The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Thursday, January 25, 2018 — 5

Opera, ballet and classical 
music 
are 
frequently 
shrouded in auras of elitism. 
During the Classical period, 
famous composers would be 
commissioned by rich aristocrats 
to compose for private events. 
Opera was quite expensive — 
the average person could barely 
afford to attend more than one 
opera performance every year. 
Ballet was also associated with 
wealth, 
royalty 
and 
elitism 
— it was initially an art form 
commissioned by the royal court 
to display the wealth and cultural 
magnificence of the court.
Over time, however, these 
genres of performance art have 
become increasingly accessible to 
the masses. The divide between 
upper class performance art 
and popular performance art 
has faded. The elitist appeal of 
these previously upper class art 
forms has faded as they become 
increasingly accessible to all, and 
audiences are becoming defined 
not by class, but by interest and 
aesthetic taste.
Though these art forms are 
beginning to react to this change 
in consumption, this reaction 
seems to not be occuring fast 
enough. 
Modern 
orchestras, 
dance 
companies 
and 
opera 
companies are facing diminishing 
financial returns and diminishing 
attendances. 
Many 
smaller 
companies are being forced to 
close due to lack of attendance, 
and many others are decreasing 
the number of performances that 
they give per year.
Overall, it seems as though 
these traditional art forms face a 
bleak future. This is a narrative 
pervasive throughout the cultural 
lexicon — the slow and painful 
demise of these “higher” art 
forms. The loss of many of the 
smaller, local performance arts 
institutions seems to foreshadow 
the loss of all performance arts 
institutions.
The 
solution 
to 
these 
diminishing 
performance 
attendances, however, may be 
the very step that many are 
hesitant to take. While many 
are tentative to embrace the loss 
of elitism, this may be the only 
means for these great art forms 
to support themselves. This loss 
of elitism need not be accepted 
begrudgingly — artists, genres 
and concepts of great artistic 
merit are already forming around 
this new intersection between the 
popular and the elitist.
Orchestras are increasingly 
turning to popular music and 
movie music as a means of 
drawing previously uninterested 
audiences 
into 
the 
concert 
hall. The advent of the “film in 
concert,” for example, seems to 
be providing the financial returns 
that 
many 
orchestras 
need, 
though they go against the elitist 
connotation 
many 
orchestras 
would like to preserve.
Modern dance, in addition, 
is 
similarly 
changing 
its 
programmatic habits as a means 
of maintaining their financial 
well-being. 
Performances 
of 
modern dance forms or with 
modern music are slowly entering 
even the most conservatively 
programmed company seasons. 
These 
performances 
draw 
the younger and more diverse 
audiences that these companies 
know they need to sustain 
themselves though they challenge 
the sophistication traditionally 
associated with formal dance 
companies.
Opera has also seen changes 
geared towards attracting and 
engaging new audiences. Modern 
operas depicting contemporary 
events are quietly changing the 
subject matter of traditional 
opera. John Adam’s “Nixon in 
China” challenged a generation 
of 
composers 
to 
compose 
operas about current events and 
non-traditional 
stories 
from 
the Western canon. This has 
challenged the refined taste of 
many die-hard opera enthusiasts, 
though it has restored opera’s 

