Declining Arts Participation

Cinque H., June 17, 2009

This whole thing is weird. I've read the survey instrument, the trend reports, the data user's guide and the research brochure. What's most striking is how the researchers don't seem to have stopped for a moment to ask the question "what are the arts and have they changed over the last 25 years?" Indeed, this research seems almost calculated to produce the impression of a decline in arts participation. Perhaps the definitions and categories the researchers used are in some way correlated to the NEA's funding categories? That might explain why their definitions of what counts as "arts" is so weirdly narrow, inconsistent and full of blind spots. For example, yes, they have collected (a teeny bit of) information on participation in online art making activities. But that shows up nowhere in their summary of major findings, which focus exclusively on offline activities. Film is nowhere to be found, period. (What?!?) The limitation of the music category to a few old-fashioned, canonical forms, while not surprising, is still short-sighted. Huge numbers of people are making rap, country, pop, and post-rock music. Yet somehow, this doesn't rate as participation in the arts as far as the NEA is concerned. Why do they weirdly separate ballet out in a strange dichotomy that pits ballet against every other form of dance lumped together? Also, the phrasing of most of their questions betrays a mode of thinking that largely insists on strictly dividing something called an "artist" from something called an "audience." There is no room there for garage bands, line dancers, weekend videographers, or bloggers. And there is 1 -- count 'em: 1 -- question about *making* art online. That's nowhere near enough resolution to figure out what people are actually doing. This research has the whiff of class paranoia about it. Its categories are highly class-bound (not to mention strongly racially coded), and the research leads to no interesting questions other than what is to be done for art forms that appeal disproportionately to older, whiter, wealthier citizens. Meanwhile, an explosion of people producing their own video games, machinima, mash-ups, and code hacks flies entirely under the NEA's radar. I think what we're seeing here is less the decline of participation in the arts and more the increasing irrelevance of the NEA's definition of what the "arts" are.

Theater Publicity Guru, July 24, 2010

Cinque H. I have to say while I understand your criticism I have to side with the NEA survey on this one. Declining participation in the classical arts is not healthy for our society. This does NOT mean that participation in other art forms is UN-healthy... it simply is indicative of gradual societal decay. Cities that are strong enough to support a healthy and robust *classical* arts community MUST have robust economies. This is because formal arts training and preparation require YEARS of study and live performances are expensive in man hours and royalties and are "one-off" events that produce limited income. A city that can support (read: subsidize) this kind of activity must be healthy and vibrant. What I'm reading about across the nation is that cities are NOT able to subsidize the classical arts to the extent they used to, and today's high unemployment rates confirm the trend.

Link: http://www.todosquepaso.com/How-to-Use-Todosquepas