent revolution, a synthesis of national imagination and way of life, working towards a new cultural identity for the nation. He warned of the threats of the homogeneity of globalisation and urged that each nation should mobilize its artistic communities and practise cultural diversity. While maintaining the need for flexibility, understanding and global citizenship, he nevertheless stressed the importance of artistic individuality, stating that while espousing ubuntu: I am what we are, we should nevertheless remember that we are also what each of us is individually. He ended with a call for cultural responsibility and activism, exhorting us to remember that we are the world and the world is what we make happen.

Other Topics Addressed
A series of panel discussions were also presented in the course of the conference:

Ubuntu: The Role and Effect of Superpowers inn the Global Cultural Community
Chair: Jacqueline Z. Davis, Executive Director New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Moderator: Sir John Tusa, Director of the Barbican
Panel: Andras Szanto, writer, researcher and visiting senior fellow Center for Arts and Culture, Washington
CG Pamela Wallin, well-known Canadian journalist
Prof. Yuen-ying Chan, award-winning Hong-Kong journalist and academic
John Kani
Min. Gilberto Gil
Discussion re. globalisation v. localisation attitudes and reactions to American culture in current troubled international climate culture v. entertainment financing culture culture and capitalism importance of protecting cultural autonomy and freedom what can arts presenters do to promote local cultures? Protectionism v. cultural appropriation role of cultural superpower = to listen as well as export it is in our interest to be interested in other cultures
Ubuntu: Arts and Health
Chair: Dr Michael Blachly, Director, University of Florida Performing Arts
Panel: Elizabeth Auer, Assistant Director of University of Florida Performing Arts
Jill Sonke-Henderson, Co-Director of the Center for the Arts in Healthcare, Florida
Robert and Rebecca Bluestone, Musician and Artist active in bringing arts to health institutions
Naj Wikoff, Director of Healing and the Arts Project of the C. Everett Koop Institute at the Dartmouth College and President of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare
Practical and inspirational discussion of the power of the arts to aid healing.
Ubuntu: From iPods to the Stage: Bridging the Two Worlds
Chair: Paul King, Co-Founder White Bird
Presenters: Paul Kaiser, digital artist, experimental film-maker, academic
Dr Christopher Salter, academic specialising in theatre and computer generated sound, collaborator of Peter Sellars and William Forsythe
Elizabeth Streb, experimental dancer, choreographer, recipient of numerous awards and founder of STREB Lab for Action Mechanics
Diane Ragsdale, Senior Program Associate for the Performing Arts Program, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Very lively discussion re potential and challenges of technology and the arts!

Executive Development: Learning and Coaching
Charlotte Jones of the Independent Theatre Council in the UK presented a workshop on the above which discussed different learning and coaching styles to help someone change their behaviours, perceptions, attitudes and feelings and thereby become more professionally motivated, responsible, aware and confident. She stressed how a coach must be genuinely respectful/caring and genuinely present and advised that they slow down and focus on the needs of the person being coached. The skills necessary included real listening, questioning, challenging to stretch the object’s horizons and test their potential, and genuine feedback to aid their development, make them reflect on the process and to celebrate their journey. A number of collaborative assessments were undertaken, during which time I worked with Glenn Hodgins from the Ontario Arts Council who quizzed me about the Clore Leadership Programme as they are thinking of setting up a similar programme in Canada.

Discussion Groups
On the final day of the Conference, we were assigned to small informal groups to discuss the lessons we had learned from the conference. By chance I had the good fortune to be assigned to the group with John Kani, Paul King (co-chair of the congress) and Marty Jones (new Chair of ISPA) and a lively discussion ensued re the merits of technology v. storytelling we came to the conclusion that we should be less defensive re technology and recognise its potential as another mode of communicating our overall artistic messages. All agreed that not only had the conference been thought provoking, but also that all had appreciated the interactive element of much of the programme which had facilitated discussion and sharing of information throughout.

In keeping with the holistic theme, a final debrief for the whole congress was also held at which delegates were invited to express their views and feedback. This also proved very revealing regarding the shared and differing individual needs/ motivations of attendees from different parts of the world.

Performances Pitches
The final day also had a series of pitches of various performance projects from around the world looking for finance, collaborators, venues etc… They included projects as diverse as a collaborative Senegalese/ USA dance project, a black classical wind ensemble’s project to celebrate the centenary of Josephine Baker, an opera about Genghis Khan and a Jewish/Canadian re-working of Don Quixote! The projects I personally found most interesting included two dance and two theatre projects. The first, planned by the Canadian choreographer Marie Chouinard, is inspired by the ink drawings of the Belgian poet and painter Henri Michaux, and aims to translate the visual dynamic of drawing into music and movement, while the second is a new collaborative contemporary dance and music project planned by Bang-on-a-Can composer Michael Gordon and Holland-based contemporary dance group Emio Greco/PC which aims to combine rock elements in a joint exploration of the musical relationship between music and dance. Of the theatrical projects I was impressed by the Czech theatre group, Farm in the Cave’s, piece ‘Sclavi The Song of an Emigrant’ which combined physical theatre and polyphonic emigrant and ritual songs in a pertinent tale of the return of an emigrant to his native village in Slovakia, while the South African director, Yael Farber, gave a compelling case for a new re-vision of King Lear, centred around the volatile issue of land redistribution as related to political tensions in Africa, Palestine/Israel, Northern Ireland and Bosnia.

Networking Opportunities
There was plenty of opportunity for socialising and getting to know delegates from home and around the world, although it would have been even better had I been able to stay in the conference hotel some of the other delegates indeed requested that cheaper conference accommodation might be found next time. A lunch was held for new members on the first day, where I met various delegates from the New York arts community. The same evening a welcome cocktails and auction afforded similar opportunities, while the following night a cocktail party and awards dinner was held. On the final day of the conference delegates could display brochures at table top exhibition spaces over lunch for a couple of hours. This also provided a useful opportunity for me to introduce myself and discuss how western art is perceived and programmed in a number of international cultural institutions. The closing reception, organised by the Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office of New York, introduced the themes for the forthcoming ISPA conference in Hong Kong in June.

Future ISPA conferences
The Annual Conferences are held in January in New York and may be combined with the US Arts Presenters Annual Conference, which follows on directly after (this is much larger, concentrating on showcasing performances, agents etc… and of less immediate use unless one has a current programming objective, although there are some interesting talks scheduled there as well).

ISPA then holds one International Congress per year: 2005 was held at the Sage in Gateshead, this year it will be held in June in Hong Kong (Subject: The New Silk Road for the Performing Arts), 2007 will be held in Brussels (Theme: The true Role of the Arts in the global arena and how to put the arts on the political agenda), 2008 in San Paolo all of which topics are highly relevant for Clore Leadership Fellows!

I am at present considering whether I might use some of my research budget to attend the Hong Kong Conference as the subjects to be discussed include the Remaking of Tradition in Theatre, Performance, Dance and Music, Discovering and Reproducing Authentic Arts and The Strategies and Thinking Behind Asia’s Performing Arts Centres, all of which are highly relevant to my own interest in the promoting and presenting of traditional Western European Arts in the Global Context.