Pop Art
Wed, 31 July 2002, 01:18 pmcrgwllms12 posts in thread
Pop Art
Wed, 31 July 2002, 01:18 pmAn article in the New York Times today claims that the number of arts festivals happening nationwide over there has reached a record high of about 3000, drawing audiences of around 130 million.
I roughly estimate those attendances as being about 45% of the USA's population, although it doesn't account for the fact that obviously a much smaller arts-going population must be attending multiple events to give that sort of box office estimate.
And also, that's still only 1 festival every 96,000 head of population.
I wonder what percentage of our population attends arts events? How many festivals do we have in Australia, compared to our population?
And I wonder what sort of similar comparison could be made with the people who attend our traditional form of culture - sporting events?
Is it possible to increase the general status of arts events in Australia? Are we hindered or helped by our smaller population?
Food for thought.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/arts/30SUMM.html?pagewanted=1&todaysheadlines
Cheers,
Craig
[%sig%]
I roughly estimate those attendances as being about 45% of the USA's population, although it doesn't account for the fact that obviously a much smaller arts-going population must be attending multiple events to give that sort of box office estimate.
And also, that's still only 1 festival every 96,000 head of population.
I wonder what percentage of our population attends arts events? How many festivals do we have in Australia, compared to our population?
And I wonder what sort of similar comparison could be made with the people who attend our traditional form of culture - sporting events?
Is it possible to increase the general status of arts events in Australia? Are we hindered or helped by our smaller population?
Food for thought.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/arts/30SUMM.html?pagewanted=1&todaysheadlines
Cheers,
Craig
[%sig%]
Re: Pop Art
Fri, 2 Aug 2002, 11:57 amCraig (K),
I've gotta disagree with you on your assessment of Perth being a great city for non-theatre based art forms.
The music industry in Perth for example is quite difficult to break into if your band is doing something different. The majority of venues support only indie poprock/chilled electronics and so working as an artist on that level can be an exercise in frustration. Sure, there are sucessful bands outside of that (at least on a local level) but this is only because they band together into genres and form their own scenes, slowly developing a following through CD releases. In fact, for the majority of bands in Perth, CD launches (Fresh Blast! sponsorship pays for ads in X-Press, rtrfm etc) and the occasional (very rare) support slot form the only publicity they really get. As somebody both in a band and promotes a weekly gig (miniplug: Incredible Electronic Sound Machines!, Wednesday night, 8:30, The Orient Hotel Freo, Perth's only 100% live electronica night), I've found the music industry to suffer pretty much the same problems as the theatre industry. That's just my opinion though.
> JJJ whereby new performers/companies are regularly plucked out and > discovered - independant companies have to forge their own
> reputations. Likewise there is no lure of big Hollywood money that > we can ride the tail of, like the film industry over east.
This is a bit of a wrong assumption as JJJ actually plays very little WA content. They play some of the major releases but the struggle of a band to get to that point is usually long and winding. I don't mean to be negative here, but as far as attendances go, both the theatre and the music industry suffer pretty similar problems. It might help to think of a Cartman gig as Black Swan and the gig of a lesser known band (The Wah Trees or Descend Here or Thesaurus Rex or a whole list of people you haven't heard of) as your Blue Room/fully independant production.
And I don't know that visual arts or film has a particularly easy time of it either. Public perception of art galleries is for the most part one of confusion and "wankery" from my experience and local film makers seem confined to short films if they want to attract any public interest.
But I might be wrong.
I agree that it's a matter of public perception. A stand up comedy night will usually, for example, attract a much larger crowd than a similar night of comic theatre, despite the two having pretty much the same content.
But there's a contradiction I have noticed: the public don't come to theatre as often as I think they should mostly because they think it's a special occasion and they have to get dressed up. Unfortunately, they love getting dressed up. I've had this discussion with people numerous times, but they can't lose the perception that going to the theatre should be considered a "classy" thing to do. Even at community theatre shows (I'm thinking Melville's (quite good) "No Names, No Packdrill" and Rockingham's "Pirates Of Penzance" as they're the last couple of things I've seen the audience for) there seems to be a "getting dressed up" vibe that would be better suited to venues such as The Maj.
I think if the public could see that most theatres are places where you can dress like you would if you were going to the cinema, that a performance is better than/equal to a movie, the industry will be better off.
Perhaps though, we need to tailor our work to what our audience are going to relate to. Theatre, if you think about it, doesn't particularly fit into the mass majority Australian psyche very well, for the reasons Craig outlined quite well. People seem to dig theatre in pubs and stand up, in pubs, so alcohol does seem to help the equation. Big musicals seem popular too, and are not seen as too "wanky". The public seems to identify with "honesty" in theatre/television/film/music. They have short attention spans and seem to get off on short film/short performances. Perhaps if we looked at what our audience is most comfortable with, the art form we used would be based more in cabaret and sketches. Theatre is certainly suited to the, as much as I hate to use the term, national identity of European nations, but for Australia it seems somehow inappropriate.
