Posted by Ken Cazan
James Conlon gave an insightful, heartfelt, sometimes confusing but always passionate Visions and Voices lecture the other night. It was about his life in the arts, the “classical” arts as he calls them and we are all aspiring to our little chip of the marble of those arts.
After talking to all three of my classes about Mo. Conlon’s talk, the general consensus was that his Q&A session afterwards was the most honest and insightful part of the evening. There was, however, one consistent question: What is the answer to Prof. Gilfry’s question (and I paraphrase), “How do you explain to a non-classical arts person the relevance of the classical arts in Depression-era 2008?” Mo. Conlon answered form his heart and related personal anecdotes about his personal life, his growing up with the classical arts deep within his soul but never quite got around to a solid answer.
I have been thinking about this a lot since I began teaching here four years ago and have spoken with close colleagues worldwide in an effort to begin to hone down an answer to Prof. Gilfry’s question. The answer (or several answers to the question) is multi-faceted. What draws us to the arts in the first place? For me, it was a desperate search for a personal identity, a way to stand out, to be noticed in the midst of a large family with huge personalities, all of us fighting to be seen for our uniqueness, our “divine spark” (as G.B. Shaw would say). As I grew older and dealt with my sexuality, the arts became even more important to me as a place where I could belong and be who and what I am during the tumultuous period of coming out of the closet and accepting myself and allowing others to deal with their acceptance (or not) of my homosexuality.
Translate that into the soul of an inner-city youth whose parents are not present in their lives. Their parents might be a drug dealer, drug addict, prostitute, gang banger, abuser or child of an abused parent and carrying around so much baggage that their children get lost in the emotional melee of their existence. Maybe their parents are simply working two or three jobs to desperately make a life for their children and keep a roof over their heads. Where can that child turn for fulfillment, self-expression, and a way to release their anger and frustration at being forgotten, left behind, lost in the shuffle? The arts (classical or otherwise) are the most embracing, accepting, loving parental substitutes that I can imagine. Throughout my life, whether as a child or an adult, whenever a difficult personal event arose, I could always escape to the arts, my art, as a means of dealing with my troubles, of beginning to understand what I was going through and I could always use the arts as an avenue to express and release my angst while serving and enhancing whatever piece I was working on at the time. I still do (as members of my Directing 407 class experienced last week) use the arts as emotional release.
An artistic event can help us to identify a problem in our lives and more importantly, they can help us identify a solution to that problem. I can’t tell you how often in my career I have had a member of an audience come up to me and say, “I never looked at that character from that perspective before," and that it helped them answer questions about life's dilemmas. The arts can be re-affirming and powerful aids in an audience member's system of religious and spiritual beliefs. Suor Angelica had a profound impact on the women I was working with both times I collaborated on it. It made them realize the common bonds that women have with their bodies and the potential for their brains and bodies when working together towards the common goal of creating three-dimensional people behind the generic habits. It helped me to realize the strength it takes so many women to inhibit their natural instincts and believe in their faith so much that it becomes the over-riding passion in their lives. This is the power of the arts.
Finally, the arts, particularly the classical arts, are some of the most diverse records of the social, political, and religious histories available to us in 2008. Look back to “La Boheme” and capture the essence of a bunch of young people in Italy in the 1830s and flash forward to today. Working on “Boheme” as a young director helped me to understand what a universal situation striving for a career in the arts is. It also helped me immeasurably during the horrendous dark times in the 1980s when so many of our most talented and brilliant artists were falling prey to a plague the like of which hadn’t been seen since the advent of tuberculosis. This had religious, political, and sexual repercussions but through working on “Boheme,” “Traviata,” and other classical arts pieces that had similar context, I gradually began to learn how to deal with my grief and anger. I also understood that through history, cataclysmic illnesses have always been and sadly, always will be. How we handle them emotionally, how we survive them and live to tell cautionary, enlightening tales to future generations, this is what the classical arts can help us to learn to do. The arts are a chronicle of history and a guide to the future.
Beyond their beauty, their provocative aspects, and their timeless tales, if we didn’t have the classical arts, we would have no diverse world history, no optional viewpoints for our present, and no ammunition to deal with future dilemmas.
This is what the arts, classical or otherwise, have taught me and is why I believe in arts education and the continuing support of the arts on any level.
