Arts Midwest

We’ve been reading some interesting posts on different blogs in the last few weeks, and thought we’d share them with you:

• The New York Times reports that the federal government has pledged to speed up the visa process for artists — music to the ears of those who represent or present artists from outside of the United States.

• Americans for the Arts’ ArtsWatch blog reports that Congress has declared an Arts-in-Education week. How might you or your community celebrate?

• The Guardian wonders whether the proscenium arch is outmoded, with the rise in site-specific, intimate, and alternative-space performances and artistic experiences.

• The Minnesota Orchestra’s blog, Inside the Classics, notices that everything old is new again when it comes to predicting the demise of the American orchestra.

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The Wisconsin Presenters Network established the Lorraine Gross Memorial Scholarship in recognition of Dr. Lorraine Haugk Gross (1935–-1998), a long-time faculty member at the University of Wisconsin –Whitewater and a frequent attendee of the Midwest Arts Conference. The scholarship enables one student to attend the Midwest Arts Conference each year. We look forward to seeing Hannah next month in Indy!

Why did you apply for this scholarship?

I applied for the Lorraine Gross Memorial Scholarship because attending the Midwest Arts Conference will allow me to continue to develop and utilize the skills I have been forming as an Arts Administration Major at Viterbo University. Building relationships with my colleagues through this Conference will be an invaluable experience for me. The appreciation for the arts in the Midwest is very powerful. All of the organizations come together to provide the communities with accessible art by embracing their relationships and this conference is the main stage for those relationships to grow. This scholarship will provide the perfect opportunity for me to create those connections for myself. I’m originally from Minnesota and would love to work in the arts in the Midwest.

What are you hoping to gain from attending the Conference?

Last year I was able to assist with season programming for Viterbo University. Gaining additional experience through attending this Conference will allow me to strengthen my programming skills. Presenting organizations are responsible for the art that they bring to the community. It is humbling to think that a season I helped program may have impacted someone’s life.

What are you looking forward to?

I am looking forward to every facet of the Conference! The Marketplace is my favorite part of the Conference because I enjoy observing the change from the beginning to the end of the Conference. You may walk in a little shy and reserved and leave with new friendships, and that’s what the arts are all about!

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The Conference is excited to announce that Nnenna Freelon — singer, composer, educator, arts advocate, and six-time Grammy Award—winner — will be presenting the keynote address at our Plenary Session on Tuesday, September 14. We’re looking forward to hearing her thoughts and experiences in her address, which will be titled “The Grace of Great Things: The Arts Community in the Wireless Age.”

Learn more about Nnenna and her work and career:

• Visit her official Web site
• See and hear her perform at her MySpace page
• Read about her education & outreach work

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For those of you who subscribe to the ArtsJournal Daily Arts News RSS feed, you may have noticed an interesting exchange over the last few days regarding choreographers who blog about their creation process.

On Monday, Wendy Perron, editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine, wrote a blog post that was strongly against choreographers blogging about how they work.

On Tuesday, Chicago-based choreographer Zachary Whittenburg posted a strong rebuttal on his blog trailerpilot.

Should the creation of art be an entirely mystical process, as Stravinsky said, digging underground, in the dark? Is writing about your creative process inherently detrimental to the process itself? Or, do you think Zachary’s view has merit, that it is a very useful component to an overall process — at least for some artists?

It’s an interesting question in these days of high technology, when more and more people are sharing their thoughts, work, and lives on the internet to an audience of often-unknown readers. What do you think?

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This is the first in a series of guest posts by our friend and colleague, Robert Baird of BAM! Baird Artists Management.

My First Conference

How well I remember the first arts conference I ever attended. I had spent countless hours preparing my booth for the onslaught of presenters who would be sure to visit me. I had food and drink (and didn’t know you weren’t supposed to feed them!), and even a bunch of press kits.

Once the show opened I waited patiently, and waited some more, and continued waiting throughout the days. I had not prepared for the show because I had no idea how to prepare for it. But as I waited, I watched the booths around me, asked a few questions and soon discovered the many avenues of assistance open to me and some strategies that I adopted for my next conference.

First of all, I volunteered for anything I could. I helped out the organizers and I got to meet a lot of people at the door as they entered a workshop or session.

Secondly, I attended every darn event I could. Breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, roundtables, workshops that interested me, social events, you name it.

Thirdly, I enrolled in the mentor-mentee program and had someone I could ask questions of and bounce ideas on as to my activities, booth, contacts and much more.

Finally, I prepared for the next conference by modeling my booth on the best practices of the booths I had seen at the show, making advance connections before the show, having a giveaway contest in my booth and drawing people to it.

There was no more waiting – I was busy and the hours went by quickly. I determined to give back to the conference what I had learned and became a mentor so that I could assist first-timers as they tried to get up to speed in this wacky business. I’m an old hand now, but we were all first-timers once!

~~ Robert Baird