Cultural Commissions – John Santos

The Wallace Initiative commissioned working papers/artistic responses from Bay Area artists about deepening, expanding, and diversifying cultural participation, hoping to generate new ideas and spark conversations between regional artists and arts organizations.

John Santos, composer, bandleader, educator, and recipeint of The San Francisco Foundation‘s 2011 In the spirit of the Helen Crocker Russell Award, writes on what role evolving technology plays in how music is created and disseminated, as well as the implications on the art form as a whole in his essay Music and Technology.

By nature the computer is an evolving technology, with new programs and software emerging every day for unlimited uses including storing data, composing and creating written scores, recording, editing, and performing … Someone with a poor sense of time or tuning can record and electronically adjust the time and tuning to sound 100% accurate! Is this person a professional musician?

As a traditional musician John is wary but excited by these new advances in music, especially in a time where arts are receiving less funding. To continue exploring these ideas, click here to download a PDF of Music and Technology.

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Cultural Commissions – Eugenie Chan

The Wallace Initiative commissioned working papers/artistic responses from Bay Area artists about deepening, expanding, and diversifying cultural participation, hoping to generate new ideas and spark conversations between regional artists and arts organizations.

Eugenie Chan, 5th generation Chinese-American playwright, investigates questions of beauty, art, and cultural legacy by asking a cross-section of Chinese-Americans for their personal perspectives. Eugenie conducted a series of interviews with relatives, friends, friends of relatives, local business people, and neighbors (a group making up six generataions of Chinese living in America) to get her answers.

Working with the belief that people’s desires are intrinsically related to their history, I created a series of questions about people’s lives in their home countries and their lives here, tailoring them based on what generation of Chinese in America they were.

As a Chinese, what do you think is beautiful? What is the best thing an artist can create for you? Your children? What kind
of cultural legacy can we make that would be meaningful?

The result is a 34 page play that details the diversity of perspectives found within this cross-section of the Bay Area community. The play had its first reading at Self Help for the Elderly in San Francisco on March 18, 2009 with actors Yoonie Cho, Leon Goertzen, Lisa Kang, Arthur Keng, Wayne Lee, Garth Petal, Michelle Talgarow, Annie Y. Wang, Pearl Wong, and directed was by the playwright.

Click here to download a PDF of the script of Circus (or Mah-heih!), an Interview-based Play.

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Cultural Commissions – Michael Santoro

The Wallace Initiative commissioned working papers/artistic responses from Bay Area artists about deepening, expanding, and diversifying cultural participation, hoping to generate new ideas and spark conversations between regional artists and arts organizations.

Michael Santoro, world renowned business ethics teacher, scholar, consultant, and Founder and Artistic Director of the San Francisco World Music Festival, creates BEHIND THE CURTAIN: The Challenges that Face the Stability (and Sanity) of Bay Area Traditional Musicians, a short video on how issues of political oppression, human rights violations, social welfare issues, and economic instability effect the sustainability of traditional music from the perspective of a Bay Area musician’s grandchild.

Over the past decade, there has been an increase in the amount of international, traditional music being presented, produced, and performed in the Bay Area. In contrast to this trend, however, there are increasing numbers of master artists unable to sustain their traditions, and in many cases, their lives. In the case of many immigrant musicians of the Bay Area, the development of these voids are heavily influenced by political oppression, human rights violations, social welfare issues, and economic instability. This video essay takes a look into these circumstances from the perspective of a Bay Area musicians grandchild.

Watch BEHIND THE CURTAIN: The Challenges that Face the Stability (and Sanity) of Bay Area Traditional Musicians below or click here to view it directly on YouTube.

Cultural Commissions – Joaquín Alvarado

The Wallace Initiative commissioned working papers/artistic responses from Bay Area artists about deepening, expanding, and diversifying cultural participation, hoping to generate new ideas and spark conversations between regional artists and arts organizations.

Joaquín Alvarado, artist, arts community activist, and Senior Vice President for Innovation and Diversity at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, considers the overall role of technology and shifting demographics as they relates to community and community-based arts organizations in his essay, Economies of Representation.

The collision of technology and demographics will not result in new combinations we are unable to anticipate, it will result
in new particles and forces we have yet to imagine.

Read about his theories and his 10 simple rules that artists and organizations can follow to enable complex and evolutionary strategies and revolutionary discoveries. Click here to download a PDF of Economies of Representation.

