Short Video on Climate Change Reality

Climate Change: the
State of the Science
A new data visualization released on the first day of the plenary negotiations at the UNFCCC’s climate negotiations (COP-19) in Warsaw articulates climate risks and the challenge of remaining below 2 degrees.

Produced by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and Globaia, and funded by the UN Foundation, the 3-minute film uses stunning visuals to unravel exactly what the IPCC’s climate probability ranges mean for societies. It concludes that if the world wants a “likely” chance (66-100%) of remaining within the 2 degree Celsius target set by international policymakers, then we can only emit around 250 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere. Given emissions are currently around 10 billion tonnes a year and rising, this give societies about 25 years.

Large emissions cuts will increase the chances of remaining below two degrees, and extend the time before breaching this budget.

Glorious Wichita–A Renaissance of Sorts?

This morning, as I often do on Mondays, I have read the latest post from Barry’s Blog.  In it, Barry provides news and advice for the Arts Administrator.  Barry’s Blog is a service of the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF) and that is the western version of our Mid-America Arts Alliance.  Below I post what Barry has to say this week about organizational maturity and where do we go from here?  As a former arts administrator for five different arts organizations both private nonprofit and public governmental agencies, I have certainly seen my fair share of emerging, growing and stagnant arts orgs.  This weekend, however, I experienced what might be called a renaissance of arts in the Wichita area.  Hear me out on this please.

Friday evening, Patricia McDonnell instituted the fourth or fifth in a series of Wichita Art Museum “Arts Chatter” events.  Using the popular international Pecha Kucha method of showing 20 slides of 20 seconds each 5-7 creative individuals share whatever they wish to share about themselves or their passions.  The quick, sometimes frustratingly so, presentation method has encouraged lively competition among its presenters and it seems that each one gets better than the last; startling since they have all be great.  Patricia was known for stirring up community enthusiasm at the Ulrich Museum during her tenure there.  I have already attended more events in exhibitions at WAM in the past year than I probably have attended in my whole life.  I want to be there and be part of the learning and collective experience, sharing my passion for the arts with others who love it too. I could of gone on to a yet another great Fisch Haus concert afterward and kept the experience going, but I have learned a have some limits.

Saturday brought additional magic.  After calling dear friends who are regular attendees at the Wichita Symphony, I managed to secure dinner plans and a drop-off at the door of Century II, as well as additional support getting to and from my seat (very much appreciated as well).  I wanted to support John Harrison’s solo efforts in the Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E Minor for Violin, Op, 64 and hear other of my treasured friends play.  Wow.  It is hard to speak in mere words about the experience, but suffice it to say, there were numerous curtain calls and a solo encore by Mr. Harrison.  John has always been one of my favorite artists because of his risk-taking and creative channeling of technology with the arts.  Bravo to him and Maestro Dan Hege and the entire Wichita Symphony for a great evening also featuring magnificent renditions of Beethoven’s 2nd and a haunting piece by Thomas Canning.  The Symphony has created an aggressive and innovative marketing campaign this year full of social media contacts and clever illustrations emphasizing whimsical exercises we need to do in order to fully engage with the symphony.  It seems to be working, congratulations on that Don Reinhold, new executive director, and Arleigh Aldridge, new marketing director, as the house was enthusiastic and full.  Congratulations to all on an incredible artistic product.

I left there with my friends and went on to the nearby bar to hear fabulous local talent, the Haymakers.  This new band featuring Dustin Arbuckle, Tom Page, Mark Foley and Ted Farha has quickly become one of my go-to favorites on the local scene.  They create a sound featuring bluegrass traditional and original music with a folky bluesy edge.  Difficult to explain but not to be missed.

Sunday brought much more; the Barlett Arboretum, courtesy of Ms. Robin Macy and Kentucky (aka Ken) White, held a thank you event for their volunteers.  I had completed a portrait of them which I delivered to kind accolades.  The lively volunteers, the heavenly food concocted by Wichita Eagle staff writers Carrie Rengers, Joe Stumpe and company was out of this world.  The newly restored historic depot was alive with Brazilian Choro music courtesy of Kentucky and band and lively chatter by the dedicated volunteers.  Fall was ever glorious in the arboretum outside and from the window seat where I found myself perched I viewed beautiful grasses that were the most vibrant shade of sea foam green.

Finally, I was delighted to help host the Chamber Music at The Barn Friends and Lovers annual thank-you party at the Wichita Historical Museum.  It is a great space to meet after the symphony’s Sunday matinee and Hege, Harrison and symphony executive director Don Reinhold were kind enough to join us.  We were entertained by talented regional youth who have been active in our summer camps, making all of us realize the importance of moving forward.  Artistic Director Catherine Consiglio performed a delightful duet to close the entertainment portion.  Board members we there in full force, a delightful lot!!

I am truly thankful to be part of the Wichita creative community.  I realized about five years ago that the arts foundation I was always hoping to create if I ever won the lottery already had its beginnings in my ability to write grants and initiate creative programming.  Sometimes though, I have felt pretty much alone of the forefront of that initiative of creative programming and surrounded by a lot of status quo and potential stagnation.  That is changing or perhaps has changed.  Check out Barry’s blog notes below to understand where Wichita groups lie in creative organization development and remember, nothing EVER stays the same.  We have to change, adapt or we die.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2013

Organizational Heavy Gravity Days

Good morning.
“And the beat goes on……………………..“Life itself is a cycle.  You’re born, you grow up from infancy to adolescence to middle age to old age, and you die.  Organizational theorists have posited that organizations too have natural cycles – and unavoidable stages of development from inception to maturity, to cessation of existence.

