Building New Ballet Audiences

[Kathleen O'Connell]

1 hour ago, CharlieH said:

 

Back in the '60s, though, watching a quality TV event w/ family was just a normal thing that a middle-class family did, even if they did not have a particular passion for the arts.  It was done just as kids and parents circled around the TV to hear a Presidential Oval Office address in the old days...or rallying 'round the radio for FDR's fireside chats. 

 

Ummm ... not mine.

 

My parents gave me what opportunities to engage with the arts that they could, but honestly, sitting down to watch a "quality TV event" was not one of them.  Our 60's family TV watching was mostly Walt Disney, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, and Perry Mason. 

 

[Kathleen O'Connell]

The advent of live / high definition broadcasts in local movie theaters surely has the potential to expand the reach of the performing arts to places that might not ever host a large touring ballet or opera company.

 

For example: you can buy tickets now for the April 8, 2018 screening of the Bolshoi Ballet's Giselle in local cineplexes in Billings MT (pop 110,323), Fargo ND (pop 120,762), and Kennewick WA (pop 73,917). These same theaters are also screening the Metropolitan Opera's HD broadcasts.

 

How to get folks there? All of these smaller cities have dance academies who could help promote it as a festive, must-see family event. So could the local schools. They might even persuade a local philanthropist or civic group to subsidize the ticket price for needy students. Honestly, if I were a foundation with an interest in promoting the performing arts I'd be all over opportunities like this -- not as a replacement for live performance, but as a way to serve audiences who might not have the easy opportunity to see something live.

[volcanohunter]

Unfortunately, there seems to be absolutely no attempt to promote the screenings to local dance schools, even though you'd think it would an obvious target audience, and the kids would be free on Sunday afternoons to watch the Bolshoi.   When I attend ballet screenings locally, there are almost never any children in the auditorium. I've attended a screening in central Toronto, and the auditorium of about 125 seats was packed, but it was an adult crowd. (A live performance was taking place the same afternoon a few blocks away.) Once I attended in Kalispell, MT (pop. 22,761), and the audience wasn't especially large, maybe two dozen people, but about half of it was made up of bunheads; I dare say that was the personal initiative of their teacher.

Edited August 31, 2017 by volcanohunter

[Kathleen O'Connell]

AARGHHH! Where are the national dance education and advocacy organizations?

[volcanohunter]

I think it was sandik who once pointed out that promotion for film releases is done by the movie studios, not the movie theaters, which may explain why the multiplex chains are so bad at promoting their arts presentations.

 

In Canada the Cineplex chain carries the bulk of Bolshoi, Met and National Theatre screenings in the country. Ticket prices for the Met are $28, $27 (65+) and $27 (13-), with a group discount rate of 15%. For the National Theatre it's $23, $22 (65+) and $22 (13-). Admittedly, most of its productions wouldn't be suitable for children. For the Bolshoi (sadly the Royal Ballet disappeared a couple seasons ago, although from my experience its attendance rate was comparable) it's $20, $19 (65+) and $13 (13-). Clearly the chain is incentivizing children's attendance at the ballet broadcasts, only it's not reaching parents and dance schools with this information.

 

I agree with you: the dance education organizations should be making some sort of deal with the distributor, I guess Fathom Events in the U.S., to promote the screenings and encourage group attendance by dance school pupils at a discounted rate. Ballet companies, sadly, seem to look upon the broadcasts as competition.

[CharlieH]

4 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

Connect that laptop to the big-screen TV and stereo system, and you can sit down the entire family to watch a stream and discuss it afterwards.

 

Intriguing. I'm going to have to figure this out and move out of the Dinosaur Era. Thanks, volcanohunter.

[CharlieH]

4 hours ago, Kathleen O'Connell said:

 

Ummm ... not mine.

 

My parents gave me what opportunities to engage with the arts that they could, but honestly, sitting down to watch a "quality TV event" was not one of them.  Our 60's family TV watching was mostly Walt Disney, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, and Perry Mason. 

