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Guiding Principles for Collective Action in the Performing Arts

 Preamble

The overarching goal of the 2008 National Performing Arts Convention was to increase the capacity of the performing arts sector to act more effectively as a community. This goal was carried out on multiple fronts. Content was designed to reflect themes that cut across the disciplines and that suggested opportunities for collective action; an extensive deliberative, public participation process (America Speaks) was implemented to develop a shared set of strategic priorities; and the Convention was designed in such a way as to promote maximum interaction across the many disciplines represented.

   Speakers indeed inspired delegates, delivering fresh and challenging insights; delegates interacted across traditional boundaries; and all coalesced around a set of strategies that emerged in the culminating town meeting.

 As might be expected, the planners also encountered some of the extraordinary challenges that can occur when working together on a project of such scope, depth, and complexity. Organizing the convention at times tested the planners’ ability to understand and to hear one another; to resolve conflict, to manage the tensions between individual conscience and collective action, and between discipline specific imperatives and sector wide goals.

At the completion of the convention, the planners saw that an important learning opportunity was at hand, and that the planning organizations themselve could improve their own capacity to work for working with one another. The challenge of strengthening the performing arts community was not limited to indentifying  common goals and organizing appropriate action. It must also involve improving the very nature of how we work together.

  

 

Guiding Principles

1. Build and protect trust

2. Acknowledge and respect participants’ dual responsibilities to the group and to the disciplines they represent.

3. Take individual responsibility for commitments made to the group, which are in turn fostered by clarity of expectations and purpose for each coalition member.

4. Practice Good Governance
   - Inclusivity and respect for the values of all
   - Consensus through deliberation and collaboration
   - Transparency and openness of communication
   - Clarity of decision making process, authority and representation
   - Thoughtful and informed consideration of all voices/parties.
  - Clarity of expectations and purpose for each coalition member.

In the months following NPAC, organizers met to articulate a path for acting upon the priority areas for collective action that were identified at the convention. The group determined that the best way to move forward would be to form five task forces, each charged with creating strategies for progress in one priority area.  Each taskforce included a diverse group, in terms of geography, race, age and artistic discipline. Here are the recommendations in each priority area:

Advocacy Task Force Recommendations

Artists Task Force Recommendations

Arts Education Task Force Recommendations

Diversity Task Force Recommendations

Technology Task Force Recommendations

NPAC TASK FORCE PARTICIPANTS
2009

Teresa Eyring, NPAC Chair
Vicky Abrash, NPAC Task Force Director
Advocacy Task Force
Jesse Rosen, League of American Orchestras, Chair
Heather Noonan, League of American Orchestras, Co-Chair
Laurie Baskin, Theatre Communication Group
Aaron Flagg, Music Conservatory of Westchester
Leah Frelinghuysen, Association of Performing Arts Presenters
Jonathan Katz, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
Andrew Massey, Composer
Susie Medak, Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Cookie Ruiz, Ballet Austin
KJ Sanchez, Two River Theater Company
Dalouge Smith, San Diego Youth Symphony

Artist Task Force
Ed Harsh, Meet the Composer, Chair
Patrick Carfizzi, Opera Singer
Teo Castellanos, Actor, writer, director, D-Projects
Rudresh K. Mahanthappa, Saxophonist & Composer
John Nuechterlein, American Composers Forum
Frank J. Oteri, American Music Center
Michael Royce, New York Foundation for the Arts
Andrea Snyder, Dance/USA
Sandra Organ Solis, Sandra Organ Dance Company
Meiyin Wang, Under the Radar Festival,  Public Theatre
MK Wegmann, National Performance Network
Reggie Wilson, Fist and Heel Performance Group
Amanda Burton Winger, Conductors Guild

Diversity Task Force
Joanne Hubbard Cossa, American Music Center, Co-Chair
Abel Lopez, Gala Hispanic Theatre, Co-chair
Andrea Assaf, New World Theatre

  Neil Barclay, August Wilson Center for African American Culture

  Michelle Burkhart, Director, Dance/NYC
  Donald Byrd, Spectrum Dance Theater
  Jean Cook, Future of Music
  Maria De Leon, National Association of Latino Arts and Culture

  Teresa Eyring, Executive Director, TCG
  Sandra Gibson, Association of Performing Arts Presenters
  Diana Hossack, Independent Non-Profit Organization Management
  Justin Laing, The Heinz Endowments

  Olive Mosier, William Penn Foundation
  Koji Nakano, Composer
  Elizabeth Hope Perlmutter, American Music Center
  Nirmala Rajasekar, Vocalist & Veena Player
  Rick Shiomi, Theatre Mu
 
  Education Task Force
  Raelle Myrick-Hodges, Brava Theatre Center, Chair
  Wesley V. Montgomery, National Performance Network, Co-Chair
  Steve Bailey, Jump-Start Performance Co.
  Ann Meier-Baker, Chorus America
  Karla Hartley, Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center
  Jonathan Herman, National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts
  Polly Kahn, League of American Orchestras
  Richard Kessler, The Center for Arts Education
  Margaret Lioi, Chamber Music America
  Judy Nemzoff, San Francisco Arts Commission
  David O’Fallon, McPhail Center for the Arts
  Laura Reeder, Partners for Arts Education
  Daniel Renner, Denver Center Theatre Company, National Theatre Conservatory

  Technology Task Force
  Sydney Skybetter, Skybetter and Associates, Chair
  Chris Elam, Misnomer Dance Theater
  Clayton B. Hodges, Actor, producer
  Adam Huttler, Fractured Atlas
  Derek Kwan, Interlochen Presents
  Kim Motes, Theater Latté Da
  Joe Rooney, Association of Performing Arts Presenters
  Marc Scorca, Opera America
  Molly Sheridan, American Music Center
  Kevin Sobczyk, Opera America

Marlon Barrios Solano, dance-tech.net

Convenings and communication across disciplines are necessary to a vital performing arts community. NPAC offers a variety of live and virtual gatherings. Check out Virtual NPAC which brings together highlights of the national music, dance and theatre conference, along with input from  anyone in the performing arts community who wishes to take part. Be part of the conversation. VNPAC.