There are numerous models describing the stages.  In the private sector, “the Adizes model (named after Dr. Ichak Adizes) suggests organizations start in the courtship stage. In it, founders are dreaming up what they want to do.  Entrepreneurship is the dominant mental model resulting in the eventual founding of the company.

The infant stage follows, with an emphasis on production and time pressures dominating everyone’s attention.

Infancy is followed by the go-go stage. Organizations that have reached this stage have figured out how to deliver value into the social systems they serve and are rewarded with supportive customers. Rapid expansion, personalized leadership, some planning, and fast decision making are the hallmarks of organizations in this stage. The go-go years bring financial growth and expansion.

Adolescence is the next stage. It is in this stage that planning and coordination become important.  Administrative activities increase at the expense of both entrepreneurial endeavors and production. The mental models of stability and conservatism surface and start to dominate the way the organization conducts its business. Formalized rules and policies emerge.

The prime stage is next in the organizational lifecycle. In this stage the emphasis is on efficiency. Organizational boundaries are erected and the company starts to lose touch with its environment. Goals and aspirations remain stable but the desire to grow and change starts to disappear. Stability and predictability become the prevailing mental models.

The final stage is maturity. It is in this stage where organizations become paternalistic seeking a comfortable organizational climate. There is a low emphasis on production.  Relationships are formal and little innovation takes place.”

Speakman Management Consulting provides a nonprofit six stage framework (Adapted from: The 5 Life Stages of Nonprofits, Judith Sharken Simon, 2002 and The Conservation Company, 1997), which includes the following developmental stages (and which parallels pretty much the above model):

• “Grassroots invention
• Start-up incubation
• Adolescent growing
• Mature sustainability
• Stagnation and renewal
• Decline and shut-down“

In both models the problems come late in the game for those that succeeded in establishing themselves in their marketplaces – where the organization “loses sight of its market, focuses on program development primarily geared to fund-raising, has insufficient cash reserves, clings to rigidity in management, and becomes more reactive than proactive.” Continued existence becomes the goal.  Eventually, the negatives become insurmountable and the organization is simply no longer viable.

Sound familiar?

It should, because it accurately describes an increasingly common condition with our field; a condition now so prevalent that it has become a front burner issue for all our disciplines and sub-sectors.  Some argue that our financial problems are the cause of the other symptoms of older organizational age, and that these problems are really part of another cycle:  the ups and down of the economy. But, first, while the economy may have ups and downs, and periodic winners and losers, to think of it as always moving between feast or famine may ignore the reality that the “new normal” may be that we are not ever going to return to an economic model that for decades was the bedrock of arts organization’s existence; and second, some arts organizations survive the economic downturns, while others do not.

The challenge for our organizations is to recognize the stage at which they have arrived.  Knowing and accepting that an organization is in the late stages of its development is the first step in moving towards renewal; towards a renaissance of ideas and relevance within the marketplace.

What keeps us from pursuit of such a path?  Denial?  Fear that the changes necessary are antithetical to the original mission?  Poor management and leadership?  Bad decision making?  Complacency?  Those and more.

Why We Don’t Care About Saving Our Grandchildren From Climate Change

Time magazine’s article explores the challenge humans face with climate change. How to respond to delayed gratification with sacrifices now.

Last Hours

LAST HOURS for Humanity? Courtesy of Tom Weis and via Facebook Friend Robert Castellino

Tom Weis |October 8, 2013 4:40 pm | Comments
1541 3Share0 63 1765
Tom Weis

tweis“Consider this: nearly all life on Earth could go extinct because of manmade climate change.”

Internationally syndicated talk show host and bestselling author Thom Hartmann released a devastatingly powerful new film, LAST HOURS. A jolting wake-up call for humanity, this 10-minute film describes a terrifying science-based scenario where runaway climate change is triggered by massive releases of frozen methane. Here’s the devastating part: the melting of these trillions of tons of carbon is already underway.

“Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has already started to percolate into the open seas and atmosphere from methane hydrate deposits beneath melting arctic ice, from the warming northern-hemisphere tundra and from worldwide continental-shelf undersea methane clathrate pools.”

“If we do not begin to significantly curtail the use of carbon-based fossil fuels, this freed methane threatens to radically accelerate the speed of global warming, potentially producing a disaster beyond the ability of the human species to adapt.”

The film documents how our planet has experienced five major extinctions in geologic history and how our prolific production of greenhouse gases has the ability to trigger a sixth mass extinction.

“By the end of the Permian mass extinction, 95 percent of all life on the planet was dead. And why is this important today? Because today a sixth extinction is underway, one that will test the survival of not just human civilization, but possibly of the human species itself. And it bears a horrifying resemblance to several previous global warming-driven events like the Permian mass extinction.”

Earth is sending us an urgent and unmistakable message, one that we ignore at our own peril. Failure to drastically slash carbon emissions now could mean the end of humanity.

Watch and share LAST HOURS with everyone you know. Then take action by supporting Climate Crisis Solution’s campaign to stop a major new source of carbon pollution—the 485-mile southern leg of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Learn more at RideForRenewables.com.