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Initiative Participants Tell Their Stories

What impact has The Wallace Foundation Cultural Participation Initiative had on Bay Area arts organizations?

Local filmmakers Lyssa Rome and Paul Lancour investigate how direct Wallace Excellence Awards recipients and organizations taking part in various workshop series and regranting opportunities offered through The San Francisco Foundation and Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund have changed as a result of the initiative.

In this 11 minute video we hear from AXIS Dance Company, Center for Asian American Media, Contemporary Jewish Museum, and San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus about how they are exploring cultural participation and the impact The Wallace Foundation Cultural Participation Initiative has had on their organizations.

Wallace Cultural Participation Initiative from WallArtsSF on Vimeo.

Year Three in Review

In 2008, The San Francisco Foundation (TSFF) and Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund (GFTA) embarked on a four-year funding partnership to encourage systemic and sustainable structural change in the relationships of Bay Area arts organizations to their audiences, supported by the Wallace Foundation.

Running on the inertia that the project had developed within its first two years, The Wallace Foundation Cultural Participation Initiative reached new heights in its third year. With the huge success of January’s Beyond Dynamic Adaptability, events and workshops were booking up almost faster than they could be disseminated. This would also be the year, however, with major shifts in leadership in the Initiative. Marcy Hinand Cady of Helicon Collaborative resigned from her position as initiative coordinator to be replaced by independent consultant Rebecca Novick. Additionally, John Killacky, arts and culture program officer at TSFF, left the Foundation and the Bay Area in June. Together, Kary Schulman, director of GFTA, and Rebecca stepped up to take the reins until a permanent program officer was found to fill John’s role.

• January 28, 2010 – With almost 1,000 attendees and a line up of local and national thinkers from the arts, neuroscience, business, media, and philanthropy, the Dynamic Adaptability conference was designed to explore a myriad of issues pertaining to the arts. The day was filled with deep conversations about how the recession and technology were effecting arts and journalism and what models artists employ to ensure their livelihood (Click here to download a PDF of the speaker bios, click hereto download a PDF of the agenda).
  • Jonah Lehrer, neuroscientist and author of How We Decide and Proust was a Neuroscientist, enthralled the audience with artistic theories that only recently have gained scientific notoriety. Sitting down with Holly Sidford (Helicon Collaborative), he discussed what new research about creativity and the brain suggest for the practices of cultural nonprofits and how understanding the science behind decision-making can help us to better engage audiences. The fact that Lehrer’s book, Proust was a Neuroscientist, was sold out in bookstores across San Francisco and the Bay Area indicated the eagerness of attendees to learn more about the topic.
  

  Cora Mirikitani discussing artist connectivity with Jaime Cortez, Margaret Jenkins, and Judilee Reed.

  • Judilee Reed, Executive Director of Leveraging Investments in Creativity, presented findings from a study on Bay Area artists and the economic recession (Click here to download a PDF of the survey findings, click hereto download a PDF of Judilee’s speech). Judilee then engaged in a conversation about how artists can strengthen their connections with audiences, communites, and support systems with artists Jaime Cortez and Margaret Jenkins led by Center for Cultural Innovation’s President and CEO, Cora Mirikitani. Both Jaime and Margaret were commissioned to produce essays based on this conversation (Click here to read Jaime’s commission, click here to read Margaret’s commission).
  • Rebecca Ratzkin (WolfBrown) and Marcy Hinand Cady (Helicon Collaborative) presented It’s Not About You…It’s About Them, A Research Report: What Motivates Bay Area Donors to Give to the Arts and Artists based on findings from the Fund For Artists Matching Commissions programs at The San Francisco Foundation and the East Bay Community Foundation. The study details individual giving trends to small- and mid-sized arts organizations and artists as compared to larger institutions and donors to major foundations (Click here to download a PDF of the preliminary research highlights, click here to download a PDF of the report).
  • Diane Sanchez, Director of Grantmaking & Donor Services at the East Bay Community Foundation, moderated a discussion on innovative approaches to engaging communities, audiences, and donors with Perry Chen (KickStarter), James Rucker (Color of Change) and artist Philip Huang. Philip stole the show when, instead of describing how he raised funds for his Matching Commission, he enlisted the audience’s (and artist Michelle Tea‘s) help in fundraising for a new proposed project, Witness the Fitness (video below)
  • Jon Funabiki, professor of journalism at San Francisco State University, led a conversation with Laura Sydell (NPR) and Hugo Morales (Radio Bilingüe) about the implications of demographic and technological changes on arts and cultural organizations and how organizations are adapting to the evolving environment.
• February 18, 2010 – The arts community joined San Francisco Giants President Patrick J. Gallagher, Kaiser Permanente Executive Vice President Bernard J. Tyson, and San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau Arts & Culture Marketing Director Lisa Hasenbalg for Not (Just) Another Arts Marketing Workshopat The San Francisco Foundation and online through a webinar. Attendees heard a variety of new ideas and learned what the worlds of sports, healthcare, and toursim marketing can offer to the arts.
  • Click here to download a PDF version of Lisa Hasenbalg’s presentation about tourism marketing.
  • Click here to download a PDF version of Bernard J. Tyson’s presentation about health marketing.
• March – June 2010 – Responding to art organizations’ need for clear and effective training in social media, Leveraging Social Media:
  

