September 28, 2016 - 21:36
Today in class someone mentioned that the audience at Nora Chipaumire's performance was largely white, and that she had addressed this, calling for more diversity and saying her piece was primarily meant for a black audience. I was reminded of my final for a class I took last semester, Writing About Theater - I had written about the political power of the poerforming arts and their inaccessibility in a lot of different ways. I thought I would post part of what I had written, including information from the NEA about why only certain people go to plays/dance performances/etc.
The accessibility of theatre must be increased as much as possible, because as it is only a small fraction of people attend the theatre. It is meaningless to attempt to change the world through art if only a select few will ever have access to that art at all. Theatre [and dance] is already inherently inaccessible in that its limited to a certain time and place, so why make it even more complicated? What about the disabled who cannot physically make it to locations or the poor who cannot afford to dedicate the time and money demanded by this investment? What about those who have never seen live theatre and now never will because we actively discourage them from taking the plunge?
In a National Endowment for the Arts study, “When Going Gets Tough: Barriers and Motivations Affecting Arts,” it was found that of people who were interested in attending arts events but did not, 63.4% of them were interested in a performance (live dance, theatre, or music) versus a 30.1% interest in art exhibits. For those interested in a performance, 44% of them reported that they did not go because of cost, tied with the 44% of people who reported that they did not have time. 33% said the venue was too hard to get to or they had a disability and 22% said they couldn’t find anyone to go with. (Participants could cite more than one reason for not attending.)
Even the alternative theaters that strive to escape this eliteness are often inaccessible. In addition to the practical barriers such as cost and location, there are so called “perceptual” barriers as well. As described in the report, “If an individual’s friends do not attend arts events, if the individual herself has not previously attended, or if she thinks there will not be others like her in the audience, then she might experience perceptual barriers to attendance. Perceptual barriers can increase the sense of risk people feel, thus making prospective attendance less attractive.” These perceptual barriers can be even more present in alternative theatres that may seem more catered to an “artistic” audience and thus unapproachable to people who don’t work in the industry. At times, these events are even purposefully inaccessible to most people in order to cultivate an interested and engaged audience.
Going to a dance show already has a lot of perceptual barriers, which are increased when it's a piece in the Fringe Festival (which is catered to an ~artistic~ audience that tends to be white) and a piece that's inside the PMA. I thought people might be interested in this idea of perceptual barriers & how they impacted Nora's piece as well as how they might impact our exhibit. (I know that my own perceptual barriers have stopped me from going to any BMC exhibits before Kris Graves).