Richmond Folk Festival and School Outreach Performances

From October 5-12, I spent a week in Richmond, Virginia working on site at the Richmond Folk Festival. What I had the privilege of coordinating was the school outreach program - for which we sent 6 bands of musicians into 16 elementary, middle, and high schools in the Richmond Public School district. Participants included Debashish Bhattacharya (Indian slide guitar), Jorge Negron's Master Bomba Ensemble (Puerto Rican Bomba Percussion and Dance Ensemble), Khogzhumchu (Tuvan throat-singing), Phil Wiggins and Corey Harris (acoustic blues), North Bear (Northern Plains drum), and Min Ji Kim and Bora Ju (Korean music and dance). It was a fantastic program - the principals all expressed to me how much they value having the musicians come perform for the students. Some crammed their entire school population into the auditorium for the shows - as large as 700 students at one school.

The best I heard back from the musicians were these 3 things:

1. When Debashish came back to the hotel, I asked, "Did the kids seem to enjoy it?" to which he responded in his thick Indian accent "Oh, I had more fun than kids!!" (He good heartedly endured a 6:45 AM lobby call for that performance.)

2. The artist buddy said that the gym/auditorium in which Phil and Corey played had historic hardwood floors, and when Phil made the rich sound of a train chugging on his harmonica, all the kids enthusiastically thump-thumped their feet on the floor in the same rhythm, resonating the feel of a train through the whole room.

3. When we showed the non-English-speaking member of Khogzhumchu that he was on the front page of the Richmond Times Dispatch newspaper the morning following his school performance, he put both hands in the air rock-star style, and said "SUPA-STAH!"

Huge thanks owed to Tim Timberlake and his non-profit JamInc for providing sound and transportation support.

It was a great festival week. And with a heavy heart, my last with the NCTA this season.




Photo at top is of the Virginia Intertribal Drum and Dance group, whose performance I coordinated on Sunday. Second photo directly above is of me and Max, delivering sound equipment in a golf cart.

Working Waterfront Festival

On September 25-27, I traveled with an NCTA co-worker to help out at the Working Waterfront Festival in New Bedford, Massachusetts. It was sunny Saturday and rained hard on Sunday (part of reporting the how-it-went of any outdoor festival inevitably includes a weather report). During the very last dreary hours on Sunday, there was scheduled to be the second performance of the New Bedford Harbor Sea Chanty Chorus. They already had one performance earlier in the day, the festival was nearly empty of its visitors, and the rain location for the concert was in a building a bit off the beaten path; suffice it to say I had low expectations for the turnout. Assigned to serve as the coordinator and presenter, I showed up half hour before the start of the set, prepared to say, "You know, you guys don't have to perform; I'm so sorry to say there may not be an audience to appreciate your songs." I didn't get a couple words into this sentence when they said, "Oh, not to worry! We're used to singing for ourselves! It'll be fine! And someone might show up to listen - you never know!" So they went on, and slowly but surely, people started to trickle in the warehouse. They pulled up chairs and the singers circled around them; an inverted and encompassing experience for listeners. Grandchildren showed up with bright eyes; neighbors came. I sat and listened quietly. They sang about their town, their traditions, the sea, the fishermen, and the Schooner Ernestina that they all volunteer and raise money to restore. They forgot some of the words to their songs, but the inside of the warehouse glowed with their spirit. And this is what it reminded me: festivals have different purposes. The NCTA folk festivals serve to bring artists and types of music to towns that otherise wouldn't be exposed to them; they focus on access and exposure; they bring in something new. The Working Waterfront Festival serves to encourage a community to come together and discuss its working culture, political issues related to commercial fishing, and celebrate its unique identity; it relishes and renews something old. So this is what all people who work in events, festivals, and arts orgs should ask themselves: what is the purpose of this event, who is it really for, and measure its success by how well it serves that purpose and those people. The Working Waterfront Festival left me feeling very satisfied. And I'm not even from New Bedford.

Digital Graffiti

Now THIS is cool. This entirely white-painted Florida town makes its starkness useful for the Digital Graffiti Festival, the world's first outdoor projection art festival, where new works of art are projected onto the blank walls. The pictures are stunning. Organizers say that design, technology and architecture intertwine to create entirely new art forms. More info here.

