Lex Leifheit

It is Martin Luther King Jr Day, and for that reason I woke up thinking about a work of art I saw in Austin nearly two years ago, American Dream by Kurt Mueller. Mueller was featured in a show of 20 up-and-comers at the Austin Museum of Art. The marketing materials described his work as follows:

“Imitation insinuating itself into action is the crux of Mueller’s installation ‘American Dream,’ wherein a karaoke setup transforms the experience of singing a favorite song into a restatement of a world-altering speech. As the text of Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech courses across the monitor much like a pop song, the viewer as performer finds that an everyday voice can be as effective as any other.”

For me, this work was the most memorable in the show. I was visiting Austin with Dan, the exhibition was busy that day but not crowded. I turned a corner and there it was … the karaoke machine! It was placed in the corner so that one had to step behind it, into the corner, and then there you were with your back up against the wall, in front of the microphone, looking out at the room.

The room was empty except for the security guard, a tall black woman in her 40s who was looking directly at me.

And on the karaoke screen, a crowd was cheering and a ball was bouncing and the words are racing across the screen, I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

And, in that moment, I didn’t feel like the marketing text said I would, like my “everyday voice can be as effective as any other.” I felt self-conscious, afraid to speak the words, even with the bouncing ball. I was reminded of the courage of Martin Luther King Jr, and the importance of lifting up many voices so that the right one, at the right time, may be heard.

I have been slowly adding to the list of San Francisco blogs I read on a regular basis. Because my worklife keeps me busy, I am lucky if I check my rss feed once a day (using Byline on the iphone helps a little). So I put five or six in rotation for a while, see what sticks, and add or subtract what I don’t end up reading.

This morning, I found two new sfBlogs that I am excited to throw in the mix: Bikes and the City, and  i live here:SF. ilivehere is a portrait project by artist Julie Michelle, who got her first camera in 2008 and is using it to help people tell the stories of their lives in San Francisco.

Bikes and the City (subtitled “bikes, boys y coffee”) provides a glimpse into to the bike culture here, courtesy of Meligrosa and her bicycle, Frenchie.

Six years ago, I was looking for a job on the East Coast, something that would allow me to continue directing plays and stay connected to community-based art. When the “Press and Marketing  Coordinator” position at Wesleyan came up in the job listings, I passed it by even though it was in my neighborhood, because I didn’t see myself fitting into the culture of a presenting organization at a university. I had a lot of assumptions … and one of them was that a university presenter would not be connected to the off-campus community, would not feature the kind of performing and visual artists who interest me, and if they did, they would only be accessible to undergraduates and professors.

A coworker of mine who was a Wesleyan alumnus persuaded me to take a second look at the job, and within a month I was working there, because of one person: Pamela Tatge. Pam Tatge is the director of Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts and the embodiment of the term “artistic administrator.” During my time at Wesleyan, she helped create the Green Street Arts Center, orchestrated a citywide dance festival which danced its way up the hill and onto campus, broke the mold of the first-year-students’ common reading program and instead co-created a residency based on the performance “text” of Bill T. Jones.

Consistently, Pam Tatge challenges convention and asks where and how art can be a more essential part of everyday life and learning. I rarely saw her press a vision onto a project that excluded the ideas of others—rather, she created structures wherein artists could work with students, cultural groups, city leaders, neighborhood families, professors and the administrative team at the CFA to launch creative endeavors that included many people, in many ways.

Pam transformed my idea of what an artistic administrator can achieve, and how universities and communities can work together—which is why I was so excited to learn that this year she was honored with the William Dawson Award for Programmatic Excellence from the National Association of Performing Arts Presenters. It is always thrilling to see someone get the recognition they deserve.

And speaking of recognition, the whole Center for the Arts team—Barbara, Adam, Camille, John, Kristen, Mark—are pretty incredible. Congratulations to all!