Interesting Change for a Bold Voice in Climate Change Reality

October 21, 2013

Voice on Climate Change Moves to Harvard

U. of California at San Diego

Naomi Oreskes

Enlarge Image

By Jenny Rogers

Naomi Oreskes never intended to become a spokesperson on climate change or science. Then she published an essay in the journalScience in 2004, in which she laid out the broad scientific consensus that global climate change is occurring, and that it is affected by human activities.

Now the woman who brought the world that message has moved from the University of California at San Diego, where she was a professor of history and science studies for 15 years, to Harvard University as a professor of the history of science and an affiliated professor of earth and planetary sciences.

“I was just ready for a change,” she says of her move this summer. She had considered environmental jobs but decided she wanted to stay in academe and focus on the history of science. “It was a conscious decision to hold onto that core.”

Janet Browne, chair of the department of the history of science at Harvard, says she and other members of the hiring committee were impressed with Ms. Oreskes’s expertise and “engaging” way of teaching.

“Naomi is extremely famous in our small community” of science historians “and indeed famous outside of it,” Ms. Browne says. “She is widely respected and regarded as a terrific public spokesperson for the value of what we do.”

Ms. Oreskes, who is 54, earned a Ph.D. in geological research and the history of science from Stanford University in 1990. After starting out as a geologist, she quickly became interested in how scientific consensus forms. She found a niche in the history of science, eventually specializing in cold-war-era and contemporary scientific work.

Her 2004 analysis of climate-change studies was cited in An Inconvenient Truth, a 2006 documentary in which Al Gore warns of the consequences of global warming. Her 2010 book, Merchants of Doubt, written with the science historian Erik M. Conway, stirred more controversy. In it, theyargued that certain scientists obscured the truth in order to discredit sound scientific findings on the risks of smoking, global warming, and other issues.

Supporters of those scientists have fought back in numerous articles and Internet postings that dispute the value of Ms. Oreskes’s own work. A document on the Web site of the Heartland Institute, a think tank with libertarian leanings, calls her stand on climate change “an anti-science position akin to witchcraft.”

Ms. Oreskes says she is not an advocate for any policy but not a “bystander,” either.

“I don’t shy away from what I consider to be the intellectual implications of my work” on climate-change consensus, she says. “If anything, I’m an advocate for understanding why this issue is important.”

To make decisions, she says, policy makers should understand “where there’s scientific consensus and where there isn’t.”

A former colleague, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, says Ms. Oreskes’s departure was a loss for San Diego. “She is one of the few who talk about contemporary science,” says Mr. Ramanathan, a professor of atmospheric and climate sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography there. “She comes to a conclusion, and she doesn’t shy away from saying it in the strongest sense possible.”

Ms. Browne says Ms. Oreskes has been “brave” in her open exploration of the moral foundation of science. “We are absolutely with her in feeling that if there are things that need to be said, we should be saying them.”

At Harvard, Ms. Oreskes is teaching a graduate introductory course on the history of science and finishing a book on the history of cold-war oceanography. She has noted that oceanographers were among the first to find evidence of global warming.

She is also deep into her latest research project, in conjunction withMichael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University, and Dale Jamieson, a professor of environmental studies, bioethics, and philosophy at New York University. They are studying how scientists evaluate one another’s work for large-scale assessments that have influenced environmental-policy decisions, such asthe reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Or, as Ms. Oreskes puts it, “How do scientists make sense of what they know on behalf of other people?”

The question of scientific assessment is “so interdisciplinary,” she says. “Science, policy, jealousy, competition—it’s a great, great topic.”

There is potential for her to become involved in other interdisciplinary work at Harvard. Ms. Browne hopes Ms. Oreskes might do research into marine and naval technologies during the cold war and eventually teach a course with Ms. Browne on the history of the earth.

Ms. Oreskes looks forward to seeing how her research evolves.

“If we knew everything, we could close our books and lock our doors and say this project of science is done,” she says. “Obviously, that’s not the case.”

Today is an historic day.  My father turned 87.  I have been thinking a lot about aging and the nextgenerations.  I am fortunate beyond words to still have my parents in my life.  Especially because my fatherhad a coronary in 1964, quintuple bypass in 1987 and various stents since. Dad and Mom are so bright, wonderful and interesting, and always have been.  When I was younger, they were the “coolest” parents of any of my friends and often commented upon thus.

Next weekend my high school class is having a reunion.  One of my dear bff’s is also having her reunion (different class).  She is excited and I have been teasing her about having her dress for the reunion for at least a year(although it really has only been since May, but still).  In any case, I bowed out of reunions after the 25th, its fun to see old buds, but in truth I didn’t make the most of my highschool years in a way I would consider valuable now.  You know kids.  And for at least 20 years, I thought I had a story there, but now I just chuckle realizing most any 16 year old has a story there and mine is not particularly unique and there are many mistakes but few aha moments that I can remember.  In any case, one high school friend is coming in Weds from Washington state and another from Palm Springs and another from Denver on Tuesday and they have all written say hello and can we have a visit and I have to admit it is both an honor and a thrill that they would even think of me because when I thinkof high school, I can’t imagine ANYONE thinking of or wondering about me and THAT is just how insecure I was then.  It’s crazy I know, as I am sure that anyone who knows me now would not think of me as shy or insecure, but life is the proverbial journey and it took quite a journey for me to find myself.

So on this day when my father was born, I doubt that anyone who knew his Oklahoma City mother and father imagined that he would become an University of Oklahoma graduate, a WWII Navy vet, a community leader and politician, a business success, marry into a founding Kansas family, father two daughters (an artist/higher ed/arts grant writer/educator and a computer programmer/career counselor) and ultimate have two grandchildren, one a great journalism teacher and the other a PA who is finishing his rotations and thinking seriously of going on the med school as I heard him tell his grandmother today.  Whew!

