InsideOut

San Francisco is an arts-rich town, we all know that. We have our share of artists, arts organizations; street and public art. Like most of my colleagues in art-drenched San Francisco, I attended the Arts Town Hall on June 9 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The opening panel discussion included remarks by Alan Brown, a new transplant and arts consultant in the Bay Area.

These types of events are usually fun opportunties for networking, but they are usual: the usual suspects, the usual content, the usual conversation. However, Mr. Brown's comments stuck with me. He suggested that the nature of performance is changing; and that we need to recognize, reflect on, and adapt to this change. He said that we need to find out how people are changed by art, and why, “Where is the room where people go after a performance and talk about what just happened?”

As with a lot of changes, we can blame this on technology to a point. Youth in particular are used to having their say in a variety of interactive ways. They don’t just consume art (music, theater, visual, movement); they share it, they tweak it, they comment on it, they riff off of it and change it and make it their own. They take the personal and make it communal. Is this a new phenomenon? Not really. But it is so much more accelerated and widespread now than it used to be.

Mr Brown's comments highlight something that we’ve always noticed about art – it is highly personal. Very often just getting to the point of “expression” is enough to move us, and laudable. But it is not enough to sustain us - for that, we need to reflect with others; discuss, compare and challenge.

At Performing Arts Workshop, we have learned that to stop at expression in the classroom is also not enough. Learning through the arts requires the added layers of reflection on creative work, and then revision of that work. To express is not really to learn. It’s only half of our charge as educators, and as artists.

As with student art in the classroom, so with professional art on the stage, screen, page or canvas. Art stays personal when it stops at expression. The work becomes communal at the points of reflection and revision. It becomes public, and is owned by everyone – What just happened? What was unique about it? What struck you? Why? How could it be different?

The nature of performance is changing, and necessarily the nature and role of the audience is changing. Art making has always been about learning and community building. We’re entering a time now when we can get back to those powerful roots. Kids know how to do this; it's time we re-learned how.

Share it, tweak it, comment, riff. Just be sure to reflect on it.

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