The introductory to chapter four highlights the main questions and ideas it will cover: What does the demand of the performing arts look like now? How has that demand been changing? And what issues are these changes likely to pose for the future?
Obviously, number one is public involvement. Without the community to support organizations by attending shows/concerts/gallery viewings, without their donations of time, effort, and money, these organizations would fall apart. The more spread of these people’s commitment the better. Helping multiple organizations will not only help the organizations, but increase their fluency in all aspects of art.
Not all involvement has to be hands on, such as playing within an organization, or helping to plan performances. Others may simply attend the concert, listen to a recording, or watch the performance being broadcast on television. These are all different levels of participation. Any participation at all is an enormous help.
Even within these levels there are sublevels. One might not necessarily plan an event, but they might decide who will provide what refreshments, or where to order printings of the program. Some do more than others, and those that soar above and beyond the rest deserve a little recognition now and then.
Every person does have a mind of their own, and a life of their own. So it is understandable that someone’s participation may change, depending on the content of the upcoming event, when the event is, if there is an emergency or medical obligation.
The book uses two different types of data to make their analysis; survey data, and aggregate attendance data. Since everyone is different, all data must be collected and taken into account so a thorough investigation of people’s participation, commitment, and interest can be taken into account when planning future events.
Being a community orchestra, Willimantic has a number of adult members, who for whatever reason may not be able to attend an upcoming concert. This could be due to pregnancy, surgery, family commitments, accidents, any number of things. So for instance, we are missing a few cellos, our director might not play that cello concerto, and he would have to hold off until we have the numbers to really provide an excellent performance of a piece.
It is interesting to look at the graph in the book that illustrates the different levels of participation in the arts, divided by discipline. Media is always right on top of everything and has a high level of participation, while actually doing an activity is minimal, even to those just attending. However, ballet is the outlier here with little to no media involvement.
It comes as no surprise that Jazz, Classical, and Visual Arts (such as painting/sculpting/photography) are among the most widely spread via media. Media itself is a form of visual art, which could be why the number on the graph is so high.
The education as a Correlate of attendance graph does confuse me a little. It looks as though doing has a very low turnout, while attending increases as someone education level raises. Media, however, is highly involved throughout someone’s entire education and even beyond it.
Page 25 of our textbook asks: Why do people participate in the arts? Why do they choose to become involved in different ways? And why do they choose specific art forms of disciplines? I think the answer to all of these depend on what makes an individual happy. Someone may enjoy painting more than playing the trombone, and vice versa. We are all human, and we all have different thoughts, ideas, and feelings when it comes to the arts. Some people may not have an artistic bone in their body, but somebody has to do sports, I say.
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