Sundance is green, actually

Dr. Rushton pointed me toward this article (The Films Are Green, but is Sundance?) from the NYTimes just as the festival was starting. It ignorantly, and snarkily, asked if Sundance was eco-friendly, citing poor examples such as trucks idling on Main Street waiting to be unloaded during set-up, and vague conclusions about how many people fly in on private jets. That's all you've got? Did you research it at all?

Redford founded Sundance with the idea of connecting and fostering arts and the environment, and environmental protection and preservation is of the highest priorities of the Institute and Festival. Even as just a seasonal employee, I would vouch fervently for this commitment.

Dr. Rushton also sent me this article (NYT plays dumb about Sundance) that is a good response to the first.

Here are a few of my own examples:

This year, Sundance did not sell bottled water - they're giving out BPA-free nalgene bottles and placing Brita fill-up hydration stations around, with the message of reducing bottled-water waste. The number of film guides (~75 pages, newsprint) printed was cut way back to save paper. The city shuttle system is free for all, and beefed up with more frequent routes for festival weeks, so that driving private vehicles can be highly discouraged.

I did more research and learned this:
Electricity used for all venues and theaters is offset by clean, renewable wind energy, through a partnership with Rocky Mountain Power's Blue Sky program. The CO2 emissions avoided by these offsets is equivalent to protecting one acre of forest.

Just a few examples that I'm familiar with working in the box office, I'm sure there are many more. I was disappointed with the New York Times article, it was unresearched and embarrassing for them; clearly written by a green journalist, and I don't mean eco-friendly.

A couple more films

Mystery Team was amazing. It's written, produced, and acted by Derrick Comedy, which is a group of five kids that met at NYU and worked in the same comedy sketch group. They started making short videos online, that gained so much viewership and popularity, they decided to do a full-length feature, and landed in Sundance; further proof Sundance really is fostering new, young, filmmakers, not just hosting the dog and pony show for those already famous. Mystery Team made me laugh, the entire audience laughed; and I think it represented a new style of comedy, different from predictable tv sitcoms, more clever than blockbuster holiday comedies; it was original and fresh, and had wonderful characters. The humor style was geeky and sophisticated at the same time. Afterward, during the talkback, someone in the audience asked, "When can I get this on DVD?!" The response was, "When someone in this audience picks it up for distribution." I also found I was sitting right in the middle of the production crew, one guy on my left, three to my right, who all did the taping and editing, etc. None were much older than college students.

Then this morning I saw Lulu and Jimi, a German film, a scandalous love story set in Germany in the 1950's, which was fantastical, colorful, highly stylized, and filled with Rock and Roll. It had some dark undertones, but I really enjoyed it. I got a couple extra tickets for my Australian roommates, so they came along too. Ray Fearon (Jimi) spoke after the film, and was so charming and fun to listen to. We proceeded to act like fawning fans do, and got our photo taken with him. I went back into work after that, and the day went quickly.

More films tomorrow, and more updates later.

In the ticket line

Sundance is off to a bustling start. I work long days. I try to see films late into the night. I am sitting in line under a tent right now, waiting to get a comp staff ticket for Mystery Team. Last night, I saw Rudo y Cursi, a film from Mexico making its North American premiere, about two rival brothers played by Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna (both from Y Tu Mama Tambien). It was a beautiful film, and the director, cast, and crew did a Q&A afterward, which was really neat. I was walking down the street talking about it on my cell afterward, and the guy walking behind me says "it was just picked up by this afternoon, by Sony." "Congratulations, it was really great," I said back. Later, I stopped by the post-screening talk back for Spring Breakdown, a new comedy with Amy Poehler and Rachel Dratch from SNL. Someone asked, what was your inspiration for the film? And they replied something to the effect of, dumb stuff you do in college.

Then in the afternoon I snuck out of work for a few hours and saw The Greatest, which is in the US Dramatic Competition. It stars Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon, who were both there, and Carrie Mulligan, a young actress who has TWO movies in Sundance this year. It is about a family who loses a son. It was particularly interesting to hear the screenwriter and director, Shana Feste, speak about the central theme of grief, and how it influenced her upbringing, her father having lost a son before she was born. When she spoke, her expressive gratefulness and graciousness to have her film be selected in Sundance really showed, and made the film more endearing.

More updates soon.

Fairness: Loyalty versus accessibility

At Sundance, tickets are in high demand, especially for premiere category films and particular screenings in the first few days. We don't say a film "sold out" because it may still be possible for people to get tickets in the waitlist line - but this does not appease many patrons who have bought ticket packages and called to fulfill them over our call-in line and can't get tickets to the screenings they want. Some patrons have been coming to Sundance for years, even decades, and understandably become frustrated that their lottery-assigned time to reserve tickets is later in the process and tickets for some screenings have run out.