  Leveraging Social Media attendees

  Understanding the Strategy and Putting it into Practice gave a select group of twenty-five Bay Area arts organizations the opportunity to learn directly from Beth Kanter, blogger, social media guru, and co-auther of The Networked Nonprofit. Beth taught participants how to develop effective social media strategies and guided them to develop specific “listening and engaging” experiments to learn how to harness social media first-hand. The program was offered free of charge thanks to the support of The Wallace Foundation Cultural Participation Initiative and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and was organized by Theatre Bay Area. Participating organizations attended two full day workshops on April 2, and June 11, 2011 at the Contemporary Jewish Museum as well as two interim webinars to check in with Beth about their social media projects. These organizations included:

  1stACT Silicon Valley
  42nd Street Moon
  Active Arts Theatre for Young Audiences
  AXIS Dance Company
  Chhandam Chitresh Das Dance Company
  Cinnabar Theatre
  City Lights Theater Company
  Contemporary Jewish Museum
  Frameline
  Headlands Center for the Arts
  Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
  Joe Goode Performance Group
  La Peña Cultural Center
  Marin Theatre Company
  Opera San Jose
  Osher Marin Jewish Community Center
  San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus
  San Francisco Girls Chorus
  San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
  San Francisco Performances
  San Francisco Shakespeare Festival
  SFJAZZ
  Shotgun Players
  Youth Movement Records
  Z Space Studio

• May 16, 2010 – Musicplus: Skill Building for Musicianswas a free seminar held at the James Irvine Conference Center in Oakland, CA that gave musicians and composers a chance to sharpen skills and network with each other. Session topics included emerging technologies to promote and distribute work, hybrid business models and the new economy, new licensing and revenue generation opportunities, regional funding and arts resources, and the basics of home recording. In addition to The Wallace Foundation Cultural Participation Initiative partners TSFF and GFTA, the collaborative event was made possible by the East Bay Community Foundation, Future of Music Coalition, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, LINC (Leveraging Investments in Creativity), and The James Irvine Foundation. For more information and to watch archived webcasts of sessions, please click here.
• June 17, 2010 – What is a Person? was held at the Contemporary Jewish Museum (in conjunction with their LINK program) and featured internet pioneer Jaron Lanier, author of and inventor of the term “virtual reality.” In the workshop, he discussed the implications of new web technologies on education, community, and artistic expression in the 21st century. Please click here to read more and to watch video documentation of Jaron’s lecture.
• November 12 – 15, 2010 – Twenty five individuals from Bay Area arts organizations were selected to receive scholarships to attend the National Arts Marketing Project Conference in San Jose. This annual conference draws nearly 1,000 of the country’s arts marketing and fundraising professionals and covers a wide-range of marketing topics, including technology, revenue generation, and audience engagement. Featured speakers at the 2010 conference included:
  • Chip Conley, Author of Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow; Founder and CEO, Joie de Vivre
  • Chip Heath, Co-Author of Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard and Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
  • Susan Medak, Managing Director, Berkeley Repertory Theatre

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Cultural Commissions – Colman Domingo

The Wallace Initiative commissioned working papers/artistic responses from Bay Area artists about deepening, expanding, and diversifying cultural participation, hoping to generate new ideas and spark conversations between regional artists and arts organizations.