 

 

Maybe it's the Eastern Euro (Hungarian) upbringing of my parents. Not rich by any stretch. Blue collar. Lots of pride, though. Mom actually would tell us to shush up and pay attention when Presidents Kennedy or Johnson or Nixon were speaking. I guess that they were so happy to have escaped to the West in '56. The Disney show on Sundays was also treated as an "event." I recall a lovely Disney film about the Royal Danish Ballet shown on two consecutive Sundays, which may have been my very first memory of ballet.

[pherank]

54 minutes ago, volcanohunter said:

I agree with you: the dance education organizations should be making some sort of deal with the distributor, I guess Fathom Events in the U.S., to promote the screenings and encourage group attendance by dance school pupils at a discounted rate. Ballet companies, sadly, seem to look upon the broadcasts as competition.

 

I've run into this weird attitude myself - for all the moaning and groaning about "building an audience", the individual organizations ca be amazingly self-serving, and dense, when it comes to dealing with ballet promotion.

 

4 hours ago, Kathleen O'Connell said:

 

Ummm ... not mine.

 

My parents gave me what opportunities to engage with the arts that they could, but honestly, sitting down to watch a "quality TV event" was not one of them.  Our 60's family TV watching was mostly Walt Disney, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, and Perry Mason. 

 

 

I remember a period of my childhood when we went to out grandparent's house on Saturdays for dinner and we all watched the Lawrence Welk Show (which my grandparents loved). I was not very appreciative, but  kept my mouth shut as was expected of me. My family also watched The Ed Sullivan Show when that was around.

[maps]

Balanchine and  derivatives:  ex-Ballet Russe , Balanchine dancers,  fanned out  and started or developed schools and companies.  Some school districts started annual Nutcracker field trips. In the 1950's and 1960's most families had 1 TV with 3 stations [until PBS became the 4rth]-NBC, ABC, CBS.   In 1962 Nureyev appeared twice on NBC's Bell Telephone Hour-partners Tallchief and Serrano.   Imagine today if 1/3 of all prime time video/broadcast viewing was ballet.   

  

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hnzoa    has Ed Sullivan shows including Nureyev/Fonteyn, Makarova [Black Swan and 32 fouettes on live tv and  a slippery surface], D'Amboise playfully tossing his partner into Sullivan's arms, Moiseyev, etc.     Nureyev did  several scenes on the Muppets- fun and charming- today people might complain his jokes weren't PC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHbGqJ_MonU

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2017 by maps

[sandik]

On 8/29/2017 at 2:08 PM, pherank said:

 

One problem is that "viewing" an ad is not a guarantee that the ad was read (at all) and cognitively understood by the reader.

 

Alas, this is true of many things -- just because someone has seen a dance doesn't mean they've got a clue about what they saw.

[sandik]

On 8/31/2017 at 7:55 AM, CharlieH said:

 

True. Back in the '60s, though, watching a quality TV event w/ family was just a normal thing that a middle-class family did, even if they did not have a particular passion for the arts.  It was done just as kids and parents circled around the TV to hear a Presidential Oval Office address in the old days...or rallying 'round the radio for FDR's fireside chats. I believe that parent's general interest in wishing to uplift the family and the availability of time has changed. 

 

My daughter is in her 20s now, so my parental observations are not as fresh as others here, but I can say from my own experiences that most of the families I know were interested in giving their children as broad a set of experiences in the world as they could manage, include performing arts.  But that process is very different now than it was when I was a kid.  When you talk about a family sitting and watching a television program, whether it was art, entertainment, or news, most people only had access to 4 or 5 different choices -- as time has passed and our options have increased, the programming itself has narrowed down -- different audiences are targeted much more specifically, so that there are fewer "universal" programs available.

 

Alongside that, the general stresses on family life are such that we have much less time available to spend on any joint experience.  By the time my daughter was in middle school, between her homework and extra-curricular theater work, we were a very tightly scheduled family.  We did manage to watch some political programming (election returns, State of the Union address, etc) but it was tricky to do.  If you're a family where both parents work outside the house during the day, your own evenings are full of household obligations -- if one of you works in the evening, you're even more stretched.

