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Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: June 20, 2008, 3:57 pm

I should mention that the lovely stadium photos (I’m especially partial to the chicken shot) were taken by my friend Katie who, as she just pointed out, paid dearly for her efforts.

Ah, ballpark food.

Comment from Eric Kupers
Date: June 20, 2008, 5:37 pm

I think there are some great ideas here. I’d like audiences at my performances to cheer and shout and eat while they watch. I love that Elizabeth Streb serves popcorn at her studio performances, and hope to figure out a realistic similar solution when my company does something. Anything we can do to take the “inaccessible” stigma away from contemporary performance is a good idea in my book.

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: June 21, 2008, 6:37 pm

I wonder when that stigma first reared its nasty little head. Any historians out there care to enlighten us?

I went to the Fort Greene Park today to support my fellow blogger, Ryan Tracy (aka Counter Critic), whose Collective Opera Company performed “What To Do: a post-dramatic DUET” as part of the Make Music New York Festival: http://countercritic.com/2008/06/20/to-do-coc/.

It was a terrific duet, smart and surprising, and the setting was just as good: an unassuming little stage at the base of a rolling, grassy slope; folding chairs; a farmers’ market behind us and kids romping around. Yay for opera in the park! I didn’t see the Met in Prospect Park - would love to hear from folks who went.

Comment from Neal
Date: June 22, 2008, 11:22 am

Thanks for talking about this, Claudia!! This is something that’s been floating around in my brain forever! I even did this stunt in Austin where I offered my services as a “hype man for the duller arts” to arts organizations. I envisioned going around to galleries and dances and experimental films and shouting and leading cheers and wearing team colors related to this or that artist.

No takers.

But besides that, I’ve also always had this interest in the things the more popular entertainments excel at that the less popular eschew or are less successful at. How did we decide to ignore those things (old school high art/low art? class issues?) or at least yield them up to, often, less organic organizations. Like why should sports have sole rights to good raucous times? Why should movies own action or sex or sentiment or romance? I guess those are all less subtle emotions and Art is supposed to engage a little higher? This is the point at which my lack of an arts education leaves me without a lot of back-up other than what I feel and sense.

Anyway, it’s fascinating to me the ways the arts can cloister themselves, bemoan that cloistering and also interesting how the choices we make about what is or is not too gauche or popular to address in the Arts effect those decisions.

I think there are huge holes in what I’m saying. I’m just very excited that you brought this up, even or maybe even because of your preference for the lower, AL version of baseball. Oh Snap! But it is something I find fascinating, if for no other reason than as a person whose artistic impulses stem almost entirely from things that are more often found on Z100 than at BAM (no offense to either implied).

NM

Comment from Neal
Date: June 22, 2008, 11:35 am

Actually, I wonder, upon further reflection, if it isn’t just a tired assumption. Television wouldn’t want to put anything too weird or high end on because of an assumption of the level of tolerance out there for weirdness. In the same way, perhaps, the Arts don’t want to flirt too much with anything too pop/populist/entertainment-based/mainstream-feeling because of an assumption about the arts audience?

If so, seems like it’s a boundary worth pushing and sometimes I wonder if the arts, especially the higher you go, are less willing than NBC, and, if so, which I think it is, then that’s a problem.

K, I’ll be quiet now.

NM

Comment from Doug Fox
Date: June 22, 2008, 11:55 am

I think it’s so difficult to change the very ingrained mindset about how we are supposed to participate or not participate as audience members.

At ballgames I like the yelling, screaming, encouragement and booing — I find it all relaxing and fun.

When watching gymnastics, like Olympic trials yesterday, I wish the announces would just stop talking and let me watch the performance in peace and quite. Same goes for ice skating.

And I go crazy when people whisper, jostle about and make noises during dance performance. During opening moments of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Jardí Tancat last week at Kennedy Center (part of Ballet Across America series) there is no musical accompaniment. The audience simply could not be quiet - maybe it’s just me, but it annoyed me to distraction.

And I can’t stand when people use their cell phones to illuminate their program guides in the middle of performance - the light just shines right into my eyes and is very distracting. Doesn’t anybody realize this or they don’t care?

So, for me, I have very different expectations based upon the environment I’m in and what I’m watching/experiencing.