Tony-nominated actor, writer, and director Colman Domingo explores the issues of emigration amongst  San Francisco’s ever-shrinking African American acting community. In his self-proclaimed “META-THEATRICAL,” absurdist short script, The Big Idea, he imagines an uprising of the last of the African American Acting Community of San Francisco and the Bay Area.

Don’t you ever want to be a part of a community that has more folks that look like you? You are intrinsically understood. I couldn’t afford to live here anymore. I was losing. I was becoming so neutral. Theater was losing its color.

Click here to download a PDF of The Big Idea.

To view this PDF, you will need Adobe Reader. Please visit the Adobe website to download the latest version for free.

 

Making Sense of Audience Engagement from WolfBrown now available

Making Sense of Audience Engagement

A New Publication from WolfBrown

wolfbrown.com/makingsense

A new report from WolfBrown takes stock of the growing body of practice in the arts sector referred to as “audience engagement” – a bewildering array of programs and activities such as lectures, open rehearsals, docent tours and online forums – employed by arts groups to deepen participation and encourage repeat attendance.

To help make sense of this rapidly developing landscape, WolfBrown surveyed arts practitioners and conducted case study research on a wide range of engagement practices. The report, authored by Alan Brown and Rebecca Ratzkin, advances several theoretical frameworks for understanding audience and visitor engagement, and includes 11 brief case studies.

A cornerstone of the report is the “Arc of Engagement,” a simple model describing the stages through which audience members travel in constructing unique experiences around a shared work of art.

Helping audiences and visitors make meaning from artistic work is a major focus in the field right now, motivated by the need to attract and retain audiences in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Arts organizations hoping to reap the benefits of an engaged audience must think holistically about managing the total experience, from the moment a decision is made to attend, to the days, months and years after the event.

Engaged audiences are a cornerstone in the foundation of a strong arts ecosystem.

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Making Sense of Audience Engagement was commissioned by The San Francisco Foundation and Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund as part of the two funders’ collaborative capacity-building efforts, supported by The Wallace Foundation through its Wallace Excellence Awards Program.

Cultural Commissions – Lily Khazzari

The Wallace Initiative commissioned working papers/artistic responses from Bay Area artists about deepening, expanding, and diversifying cultural participation, hoping to generate new ideas and spark conversations between regional artists and arts organizations.

Traditional arts (sometimes referred to as ‘folk arts’) encompass a myriad of performing and visual art traditions passed down through generations of peoples throughout the world. Many of these art forms have been threatened, silenced, or neglected throughout history; sometimes falling into oblivion because of genocide or suppression. In this age of instantaneous media and vast demographic shifts, how can traditional arts and artists continue to grow their audiences and ensure a future for their art forms?

Lily Kharrasi, dance ethnologist and freelance writer, has spent her life steeped in traditional arts. She is currently the Living Cultures Grants Program Manager at the Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA), and has worked with the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, in arts education, and in the refugee resettlement field. In her short essay, A Banana Peel is Good for Headaches, Lily explores the resiliency of traditional arts communities.

…Traditional arts are often hidden from the larger public view, not so much because they don’t want to share practices with outsiders, but because the driving force behind such arts is internal to the communities that practice them…

Please click here to download a PDF of A Banana Peel is Good for Headaches.

Cultural Commissions – Peggy Weil

The Wallace Initiative commissioned working papers/artistic responses from Bay Area artists about deepening, expanding, and diversifying cultural participation, hoping to generate new ideas and spark conversations between regional artists and arts organizations.

All commissioned artists were asked to respond to a very specific statement, “How rapidly changing demographics and/or evolving technologies impact the ways in which artists and arts organizations across the region connect with audiences.” What better way to explore technology than with … technology?

Peggy Weil

Peggy Weil, digital media artist and professor of interactive media at University of Southern California, deconstructs the above statement in a hypertext diagram and essay that pull together case studies  from arts organizations and artists.

This diagram (a nod to Robert Cumming’s work in the show 9 Artists / 9 Spaces) serves as an organizing mechanism to what I saw as a bewildering number of threads embodied in the Foundation’s inquiry. I broke it down to an interlocking set of topics and essays, each accessible via the graphic diagram.

Please click here to begin exploring Peggy’s hypertext diagram online.