Arts Participation Amongst Football Players Spikes

By Charles Phaneuf

In the week leading up to the Super Bowl, when most of the story lines about star players and genius coaches were exhausted, we started to hear about fascinating avocations. Running back Rashard Mendenhall was in the news for taking dance lessons, which he said made a big difference on the field. Star quarterback Aaron Rodgers is a regular at open mic nights, where he plays guitar and sings, and several of the Green Bay Packers take piano lessons together.

While it’s encouraging to hear about these examples of adults participating in the arts, it also highlights how we don’t hear these types of stories often enough. The 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts by the NEA tells us that 10% of adult respondents had participated in creating art by performing or making work. The trend is positive, growing by 2% over the previous survey in 2002, but this group is disproportionately white, female and educated, which means that it roughly represents what we already know about arts audiences.

Why is this lack of diversity and participation not a larger part of the conversation about the health of the field? Rocco Landesman recently made a statement about the oversupply of live theatre, which seemed to initially espouse the idea that the arts audience is static. Isn’t there clearly a connection between people participating in the arts, as both children and adults, and arts audiences? When he issued a response to the ensuing controversy on the Arts Works blog, Mr. Landesman mentioned arts education first in his response to the question about how best to develop future audiences. But he talked about it only in terms of as getting exposure to the arts at a young age. This is a limited way of thinking about arts participation.

If football players—young men in their 20s and 30s—can find their way to piano lessons and become part of this crucial but growing 10% of adults that participate, there is no reason to look at arts audiences as a static or shrinking part of the population. Rather, increasing the arts participation rate could be the greatest challenge and opportunity that currently faces the field.

In my experience, there are benefits beyond simply “butts in seats.” I play saxophone every Monday night with the Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra, and it’s one of the best parts of my week. Even when the workday is at its most challenging and frustrating, I know that I can enter this venerable institution, take my horn out of its case, see some friends and play great music for three hours. I only wish that more people participated in activities like this. We’d be a happier, healthier and more compassionate community.

Who will join Woody Allen the clarinetist, Grant Hill the art collector, and Bill Clinton the saxophonist as successful public figures that exemplify arts participation? Here’s hoping we hear more stories about the likes of Rodgers, Mendenhall and the Green Bay Packers in the coming year.

Charles Phaneuf

Managing Director

Joe’s Movement Emporium

Links

Mendenhall story: http://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/Pittsburgh-Magazine/August-2010/Rashard-Mendenhall-Thinks-He-Can-Dance/

Rodgers story: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/2010/columns/story?id=6076694

Packers piano lessons: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/04/133474167/can-music-predict-the-super-bowl-winner

NEA study: http://www.nea.gov/research/2008-SPPA.pdf

Landesman: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/landesman-comments-on-theater/

Arts Works blog post: http://www.arts.gov/artworks/?p=5402

Logs or Log Cabins? It depends on your vision.

President’s Day and African-American History Month mark February as a time to celebrate our cultural heritage. While DC has always been a cultural city, over the past decade we have seen exponential growth in creative industries that not only commemorate our nation’s heritage, they lay the foundation for our future cultural development. For over 25 years, WALA has had a part in building DC’s reputation as a creative center. To build upon our legacy, WALA’s board and many volunteers have spent several months developing a strategic vision to encourage growth in the creative sector in a way that supports the economic development of our community.

While WALA staff and supporters have toiled on developing collaborative strategies to ensure a viable infrastructure for creative industries in our region, 2011 has born witness to some significant setbacks on the national front. This week alone we have witnessed Borders go into bankruptcy and political volleyball over funding for key cultural programs, especially the National Endowment for the Arts. Since economic analysts have announced that the recession is over and we are staring at a mound of public debt, it seems that policy makers have lost a cohesive vision of what is needed for consistent long-range economic growth.

Wait! - you say - why all the talk about economic policy? We still can't seem to get across to legislators that the arts is an integral part of the equation. For nearly five years we have grappled with ongoing struggles in the film, television, music and publishing industries to simultaneously address the impact of economic recession and to find viable business models in the midst of a technology revolution that has literally turned all media arts industries on their heads. The risk to our country is not only a decline of creative industries in which the United States has historically been an innovator and leader, but a depletion of our cultural identity and heritage.