James Conlon gave an insightful, heartfelt, sometimes confusing but always passionate Visions and Voices lecture the other night. It was about his life in the arts, the “classical” arts as he calls them and we are all aspiring to our little chip of the marble of those arts.After talking to all three of my classes about Mo. Conlon’s talk, the general consensus was that his Q&A session afterwards was the most honest and insightful part of the evening. There was, however, one consistent question: What is the answer to Prof. Gilfry’s question (and I paraphrase), “How do you explain to a non-classical arts person the relevance of the classical arts in Depression-era 2008?” Mo. Conlon answered form his heart and related personal anecdotes about his personal life, his growing up with the classical arts deep within his soul but never quite got around to a solid answer.
I have been thinking about this a lot since I began teaching here four years ago and have spoken with close colleagues worldwide in an effort to begin to hone down an answer to Prof. Gilfry’s question. The answer (or several answers to the question) is multi-faceted. What draws us to the arts in the first place? For me, it was a desperate search for a personal identity, a way to stand out, to be noticed in the midst of a large family with huge personalities, all of us fighting to be seen for our uniqueness, our “divine spark” (as G.B. Shaw would say). As I grew older and dealt with my sexuality, the arts became even more important to me as a place where I could belong and be who and what I am during the tumultuous period of coming out of the closet and accepting myself and allowing others to deal with their acceptance (or not) of my homosexuality.
Translate that into the soul of an inner-city youth whose parents are not present in their lives. Their parents might be a drug dealer, drug addict, prostitute, gang banger, abuser or child of an abused parent and carrying around so much baggage that their children get lost in the emotional melee of their existence. Maybe their parents are simply working two or three jobs to desperately make a life for their children and keep a roof over their heads. Where can that child turn for fulfillment, self-expression, and a way to release their anger and frustration at being forgotten, left behind, lost in the shuffle? The arts (classical or otherwise) are the most embracing, accepting, loving parental substitutes that I can imagine. Throughout my life, whether as a child or an adult, whenever a difficult personal event arose, I could always escape to the arts, my art, as a means of dealing with my troubles, of beginning to understand what I was going through and I could always use the arts as an avenue to express and release my angst while serving and enhancing whatever piece I was working on at the time. I still do (as members of my Directing 407 class experienced last week) use the arts as emotional release.
An artistic event can help us to identify a problem in our lives and more importantly, they can help us identify a solution to that problem. I can’t tell you how often in my career I have had a member of an audience come up to me and say, “I never looked at that character from that perspective before," and that it helped them answer questions about life's dilemmas. The arts can be re-affirming and powerful aids in an audience member's system of religious and spiritual beliefs. Suor Angelica had a profound impact on the women I was working with both times I collaborated on it. It made them realize the common bonds that women have with their bodies and the potential for their brains and bodies when working together towards the common goal of creating three-dimensional people behind the generic habits. It helped me to realize the strength it takes so many women to inhibit their natural instincts and believe in their faith so much that it becomes the over-riding passion in their lives. This is the power of the arts.
Finally, the arts, particularly the classical arts, are some of the most diverse records of the social, political, and religious histories available to us in 2008. Look back to “La Boheme” and capture the essence of a bunch of young people in Italy in the 1830s and flash forward to today. Working on “Boheme” as a young director helped me to understand what a universal situation striving for a career in the arts is. It also helped me immeasurably during the horrendous dark times in the 1980s when so many of our most talented and brilliant artists were falling prey to a plague the like of which hadn’t been seen since the advent of tuberculosis. This had religious, political, and sexual repercussions but through working on “Boheme,” “Traviata,” and other classical arts pieces that had similar context, I gradually began to learn how to deal with my grief and anger. I also understood that through history, cataclysmic illnesses have always been and sadly, always will be. How we handle them emotionally, how we survive them and live to tell cautionary, enlightening tales to future generations, this is what the classical arts can help us to learn to do. The arts are a chronicle of history and a guide to the future.Beyond their beauty, their provocative aspects, and their timeless tales, if we didn’t have the classical arts, we would have no diverse world history, no optional viewpoints for our present, and no ammunition to deal with future dilemmas.
This is what the arts, classical or otherwise, have taught me and is why I believe in arts education and the continuing support of the arts on any level.
Ken Cazan is the Resident Stage Director for the USC Thornton School of Music and an internationally renowned stage director of operas, musical theatre, and legitimate theatre.
