http://www.creativefoyer.com.au/inform/articulatemonday

I may be a bit of a data freak but I think these reports are wonderful place from which to explore our sector. http://www.creativefoyer.com.au/inform/articulatemonday

Our Job Here is Done

Is this the future for Cultural Leadership? Just been talking to an Artistic Director about the differences between Artistic and Cultural Leadership. Similarly for me is the question about what is the difference between Community and Cultural leadership. I'd like to ring this man and ask him that question because I think he'd have a good answer.

‘Arts Leaders Talk’ IFACCA, the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies

Elise Huffer interviewed in ‘Arts Leaders Talk’ video series - IFACCA, the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies

And plenty of others too...

What strikes me about all of these interviews are the link to inspiration. There is of course the direct question on this subject but there are also questions as well as a question asking about memorable art works and another asking about opportunities in the near future (maybe it is just me but memorable art and near future opportunities are always a source of inspiration). Inspiration is central to the drive of these cultural leaders. I must now go and look at Seligman's and Csikszentmihayli's works in relation to inspiration before I head off to Kumuwulki.

A Cultural Leader Walks Into a Bar

The community theatre director walked into my office and foomphed her folders and scripts down on the corner of my desk. 'I just feel like it's all getting out of hand and I'm panicking', she said.

Six weeks out from the launch date of her community show she'd lost the ability to lead, or more importantly, she felt she had lost the ability to lead. She didn't have the show crafted to thel level she wanted. She had run out of ways to do this, didn't have directorial assistance in this regard and felt stuck and alone.

Within 40 mins we had turned it around. And this is how it happened:

RADO to DIRECTOR: Okay, where in the script do you feel you and the cast are on target? What's working? Where do you feel good about the show? Where do you think the cast and crew are feeling good about the show?

The question provoked a range of positive examples we could put under the microscope. As it turns out she felt confident in relation to the show's current music and choral singing, lines, plot, set. We ticked the boxes on why they were working and what should continue.

But the stress was still ticking away underneath the conversation and when asked what were her three major concerns at this point...out it poured:

There were a few practical considerations that were definitely causing the Director stress. No choreographer for another week and she didn't have the skills to direct the choreography herself, a cast of people who had never acted before, and she couldn't get the large cast to all turn up to the rehearsals. These were outside her control. But once she accepted this we focussed on what elements she could control. A plan of action was formed! She'd:

• ignore the formal dance choreography until the choreographer could come and would instead focus on actor workshops for the cast to give them better acting, improvisation and choral movement skills;
• because she is a relatively new director I offered her some examples of workshop activities and we discussed who in the community could help her with these workshops and other elements of these week's rehearsals;
• develop additional rehearsals for the principals and would record the show at the next full-scale rehearsal so that if members of the cast were missing, they could work to a properly timed recording for filling in the gaps;

These all seem very straightforward but when under stress it can be very hard for an artist, who is also expected to lead other artists, to know which direction to take. In order to relieve the stress and allow her to continue our meeting allowed her to:

• get immediate feedback from a community peer (she'd rung that morning and an hour later we were talking face to face over a cup of tea);
• by determining what community support she had (set building, enthusiastic principals and crew) the environment around her opened up and allowed her to feel at one with herself and recall her vision for the play;
• determine what was currently challenging her skills level (choreography, actor training tips) and what she needed assistance with to reduce the overwhelming feeling of having to do it all;
• visualise and plan her clear, short-term goals (today and for the next week --- and perhaps a little further)
• feel in control again (or at least grasp the edge of it and swing upwards)

And after, a day or two after actually, when I thought it through I too had a strange sense of peace because I had inadvertently ticked some of my own little boxes relating to flow principles (see my first blog):

immediate feedback (contact and support turnaround times of under 24hrs - usually less);

a dynamic balance of capacities with challenges or opportunities (implementing ways to balance the wonderful feeling of being alert and inspired but without falling too often into a state of being overwhelmed or stressed);

a sense of oneness (a sense of being at one with one’s self, and one’s processes and environment);

clear goals (working with artists and cultural leaders to identify what they want out of that phone call, that funding application, that day, that year, that overwhelming community project);

a feeling of control (NOT being in control - which is rarely possible - but feeling a sense of control).

She rinsed her tea cup and stomped down the stairs (our office stairs are very hollow and noisy) and I could see her out the window and it felt good to see her go off in such a positive frame of mind. Because she had become the director again. A cultural leader in our community. Her entire cast and crew and her future audiences are relying on her to get a show done under some pretty difficult circumstances and she was ready to lead again. Sometimes it is those examples that I think exemplify the best of regional arts development.

Excellence in context

Arts North West held a funding and grant writing workshop last week in Glen Innes and one of the questions that came up (and has done so at previous workshops seemingly without fail):

What do they mean by 'excellence' ?

What is the definition of excellence that they could respond to in their funding application was more precisely what they wanted to know. And it is a very good question. I had, fortunately, done a quick dig around on that very question before the workshop so I was able to come up with an answer albeit one that still requires me to pose some other ideas in this blog.

