I spent part of my youth in Champaign, Illinois. After school, our local TV station ran classic movies. I spent some of the best years of my life watching reruns of Busby Berkeley’s black and white dream-scapes. I think there was a part of me that hoped I’d grow up and be one of the dancers. Happy Friday! I hope your weekend performances go smoothly!
Simply put, artists and organizations should dedicate time and money to social media because these sites:
Courtesy of: Schools.com
I am fascinated by the movie-making process. So many ideas and skills have to come together at just the right time; someone has to be the Big Architect, reading the plans and telling everyone how all the parts fit together. What each frame must look and sound like in order to create the whole.
Standing in awe of that epic complexity, it’s easy to overlook what is happening at the smallest level. Check out this amazing video from the makers of Coraline:
I was talking to a job-seeking friend recently and asked if she was comfortable with social media. She replied, “Heidi, there are very few people who are as comfortable with social media as you are.”
Yep.
Clients sometimes tell me they don’t need to use Twitter or Facebook because they have a website and publish a blog. Blogs are definitely helpful for driving traffic – you can use your posts to create an idea or resource bank that followers and google searchers will return to again and again. But how do you know what to write about?
That’s where social media can be incredibly helpful. Your online interactions with audience members can and should be the biggest source of content. Questions and answers might come from anywhere – not necessarily just the folks on your mailing list or the people who buy tickets. Expand the concept of what it means to be an ‘audience’ member when you’re working online. Then write what they want to know.
And be transparent. Be a person who works for the organization, not an anonymous, washed-out, third person version of The Organization. Just be you, or a professionally acceptable version of you. Be “Jeffrey” working for XYZ Museum. Bosses: A formal “social media” policy can articulate what is appropriate speak for your org online.
As long as we are on the topic of pushing boundaries between art and traditional concepts of ‘audience’...
This job posting from Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC says it all. We’re in a brave, new, world. I love the focus on audience (versus funder) experience:
Reports to: Managing Director
Basic Job Function: Ignite the “explosive engagement” between theatre artists and the community that powers Woolly’s mission statement—by working to expand the Woolly family, deepen the audience experience in our theatre, and link our productions to the civic discourse that happens every day in the nation’s capital.
An outgoing personality, excellent communication skills, creativity, and tech savvy are essential. A college or graduate-level degree and theatre experience are a plus. Candidates of color are strongly encouraged to apply.
In addition, the ideal candidate will:
Please send your résumé and a cover letter that details why you’d like to work for Woolly Mammoth to:
Jeffrey Herrmann, Managing Director
c/o Ellys Abrams
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
641 D Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004
ellys@woollymammoth.net
No phone calls, please.
Artstream Ceramic Library is a traveling cache of functional, ceramic art. The Artstream ceramic library parks in public spaces and offers thirteen cups on a one-week loan. The cups were made by some pretty big-name clay artists: Linda Sikora, Ayumi Horie…and you get to do whatever you like with the cup for one week, so long as you take one photo.(You break it, you bought it, though.)
Pretty interesting to think about, if you consider how fragile ceramics can be. And special – to be able to “check out” the work and do whatever you like with it. The complete opposite of a museum experience, almost unsettling for those charged with protecting and preserving these fragile pieces. But conceptually perfect for a clay artist making functional work.
Worth considering the points of potential discomfort in the craft of your own work – literally or figuratively. What are the elements of your art that you don’t usually allow people to “handle” or take home? Where are the spaces that you wouldn’t normally be found working or performing? Who do you travel with? Who is riding “shot gun”, reading the map and deciding when to stop for rest?
It’s always fun to share what happens behind the scenes, but I particularly enjoyed this video visit to a Broadway costume shop. Enjoy!
“Resolve disagreements with facts, not opinions. A long line of research highlights the ways in which emotions and irrationality can distort the decision-making process.”
Bradley R. Staats and David M. Upton in “Lean, Knowledge, Work”; Harvard Business Review, October 2011.
Teo Castellanos – FAT BOY from GlassWorks Live on Vimeo.
The PlayGround Theatre’s Training Series presents
Crossing Thresholds: Creating Original Work
Led by Teo Castellanos
A three-day workshop led by acclaimed actor/writer/director Teo Castellanos offers participants an opportunity to develop original work through movement. Work with universal rhythms, imagination, atmosphere, and archetypes will spark creativity and shape the developmental process. Participants will work barefoot or with dance shoes and will need to wear movement clothing. Artists may choose to create a new work, cultivate a work-in-progress or interpret an existing character.
December 4, 6 – 9 P.M.Last week I viewed Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s documentary, Miss Representation . According to the website, the film “exposes how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America.”
I thought the film was very well done. There is another famous documentary, Killing Us Softly, but this is the first [that I am aware of] mainstream piece to talk about women in power.
The outcome has been a kind of hyper-awareness of headlines streaming by me on Twitter. Here is a sample from this morning – all within minutes of one another:
It doesn’t matter what she said. The way the headline was worded suggests she didn’t ask an intelligent question.
Condi Rice participated in the Miss Representation documentary. Though Gaddafi’s obsession with her was admittedly weird, the real story was about the release of her memoirs.
There was a longer discussion about US-Libya relations – but that didn’t make the headline. The second tweet asks what one of the President’s senior advisors, Valerie Jarrett, might actually do. Well, she’s a lawyer and a former CEO, and she wrote the 2011 report Women in America; the first comprehensive report on the status of American women in 50 years, the one intended to shape federal policy affecting women and girls for the next few decades.
But what about this one? This well-known NPR correspondent apparently left her job in support of her husband:
Actually, Norris will simply recuse herself from political reporting during the election, but is still working for NPR doing signature pieces. John Podesta? He just gets to leave his job. No explanation given. He’s obviously going on to great things. But if you read the article, he’s actually still working for CAP full-time in strategic planning.
Each one I see I re-tweet and then respond to the author asking them if they have seen the film and suggesting a more gender neutral headline that is respectful to the accomplishments of the person in focus – woman or man.
As theatre people, writers, artists, filmmakers, it is within our control to influence how others see and understand women’s roles in society. What conversations have you had about this issue when making your own work?
Heidi Rettig