Many of those who know me think I am a Bonfy as that is my last name, but that is my name by marriage from 22 years ago and I have kept in honor of my son, in-laws and ex, Devon, all of whom love dearly. So my birth name was Dumenil, so I present to you: my father Charles Dumenil, mother Jeanne Dumenil, Marc Perkins (nephew), Valerie Perkins (sister), and Ashley Perkins Watkins (niece). I think you can probably tell which of us are extroverts and the one who wanted to not show up on Facebook (blur intentional). Happy Birthday, daddy!

Interesting News from Toyota

Driving the car Toyota wants to save the world with

 

By Chuck Tannert | Motoramic

Toyota has seen the future of alternative transportation, and it’s a landscape dominated by fuel-cell vehicles that convert hydrogen to electricity and emit only water out the tailpipe — or so the world’s top-selling automaker hopes.

Hydrogen fuel cells have been a dream of the industry for decades as a potential way to end greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles, which account for about 15 percent of the carbon dioxide dumped by civilization into the atmosphere every year.

A long-time proponent of hydrogen power, Toyota reaffirmed its commitment last week, saying it would sell a fuel-cell car to the public by 2015 for about $50,000 a copy. To prove its veracity, the automaker flew a handful of journalists to its home-base in Japan to test drive the company’s latest and most advanced fuel cell vehicle.

Unfortunately, the vehicle we drove was not production ready. Instead, it was a research mule, designed to mirror the performance and handling characteristics of the production model, but not how it will look. Toyota plans to reveal exterior styling at next month’s Tokyo Motor Show, which should be largely be based on the FCV-R concept unveiled at the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show.

The mule was a camouflaged Lexus HS 200h, a model sold only briefly in the U.S., outfitted with the production version of Toyota’s new, smaller, more efficient and more powerful fuel cell system. It was about the size of a Prius and shared a lot of the same systems with the hybrid, as will the production model, according to Toyota engineers. Which systems, you ask? No one would say for sure.

Engineers did tell the group that the new FCV will carry 5 kilograms of hydrogen compressed to about 10,000 psi, enough to give the car a range of more than 300 miles. The refueling process takes about three minutes: You roll up to the pump, insert a hose and press a button. A sensor inside the hose ensures the nozzle has made a proper connection and automatically fills until the tank reaches to maximum pressure.

Beyond that, details of the new vehicle are a bit sketchy. Satoshi Ogiso, head of fuel cell development and electric-drive vehicle programs for Toyota, said total output would be “about” 100 kilowatts, the same as the Highlander fuel-cell tester Toyota has been developing for years, but declined to get more specific or answer how much horsepower the system would generate. (Our best guesstimate? Somewhere around 150 hp.)

While our time in the saddle was short, we found the car offered quick acceleration (we were able to chirp the tires from a standstill) and rather sharp handling (although it did lean a bit for tastes). Steering was numb, yet responsive. And the ride was a bit on the soft side. A sports car the new FCV isn’t, but it was much more fun to drive than the duller than dishwater Prius.

Before fuel cell vehicles can reach consumer acceptance, says Toyota, the price of the car must drop and a much larger fueling infrastructure must be in place. The auto industry has been developing fuel cell “stacks” using costly platinum as the catalyst for generating power from hydrogen for many years. Consequently, fuel cells are either prohibitively expensive because of the high cost of the precious metal, or prone to degrade quickly.

To help reduce these costs, Toyota engineer Hitoshi Nomasa said the company has cut its use of platinum, from around 100 grams in the fuel cell of its current hydrogen-powered SUV model to around 30 grams. The company hopes to bring that down to around 20 grams before the end of the decade. Toyota will also use less carbon-fiber in the high-pressure hydrogen tanks.

Meanwhile, the United States has all of 10 public hydrogen fueling stations, mostly on the West Coast, but California has contracted to build 100 more over the next decade. Japan, Germany and South Korea also have government programs dedicated to building networks ofhydrogen fuel stations; and while some critics note that most commercial hydrogen comes from natural gas, limiting the amount of carbon dioxide saved, backers say it would only take a small number of hydrogen stations around major cities to make fuel cells a viable alternative.

Toyota isn’t alone in its desire to become the leader in race for hydrogen fuel cell supremacy. Daimler, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, and General Motors have all invested billions of dollars into fuel cells over the years, and plan to release hydrogen-powered vehicles over the next few years. Yet similar plans in the past have been delayed or dropped due to challenges of cost and infrastructure. With its FCV, Toyota hopes those hurdles finally fall.

From Brian Reynolds, Climate Reality Project Leader

Like me, Brian Reynolds is a Climate Reality Project Leader.  Americans have an opportunity to make comments to the government during this “open period” surrounding new climate legislation.  Climate change should not be a partisan issue.  It is effecting everyone and costing billions to repair the damage cause by change (consider the costs of the 1000 year flooding in Colorado this year and the cost of super storm Sandy last year).  I sent my emailed comment, it was easy and just took a moment.  You can too.  Please share this post with all your friends.  After yesterday New York Times article, many of you voiced real concern and some of you voiced fear.  This is one small way you can take action to help.  On behalf of the planet and its creatures including humans, thank you.