Many people when faced with guidelines or selection criteria stipulating 'artistic excellence' or 'high quality art' are left with more questions than perhaps they started their funding application with.

A standard response on the question seems to be that excellence must be viewed in context.

...artistic excellence is formulated within a particular social context and not inherent in the object per se...

(Remender, P.A and Lucareli R. "In Search of Artistic Excellence: The Social Contruction of Artistic Values". Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research. 1986. 27(d) 209-212)

However I was also  thoroughly engaged by Ben Eltham's "In Pursuit of 'Excellence'" article in September 2012 edition of Nava Quarterly on Diversity. In this article he discusses the definition of excellence and how it not even the review of the Australia Council for the Arts. It is true that to do so would create a new round of debate about whether that definition could be applied to all of the art forms that the Australia Council covers.

'[G]iven that philosophers and art historians have been arguing about what art is and what makes it good for centuries, the idea that arts funding bodies can easily identify excellence and fund it has to be questionable to say the very least', says Eltham. But he does ask his readers to address the issue through discussion and that is where I'd like to start.

The notion of excellence is also relevant to that of cultural leadership because leaders are supposed to 'excel' in what they do, to lead by example.  Even though it is possible for community to determine which particular elements of their leadership or the work they produce are the most 'excellent' it can be very difficult for them to explain why.

I try to take it back to the context in which we are examining the excellence and/or the leadership qualities. The 'why' can be fed by the where, when, who, how. If we can pinpoint those, then we are on our way to determining why it is excellent (or why it isn't). I haven't taken this much further than this since last week except to start looking at particular examples and break them down into the context in which they exist or could exist. By looking at various examples I hope to get a better understanding of the parameters by which we can judge excellence. Excellence in context.

Ideas to support Cultural Leadership in Regional Australia

As part of my preparation to present at Kumuwuki http://www.kumuwuki.org.au/ this year, I felt it was high time I pulled myself out of strategic business plans, staff contracts, running workshops, and programmes for half an hour and dedicate that time to considering the substance that feeds all of that work - the thing or things that keeps me going when the 'arts' seems to have vanished from the reason I work in the arts.

As a kick start to the panel 'What Cultural Leadership Looks Like' where I'm representing the regional perspective, I thought I should recommence this long forgotten blog and build it into the basis from which I can share the ideas we practice at Arts North West www.artsnw.com.au (the regional arts board for the New England North West of NSW) and that have been developed and implemented from a range of arts practitioners, community do-ers, academic and industry research and from my own research findings into the the practice of flow improve sustainability in Australian independent theatre Together Alone: Conditions for Sustainability in Australian Independent Theatre (UOW Electronic Copy.

I want to start with where I am right now. In an office in the roof of the Visitor Information Centre that runs alongside the New England Highway. Here with a view over spring blossoms, country traffic and McDonalds signs I am often speaking with who I consider to be cultural leaders. These are the people who do. The people who inspire others to do. The people who keep doing despite issues such as burn out, isolation, and lack of funding or income. Without such leaders many local, regional, and much larger projects would not exist or would not thrive and benefit our community in the way they do.

When everything is working well, our regional arts board generally will not hear from such projects and their leaders unless it is to witness the positive reviews in the media or through other promotional connections. The call from those leaders or the communities they work comes more often when there's a glitch, a missing link, a sense of fatigue, a problem to be solved or some support or advice required. Having extensively researched the beneficial impact of positive psychology principles being carried out in the arts, often unknowingly, and not having a big budget or pool of resources ourselves, this is one area where Arts North West can support those leaders and we attempt to build those principles into the range of services we provide.

I have identified core principles that we build into the programmes or support Arts North West provides because they cost very little except time and mindfulness for a lot of gain. The principles I adhere to provide:

• a sense of oneness (a sense of being at one with one’s self, and one’s processes and environment);
• immediate feedback (contact and support turnaround times of under 24hrs - usually less);
• clear goals (working with artists and cultural leaders to identify what they want out of that phone call, that funding application, that day, that year, that overwhelming community project);
• a feeling of control (NOT being in control - which is rarely possible - but feeling a sense of control);
• a dynamic balance of capacities with challenges or opportunities (implementing ways to balance the wonderful feeling of being alert and inspired but without falling too often into a state of being overwhelmed or stressed). 

Some might argue that cultural and regional leaders are already aware of the need to identify these principles in the work that they do and that this is why they ARE cultural leaders (I sense I'll be delving into the current research into this theory again fairly soon). However, speaking from a personal as well as research and evidence-based perspective, often the burden on that leader can be too much for one person at one time. My role as Regional Arts Development Officer is to provide those leaders, those doers, with the support that they need so that they can continue to provide support to their communities? Another part of my role is to make sure that I apply those same principles to our organisation and to the part I play as a cultural leader.

Over the next month I hope to be able to better track examples of such principles and their impact on cultural leaders and projects and programmes and to build them into this blog. So this is a test for me as well: if I can find the time to maintain this blog then I am building the principles that I preach into my own working life. 

Any examples or ideas in relation to this post are gratefully received!