Getting back to Eric’s Streb popcorn and Neal’s “hype man for the duller arts,” I think these are great ideas for getting people out of their ingrained mindsets, but it’s definitely challenging to accomplish.

BTW, good placement for your excellent chicken picture!

Comment from Taylor
Date: June 23, 2008, 12:19 am

I second Doug on the loud audience during PNB’s silent performance start last week…whispering, cell phones, ushers letting latecomers in, and the like are so annoying in that kind of environment, but in other outlets participation might be fun…

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: June 23, 2008, 11:17 am

Where would we be without our tired assumptions and ingrained mindsets?

There are so many interesting thoughts in these responses (Neal, I’m just going to ignore the AL smack talking - if only because we narrowly avoided getting swept by one of those lowly NL teams this weekend) …

I take your point completely, Doug; there’s a huge difference between fostering a participatory audience environment and dealing with rude behavior from idiots who can’t go a half hour without checking their text messages. And don’t even get me started on hard candy - is it too much to ask that people unwrap the candy before the show starts? Of course, neither of those things has anything to do with participating with the show; they are the opposite, right? And that’s why they are so annoying - while a guy standing up to cheer for “Stray-Rod” to hit one out of the park is a part of the baseball experience, people checking their phones is not part of any communal experience.

And perhaps there isn’t as much room for participation in some of the “high” arts as there is in others. This is the same for sports; interestingly, Bill Simmons, one of my favorite sports writers, just wrote a column examining why tennis is lagging in popularity, and he brought up this very same issue of bringing the crowd in: http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3446552

I’m not sure I agree with all of his proposals, but I immediately thought of this conversation when I read the following:

“Allow cheering, booing, hooting, chanting—anything short of hooliganism—during matches. If you want to keep one “quiet” major, fine, take Wimbledon. For every other tournament, fans should be allowed to act like—hold on, novel concept approaching—fans. If A-Rod can hit a 101 mph fastball at Fenway with fans yelling about his sexual preference, Venus and Roger can handle a second serve amid some background noise.

(Seriously, have you been to a tournament? Tennis and golf are the only sporting events at which you’re expected to drink liquor and not make noise. How does that make sense? I don’t like being anyplace where I might be shushed. It’s just one of my rules in life.)”

I would have to agree with him; do the performing arts “shushers” really believe they are engaged in a helpful activity? And why is it that we’re allowed to have a glass of wine while looking at paintings, but not while sitting in a theater? I think there is an idea somehow that it lessens the event, but that hasn’t been my experience at all. And, while I’m not advocating that the arts emulate sports, I do think a much more tolerant atmosphere could be cultivated, from allowing that glass of wine to ordering ushers to let people sneak down into the cheaper seats if they’re empty (I can’t tell you how many times, especially at the State Theater, I’ve seen teenagers kicked out of these empty seats and banished back to the nosebleeds - a brilliant way to kill their interest in the performing arts).

Comment from jeffrey
Date: June 23, 2008, 4:20 pm

1. I [ heart ] you for quoting the Sports Guy on an arts blog. His tennis points were well-taken if not a bit extreme.
2. re: Taylor & Doug’s comments on audience distractions. I agree that a distracted audience is a difficult audience, but I also think that we need to get rid of those audience members who come to the theater only because it’s on their schedule. Art sometimes becomes like a dental appointment… we go because we’re programmed to think culture is good for us. We should go to live performance because it’s as fun as a baseball game, concert, tv show, or walk in the park.

Undoubtedly, dance and theater and live performance are all good for us, but why shouldn’t we as performers acknowledge these distracted folks the same way we might re-act to a friend who’s checking her cell phone every 5 minutes on a lunch date? The fourth wall is more than a THTR 101 term. It’s what happens when the performers onstage consider themselves as insulated from a live audience as tv or movie actors.

If people are audibly distracted, either a) they need to be informed of their rudeness, and/or b) the art they’re attending is as non-engaging as a doctor’s waiting room.

Comment from Counter Critic
Date: June 23, 2008, 4:30 pm

OMG, Culturist, thanks for the hot shout out! The performances (we performed earlier in the day near Lincoln Center) went well, and no-one left while we were singing, which is always a good sign!

