Questions on Diversity

I have been spending a great deal of time thinking about the issue of diversity in the arts, specifically, the drive to diversify the programming and constituents of all arts organizations.

The more I consider this thorny issue, the less I am convinced that the arts world has worked hard enough to dissect the true costs, benefits and implications of recent diversity efforts.

Over the past 30 years, we were encouraged, primarily by foundation and government agencies, to become more diverse in every respect: we were asked to do works by minority artists, to bring diverse audiences to our theaters, and to diversify our staffs and boards. To justify funding, the argument went, we had to demonstrate our commitment to our entire community.

Having spent a great deal of my career working with arts organizations of color, I am as committed as anyone to the diversity of our arts ecology. I do not believe that we can have a truly great artistic community if all segments of our society are not represented well.

But I do not think I believe anymore in forcing Eurocentric arts organizations to do diverse works or to put one minority on a board.

When large, white organizations produce minority works they typically select the "low hanging fruit," the most popular works by diverse artists featuring the most famous minority performers and directors. This almost invariably hurts the minority arts organizations in the neighborhood, most of which are small and underfunded, and cannot afford to match the marketing clout or the casting glamor of their larger white counterparts. How else to explain the reduced strength of American black theater companies over the past twenty years?

And when a single minority is placed on a board with no responsibility other than to represent a race, it does nothing to change the true mission, or audience base, of the organization. More is required. The Kennedy Center's Community Advisory Board, for example, is a non-fiduciary board that works actively to reach communities not adequately served by the Center.

My work has focused on teaching leaders of diverse arts organizations to find the resources needed to be strong advocates for and producers of the work of their communities. Arts organizations of color have been overly reliant on grants from foundations and government agencies, thereby limiting their size. We need to build the board strength of these vital groups and work with them to build individual donor bases that match their white counterparts. This is what the Alvin Ailey organization has done so brilliantly.

I would prefer to see great African American, Asian American, Latino and Native American arts organizations whose excellent work complements the excellent work of the large white groups. And when a predominantly white organization does a major work by a minority artist, I would love to see it done in collaboration with an arts organization of color. When the Kennedy Center produced the entire August Wilson cycle, for example, we worked with Kenny Leon of True Colors Theatre Company.

I am not certain I am right. We need more discussion.

Comments

[maustinfuller]

05:44 PM on 11/20/2009

I agree, but I don't think we should let huge institutio­ns eat up the funding and categorica­lly ignore the history and culture of large sections of society. And it’s hard to take the idea that artists of color should only be able to show at organizati­ons that fit their ethnicity or other identity category. So what are we to do?

I think one dimension is that we should look at diversity broadly, and realize that there are future generation­s where more people will be bi or multi-cult­ural in their own personal identities­, and these things may be less relevant or at least have different meanings for future generation­s. I’m in my early thirties, and among my most immediate friend circle of 6 or 7 couples, about 80% of them are mixed-race couples. (The rest are gay) I think, in addition to what you’ve proposed, part of the answer is to fund diversity in terms of generation as well as the other classic “diversity­” markers of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability­, etc. Especially in immigrant communitie­s.

And also, fund more artist-run organizati­ons so artists can self-repre­sent!

[Huttson]

10:39 AM on 10/27/2009

As a diversity officer for Arts Council England, I work to develop diversity in the arts. We've focused on ethnicity, disability and gender, and others. We support our regularly funded and grant funded clients to represent diversity in their governance­, operations­, programmin­g, education, outreach.

It’s not easy; an organisati­on can’t just 'do' diversity to satisfy us, eg recruiting a disabled board member with sole responsibi­lity for diversity, or having one show a year with South Asian performers­. I support chief executives and artistic directors to own diversity, to work with different people to make novel art, to manage and evolve their organisati­ons in innovative ways. In Scott Page's book, The Difference­, he states that diversity trumps ability, ie that a group of diverse thinkers will have better solutions than a group of geniuses who think the same.

Diversity means looking at a situation or a work of art with different points of view, and finding a variety of interpreta­tions and responses. It means real involvemen­t, not superficia­l consultati­on; meaningful interactio­n, not a last-minut­e press release.

No individual is the same as the next, but we must look deeper than skin colour, physical or sensory ability, sexual preference­, etc: diversity means working with the widest constituen­cy of artists, individual­s, companies and communitie­s, so that we can respond to the world in new and meaningful ways. If a life unexamined is a life not worth living, don’t we then have a duty to ourselves to explore life in all its diversity?

[Dots]

02:30 PM on 10/26/2009

Yes. I prefer to support diversity with my attendance­, dollars and word of mouth.
Your suggestion of collaborat­ion is good if it concentrat­es mostly on sharing our audience, treasure of people, promotion and dollars...­not artistic director decisions.

[PlaceboStudman]

01:34 PM on 10/26/2009

The one thing I might add, if I may, is that for true diversity, we in the arts need to be looking not only at racial minorities­, but other minorities­, such as the LGBT community and disabled community, so that there really is a truly diverse picture of humanity given in the arts. We may have a long way to go, but hopefully there will be a time when diversity is not just talked about in terms of race, but in terms of the commonalit­ies of ALL people, whether our difference­s be of race, sexual identity or disability

[db08]

09:03 AM on 10/26/2009

Bravo Mr. Kaiser!!! I applaud your re-evaluat­ion of the issue of diversity in the arts as a lover of the arts. As an African American who often finds that I am the only person of color or one of the few, I am asked to be involved in preconceiv­ed issues surroundin­g diverisity­. If I go for the fruit higer on the tree, people are no longer interested as it often flies in the face of preconcept­ions. In working with African American groups, a range of ideas can be explored and developed. These works, as you suggested, can be shared in collaborat­ion.

[2morrowknight]

09:11 AM on 10/26/2009

Bravo indeed!