Wednesday, March 22, 2017 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, March 22, 2017 // The Statement
5B
Art Matters
proposed NEA elimination threatens performing arts community
b y Yo s h i k o I w a i, Deputy Statement Editor
I
t’s a Saturday night and the audi-
ence at the Power Center for
the Performing Arts is stunned.
Silence floods the walls of the the-
ater. I can almost hear the person
next to me holding their breath. The stage I’ve
performed on eight times since I started my
dance training at the University of Michigan
is tense and torn, like I’ve never experienced
before. “Betroffenheit” by Kidd Pivot and
Electric Company Theatre has the full house
of 1,200 people in a standing ovation. Tears,
shock and wonder fill the audience.
“Betroffenheit,” a theater-dance perfor-
mance, is a visual and physical representation
of grief, addiction and trauma. Based on writer
and performer Jonathan Young’s experience
of losing his daughter and cousins to a fire, the
combination of movement, sound and space
is both arresting and thought-provoking. It’s
the kind of physical, psychological and emo-
tional effect we as performing artists strive to
achieve in our years of training — something
that crosses the proscenium stage and perme-
ates the lives of the viewers — something that
makes them question the world they inhabit.
Award-winning performances like “Betrof-
fenheit” are hard to come by. During middle
school and high school, I saw some artists of
this caliber during trips to New York City, but
these world-class performances came with
expensive tickets that made seeing everything
I wanted unrealistic. My orchestra ticket to
see “Betroffenheit” in Ann Arbor though, was
$20.
***
This year alone, the University Musical
Society — an Ann Arbor-based performing
arts presenter affiliated with the University —
brought multiple internationally recognized
artists to campus. The night before “Betrof-
fenheit,” three-time Grammy award-winning
jazz quasi-collective Snarky Puppy took Hill
Auditorium. In early February, Ping Chong +
Company, recipient of National Medal of Arts,
did a theatrical performance on Muslim iden-
tity. Just a month before, Bessie Award-win-
ning Ohad Naharin’s Israeli dance company,
Batsheva, performed at the Power Center.
In January, UMS announced that current
New York Philharmonic president, Matthew
VanBesien, will be the next UMS president
beginning this summer. Last November, the
Grammy award-winning Berlin Philharmonic
did an orchestral residency with University
students.
Since its establishment in 1880, UMS pres-
ents approximately 75 performances a year
and hosts more than 100 educational events
per season. In 2015, UMS was the first uni-
versity-related arts presenter to receive the
National Medal of Arts from then-President
Barack Obama.
Looking back on these 138 years, the UMS
line-up of performances is even more impres-
sive. Before his retirement, Leonard Bernstein
conducted four performances in the country
with the Vienna Philharmonic; Hill Audito-
rium was one of them. In 2001, UMS president
Ken Fischer started a multi-year partnership
with the Royal Shakespeare Company. And let
us not forget that Yo-Yo Ma will be perform-
ing on campus this April. What’s most surpris-
ing is that students can see his performance
for less than the cost of a dinner at any Main
Street restaurant.
As a senior in high school applying to col-
leges, I researched the cities and local per-
formance venues of each of the schools I
considered attending. Ann Arbor stood out to
me. Not only was I drawn to the quality of the
School of Music, Theatre & Dance’s curricu-
lum, but also the Ann Arbor arts environment
itself. I considered conservatories in New
York City and Los Angeles until I realized
Ann Arbor offered the same opportunities —
except here, I can go to a football game at noon
and then an opera at night. Since I started my
dance training at the University three years
ago, I have seen and taken classes from artists
I could maybe meet in New York City or Chi-
cago or Montreal or Israel. Maybe. Needless
to say, the School of Music, Theatre & Dance
School is nationally ranked along with the
performing arts conservatories on the coasts.
This performing arts bubble — Ann Arbor
— from education to exposure, is a Midwest-
ern gem for aspiring performers and the pub-
lic, according to Aaron Dworkin, dean of the
Music, Theatre & Dance School.
“We’re a very unique place, as it relates to
the arts,” Dworkin said. “We are solidly in the
Midwest, yet we have arts experiences, train-
ing and institutions that rival anything on the
coasts,” Dworkin said. “We are in many ways
in that center — whether it’s a presenter like
UMS, whether it’s our school and the fact that
we lead the nation in so many of our depart-
ments.”