• “We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.” (via a friend’s Facebook page, and also Alice Walker)
• Surviving a workaholic spouse (via Forbes.com)
• Tracking volunteer time to boost your bottom line (via Blue Avocado)

It’s extremely rare that I would link to a straight-up advertisment, but the Museum of Modern Art took the phrase “experience economy” to heart with this interactive schedule. Love it!

The Indianapolis Museum of Art recently posted a couple of articles about transparency, written by Chief Information Officer Rob Stein. Stein defines transparency as “the ongoing discipline of practicing radical authenticity and demonstrating to the public whatever degree of integrity and operational excellence our museum possesses at the time.”

Then he goes on to talk about what shouldn’t be disclosed, and the process–when, how and what to disclose.

It is interesting to look at these articles in the context of leadership transition. New leaders are often scrutinized on a much more macro level than their predecessors, and it can be hard to say no to requests for transparency, particularly when it is something you personally believe in.

Discussion with my “emerging leader” colleagues has revealed that we are not frightened of sharing the gritty details (as Stein puts it), but that often new leaders inherit organizations with infrastructure that was designed for the Age of Altruism and not the Age of Transparency. Becoming more transparent means changing infrastructure, and changes in infrastructure usually bring about demands for transparency.

Emerging leaders, I know you are out there … any thoughts or comments?

This week I have been thinking a lot about theater. One of the things I was most excited about when I moved to San Francisco was the availability of affordable live theater, and one of the surprises of actually living here is the reality of not getting out and see as many plays as I would like.

I can count the number of plays I saw last year on two hands: Evie’s Waltz at Magic Theatre, The America Play by Thick Description, Skin at Climate Theater, Culture Clash and Friends and Over the Mountain at Brava, You’re Gonna Cry at Red Poppy Art House. Overall, they were some of the most social, entertaining and educational evenings I’ve had at local arts events. And within this list there are major omissions, things I wanted to see but couldn’t, theaters I’ve been meaning to get to, even tickets purchased and not used because when faced with the possibility of a free evening, a good night’s sleep won out (according to Ben Cameron, that last one makes me a Yankelovich poll statistic).

I’ve been thinking about what it would take to ensure that theater gets more time and space between work, family, friends, visual art, readings, live music, et cetera. I’ve been thinking about who participates in Bay Area theater, after a brief but provocative talk with a colleague whose local theatergoing experience—particularly, observations about who is in the audience—has been very different from mine.

And, I’ve been wondering … do so-called “community nights” encourage misconceptions about who likes theater and decrease dialogue by surrounding us with a sea of ourselves? How much does this take away from the overall theatergoing experience? Is this balanced by an increase in attendance and other benefits?

I think a bad night at the theater can often be redeemed by the civic aspect—the opportunity to exchange ideas and opinions with other audience members. A good night of theater can become life-changing. How do community nights shift the civic aspect?

Another reason this is all stirred up in my head is that last night I was reminded, via Twitter, of a theatergoing experience that changed my life.

So the story is, I was just out of college and had moved to the Twin Cities to pursue my dream of being an actor at the Guthrie. I auditioned for a play at Pillsbury House, a professional theater that is part of a larger nonprofit network of community centers—they didn’t give me the part, but they gave me a free ticket to see a play called Dutchman, written in 1963 by beat poet and black activist LeRoi Jones. Pillsbury House was in an unfamiliar neighborhood. The play was disturbing. The post-show talk was uncomfortable.

Upon experiencing the same production, journalist Anne Ursu  wrote the following in a CityPages article:

“[cast & director]Goranson, Remington, and Blagen smile and look out at the audience with       welcoming expressions. There is silence. After a while, a white man speaks in general terms about the language of the play, accompanied by the sound of shifting in seats. Then, silence again. The troika onstage looks as if they want to be somewhere else. So does the audience. Finally Rohan Preston, theater critic for the Star Tribune, raises his voice. ‘I don’t know if I should be speaking, but I’m really struck by how uncomfortable everybody is, by how difficult it is for us to have this discussion.’ Everybody breathes in.”

