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Established wisdom has historically claimed that attracting and maintaining audiences was simply a matter of performing the correct marketing tricks — bigger ads, full-colour brochures and so on.
Decreasing attendance was blamed on competition in the arts marketplace and a failure to keep up with commercial productions' big-budget advertising campaigns. In reality there is no mass arts audience merely waiting for our full-page ads to appear. Rather, each artist builds a multi-faceted audience for their work by making connections to individuals and communities. Audiences are attracted to an artist, to art forms, or to work that is culturally or thematically relevant to their lives. No amount of marketing dollars, full-colour brochures or catchy quotes will attract audiences who do not understand or connect to the performances or events we are offering. Building audience is primarily about making connections to and building understanding of the work on stage.
For dance in contemporary North American society this is no small endeavour. Dance is largely absent from our education and life experience. If we want audiences to value and connect to dance, we need to make dance part of their lives. In this context the diversity and proliferation of dance events, both theatrical and participatory, is beneficial to all by providing more points of connection to the art form.
Get to know your audience! Don't bother with surveys or statistics, get out there and meet the people who come to your performances. Create opportunities for direct interaction and listen to what audiences have to say, build relationships and help them to understand and connect with the work.
Use the work. Use the themes and physicality in the work to make connections to groups in your community. For example, if your work has an architectural quality, partner with an association of architects.
Get out of the theatre! Take and make opportunities to have your work seen in public places — schools, malls, libraries and restaurants are points of connection to new audiences.
Article originally contributed by Nello McDaniel, ARTS Action Research
RESOURCES:
Making connections
Csikszentmihalyi Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Rowe: New York, 1990.
McDaniel, Nello & Thorn, George. Learning Audiences: Adult Arts Participation and the Learning Consciousness. The Association of Performing Arts Presenters, New York: 1997.
Understanding audiences
Canada's Culture, Heritage and Identity: A Statistical Perspective. Statistics Canada: Education, Culture and Tourism Division, Ministry of Industry: Ottawa, 1997.
Available at DUO Library
Decima Research and Les Consultants Culture Inc. Canadian Arts Consumer Profile 1990 - 1991. Communications Canada: Ottawa, 1992.
Foot, David K. Boom, Bust & Echo: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Shift. Macfarlane, Walter & Ross: Toronto, 1996.
Levine, Mindy. Invitation to the Dance: A Report of the National Task Force on Dance Audiences. Dance/USA: Washington DC, 1997.
Ontario Arts Council. Time for the Arts - The Participation of Ontarians in Arts Activities. Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data: Toronto, 1994.
Available at DUO Library
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