relevance to the larger lexicon of 
mass culture.
This 
loss 
of 
elitism 
is 
an 
inevitable 
result 
of 
the 
increasingly 
interconnected 
world that we live in and the 
gradual 
loss 
of 
boundaries 
between art forms and genres. 
Whether we like it or not, this 
process will only accelerate as 
time and technology progress.
Not all of these changes, 
furthermore, are regrettable. The 
growth of niche art communities 
has helped develop increasingly 
specific ensembles and companies 
dedicated to the performance of 
specific artists, time periods and 
other definable artistic traits. 
Early music has become a staple 
of some communities, as has 
specific types of opera and ballet. 
Increasingly specific marketing, 
furthermore, 
has 
allowed 
audiences and performers to be 
more specific and selective in 
their programming and ticket 
consumption. It is not uncommon 
to see opera companies plan 
whole seasons around common 
themes or common historical 
eras.
The loss of elitism in classical 
music, modern dance and opera 
seems to threaten the prevalence 
and dominance of specific time 
periods and creators within these 
art forms. Though these classical 
performance arts remain more 
resistant to change than most 
popular art forms are, all art 
forms must select specific creators 
and eras from the past to value 
more than others. The constant 
redefinition and reorganization 
of previous artistic periods based 
on current artistic trends is as 
inherent to performance art as 
is the creation of new work. The 
loss of elitism is most threatening 
in that it will upend the general 
aesthetic consensus that has 
developed around these art forms 
over generations.
In 
this 
new, 
non-elitist 
understanding of classical music, 
for example, Romantic composers 
could be ignored while early 
Baroque and Medieval composers 
became popular. German and 
Italian opera could be shunned in 
favor of the early British operettas. 
Ballet could be rejected in favor of 
hip hop or other modern trends. 
The 
ever-changing 
Western 
canon of performance art will by 
defined by audience interest and 
not by academic expertise.
This loss of centralized and 
standardized repertoires may be 
frightening, but it is also thrilling. 
It represents one of the biggest 
changes that these performance 
art forms have seen in hundreds of 
years — tremendous opportunities 
for audiences, performers and 
creators to pluralize and diversify 
these art forms.
This 
past 
weekend, 
for 
example, Pulitzer-Prize-winning 
composer Julia Wolfe spoke to 
students in the School of Music, 
Theatre & Dance about her music 
and her creative process. Her 
recent composition “Anthracite 
Fields,” for example, explores 
the lives of early 20th-century 
miners. It is a composition 
geared towards both classical 
and popular audiences. Wolfe 
claims that this composition 
has garnered more mail than 
any other composition that she 
has ever written — drawing 
many previously uninterested 
music listeners into the realm of 
contemporary classical music.
Artists such as Julia Wolfe 
are 
redefining 
the 
divisions 
between classical and popular art 
forms. Audiences are redefining 
the consumption patterns and 
programmatic tendencies of these 
classical and popular art forms. 
Performers, in turn, are learning 
to execute increasingly diverse 
swathes of performance arts. This 
is nothing if not a time of change; 
a time of radical redefinition 
and drastic reevaluation. It is 
a loss of elitism, and a time of 
empowerment for the masses. 
The average person has more say 
in performance art then was ever 
possible before, carrying a voice 
that matches or even triumphs 
over the elitism of traditional 
performance arts.

The Fading Role 
of Elitism in 
Performance Art

DAILY COMMUNITY CULTURE COLUMN

Stephen Kellogg has been 
one of my favorite artists for 
a long time. I first heard the 
Americana 
singer-songwriter 
almost seven years ago, and 
I’m still listening to what 
he — in all of his graceful, 
heartbreaking simplicity — has 
to say. In anticipation of his 
upcoming performance at The 
Ark’s Folk Festival this Friday, 
Kellogg spoke with The Daily 
on the heartbeats that keep him 
running, and the storytelling 
that has kept fans like me 
around for the long-haul.
There’s a certain fearlessness 
required in writing the way 
Kellogg writes. In “The Open 
Heart (South),” he sings, “And 
I still shudder at the memory of 
my failures and mistakes / Hey 
so what, it opened up my heart.”
He tells us exactly what he 
means, every time, and it’s not 
because he’s disingenuous, or 
he doesn’t care. It’s because he 
is, genuinely, unafraid to share 
himself with us. We get to hear 
his highest highs and his lowest 
lows because “Hey so what … 
(he’s) got an open heart.” What 
he does fear only makes him 
that much more human.
“I fear what I think many 
of us fear,” he said. “That 
somehow, the bottom’s going 
to drop, and you’re not going 
to be able to keep making art 
and expressing yourself. You’re 
afraid you’re going to run out 
of money, or nobody’s going to 
care.”
Allowing himself to ruminate 
in 
his 
own 
vulnerabilities, 
he progresses with a level of 
effortlessness that, as far as I 
can tell, only means one thing: 

This is what he’s supposed to be 
doing.
“The thing about me, and 
what keeps me going, and 
whatever drives me, is that I 
need to do it. It has never been 
an option,” he said. “When 
an opportunity comes up, I’m 
inclined to say yes: always. 
And I don’t think that that’s 
because I’m so driven. I think 
it’s just because — it’s just 
because I need to do this. I 

need to write, I need to play, I 
need to go out into the world 
and share it, and connect with 
others, and say, ‘Here’s what I 
think about things’ and have 
a dialogue — as much as that’s 
possible when you’re up there 
with a microphone, performing 
a show.”
Kellogg’s work is vocational 
for him, and, lucky for us, he’s 
good at it. Really good. He’s 
been in the game for a minute 
now, 
having 
led 
Stephen 
Kellogg and the Sixers for nine 
gorgeous years. The group went 
on hiatus in 2012, after playing 
over 1200 shows together.
“It was a little bit like a 
divorce where the couple still 

