Spring Book Corner
Leadership in the Performing Arts
by Tobie S. Stein
published 2016
available now from
Allworth Press
Tobie Stein’s Leadership in the Performing Arts
introduces its central thesis question in the very first sentence of the
Preface – “what does it mean to be a performing arts leader?” But it does not
seek to answer only that question. In its extensive ten-chapter study, Leadership in the Performing Arts challenges
its reader to consider expectations and assumptions around the term
‘leadership.’ The book is structured like a research paper/lab experiment,
which might seem slightly dry, but it isn’t at all. In fact, the introduction,
discussion, case study, conclusion format in each chapter makes for a very
clear, straightforward, easy to read approach on the complex topic. Through an
exchange with leaders from eleven major arts organizations (including Mark
Morris Dance Group, New York City Ballet and Stage Directors and
Choreographers), Stein introduces an array of concepts around leadership like management,
vision, prioritization, differentiation, mentorship (of having one and of being
one), facilitating dialogue, diversity and connection with the audience. And
underscoring her examination of all these concepts is the importance of having
your pulse centered on what is happening in the now, as opposed to what your
organization has always done.
I definitely enjoyed how
Stein parsed out the idea of leadership, specifically framed for the performing
arts. Having said that, it’s important to note that the chosen institutions are
huge and well established. While that’s a completely valid approach, I think it
would have provided some nice contrast space to also add some small to mid-size
organizations to the mix. What might they have contributed to the conversation?
How is their experience distinct? What challenges do they face?
And while not at all a
criticism of Stein’s investigation, I also wonder how the book would have been
different if written even a couple of years later, considering the recent
controversies and high-level resignations in the performing arts, even in an organization that is part of Leadership
in the Performing Arts’ eleven examples. For instance, chapter 8 is titled
“Leading Accountability and Measuring Success” and is primarily focused on
finances and budgets. I imagine that chapter, and others, might have different content in
2018.
The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Reenactment
edited by Mark Franko
published 2017
available now from
Oxford University Press
I love dance reference
texts - whether a history of a specific movement form, a collection of critical
writings or a chronology of a particular choreographer’s work. Yes, the
information is likely available online, but for me, there is something so
satisfying about looking up that information in an actual written volume. Old
school, sure, but it provides a connection that just isn’t the same with online
reference material.
In 2017, Oxford
University Press published The Oxford
Handbook of Dance and Reenactment, a new addition to the dance reference
oeuvre. Edited by Mark Franko, the lengthy tome (600 pages, nine sections,
thirty-one individual articles) brings together diverse academic discourse and
opinion on topic of reenactment in dance. Re-staging, re-visioning,
re-mounting, revival, reconstruction are common words in the dance ecosystem –
used to describe a current presentation of choreographic work from the past,
whether far in the past, or not so far. But reenactment, I feel, is less
commonly used to describe this process. So it was fascinating to read a number
of perspectives that center around this particular term, especially commentary
that was not purely logistic (not offering a ‘how to’ guide for reenactment),
but instead exploring the additional layers of context around the act of
choreographic remembrance.
The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Reenactment is quite long, so I decided to read the
introduction (by Franko) and then choose three other articles from the book’s
index to get a sense of the book’s scope and breadth. Richard Move’s Martha @...The 1963 Interview: Sonic Bodies,
Seizures, and Spells, a chapter from Part I of the book, “Phenomenology of
the Archive”, contributed a number of different thoughts around archival
material and reenactment: the idea of being in conversation with archival
material, viewing it as a living collaborator, how that living material informs
the reenactment of an artistic force, and how, through conversing with the
archive, the boundary between past and present can shift and change, and become
steeped in porousness. From Part IV “Investigative Reenactment: Transmission as
Heuristic Device”, Yvonne Hardt’s Pedagogic
In(ter)ventions – On the Potential of (Re)enacting Yvonne Rainer’s Continuous
Project/Altered Daily in a Dance
Education Context examines how reenactment is affected by movement
improvisation, something that by nature is not a set entity. This article was
of particular interest to me because improvisation as performance (whether
reenacted or not) is something that I struggle with. While outlining the
challenges and complexities of reenacting improvisation, Hardt injects case
study into her discourse, giving a relatable, experiential lens to her line of
inquiry. Christina Thurner’s Time Layers,
Time Leaps, Time Loss – Methodologies of Dance Historiography (the final
article in Part VIII “Epistemologies of Inter-Temporality”) also takes a deep
dive into the porous space between history and present-day, positing time and
events as a broad collage rather than a linear experience. While maintaining
dance as a focus, Thurner also looks to additional fields of study for further insight
and understanding. She speaks to a mélange of questions that arise in the
connection of ‘then’ and ‘now’, like observation versus analysis or established
knowledge versus opinion. And in the final two paragraphs brings the
theoretical dialogue back to the book’s core subject: dance reenactment.
There was one throughline
in the articles that didn’t quite add up for me (though I only read four
sections, so there’s a good chance this is parsed out more in other parts of
the book). I get the academic impetus to distill, discern and distinguish
terminology, especially in qualitative disciplines. The desire to show that
words accepted as synonyms actually may mean very different things; in this
case, reenactment being singled out as distinctive from reconstruction and
restaging. However, sometimes that drive for singularity reveals that the
examined words are indeed not that different from each other. Maybe they are
synonyms after all, and that doesn’t make the discussions any less rigorous.