 

A middle class family today is more likely to be running in separate orbits most days -- if they manage to eat dinner together most evenings, they're doing more than many of their cohort.

[sandik]

On 8/31/2017 at 9:18 AM, Kathleen O'Connell said:

 

Ummm ... not mine.

 

My parents gave me what opportunities to engage with the arts that they could, but honestly, sitting down to watch a "quality TV event" was not one of them.  Our 60's family TV watching was mostly Walt Disney, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, and Perry Mason. 

 

 

Hey, were you hanging out at my house?  We saw a lot of arts stuff, but I still sing the Flintstone's theme song.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

I'll see your Flintstones theme and raise you the Jetsons 

 

 Even if you're not a comics fan, I do recommend checking out DC Comics' 2016 - 2017 Flintstones reboot, which mines both the original franchise's playful riffs on 20th century technology and the current discontents of 21st century late-stage capitalism for all they are worth.

[Deflope]

A lot of the great arts programs on TV have also disappeared. I grew up with "Breakfast with the Arts" on A&E and saw features about Mukhamedov and Ashton.  Bravo was actually arts focused once upon a time rather than reality show focused. I remember seeing a POB production of Carmen (can't remember who the choreographer was but it involved pulling scarves from the male's shirts). 

 

From my research (I am actually an audience researcher for a marketing company), the arts still does well with affluent, educated audiences but for whatever reason, the marketing dollars and the eyeballs all go to other forms of entertainment. 

[sandik]

3 hours ago, Kathleen O'Connell said:

I'll see your Flintstones theme and raise you the Jetsons 

 

 Even if you're not a comics fan, I do recommend checking out DC Comics' 2016 - 2017 Flintstones reboot, which mines both the original franchise's playful riffs on 20th century technology and the current discontents of 21st century late-stage capitalism for all they are worth.

 

"Jane -- stop this crazy thing -- Jaaaaaaaane!"

 

I'll look for the reboot, but I wish they'd done something linked with the Jetsons.  One of the things I loved best about the combination of the Flintstones and the Jetsons is that they were in many ways the same basic story.  Clueless husband in the working world, savvy wife at home -- it's all the Honeymooners, really, except for the setting.

 

But you know, we should really be mining the 1960s cartoon archive for examples of "high culture" in that period (I vaguely recall Fred and Barney in some kind of spoof performance at their lodge).  Cartoons make references to things that are already common in the culture -- they need that kind of familiarity to work.  My more recent Nickleodeon experiences were mixed as far as that went.  I remember cultural references in Kablam (our hosts, Henry and June...) and in the Rugrats, (and didn't Helga Pataki in Hey Arnold study at Madame Bovary's Ballet School for awhile?)

 

Just trying to bring the conversation back to the original topic...

[sandik]

1 hour ago, Deflope said:

A lot of the great arts programs on TV have also disappeared. I grew up with "Breakfast with the Arts" on A&E and saw features about Mukhamedov and Ashton.  Bravo was actually arts focused once upon a time rather than reality show focused.

 

I tell people I'm so old I remember when there was A on A&E.

 

 

[volcanohunter]

I remember the days when Stacy Keach hosted a primetime performing arts showcase, courtesy of which I made a couple of earth-shattering discoveries, when the network broadcast stage plays, and when it engaged in a pitched battle against PBS in the costume-drama sweepstakes. The monster hit 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice was broadcast in America on A&E.

[sandik]

2 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

I remember the days when Stacy Keach hosted a primetime performing arts showcase, courtesy of which I made a couple of earth-shattering discoveries, when the network broadcast stage plays, and when it engaged in a pitched battle against PBS in the costume-drama sweepstakes. The monster hit 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice was broadcast in America on A&E.

 

As was their Brideshead Revisited -- a wonderful dramatization of the novel.

 

[CharlieH]

20 hours ago, Deflope said:

.... I remember seeing a POB production of Carmen (can't remember who the choreographer was but it involved pulling scarves from the male's shirts). 

... for whatever reason, the marketing dollars and the eyeballs all go to other forms of entertainment. 

