05.22.06
On Tour…
I am still on tour with the Austin Eurythmy Ensemble. We performed at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago and the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater on the University of Michigan Campus in Ann Arbor. This has been a light tour for us with not as many performances, but it will be busy tomorrow the 23rd. We will have three performances at Concordia College in Minneapolis and end the tour.The tour has gone well but it continues to be difficult to attract audiences and meet expenses. Arts are not a priority in the present cultural climate. But we must continue to make them available, to try to reach out and keep the arts alive. It is the only way to ensure an artistic future, and perhaps, any future at all.
Gary Powell said,
May 30, 2006 at 4:52 am
Tony, historically, humans have tended to use institutions to interpret life FOR them. Between wars and inquisitions, we all know how well that turned out. I have always considered artists as better interpreters than governments or religions. When I went to the new Blanton Museum in Austin last week, I had a bit of insight from this art which spanned some 600 years. Art was not the absolute answer to existence, but the absolute question.
The absolute answer is always going to win a bigger audience than the absolute question. Add in the celebrity-driven-drivel masquerading as art into the mix and it’s pretty easy to understand smaller audiences for art which actually asks something from its audience.
So, mush forward bravely with all your work. Your discipline and insight will hopefully enrich both you and your audiences reagardless of size. And besides that, Eurythmy is cool!
My best to you. — Gary Powell