Here’s a link to a photo: http://collectiveopera.com/

I felt it was really a testament to the fact that even street audiences will stop and engage and pay attention to something that is interesting, even if it doesn’t fit with the market-research anticipation of what they would normally enjoy.

You might also remember that Daniel Levitin wrote an Op-Ed in The Times, back in October (CC had some words to say about it: http://countercritic.com/2007/10/29/classical-audiences-dont-think-they-can-dance/) about encouraging audiences to get more active during classical concerts.

I’m inclined to agree and disagree. I love context, and, like in tennis, the quiet at a classical music concert is meant to enhance the tension of the experience. In a great tennis match, the audience is literally fused to every minor movement of the ball. You can hear a sudden, massive gasp when a ball hits the net chord and the fate of the match is in the hands of God (or the wind). Like in classical settings, that focus and attention can be magnificent. It unfortunately gets too mixed up with etiquette, but I’m not sure what can be done about that, other than just to be the change you want to see in the arts world. (Thanks, Gandhi!)

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: June 24, 2008, 11:33 am

Thanks, Jeffrey! I must admit, I am harboring a delusional hope that the Sports Guy will find his way to this discussion …and I agree with you 100 percent about calling rude audience members out. Cell phone disruptions have reached absurd levels; when did it become ok for people to leisurely check their messages in the middle of a dark theater?? I think it should be a zero-tolerance policy: you use, you get tossed. I would be THRILLED if a performance were stopped midstream, the house lights came up and the ushers escorted out someone caught texting, or with a ringing phone. And I can’t imagine it would take very many episodes like that before people became a lot more respectful of their fellow audience members.

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: June 24, 2008, 11:47 am

Thanks for the photo and link, CC, and you’re welcome; it was a perfect Saturday afternoon in New York. I didn’t have popcorn, but I was eating fresh strawberries I had purchased at the farmers’ market at the park’s entrance (and wearing the new leather earrings I bought from a local craftsman who had set up just beyond that - Yay Brooklyn!).

You’re right about those gasps in tennis, how they can rupture/punctuate this incredible connection between audience and activity. But I think that connection can be manifest in various ways. Most performers will tell you that they love doing special shows for kids (I do know some who don’t like it) because the energy levels spike. These kids, who are not schooled in theater etiquette (whatever that’s worth these days), are not at all quiet. They jump around in their seats, they whisper, they jostle. But they also yell out in delight when they like something, or “ooooh” in awe, or giggle at silly costumes. And when they don’t like something, you can sense that, too. It’s fabulous.

Comment from jolene
Date: June 25, 2008, 1:47 am

Interesting discussion! I would totally buy bobbleheads of all my favorite dancers.

I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but I believe that Alex Ross’s book “The Rest is Noise” attributes Mahler to elevating the art of classical music viewing to a higher level, from the raucous standing room only sports-like event to the quiet exclusive high class event it is today. His purpose in doing so, from what I remember, was to present music as a serious art form, instead of a popular one.

Recently, the SF Opera broadcast a live telecast of their “Lucia di Lammermoor” with Natalie Dessay at the Giants Stadium. The performers took their curtain calls wearing Giants paraphernalia. A friend of mine who attended (it was his first opera) really enjoyed that small shoutout to the audience members at the stadium. It seems to be a good mixture of the two, a baseball-ish audience atmosphere that allows checking of your cell phones, with good art.

Is this where the arts are headed though?? Do we really want opera to be at a stadium where people are bringing and drinking multiple bottles of wine? I agree that there’s got to be a middle ground here, and that ballet could use a little loosening up, but the question always remains, to what degree?

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: June 25, 2008, 3:13 pm

Hey Jolene, what would your top five bobblehead picks be??

I think the solution is not to emulate a sports environment, but to figure out ways in which the current theater going experience might be enlivened. Interestingly, sports franchises are increasingly looking to pad the stadium experience with performances - there’s been a big rise in dance, comedy, theatrical troupes, and it’s been controversial, with many fans feeling it dilutes the purity of the experience (ha! sound familiar?). This trend is especially prevalent in smaller markets, or where there isn’t a history of support for a sport, or where the team is so abysmal that you can’t give tickets away (helloooo, Knicks! do they have a lot of performance troupes?). And this doesn’t seem like a good answer to me, either - I would hate to have to watch cheerleading routines at Yankee Stadium.