*****
Last Thursday, the Trump administration
released a proposed federal budget calling
for the complete defunding of the National
Endowment for the Arts and the National
Endowment for the Humanities. Public fund-
ing for the arts had long been a low-hanging
fruit for fiscal hawks — even though the annu-
al cost of $741 million composes less than one-
tenth of a percent of federal spending. But this
announcement marks the first time in history
that a sitting administration proposed to dis-
continue either the NEA or NEH.
The NEA is an independent federal agency
founded by Congress in 1965. The organiza-
tion provides financial support to arts organi-
zations and projects across the country. Over
the years, the organization has expanded its
aid from performances and educational expe-
riences to even health-care projects, like the
NEA Healing Arts Partnership. Founded in
2011, the partnership works to promote arts
therapy, placing art therapists in veteran hos-
pitals across the nation.
Every year, the NEA funds various Music,
Theatre & Dance School research projects and
performances. The George and Ira Gershwin
Critical Edition — an ongoing scholarly analy-
sis of Gershwin’s music — and Youth & Adult
Community Programs — an educational pro-
gram that exposes local Ann Arbor residents
to different performances — to name a few
who receive funds.
In 2016, the NEA awarded UMS with
$30,000 to bring performances, residencies
and other educational programs to Ann Arbor.
“Betroffenheit” was one of them — in addition
to the American Ballet Theatre, Camille A.
Brown, Taylor Mac and others.
The proposed cuts were announced mere
minutes before I was to interview the dean
and assistant dean of the Music, Theatre &
Dance School. When we sat down, it was clear
they were still digesting the potential loss of
the NEA.
Dean Aaron Dworkin, a member of the
National Council for the Arts, which makes
recommendations for individuals and organi-
zations to be awarded the National Medal of
Arts — the presidential award for outstanding
artists — said he is unsure of the effects of the
proposed budget, as it awaits a lengthy con-
gressional revision process. He emphasized,
however, the proposed budget suggests a lack
of value placed on the arts in American soci-
ety.
“Budgets are moral documents,” Dworkin
said. “Budgets reflect the values of an institu-
tion or the values of a nation.”
That same day, I interviewed UMS Presi-
dent Ken Fischer, who was visibly disturbed
when we met. He argued the proposed budget
is motivated by ideology and not a genuine
desire to balance the budget.
“There seems to be no understanding of the
role the NEA has been playing,” he said. “It
gives grants that could maybe total the wing
of a defense jet, but look at what it does to
bring a quality of life to this country. UMS has
received funding each year from the NEA. It
is an important part of our budget, but what
it is more than anything, is a statement that
our country cares that the arts are important.”
However, he stresses to look at the opportu-
nity the crisis brings, that “artists will rise to
fill the vacuum that is created by the potential
loss of the NEA.”
Dworkin and Melody Racine, SMTD senior
associate dean for academic affairs, also
struck a defiant tone, emphasizing that with
lost federal funding, it would be their respon-
sibility to further provide platforms for artists
to continue their craft.
“We must be artist citizens now,” Racine
said. “We need to be very good at what we do
in the arts, but we need to also be very aware
of what’s happening in the political world.
We need to be very aware of what’s happen-
ing with our planet. We need to be very aware
with issues of diversity, equity and inclusion.
The more we know about outside our own
field, the better ours becomes.”
The
educational,
administrative
and
entrepreneurial drive of the administration
reassures me as an Music, Theatre & Dance
student. Even if the discontinuation of pub-
lic arts funding doesn’t survive the budget
review process, it’s hard not to interpret the
proposal as saying “the arts don’t matter.”
My attitude is not alone among Music,
Theatre & Dance students. Spencer Schaefer,
a Music, Theatre & Dance junior studying
French horn performance and ethnomusicol-
ogy, emphasized that he pursues his craft not
for future potential wealth but for the sake of
art.
“I think a lot of people are unaware of what
it means to be an artist because they see dance,
they see installations, they see artwork, they
hear music, but don’t understand the time it
takes, and what it means to someone,” he said.
“These people aren’t cashing out and making
tons of money off of this, no. This is putting
a roof over their heads so they can continue
to create their project — and maybe, they can
come back and eat something.”