Follow Brian

Here’s how to file a comment with EPA on GHG limits for proposed power plant. Manager’s Choice

Brian ReynoldsOperations & Sales Leader – Corporate Climate Resilience Expert – I.E. Blackbelt – Climate Reality Presenter

As many of you know, part of President Obama’s recent push to deal with climate change includes direction that the EPA issues long delayed regulations restricting the creation of green house gasses by proposed power plants. These rules have been issued and are currently open for public comment. It’s important that we respond in support for the rules and equally important that we voice support for even greater restriction. Here’s how you do that: 

1. copy this email address: ” a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov ” 

2. Reference this rule in the subject line and body: EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0495 

3. Speak clarity in support of the rule and ask for even greater restriction. Reference the cost of climate change and feel free to include ways you may already have bee effected by climate change. 

4. Act now. This comment period ends soon. This is an important thing that you can spare five minutes right now. 

5. Act now. …really.

The Arts as a Social Tool

I am a life-long Arts Advocate.  I even have a Kansas Governor’s Art Award (from back in the day when that meant something here) to prove.  During my quest for truth when I was younger, I found that I believed strongly that the arts could create and help solve many community challenges.  In my early years as an arts manager, to me that meant building community will and direction, sort a create economic development tool.  Along the way I have realize that the arts mean much more to a community than this.

Obviously, as a Capitalist society, we embrace the idea of economic development.  Hug, hug.  But as a social activist, I have realized a bit more each year of my career (now a total of 38 years and yes, I am old) that the arts are not only THE most powerful evidence of our humanity and thus the essential anthropological/archeological evidence of how human civilization thinks and behaves at any given moment throughout our history and today, ART is one of the world’s most powerful untapped global resources–an essential conduit to creative and civilized discourse, problem solving and engagement.  I had the honor to spend time working with Alternate Roots in the summer before the world changed (2001).  I had the honor of participating and presenting in the gathering at St Louis: At the Crossroads, Arts and Community Development Convening in 2010 where I met the wonderful Animating Democracy crew (Barbara Schaffer Bacon, Pam Korza) and Marty Potenger.

All this info is to let you know that my understanding of the power of the arts has been a journey.  Now that I am nearing the last part of my life’s journey, I feel it is important to share what I have learned here in this blog and on Facebook.

• I worry about the future, not arts funding and things like that.
• I worry that we won’t have an Earth that can sustain the human race. See my four articles on Climate Change in F5 http://f5paper.com/article/yep-we-checked-climate-change-real.
• I worry that inequality in pay and education will further broaden the gap between the haves and the have nots.  See the film Inequality for All with Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration http://inequalityforall.com.  A Sundance winning documentary that I was honored to help fund for the last stages of production (on Kickstarter).

So today’s post includes a great post by blogger  Michael Rohd of HowlRound.  It is all about what I am trying to say and practice here: Building Civic Practice.

The New Work of Building Civic Practice

Michael Rohd

July 8, 2012

1
A QUESTION

Recently, my father asked me what I’m trying to do with regard to my work in Civic Practice. I told him—

“I think we’ve got a lot of challenges these days, in pretty much every private and public sector in this country, and I think artists are a massive untapped resource that could help in surprising and meaningful ways.”

He assumed I meant that by making plays about these challenges, artists could aim the attention of audiences at issues and potential solutions.  While I love plays, and sometimes make plays, I told him that wasn’t what I meant.

“I want to help expand the body of practitioners and advocates who recognize the possibility of, and value in, different kinds of partnerships between artists and members of their community.”

My father is a retired lawyer who serves as a volunteer attorney at a legal clinic operated by the University of Maryland School of Law in downtown Baltimore. To try and give a specific example, I asked him about the clinic, and what he feels they need to better accomplish their mission. He said they need to get the word out, especially in West Baltimore, about the services they offer and make the case (no pun intended) that they are a free, valuable community resource. I responded by saying-

“How would you feel about working with a theater artist who would partner with you to strategize increasing your relationships and visibility in West Baltimore?”

He asked if I meant fliers, or other marketing strategies.  I said I did not.

He asked how, then, might an artist help make the clinic’s work more visible and accessible?

2
RELATIONSHIPS (OF THE NON-FAMILY KIND)

Currently, within institutional theater organizations, community partnerships are most frequently developed to implement programming that surrounds mainstage productions. That programming exists to deepen dramaturgical reach and impact of the work selected and presented by the artists. Institutions sometimes retain partners beyond singular projects, returning to them for help on other projects when content seems aligned with the partner’s constituency or mission. These partnerships are valuable; they can effectively build new relationships around meaningful, shared interests, and they help arts organizations broaden the scope of their presence in their local communities. But, they operate in a mode of discourse closer to a monologue than a dialogue. The initiating impulse – the voice that puts out the call, so to speak- is the artist. The non-arts partner has a choice—listen, respond, or not. But rarely does the invitation to conversation, to co-creation, come from the partner.

I think, as artists and organizers involved in a collaborative form that demands, arguably, one skill above all others, we are at a moment where we can put that skill to new use. That skill is listening, and we can radically alter our role in our communities if we employ it with greater intentionality and generosity. Arts organizations do not have to engage with non-arts partners solely through a lens of project-based needs. Partnerships can be relationship-based, and projects can originate from a different type of exchange. Producing new work for/in the theater does not have to only mean making new plays. It can mean producing new relationships, producing new forms of events and processes, producing new ways of crossing disciplinary and sector boundaries.