Shouldn't they have had the chance to get the best tickets first? Shouldn't they be rewarded for loyalty? Good question.

In many arts non-profits it seems a good idea to offer preferential treatment (such as early ticket selection opportunity) to long-standing patrons, especially those paying big bucks for large ticket packages. The problem is, in an organization as big as Sundance, with an enormous number of people who have been long-standing patrons, plus the number of people who come in as part of the industry/press and artist groups, we would run out of tickets for anyone else if we rewarded everyone who has some kind of connection or loyalty to the organization.

Sundance honors a strong commitment to be accessible to a wide developing independent audience, and also to give some priority to the local Utah community. To be true to these goals, we have to make tickets available to these groups, not just those already in the industry, and those that have been attending for years. The most fair way the ticketing dept has found to make tickets available is with a lottery system - you register to get a time slot and one is randomly assigned to you within a few-day period. This results in happy people, who got early time slots, and generally less-happy people who got later time slots. This puts everyone on the same playing field for ability to obtain tickets.

The idea of accessibility is something we ponder a lot in grad school. As arts administrators, is it our jobs to make the arts accessible to all? To break down stereotypes and social barriers that serve up the arts as "elite?" It seems an ideal notion; art for all. And I've noted this week that this commitment comes at a price - telling loyalists preferential treatment is not available and perhaps risking their support and some sales. It's particularly difficult to honor this when other organizations CAN give preferential treatment to some (often without sacrificing accessibility for all). But I like Sundance's ideals - regardless of how big and popular they get, they seem to stay true to their roots "supporting independent artists and audiences." So I continue to explain on our customer service line this week..."I'm sorry you got a later ticket selection time, but this is the most fair way for everyone to have a chance to get tickets."

Mary & Max

Mary & Max is our opening film at Sundance on January 15; it's an animated claymation film for adults about a reclusive middle-aged man in New York and his penpal, a little girl in Australia.

A couple interesting things here:

First, the filmmakers used Skype to collaborate on the film, over the course of 13 months. This is an example of technology advancement enabling the arts, rather than providing competition, as we often think of it.

Second, the style of photographer Diane Arbus inspired the visual thematics; evidence intellectual property law shouldn't be too strict, because good new art comes from old art, and makes the world better (uses old ideas in new ways, connects ideas, etc.)

read it all here:
http://festival.sundance.org/2009/news/article/the_odd_couple/

first week at Sundance

My arts admin classmates and I have started a blog to keep in touch, and so it is there that I wrote the update of my first week at Sundance. You can read it here.


I will add this here:
On my first day, orientation was supposed to start at 9 AM, and we were pushed back an hour, while the big wigs had a emergency budget meeting. I heard later the result of this meeting was a 20% budget cut. The festival usually runs on about $10 million a year. They just cut it to $8 million (4 weeks before the festival); not because they don't HAVE the money, but because they're conservatively trying to SAVE the money, as the future is uncertain with the economy.
It was also noted that, on the other hand, they feel an obligation to spend it, because that's why donors give it - they want to see their money go toward the mission of the organization, not sit in a bank account somewhere. This year, however, safety wins.

Witch hunt

Thanks to Scott for pointing me toward this article. I've been up on the Prop 8 news, but this adds a new layer of complexity.

Since Prop 8 passed in California, denying gay people the right to marry, activists and gay rights advocacy groups have been making noise across the country. We even had a protest here in Bloomington. In particular, high-profile individuals that made donations to the Mormon church's heavy-handed effort to pass the proposal, have come under attack. (I blogged about this before, in regards to Sundance. But this post addresses a different issue.)

Notably, the director of the LA Film Festival, Richard Raddon, stepped down from the position he has held for eight years, after his donation was made public. Similarly, Scott Eckern stepped down from his position as artistic director of California Musical Theatre in Sacramento, after a protest in reaction to his donation that came to light. Admittedly, it seems counter-intuitive: a guy running a film festival in LA or a musical theater company in Sac could support a cause against gay rights? Raddon claimed a vague separation of his social beliefs and his religious obligation, if that explains it. Regardless. What seems more counter-intuitive, and to me is really the issue at stake, is that leaders in the arts community can be forced out of their jobs for holding unpopular beliefs. These are people whose career objective is to support and bring exposure to minority voices and contrary, often counter-culture, ideas, through film, music, and theater. If their organizations are anything like most non-profit arts orgs, these directors work every day to make the world a safer place for alternative-thinking art and people. And in this case, they themselves held the unpopular viewpoint, and expressed it monetarily. And now they're being persecuted by those who generally benefit from the work of their organizations. Ironic, right? (It should be noted the Board supported Raddon, citing his commitment to equality and diversity as a director, and were unwilling to fire him for his personal/religious activities. Well done. He stepped down, it seems, based on public pressure.)