Two items of related interest:

Guardian arts and sports critics swap roles
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/jun/17/1

John Rockwell stirs the pot again, with a post linking female dancers and racehorses that is guaranteed to raise some hackles:
http://www.artsjournal.com/rockwell/2008/06/female-fragility.html

Comment from jolene
Date: June 25, 2008, 6:46 pm

My top five - I’m torn between picking my top favorite dancers, and dancers who I think would look great as a bobblehead.

Out of the top of my head: Diana Vishneva (with super big eyes, of course), Herman Cornejo (how awesome would curly hair on a bobblehead be?? :), SF Ballet dancers Yuan Yuan Tan (although it’s impossible for me to imagine that one) and Pascal Molat, and Mark Morris.

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: June 25, 2008, 10:26 pm

Mark Morris. Yes. Although the man might already have one - his Brooklyn office is the most incredible shrine to kitsch that I’ve ever seen (and I say that with utter admiration). Simply brilliant.

And thanks so much for the lovely post on your blog, Jolene - folks should have a look at
http://saturdaymatinee.wordpress.com/ … lots of really great musings about art

Comment from Counter Critic
Date: June 26, 2008, 12:58 pm

Hey Neal (if you’re still reading this thread)-

I thought your performance at the New Museum, “The Neal Medlyn Experience: LIVE!”, addressed, in many ways, this issue of audience behavior at events that are supposed to be approached as “high art”.

By conjuring the thrilling viscera of a Beyonce concert, you challenged the audience to break out of their strict postures and take the risk on clapping their hands, whooping and hollering, and even singing along when cued.

However, there was a moment when I felt that this was pushed too far, particularly in the instance where one woman in the audience began to upstage you (from where I was sitting, she was directly across from me and right behind you), because she took such liberty with singing and dancing that she pretty much stopped paying attention, was chatting with her friend, falling out of her seat, taking more pleasure in herself than in your fabulous performance. For me, it crossed a line, and I found her behavior, simply, to be rude.

I’m curious to know how this behavior did or did not affect you as a performer; did you even notice her? if so, did it bother you, or did it pump you up?

Comment from Esther Palmer
Date: June 27, 2008, 9:06 am

I’m loving this discussion.

It seems now is the time that high art is in danger of being subsumed by pop culture - I don’t think it will be, but I think that sentiment comes from a growing impatience with things that don’t please, or more specifically, entertain us. Of course, “high” art entertains me and a baseball game doesn’t — but what can be common to both the sports and art experience that has been tossed around here is a sense of camaradarie and a stake in the outcome. In both cases, you need to know (or it helps) something about what you’re watching to feel that “team spirt” or participation. (And if you’re participating, you’ll probably know a thing or two about when not to use your cell phone). Is it really that much easier to learn the rules of baseball than the basic rules of performance?

Well, maybe it is (though, not being a baseball fan myself, I don’t think so. Good Luck making me cheer-ready about that little ball getting hit around the field), but really I think what I’m getting at is that if art would be a little less precious, the structure for watching might be a little more open to “entertainment” elements like a glass of wine (which seems plenty elegant for the ballet) or “appropriate” vocalization (a game has appropriate and inappropriate shout outs, too) or other demonstrations of being engaged. And maybe if audiences were a little more engaged, the viewers new to the art might be a little less afraid of their reactions and questions (wondering if they “got it”) and more certain in their own experience. Which might further the cycle of being engaged and entertained.

But isn’t that often the point of art, to be precious? To stand outside the flow of life so that we can see better what it has to say or how it affects us? Or is art really that special? Does it need to be? And does the answer to that need to have anything to do with the way audiences engage?

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: June 28, 2008, 7:34 pm

Hey Esther, thanks so much for these thoughtful comments and musings. And you’re totally right: baseball is INCREDIBLY opaque to a lot of people, and just as difficult to explain as what we think of as the more obscure or elitist high arts - perhaps more so, really. The jargon alone! But baseball (gross generalization alert!) has a much more question-friendly atmosphere, I think; I came to love baseball as an adult, and I’ve never been made to feel stupid by a more educated fan. I can’t even remember anyone trying, while I’m sure we all have stories of art aficionados looking down their noses at newcomers. Sometimes, ridiculously, that disdain comes from the anxieties that plague marginalized groups. Baseball, obviously, has no reason to care about being indecipherable, while poetry has plenty. Anxiety does not tend to foster generosity.