3
INTERSECTIONS

Lately, as an extension of Sojourn Theatre’s long-term exploration of relationship-based work, and as part of the Center for Performance and Civic Practice’s initial activities, I’ve begun to define Civic Practice as activity where a theater artist employs the assets of his/her craft in response to the needs of non-arts partners as determined through ongoing, relationship-based dialogue. It’s the intersection of two sets of content. Let’s call them an x axis and a y axis.

The x axis is theater activity that is not limited to the production of plays, but rather is a set of tools, of assets, that theater artists have access to because of our experience in producing plays (and performance). We bring these assets to the table, any table, where we are invited.

Some of these tools are:

• The ability to design and lead a process where collaborative activity leads to decision-making and shared investment;
• The ability to conceptualize and execute a public event on a specific timeline;
• The ability to synthesize complex content into meaning that can be articulated and understood;
• The ability to problem-solve;
• The ability to turn diverse stakeholders with varied self interests into coalitions.

We bring these tools of dramaturgy and process to our own spaces. We can bring them and apply them in other spaces—spaces where artistic expression is not the core mission.

The y axis is a set of needs, or desired outcomes, that we might encounter at those non arts-based spaces—if we listen. These desired outcomes offer clear starting impulses for collaborative partnership work. They are:

• Advocacy—help increase visibility and propel mission/message;
• Dialogue—bring diverse groups into meaningful exchange with each other;
• Story-Sharing—gather and share narratives from a particular population or around a particular topic;
• Civic Application—engage the public and decision-makers together in acts of problem-solving and crafting vision;
• Cross-Sector Innovation—leverage skills and experience from different fields or disciplines to create and manifest new knowledge.

Articulated in another way, some needs of non-arts partners may be described as:

• Building a framework for dialogue around polarizing issues;
• Acknowledging varied self interests while building coalitions;
• Developing communications strategies for internal and external stakeholders;
• Re-making how site or space is perceived and experienced.

The x axis are the tools.

The y axis are the needs.

Civic Practice is what can happen where and when they purposefully intersect.

I am not suggesting that artists should be selflessly in service to whatever outcome any community partner desires. As with any collaboration, values must have some alignment. Conversations must reveal some mutual goals. Activity evolves from a shared, generous curiosity and a co-investment in public work. And at the root of this body of practice is the need to listen, over time, so as to discover how the artist assets and the partner needs may serve each other in surprising moments and previously unimagined forms.

4
SOME EXAMPLES

(there are so many out there—these are a few that get at diversity of initiating impulse, institution, form and geographic region.)

• Appalshop’s Thousand Kites is a national dialogue project addressing the criminal justice system.
• Los Angeles Poverty Department’s long-time work advocating for and working with homeless collaborators on Skid Row.
• Ping Chong and Company’s Undesirable Elements Series, now creating thematically specific story-sharing models based on the needs of partners that contact them, such as their Secret Survivors Production.
• Marty Pottenger’s work as full-time artist in residence for the City of Portland, Maine learning the needs of those at work in Municipal Government and creating programming with Civic Application.
• Sojourn Theater’s work with the New River Valley Planning Commission and Virginia Tech in five rural Virginia Counties   using part of Sojourn’s interactive production built to make spaces for dialogue and create a Public Engagement tool with Civic Application.
• Lookingglass Theater Company’s work in Chicago with Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers using the power of Cross-Sector Innovation to address challenging health and long term care issues.

& at Universities:

• A theater graduate student in Illinois working with a Muslim Student Association to develop a performance/installation event focusing on image and cultural identity;
• A theater graduate student in Maryland working with an LGBTQ Center to conceptualize a one-day event that merges spectacle, participation and construction tasks to raise visibility and make a safe space more welcoming.

5
DOING THE WORK

Since theater institutions began to grow Education Departments decades ago, the term “teaching artist” has become a common title for actors, playwrights, directors, devisers, designers and other theater artists who spend some portion of their time, and receive some portion of their income, working with people (most often young people) in a massive variety of learning contexts. Whether they are teaching the skills of the artistic discipline, using integrated performance tactics to deepen other curricular areas, or creating theater events and workshops to help schools examine and discuss challenging social and cultural subject matter, these teaching artists are using the assets listed on the x-axis above. And, they are consummate listeners. The best of them are ever sensitive to the needs of partner organizations and the shifting energies of the individuals with whom they collaborate/teach/guide. In other words, we already have a skilled (and under-utilized) legion of artists in our midst who can help pave the way for Civic Practice as a field-wide endeavor.

In addition, there are many, many theater practitioners who have never taught, but are hungry for the type of engaged work that Civic Practice offers them and have the skills to undertake that work meaningfully. University theater programs across the country are seeing exponential growth in demand for courses that deal with civic engagement, community-based practice, site-based collaborations and applied theater. In fact, the field of Applied Theater is swiftly gaining traction in this country after years of use overseas, subsuming terms and areas that came before it. The challenge of the trending term “applied” is that it suggests those who “use” theater tactics for something other than (though perhaps inclusive of) the creation and presenting of performance are in the “service” game, while those who “make and show” are in the “art” game. But our field needs the strengths of varied impulses and the strategies of all forms to cross-pollinate, spiritually as well as aesthetically. The hybrids at the intersection of civic life and artistic activity offer us, individually and as a community of practitioners, the potential to make our arts organizations truly central to the vitality of community life in new and deeply impactful ways.