“Everybody breathes in” … and then, at the performance I saw, they couldn’t stop talking.

For me, the civic aspect of that experience—different people in the same room together, sharing ideas about what they had just seen—opened the door to a place where people were making an effort to understand and appreciate each other better through art, and pursuit of that experience has defined my most significant personal and professional choices for ten years. The performance was electrifying. The quality of the discussion, once it got rolling, had everything to do with the fact that some harsh truths had been laid bare onstage before an audience with differing experience, knowledge and opinions.

Getting back to the question of seeing more theater now, that intersection of art and ideas is what I am looking for, and it is hard to find within the calendar listings, advertising and marketing for most theaters. It is easier to stay “close to home,” rely on the recommendations of friends and colleagues, attend arts events that aren’t as high-risk as theater, where once you walk through the door you are pretty much committing yourself to 2+ hours.

But when all’s said and done, I love theater. And it was a play, not an exhibition or a reading or a dance class, that changed my life. The tweet that got me thinking about this was from Howard Sherman, my former boss at the O’Neill Theater Center and now director of the American Theatre Wing. ATW is holding a Play That Changed My Life contest. Interesting to see how theater has changed the lives of others!

Last week I celebrated my one-year anniversary as an Executive Director, which I think earns me the right to reflect and get a little cliche with the wisdom-sharing. Here are some blips and links that are resonating with me right now:

Survival Tips for First-Time Executive Directors
This article was given to me by the consultant who led us through the executive director search. One year later, it is still a useful “reality check” and reminder.

The idea that great leaders act with courage when others don’t. They call out difficult situations, seize opportunities, and make decisions they believe will benefit others, even when those decisions involve personal risk.

Harmony, in practice: neatly summarized by John Abodeely on the Americans for the Arts blog:

“Harmony is paramount. All interactions must end in harmony.”

• Do not prioritize your goals above others’ feelings.
• Do not bully, intimidate, or be mean to get what you want.
• There will be new goals and new interactions coming soon. Those will be sour from the giddy up, if you do not prioritize harmony now.
• Mean people probably do not think they are behaving poorly, so don’t encourage them to act more hatefully by fighting with them. Everyone probably knows they’re mean anyway.

When I worked at the O’Neill Theater Center, one of our mottos was “Risk, Fail, Risk Again”. This especially applied to our student actors, but lately I have been thinking about risk in terms of career trajectories. As an emerging leader in my 20s, so much of my life seemed caught up in the first career choices I made, that it had all the drama of this (awesome) Judy Garland classic.

Feeling trapped in a dead-end job, or not getting the job of your dreams can seem downright tragic when you work for a nonprofit. We’re not just looking for a job. We are looking for our opportunity to Transform Lives Through The Arts. Or Education. Or whatever.

But inevitably, if you are taking risks and  reaching high enough and looking for all of the experiences that emerging leaders should look for, unpredictable and wonderful and disappointing things will happen. Some of my Bay Area peers—Evelyn Orantes, Maia Rosal, Marc Vogl and Ellen Oh—will be sharing their personal experiences at “Career Trajectories—Not All Straight Arrows,” as part of Americans for the Arts’s 2009 Creative Conversations series, presented by the San Francisco Bay Area Emerging Arts Professionals. It is next Tuesday, October 13 at 7pm at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. It is $6. And, you can register in advance here.

Hope to see you there!

It is coming up on my one-year anniversary at SOMArts … last year I arrived in San Francisco during our annual Day of the Dead exhibition. This year, there is a big opening party on Friday, October 16 and we will be celebrating! Rene Yanez, Day of the Dead co-curator, is featured in this month’s episode of CultureWire (at 2′49) and I am at the end talking about SOMArts programs and what makes us unique (21′52).

More episodes of CultureWire are available from the San Francisco Arts Commission on Vimeo.