Arts reflections
Is it art to rearrange the work of another artist? Are adaptations, arrangements, major variations of original appearances valid? Well, yes, especially when the essence of the original is retained in character and images, and with the motivation, depth, and originality of the experience.
Director/adaptor Mel Martin, who directed Spring Awakening, the Musical last year for Black Box Creative, is setting
Romeo and Juliet in the Verona Correctional Facility for Females, using a predominantly female cast. The Meteor has been offering first class drama in its programming. This one, opening on November 10 at the Meteor, could be memorable.
Patronage and sponsorship:
The arts do not exist in isolation, even though some artists appear to. They exist because artists dig deep into their worlds, see and hear the very essence of existence, and use their perceptions to enlighten, entertain, and educate their audiences.
Where entertainments are simply part of a profit and loss industrial process, one should be aware the primary goal is to satisfy shareholders, not reveal the world or educate its audiences except in the way those audiences are trained to buy the industrial products of cinema, of ‘‘music’’, of image-making in its various manifestations.
If a composer or writer can sell her, or his, products to a distribution corporate, they can be economically very successful. That is rare, however, for the arts in general, despite the Barenboims and Pavarottis of the stage.
We now know that the arts go back thousands of years. The newly discovered Paleolithic flutes from Germany have been carbon dated to between 42,000 and 43,000 years ago. The flutes did not gather seeds or grind them, or hunt wild boars and mammoths for protein. They were not an early equivalent of products that would earn money or barter. They were for pleasure, entertainment, and what we might now call instruments of civilisation, fortresses against barbarism, and as the antithesis of weaponry, the defining inventions of humanity. But they don’t, and never have, made money. They are valued for their instrinsic worth, not for the way they will turn a profit. And that is a definable difficulty in a capitalist economy.
Artists, and particularly musicians in 2017, have to depend either on patronage or sponsorship to survive. Sponsorship is associated with firms getting a cash return by being advertised by the performers and may also win a tax break for their ‘‘donation’’.
Patronage in its finest form is accompanied by open support for the art/ artist, and often the provision of facilities and/or salaries. One organisation which needs our patronage is the Dame Malvina Major Foundation which supports young artists preparing for professional careers. The website notes that the foundation does not receive any government funding, as a charitable trust, it aims to achieve Dame Malvina’s vision through a variety of sources, including concerts, fundraising, bequests, donations, and partnerships with individuals and organisations.
Dame Malvina comes from a New Zealand history where funds were raised however possible, from wheel-spinning chook raffles to fetes and fairs and street stalls selling cakes. OSH has assassinated those, and funding needs for the arts are greater today than they were, so the foundation is running a rather classy event on November 4, at Willowbrook Park on Vaile Road. You will need to book, but for $95 a head you’ll be fed rather well, wined to match, and feted and entertained by soloists from the foundation.
Is this piece merely a free puff? Never. It is simply intended to make a significant point. Currently, for example, groups like Hamilton Civic Choir need patronage to enable them to accept their invitation to sing in Carnegie Hall New York next year, the Music Department/Conservatorium from Waikato University needs patronage to maintain its superb series of lunchtime concerts (also enabling DMM Foundation students to perform) in the coming years.
Momentum Waikato and Charcoal Blue need patronage to assist in getting the best performance auditorium for Hamilton.
The arts are influenced by sponsors’ branding policies in ways that can be limiting, and sponsorship per se is difficult for individual contributors. Patronage allows people to support the arts they enjoy, and enjoy themselves in the process. The Summer Serenade fundraiser on November 4 should be a lively example of just that.
Contact Willowbrook Park, ph 07 856 5656 or email Peter@willowbrookpark.co.nz.