We can engage with civic, business, social service, community, health, education and faith-based partners in ways that are relationship specific and have as starting impulses not just the content we the arts organizations have chosen for presentation but a broad spectrum of activity that places the assets of creativity and collaboration in service to and in partnership with collaborators old and new. There is capacity building to do in our field; around skills, partnerships and leadership. By doing that work, we can, as specific organizations and as a field:

• Build an increased pool of stakeholders and an expanded  spectrum of what participation in the arts means;
• Offer new and meaningful opportunities for artists to invest in their communities, practice their art, and build demand for creative public activity;
• Increase demand for the assets that artists bring to community settings beyond the sites where art is traditionally contained and presented.

6
A RESPONSE

My father asked me—
how could a theater artist help make the clinic’s work more visible and accessible?

I told him—
“With partners in West Baltimore who wanted to act as hosts and believed in the services the clinic offers, a partner artist could work to help shape public conversations and develop interesting, creative ways to bring the clinic and community members in contact with each other. I don’t know what form imaginative acts or expressive actions might take in this specific instance. But a theater artist drawn to this work is accustomed to shared, collaborative goals, has experience in creating inclusive process, and most importantly, knows what they don’t know, and how to know more. By listening.”

7
CONCLUSION

Producing new work does not have to only mean making new plays. And our new work practice, it can excel not just in the caliber of our expression but in the quality of our listening. If we can accomplish that, we model what civic life today desperately needs—a practice that places dialogue ahead of monologue, imagination at the heart of problem—solving, and listening equal in value to expression.

ideas/opinions

civic theater

political/social justice

– See more at: http://www.howlround.com/the-new-work-of-building-civic-practice?utm_source=ArtsFwd+Web+Subscribers&utm_campaign=847eb52568-RSS_EMAIL_ArtsFwdNewPosts&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_05b82581a4-847eb52568-315807349#sthash.VBoEfYVE.dpuf

Change or Not to Change–Social Capital in Arts Organizations

Dinnervention 6: The Flexibility of a New Skin

October 4, 2013 by Clayton Lord 1 Comment

This last Dinnervention post is an experiment in group blogging–I wrote the core piece, and then three of my fellow Dinnerventionists– Margy Waller, Laura Zabel, and Devon Smith–were kind enough to react to it in commentary.  It was really interesting to watch happen–hopefully it is interesting to read as well!  The blogging platform allows limited capability to demonstrate in-text comments.

A new movement in the arts must break from the old, and must be flexible and moldable enough to accommodate our inherent decentralization.

• We need to stop over-preferencing the artist over the point of the arts institution (note: thepoint of the institution, not the institution itself) (second note: the point of the arts institution, not the point of an institution itself).
  • Laura Zabel: Oh man.  This wording is so challenging to me.  I re-read this bullet several times and think I know what you mean (and that I probably agree with you), but I fear that very few institutions preference the artist’s needs.  I would reframe this as a need for increased leadership from artists, diminished separation between artists and arts managers AND a mutual head turn towards the point of the organization.
  • Margy Waller: This bullet points makes me think about the preferencing of the art — as someone at the institution defines the art.  That leads to a great deal of focus on traditional ways of experiencing the art. (More on this in comments later).  And campaigns that plead “our-art-is-so-precious-please-save-it” lead to the kind of Kickstarter campaign the New York City Opera tried this past week–an effort that failed miserably (see: “The Failures of Crowdfunding: No, Kickstarter Cannot Support an Opera Company”).  
    I disagree with the title of the article.  Kickstarter may not be the wrong platform for opera fundraising–but the offer was clearly wrong.
    I’m curious though–what are the classical music and opera leaders doing that has halted the decline in audience–unlike museums and theater which are seeing a decline? (See the new NEA’s  “Survey on Public Participation in the Arts 2012″).
    And hopefully we’ll speak up when there’s a “we’ve always done it this way” attack on a leader who is willing to try new approaches, to focus on social capital, to take risks that might build audience. (A leader who BTW is increasing attendance and membership at her museum, like Dinnerventionist Nina Simon.)
    When stuff like this is published–which sadly the New York Times decided to feature–let’s start reacting in public, and out loud.
• We need to stop creating institutions built to generate social capital that are instead preoccupied with creating actual capital, and we need to understand that such capitalist impulses are not heretical, they’re natural inside institutions of a certain size, scope and responsibility.
  • Devon Smith: That’s hard to reconcile with social good/social entrepreneurship organizations (B-Corps, L3C’s, the Toms/Warby models, etc) whose forms were created for just the opposite reason: capitalist institutions, intent on investing in social capital, who felt they needed protection from shareholders.  I don’t think the problem is being preoccupied with creating capital, it’s misunderstanding how to do so effectively and efficiently.  The idea that corporations’ sole purpose is to maximize shareholder value is a modern urban legend.  It’s not the law.  The idea that a nonprofit can’t or shouldn’t be profitable is another modern urban legend: see hospitals, unions, PACs, etc.
  • Laura Zabel: I agree that those “modern urban legends” are prevalent and counter productive.  But I am a skeptic of the Tom’s model, which I think has demonstrated that there is a difference between mission-driven work and “charity-washing” of for-profit ventures.  Obviously, lots of nuance and gray area on that continuum to think about.
• We need to stop shouting about innovation and new outreach without recognizing either the instability that goes along with that or the length of time necessary to test out new approaches before they should replace the old ones.
  • Laura Zabel: I’m in favor of less shouting and more doing.  I don’t know if the world will wait for incremental change, though.  A huge challenge for our existing infrastructure is that it is not well suited for the pace of change required “these days.”  Epic strategic planning, the need for board approval, funding cycles, multi-layered hierarchical staffing structures: these structural elements really inhibit the kind of iterative, creative thinking needed to move incremental change to systemic change rapidly.  But the world doesn’t care.  We expect change and responsiveness now and we have the tools to demand it.  For example, check out this Tumblr page created with essentially $0 and no institutional support.
• We need to stop encouraging ourselves to swallow the whole issue of relevance at once like the Chinese brother swallowing the sea, which leaves most organizations with nothing to do but keep their head down against the storm and simply try to stay alive.  At the same time, we need to embrace and celebrate the “positive incremental” as acceptable movement.
• We need to stop being so selfish about how much we like our forms, our circumstances, thenuances of ritual that are draped all around them–and to stop being oblivious to how difficult those things together make carrying forward.
  • Devon Smith: Anyone know of a blog post or article that tracks the shape/size/constituents of either arts organizations, or their relationship to audiences, or the audience’s relationship to the stage, across the centuries?  It strikes me that our desire to “preserve the form, and nuances of ritual” are representative of about the past 2% of organized arts’ history.  Prior to that, audiences looked and behaved quite differently, as did arts “organizations.”
  • Clay Lord: Devon, yes, but. I agree that being all misty eyed about the good old days of the non-profit arts institution is a bit silly, given you know, Groundlings talking through (and at the players in) plays, eating, throwing food, standing up, etc.  But I think also (and this may seem schizophrenic since I wrote the first bullet) that there needs to be some understanding that the clinging is happening because all of that was Before, and we are Now–and that that’s not terribly unusual in any environment.