loves each other and, you know, 
hugs and cries and then moves 
out of the house,” he said. “As 
time has gone on, I think we’ve 
all done things that we might 
not have done had we been 
playing together, and you sort 
of look at it and go, ‘Well, this is 
exactly how it had to be,’ … and 
eventually, as happens when 
you go through some kind of 
breakup, it became not painful 
to talk about them, and it didn’t 
hurt.”
So, he kept on. As Kellogg 
grew — learning to do so both 
with and without The Sixers — 
his lyrics evolved in tandem.
“At some point, I decided 
that I wanted my songs to be 
vignettes of everything I need 
to say before I die,” he said.
He places so much weight 
on every word he articulates, 
and that’s why his music hits 
as hard as it does. It’s sincere, 
and it’s him. When I asked what 
inspires him, he responded in 
the most Stephen Kellogg way 
that he could have:
“This is going to sound hoity-
toity, 
but 
Charles 
Dickens. 
When I read Charles Dickens, 
I want to go write lyrics. That 
brings out the rock ‘n’ roll in 
me.”
It’s hard not to like him 
— whether that be for his 
unabashed 
honesty, 
his 
never-ending love for his four 
daughters or the fact that 
he married his high school 
sweetheart (or all of the above).
“I think so many of us,” he 
said, “are trying to balance our 
lives in a way that feels healthy 
and right, and sometimes you 
get it more right than others. 
The biggest thing that I end 
up doing is … I love. I love my 
family so much, and when I’m 
home, I really try to be there. 

To really go for it.”
“But whenever there’s an 
opportunity 
professionally 
that I feel like I have and I 
should do, I really force myself 
to say yes. Even though it’s 
hard,” he continued. “I’m still 
a wimp though, when it comes 
to leaving the house. I’ll be 
blubbering as we pull down the 
road, you know, driving away. 
But you do what you’ve got to 
do.”

And, that’s exactly what he’s 
doing. Stephen Kellogg will 
play at The Ark’s 41st Annual 
Folk Festival this Friday.
“I am so honored to do that 
gig and to do that show,” Kellogg 
said. “The people who are 
playing it (and) running it — it’s 
just people I have tremendous 
respect for. It always, always 
feels amazing to be in company 
that you’re proud to keep.”
Go for the music and stay 
for his stories. I’ll be there 
(crying, probably), and singer-
songwriter Joe Pug is set 
to emcee. Tickets are still 
available for both Friday and 
Saturday online and at the 
Michigan Union Ticket Office.

Singer-songwriter Stephen Kellogg 
on fear, family, upcoming Folk Fest

ARYA NAIDU
Senior Arts Editor 

SINGLE REVIEW: ‘THE GOOD SIDE’

 Troye Sivan’s newest single, “The 
Good Side,” is his most mature release 
yet. Its attraction lies in the fact that 
it invites the listener to mature along 
with him.
 “The Good Side” deals with a 
breakup. The beginning of the song 
is soft and acoustic, a combination 
that always feels like it lends itself — 
whether this is true or not — to authen-
ticity. Sivan’s polished lyrics reinforce 
this, as he acknowledges, “I got the 
good side of things / Left you with both 
of the rings.” He’s refreshingly self-
aware, not only professing what he’s 
learned from the relationship, but he 
also admits that his job as a musician 
might have made things harder for his 
ex (“The people danced to the sound 
of your heart / The world sang along 
to it falling apart”). This is a position 
of sympathy that is surprisingly rare 
in breakup songs. One gets the sense 
that Sivan is trying to treat the other 
person justly and compassionately, at 
one point claiming: “So many thoughts 
I wanted to share / But I didn’t call 
because it wouldn’t be fair.”
 The soft feeling never really leaves 
the song, but around halfway through, 

it blooms into a much more expansive 
wall of sound. The suddenly synthy 
atmosphere doesn’t seem like it would 
blend so well with the acoustics of the 
rest of the song, but it actually does. By 
the four-minute mark, the song itself 
has matured into a self-conscious act 
of poetry dressed up in dazzling elec-

tronica. It’s starry but not flashy, deep 
but not at all empty.
 “I’m sure we’ll meet in the spring 
/ And catch up on everything,” Sivan 
sings in the final verse. And you can’t 
help but hope that they do.

- Laura Dzubay, Daily Arts Writer

UNIVERSAL MUSIC AUSTRALIA 

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

41st Ann 
Arbor Folk 
Festival 
(Night 1)

Friday, Jan. 26 @ 
6:30 p.m.

Hill Auditorium

$42-$200 (single 
night); $75-$360 
(two-night series)

He places so 
much weight on 
every word he 
articulates, and 
that’s why his 
music hits as hard 
as it does

SAMMY SUSSMAN
Daily Arts Writer