It's hypocritical - these activists believe in rights for all, but then insist those who hold different opinions not be able to express their rights (in this case with a donation). You can't protest for equal rights, and then deny them to those who disagree with you.

The way I understand it, we are all constitutionally guaranteed equal rights, and if some are denied the right to marry when others are not, their rights are being violated. BUT we can't force people out of a job for disagreeing based on their religious affiliations. That's discrimination, and violating their rights.

If you support equal rights, practice what you preach: leave the individuals alone who don't support them. They're entitled to an opinion, same as you, without jeopardizing their professional careers. Quit the witch hunt, and instead of targeting individuals, protest the proposition or the institutions that supported it. If anything, protest to revoke the Mormon church's non-profit status due to their teetering political activity incompliance.

Sundance and Prop 8

As the academic portion of my graduate program ends in December, the experiential part will begin, and we will all go off to serve full-time internships in arts organizations.

I will be going to Park City, Utah, to work a seasonal position at Sundance Film Festival. (I'm thrilled!) I love festivals, but I don't actually know a lot about film, or what is going on in the organization, so I signed up for Google Alerts. Now I get a list, delivered daily to my inbox, of all related news articles with the words "Sundance Film Festival."

Thanks to google, I'm now up to date on the PR hot potato proposition 8 in California has turned into for Sundance. This is the upshot: Utah is full of Mormon influence and money. Many activist groups are angry about the sway the Mormon church seems to have had in passing prop. 8, revoking gay rights to marriage. Consequently, there has been a push among gay-rights activists to boycott Utah, to punish the Mormons.

Sundance reps are issuing statements that reconfirm the festival's consistent commitment to independent and diverse voices through creative work. Sundance has long been a liberal advocate of films with gay subject-matter, no question. So a boycott should exclude the festival, right?

It gets more complicated. Sundance utilizes for screenings a local theater owned by Cinemark, whose CEO is a "yes on prop 8" $10,000 donor, and also uses a Marriott hotel for festival headquarters, whose CEO Bill Marriott is also a prominent Mormon church member and prop 8 donor. (Full story here.)

So Sundance money, or indirectly the money of those who attend Sundance, is going toward these companies that advocates would call "the enemy." Is Sundance wrong, then, to do business with "enemy" companies?

My first instinct is to say the answer lies in how closely tied we perceive the leadership's personal values to be with company values. If the CEO donated his own personal money, to support an issue the company had no position on, is there no problem? (Cinemark has said the opinions and personal donations of their CEO have no bearing on the position of the company.) Possibly. But it is also possible a CEO's personal decisions reflect on his company inseparably.

We don't want civic leaders to be involved in sex scandals. Why? Because that would reflect poorly on the rest of us, who pay his salary with public dollars. Or because it proves he has values not in line with ours, rendering him unable to do his job the way we would like. Either way, we might agree the personal values of other types of leaders in the public eye cannot be entirely separated from their professional work.

Granted private companies are held less responsible to the people than are public officials. But we vote on who stays and who goes, just the same; in one case with our ballots in an election, in the other with where we spend our dollars in the free market.

So Sundance has a choice, to not spend its dollars with a company whose leadership holds values the festival finds morally reprehensible.

But perhaps this is a case of the ends justifying the means. Sundance Film Festival is a fundraiser for the Sundance Institute, a non-profit organization whose mission is to support and develop independent artists and audiences around the world. Sundance has a good mission, and to accomplish it, it needs screening theaters and hotels. And in a restricted geographic region, there simply aren't a lot of options.

Who they choose to do business with is inevitably a value statement, but in this case, is one that is overshadowed by the stronger value statement Sundance makes with its history of supporting and nurturing filmmakers of all ethnicities, backgrounds, and sexual orientations. By giving a launching platform to minority voices, they do better than they would if they refused to do business with differently-valued parties entirely.

(learn more about Sundance here.)