Or maybe we don’t.

• Laura Zabel: I have this feeling, too.  I’m optimistic that this new movement is already taking place and confident that some of our infrastructure will recognize the value of being a part of the movement.  And equally confident that we’ll lose some organizations along the way…and that’s okay.  Rebirth is good.  All we can do is make the work and try to make it better.

One of the most unexpected feelings I had leaving Djerassi was the feeling that maybe all of this consternation is for naught.  Maybe we are like the person cutting to feel the illusion of maximal control, self-flagellating to convince ourselves that we actually have any real say.  Who is the group of twelve that could have actually turned thought to action in a field so decentralized and without a core governing body?  What is our chance for change when our funding models don’t allow for flashpoint innovations, runways, security in the face of risk?  What is our chance for change when even within small communities the stakeholders can’t get on the same page, pulled between short-term and long-term desires, and in which there is no arbiter both strong enough and willing enough to exert strength to make a change?

• Margy Waller: Well, it seems that a large, national, membership, support and advocacy organization is in a position to model long-term thinking.  
  Most arts organizations don’t have the time or staff to track national media coverage of the arts or the legislation proposed at the national level.  Moreover, they (mostly) don’t get the calls for interviews on topics that have the potential to change the landscape of public understanding, to build broad support for the arts, etc.
  So most artists and arts staffers (whether they know it or not) are depending on leaders like AFTA and GIA and the NEA to get it right.
  Major shout out to the NEA for Our Town here, because shining a spotlight on the role of arts in community (building social capital, making places special/unique/desirable, bridging communities and people) is a great way to build a sense of shared responsibility for the arts. That’s what we need to generate a sense of the arts as a public good.
  But the way we talk about what we do is only part of what the national megaphones can do…
  Also, as Kimberly made clear in her final comments on the evening, funders can make a huge difference here.  It’s working in Cincinnati, where the major arts funder led the way, changing its mission and funding goals to focus on neighborhood vibrancy and bringing people together.  Is it a painful transition?  Yes.  Is it working? Yes!

Why is it that we feel we are too fragile to attempt and fail—and why is it that sometimes we really are?

I was talking to Alli Houseworth recently and we found ourselves hitting upon the hackathon phenomenon in the tech world.  A bunch of tech geeks of different stripes come together—a set of ideas are thrown out, teams are formed, and they go to town for two days, developing code, creating business plans, crafting whole ideas from thin air over the course of 48 hours.  And then they pitch and someone gets seed funding—the ability to actualize on an idea that hadn’t been articulated a few days before—and there’s the understanding it might not work, or that it might not be the end product, or that it might not completely solve anything.  There is a celebration of creation, of creativity, that we, as a field of creatives, seem to feel shy about embracing.

• Margy Waller: Let’s do it.
  Before dinner, we (with Laura) talked about a two-day (or so) gathering to come up with new action steps.  Will it change the world?  Maybe not.  But what wonderful things might happen if a group of arts lovers is unleashed?  What if they (we, I hope) are given the mandate to come up with something new, take risks, abandon tradition (if they want to)?
  It’s an extended version of the Dinnervention–with seed funding at the end.
  Seriously.
• Clay Lord: I’m up for it.  Funders?  Anyone want to throw that party?

We have created an ecosystem where the slowest to change can stick around essentially indefinitely, where the most obvious organizations are often the ones most mired in the exclusive aspects of our forms, and where the incentive to invite new audiences in is so slim in the short-term as to overshadow the dramatic positivity it would engender in the long-term.

The latest SPPA data shows white audiences dwindling, and dwindling even faster for many of the benchmark disciplines.

So perhaps it all just has to fall apart.

As Ricky Fitts says in American Beauty, “There is so much beauty in the world.”

And there always will be, whether we wrangle ourselves into helping it truly shine for everyone or we don’t.