I say this, of course, fully knowing that I love/am addicted to performing and watching theatre. So maybe the public just need education.
Let's do that.
Anyway, I hope my rant makes sense. It's a bit stream of conciousness, but my posts always seem to be that way.
Rant over (for now),
Tomás Ford
ps PLUG ALERT: book into your diary to come experience "Blood Flavoured Sportsdrink", the ultimate Halloween fest featuring local satirical electrofiends Descend Here (my band - think DAAS vs Depeche Mode) performing a one off original Halloween cabaret show! Costumes! Vampires! Lolly bags! Song and dance numbers! For grown ups! Drinkies! The ultimate Halloween experience! Exclaim! It all happens at Club Ergo, Artrage's Festival Club on James St, Northbridge, the 31st October. Be there. Or we WILL hunt you down.
[%sig%]
I've gotta disagree with you on your assessment of Perth being a great city for non-theatre based art forms.
The music industry in Perth for example is quite difficult to break into if your band is doing something different. The majority of venues support only indie poprock/chilled electronics and so working as an artist on that level can be an exercise in frustration. Sure, there are sucessful bands outside of that (at least on a local level) but this is only because they band together into genres and form their own scenes, slowly developing a following through CD releases. In fact, for the majority of bands in Perth, CD launches (Fresh Blast! sponsorship pays for ads in X-Press, rtrfm etc) and the occasional (very rare) support slot form the only publicity they really get. As somebody both in a band and promotes a weekly gig (miniplug: Incredible Electronic Sound Machines!, Wednesday night, 8:30, The Orient Hotel Freo, Perth's only 100% live electronica night), I've found the music industry to suffer pretty much the same problems as the theatre industry. That's just my opinion though.
> JJJ whereby new performers/companies are regularly plucked out and > discovered - independant companies have to forge their own
> reputations. Likewise there is no lure of big Hollywood money that > we can ride the tail of, like the film industry over east.
This is a bit of a wrong assumption as JJJ actually plays very little WA content. They play some of the major releases but the struggle of a band to get to that point is usually long and winding. I don't mean to be negative here, but as far as attendances go, both the theatre and the music industry suffer pretty similar problems. It might help to think of a Cartman gig as Black Swan and the gig of a lesser known band (The Wah Trees or Descend Here or Thesaurus Rex or a whole list of people you haven't heard of) as your Blue Room/fully independant production.
And I don't know that visual arts or film has a particularly easy time of it either. Public perception of art galleries is for the most part one of confusion and "wankery" from my experience and local film makers seem confined to short films if they want to attract any public interest.
But I might be wrong.
I agree that it's a matter of public perception. A stand up comedy night will usually, for example, attract a much larger crowd than a similar night of comic theatre, despite the two having pretty much the same content.
But there's a contradiction I have noticed: the public don't come to theatre as often as I think they should mostly because they think it's a special occasion and they have to get dressed up. Unfortunately, they love getting dressed up. I've had this discussion with people numerous times, but they can't lose the perception that going to the theatre should be considered a "classy" thing to do. Even at community theatre shows (I'm thinking Melville's (quite good) "No Names, No Packdrill" and Rockingham's "Pirates Of Penzance" as they're the last couple of things I've seen the audience for) there seems to be a "getting dressed up" vibe that would be better suited to venues such as The Maj.
I think if the public could see that most theatres are places where you can dress like you would if you were going to the cinema, that a performance is better than/equal to a movie, the industry will be better off.
Perhaps though, we need to tailor our work to what our audience are going to relate to. Theatre, if you think about it, doesn't particularly fit into the mass majority Australian psyche very well, for the reasons Craig outlined quite well. People seem to dig theatre in pubs and stand up, in pubs, so alcohol does seem to help the equation. Big musicals seem popular too, and are not seen as too "wanky". The public seems to identify with "honesty" in theatre/television/film/music. They have short attention spans and seem to get off on short film/short performances. Perhaps if we looked at what our audience is most comfortable with, the art form we used would be based more in cabaret and sketches. Theatre is certainly suited to the, as much as I hate to use the term, national identity of European nations, but for Australia it seems somehow inappropriate.
I say this, of course, fully knowing that I love/am addicted to performing and watching theatre. So maybe the public just need education.
Let's do that.
Anyway, I hope my rant makes sense. It's a bit stream of conciousness, but my posts always seem to be that way.
Rant over (for now),
Tomás Ford
ps PLUG ALERT: book into your diary to come experience "Blood Flavoured Sportsdrink", the ultimate Halloween fest featuring local satirical electrofiends Descend Here (my band - think DAAS vs Depeche Mode) performing a one off original Halloween cabaret show! Costumes! Vampires! Lolly bags! Song and dance numbers! For grown ups! Drinkies! The ultimate Halloween experience! Exclaim! It all happens at Club Ergo, Artrage's Festival Club on James St, Northbridge, the 31st October. Be there. Or we WILL hunt you down.
[%sig%]
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