Ringling International Arts Festival Forum

On Wednesday afternoon, as part of this year’s Ringling International Arts Festival, Steven High, executive director at the Ringling Museum, moderated a panel of art professionals in a discussion of the nature and challenges of contemporary visual and performing arts called, “The New Looking Glass: Seeing Ourselves in the Art of our Time.”

This group included Ringling’s curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Matthew McLendon; Asolo Repertory’s Director, Michael Edwards; Herald Tribune’s Arts and Books editor, Susan Rife; Museum of Miami’s  associate curator, Rene Morales; RIAF performer, Colin Dunn; and Key Chorale’s artistic director, Joseph Caulkins.

The panel presented a broad range of viewpoints to a packed audience of art supporters.  Subjects ran the gamut from the origins of step dancer Colin Dunn’s inspiration, to a discussion of taking creative risks and the future plans of the panelists.

Throughout the forum, as an art fan myself, one thought kept coming to my mind:  This influential panel’s burgeoning interest in alternative and expansive programming is transforming the idea of what constitutes an “art experience” in our city.  Doesn’t it also make sense to address the receiving end of this equation and start expanding upon what it means to be an arts supporter in Sarasota?

I listened to the panel talk about directions they’re taking to reflect what’s happening today, with an eye on staying current tomorrow.  Subjects included the Ringling’s edgy exhibitions of sound, space and light with Zimoun’s sound sculptures, and Turrell’s Skyspace.

Also mentioned was Asolo Rep’s forward thinking “Prince of Cuba” in Spanish, a nod to our future bilingual state, and this company’s reworking of Hamlet into a shorter, hipper production to entice tomorrow’s audience.

Joseph Caulkin discussed how he’s up for anything that takes his chorus to the people; even by once irreverently performing in an airplane hangar.  Susan Rife referred to The Herald Tribune’s new launching of an up to the minute website devoted exclusively to the arts.

These contemporary approaches demonstrate the nature of how the arts are part and parcel of the changing world they reflect.  As the boundaries around what defines the contemporary arts loosen, so do our expectations of what we see and how it can be experienced.

But it’s often difficult to stay receptive to what is new or different and not categorize it by our old standards of judgment.  How do we quiet the familiar “art should look like this” voice in our heads, in order to stay present and open to what exists right in front of our eyes?  How can the looking glass reflect what’s new, if we’re afraid to see and experience it?

Why is it so uncomfortable to embrace change, when, like death and taxes, we know it’s inevitable?

The name of the forum “The New Looking Glass: Seeing Ourselves in the Art of our Time” really sums it up.  Who we are today is reflected by what we create now and vice versa.  This abstraction was made very simple to me recently by the unlikely example of an older couple I met in the Ringling parking lot.  They began speaking to me after we left the RIAF performance of Stephanie Batten Bland’s lyrically agile dance piece, “Terra Firma.”

“Maybe we’re too old,” the wife said to me. “We couldn’t really tell what it was about.”

“How did you feel while you were watching it?” I asked.

“Oh, they were beautiful to watch,” she replied. “They reminded me of that free feeling I had when I was younger, you know, when you thought you could do anything or go anywhere.”

“Can’t we still feel that way?” asked the husband with a smile.

At this, he tenderly put his arm around his wife.  Surprisingly, they both started to laugh heartily, inspired by the evocation of the dance they suddenly understood in their own way.

“So you’ll come back again next year?” I laughed back at them.

“We’ll be here,” the wife replied, taking her husband’s hand and walking away from me towards their parked car a few feet away.

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