 

I don't recall the pulling of scarves but this sounds like something that choreographer Roland Petit would do. Very Petit-esque!

 

Deflope, as a marketing researcher, do you think that what you describe about marketing dollars and eyeballs may be the reason why  the annual Kennedy Center Honors event has virtually eliminated all forms of the classical performing arts from its shows?  The KC Honors used to be a tribute-event that happened to include a show with musical numbers/segments for each of the five honorees, usually from the classical realm. Viewership was rather low but CBS seemed to not care for years, telecasting it almost as a uplifting charitable cause.  It seems to have evolved into (mostly) a prime-time TV show for which most of the honorees should come from pop culture, so as to make the show interesting to more average viewers, garner high viewership numbers, which usually lead to higher ad fees. The KC Honors TV show is yet  another example of what, in the past, could have been a vehicle for enlightening new potential arts lovers that has gone the way of pop culture.

[ABT Fan]

On 9/4/2017 at 3:11 PM, sandik said:

 

I tell people I'm so old I remember when there was A on A&E.

 

 

 

And, when the Bravo channel was actually devoted to arts programming....instead of the reality junk (I mean programs) we get now.

[sandik]

7 hours ago, ABT Fan said:

 

And, when the Bravo channel was actually devoted to arts programming....instead of the reality junk (I mean programs) we get now.

 

I have to say, I have a soft spot in my heart for Project Runway, which has jumped ship and is now on another channel.

[Drew]

1 hour ago, sandik said:

 

I have to say, I have a soft spot in my heart for Project Runway, which has jumped ship and is now on another channel.

Reminding me I must go tape it now...

[dirac]

On 9/4/2017 at 5:19 PM, sandik said:

• Quote

  I remember the days when Stacy Keach hosted a primetime performing arts showcase, courtesy of which I made a couple of earth-shattering discoveries, when the network broadcast stage plays, and when it engaged in a pitched battle against PBS in the costume-drama sweepstakes. The monster hit 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice was broadcast in America on A&E.

   

As was their Brideshead Revisited -- a wonderful dramatization of the novel.

 

 

Brideshead Revisited was PBS, around 1980.

[dirac]

On 9/7/2017 at 7:19 AM, ABT Fan said:

 

And, when the Bravo channel was actually devoted to arts programming....instead of the reality junk (I mean programs) we get now.

 

The pattern with all the cable stations that began by featuring the performing arts (Bravo, A&E, Ovation) is that they moved away from that programming gradually or quickly.  A&E was originally intended as a cable counterpart to PBS, arts programming on a commercial channel.  Didn't work in the long term as they sought out more advertising and younger eyeballs.

 

In some areas you can get Classic Arts Showcase, a satellite channel -- and non-commercial.

 

[dirac]

On 9/3/2017 at 5:06 PM, sandik said:

 

My daughter is in her 20s now, so my parental observations are not as fresh as others here, but I can say from my own experiences that most of the families I know were interested in giving their children as broad a set of experiences in the world as they could manage, include performing arts.  But that process is very different now than it was when I was a kid.  When you talk about a family sitting and watching a television program, whether it was art, entertainment, or news, most people only had access to 4 or 5 different choices -- as time has passed and our options have increased, the programming itself has narrowed down -- different audiences are targeted much more specifically, so that there are fewer "universal" programs available.

 

Alongside that, the general stresses on family life are such that we have much less time available to spend on any joint experience.  By the time my daughter was in middle school, between her homework and extra-curricular theater work, we were a very tightly scheduled family.  We did manage to watch some political programming (election returns, State of the Union address, etc) but it was tricky to do.  If you're a family where both parents work outside the house during the day, your own evenings are full of household obligations -- if one of you works in the evening, you're even more stretched.

 

A middle class family today is more likely to be running in separate orbits most days -- if they manage to eat dinner together most evenings, they're doing more than many of their cohort.

 

In separate orbits and watching on their separate gadgets.  

 

(I think of the child of a friend who was frustrated when she watched a show on TV and couldn't watch it again immediately. It wasn't on a digital loop.)