We need a shared political vision about the importance of the arts to our society and our economy. There is needless debate about the value of arts in our communities, our schools and our economy. Perhaps instead of celebrating the holiday weekend with flowering oratory about log cabins, we should reflect about the log in our eyes.

WALA PREZ DAY EVENT POSTPONED!!!

Dearest WALA Supporter,

I have some new information to share with you about the previously forthcoming Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts (WALA) President's Day Weekend event originally slated for February 17, 2011 at Gibson Guitar. The WALA Board has met and determined that we are postponing the event on Feb. 17th until a date to be determined in May. The event is postponed due to inclement weather projections for this forthcoming Thursday. A new date and venue will be determined in short order (Gibson Guitar, our host venue, unfortunately cannot host a Spring event due to previously scheduled bookings). Professor Susan Jones will still be honored at the May event and other award recipients may also soon be announced.

Because of the resulting short notice, I wanted to make sure we're aggressively getting the word out to you, our supporters and members, and personally apologize for any inconvenience this date change may cause you. Please do help us get the word out to your individual networks, those you may have personally invited or those you know who planned to attend next Thursday.

Thanks for your support of this fundraising event and our organization. We look forward to your attending the forthcoming Spring Affair! Other than the date and venue location, all the other event details announced are expected to remain the same or perhaps even be improved!

We'll get you all the new date the second it is confirmed. We appreciate your patience in the interim and look forward to seeing you in Spring! My contact information is below should you need to directly reach me. Thanks again!

Warmest regards,

L. Michael Gipson
Executive Director
Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts
www.thewala.org
(c) (216)-534-9017

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Just 30 Days 'Til We Party With A Purpose!!

In just 30 days, we'll be bringing in the holiday weekend right! Buy an advance ticket and automatically become a WALA member! That's a $35 savings and a year of plenty legal beagle returns! Join WALA, support DC arts, and have an amazing night of music, fashion, and scrumptious cuisine. Wow, how hot is that?

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2011: A Creative Odyssey

2011 – a glorious new year to embark on a mission! The holidays naturally invite us to contemplate “New Year’s resolutions.” And yes, I have a resolution too: I want to put DC’s cultural identity on the map.

As WALA’s president, I spend a great deal of time envisioning our organization's role in D.C.’s cultural landscape. This week, my contemplation happily coincided with a segment on the Kojo Nnamdi Show, The D.C. Area’s Unique (?) Cultural Identity. Amid familiar commentary that DC is a “government town” with a “small town” cultural landscape, Kojo’s guests also made approving nods to what our city has become. We have art, theater, music, film, fashion, and museums (and I am not only talking about the megalith complex we call “America’s Treasure Chest”). We even have food. So it would seem that despite the omnipotent presence of agencies, contractors and other going concerns that drive our nation’s government, we have evolved into a city with cultural distinction.

Still, as guests on Kojo’s show quickly noted, we are not New York. Regrettably, the comparison is unsurprising. Detractors of DC’s cultural scene commonly cast a shadow over our community’s accomplishments, either by drawing comparisons to other cities or by distinguishing DC’s (lack of) attributes (a “small transitory government town”) to justify why culture will never take root.

If our community is to distinguish itself for the cultural attributes that it has -- and not the ones it is lacking -- we must invest in our creative community. Cultural identity is built on community. Community develops a cultural identity through space - places where people come together to exchange ideas – and relationships formed by common experiences. How a community celebrates, how it mourns and simply how it goes about daily routines all define a common cultural identity. The narrators of that cultural identity are a community’s creatives: its artists, storytellers, musicians, designers curators and, yes, culinary masters. Our creatives shape and define our collective identity.

In the coming year, WALA will do its part to invest in our creative community and put DC’s cultural identity on the map. WALA will develop two white papers on legal issues in the creative economy. It will be stepping up efforts to educate and train economically challenged and emerging artists on legal aspects of creative entrepreneurship. It will build upon efforts to raise awareness of legal and regulatory challenges that hinder the development of a vibrant and sustainable creative economy. Finally, it will continue to serve the hundreds of artists and arts organizations in our community that seek legal advice. I invite you to roll up your sleeves and join us. Together, we can put to rest once and for all the question of whether a distinct cultural landscape exists in the District of Columbia, our nation’s (cultural) capital.