I sometimes see baseball games with one friend who (willfully I think as she’s a super-smart woman) has accrued very little understanding of the game - and she has a great time being there, having a few beers, soaking in the atmosphere, chatting with hardcore fans. She knows a LOT more about art than baseball, but it’s much harder to get her to sit in a dark theater with me. Interesting.

It’s been my experience that good art (and good artists) is not at all precious. Necessary, yes, but not precious.

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: July 3, 2008, 11:19 am

for the record:

http://saturdaymatinee.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/pick-your-bobbleheads/#comment-729

Comment from Esther Palmer
Date: July 4, 2008, 2:50 pm

claudia, good point about sports being open to all, though from a personal perspective (an exception, I admit) I am just as uncomfortable baring my inadequacies with sports as others I know are with performances. But though there’s no right or wrong answer with one’s experience of either, there’s still a discomfort with approaching an insider-generated culture, even with an all-american game — what if america makes you feel like an outsider? We need more tolerance in every realm, mass culture and “high” culture alike. But I’m probably drifting from the point of the initial discussion…

I also wanted to respond to the idea of art being “precious”. While I don’t think it should be precious (in the fragile, white gloves kind of way), it usually is to me -the art that i connect with, anyway. Which brings me to the idea that it isn’t always (ever?) the thing itself but what we want to take away from it –like your friend not understanding baseball but enjoying the game anyway, and me not really caring what I’m seeing in the theatre as long as I’m in one… if your community serves as a kind of cocoon for you, at some point your relationship should be developed enough to introduce others to it –with the right talking points to help them engage. Is it not up to us, the art doers + seers, to change the experience of art for others not comfortable with it?

Creating a fan culture around individuals (I would buy a merce bobblehead, too) may be a first step to helping people find their way in.

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: July 6, 2008, 8:12 pm

Well, maybe you’re not an exception, maybe my idea of baseball being open is total romance.

And I love drift, though I think your point isn’t so far out there - speaking of romance, there’s this wonderful American myth that we’re an open society. We are, of course, compared to some other societies, and compared to past periods in our own history. But we do also love our cocoons and, often, because of the myth that we have no hierarchies, they are all the more insidious.

I was thinking of this conversation earlier today, while watching (and watching, and watching) the epic Wimbledon final between Federer and Nadal. Amazing. Maybe the single greatest sporting event I’ve ever seen. And talk about cocoons! I kept thinking of the Bill Simmons essay in which he suggested ways that tennis could reach out to more people by changing its nature, and thinking, “To hell with that!” I wouldn’t want Wimbledon to abandon its rituals and rules, no matter how silly or outmoded they may seem to many people, simply to attract a few more eyes to the television set. The cocoon was glorious - anybody who couldn’t see that had no business being there.

Of course, everything changes, and should change. The alternative is ossification, which, from my vantage point, exists in a big, big way in the performing arts (since my love for sports is less analytical, I don’t usually see the ossification that Simmons does when I look at sports).

But change isn’t necessarily good. It becomes a problem when it stems from anxiety - when those involved in selling/contextualizing/branding/creating/etc. a particular tradition latch onto changes that undercut the form, be it athletic or artistic, instead of enhancing it. So, yes, I think it is up to those inside the cocoon to draw people into it, but it’s such a fine line they have to walk in doing so.

Maybe, instead of trying to draw more people in, people should think of ways to go smaller - sustainability is a huge buzz word these days, and I wish I heard it more from the big arts institutions. Going smaller, going leaner, doing less with more - it makes sense for consumers, it makes sense for the environment. And it sure as hell makes sense in the arts.

Comment from Patrick
Date: July 15, 2008, 10:51 am

Claudia La Rocco is an idiot to actually but that criticism to print on David H. Koch and the theatre that will take his name and the companies that will be able to provide a space for the artists to perform. I suggest that she get her butt out there and raise the money to give to directly to the various artists if she thinks that is of the utmost importance. Otherwise, criticism of a successful fundraising effort does little except creat the atmosphere of those who can do and those who can’t complain