*****
In a country where the performing arts
are implicitly underappreciated, the role of
the performing artist becomes more complex.
There is no option to stop — if this is the lan-
guage I’ve used for 18 years, there’s no forget-
ting it or learning a new one now.
When I look back on “Betroffenheit” and
wonder why it affected me the way it did,
I can’t come up with words to accurately
describe the movement, or search for some-
thing in a thesaurus to find one that’ll fit. I
tried.
When a performance does its job, it gives
you the unutterable. It describes the space
between your mind and your hands that des-
perately try to explain the sensation of an
experience whether it is good or bad.
Schaefer agreed when we spoke about the
role of the emerging performing artist.
“Even if I’m not going to make a dime off my
art, that doesn’t mean it can’t impact someone
and it still means something to me,” Schaefer
said. “I’ll find a way to put a roof over my head,
it’s never about that. I think that’s why the art
is going to keep going. It’s so crushing to see
that it could get more and more distant with
the lack of funding from it, within the pop cul-
ture and main culture of society.”
This argument is reinforced by faculty. The
word “quit” simply does not exist in the art-
ist’s vocabulary.
“The best thing that we can do is to learn,
prepare, train, become great artists,” Dworkin
said. “The best thing you can do when the arts,
or whatever field you’re working in is poten-
tially diminished or under threat, is to become
more excellent — to make a better argument
for it. I’ve learned to not to predict the future,
but project and prepare. Because luck is when
preparation meets opportunity.”
But I don’t know how I could have prepared
for this. The proposed budget’s complete dis-
missal of the arts has made me question my
craft and therefore identity. How do I tell my
graduating friends that everything will be
OK when the already minimal support for the
starving artists is completely gone?
It’s less of a question of whether the arts
matter — of course, they do. The question is
how the aspiring, still unknown artist enters
a world where their existence is undervalued.
The dialogue starts sounding a lot like other
conversations that have surfaced in the recent
political climate.
*****
As a violinist, multi-media artist and now
an educator, Dworkin’s resilience is some-
thing I admire.
“From my perspective, there is no doubt,”
Dworkin said, his voice unwavering. “It’s just
that we have to make the case and make the
argument, because the arts pervade so much of
what we do — it’s just not recognized amongst
many people how pervasive the arts are, and
that the arts require training and facility. It’s
not like you can magically play an instrument
or sing or dance, it requires years of training,
development, craft, ingenuity and creativity.”
Over the course of the last few days, this
pervasiveness of the arts has been a recurring
theme. Even as a performing artist in school
with other performing artists, I sometimes
lose sight of the breadth of this field. Fischer
doesn’t.
“This will be one where I hope anyone who
has been to a theater, dance or music perfor-
mance, who owns an iPad, or an iPhone, and
looks at the design, who drives a car, thinks:
Who are the people designing these things
that have made America great?” Fischer said.
“They are people who have been artists and
designers. For anyone to think it’s just a bunch
of rich people going to see the Metropolitan
Opera benefitting from this, they need to get
their facts straight.”
The potential demise of the NEA and with
it, the national support system for the arts, not
only affects current artists, but future genera-
tions of artists as well. Whether they are in
training like me, or haven’t yet picked up the
violin or paintbrush, the lack of access to the
arts has foreseeable consequences.
I know for a fact that I would not have pur-
sued a college degree in this craft if I weren’t
exposed to choreographers and dancers who
made my jaw drop and entire body tingle when
I was younger — I simply wouldn’t have pur-
sued it if I didn’t experience the full-blown,
unadulterated power of the artist myself. I
wanted to communicate the unutterable.
The experience of the arts is irreplaceable.
If I’ve learned anything from 18 years of train-
ing, it’s that live art is fleeting, but maybe for
the same reason, most resonating. It seems
most lively in the sense that it requires your
fullest attention in the moment, to be stored
in your memory, as more of a sensation than
artifact. After all, it is an experience.
COURTESY OF WENDY D PHOTOGRAPHY
COURTESY OF THE SCHOOL OF MUSIC, THEATRE AND DANCE
ARNOLD ZHOU/DAILY
FILE PHOTO/MICHIGAN DAILY