WEBVTT 00:00:00.253 --> 00:00:02.183 I am a cultural omnivore, 00:00:02.207 --> 00:00:06.843 one whose daily commute is made possible by attachment to an iPod -- 00:00:06.867 --> 00:00:09.096 an iPod that contains Wagner and Mozart, 00:00:09.120 --> 00:00:11.136 pop diva Christina Aguilera, 00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:12.776 country singer Josh Turner, 00:00:12.800 --> 00:00:15.235 gangsta rap artist Kirk Franklin, 00:00:15.259 --> 00:00:17.632 concerti, symphonies and more and more. 00:00:17.656 --> 00:00:19.170 I'm a voracious reader, 00:00:19.194 --> 00:00:22.125 a reader who deals with Ian McEwan down to Stephanie Meyer. 00:00:22.149 --> 00:00:25.354 I have read the Twilight tetralogy. 00:00:25.378 --> 00:00:27.796 And one who lives for my home theater, 00:00:27.820 --> 00:00:30.799 a home theater where I devour DVDs, video on demand 00:00:30.823 --> 00:00:32.213 and a lot of television. 00:00:32.237 --> 00:00:35.618 For me, "Law & Order: SVU," Tina Fey and "30 Rock" 00:00:35.642 --> 00:00:37.214 and "Judge Judy" -- 00:00:37.238 --> 00:00:40.635 "The people are real, the cases are real, the rulings are final." NOTE Paragraph 00:00:40.659 --> 00:00:41.671 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:00:41.695 --> 00:00:44.976 Now, I'm convinced a lot of you probably share my passions, 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.287 especially my passion for "Judge Judy," 00:00:47.311 --> 00:00:50.801 and you'd fight anybody who attempted to take her away from us, 00:00:50.825 --> 00:00:54.565 but I'm a little less convinced that you share the central passion of my life, 00:00:54.589 --> 00:00:57.302 a passion for the live professional performing arts, 00:00:57.326 --> 00:01:00.308 performing arts that represent the orchestral repertoire, yes, 00:01:00.332 --> 00:01:02.976 but jazz as well, modern dance, opera, 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:04.976 theater and more and more and more. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:05.848 --> 00:01:08.976 Frankly, it's a sector that many of us who work in the field 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:12.725 worry is being endangered and possibly dismantled by technology. 00:01:12.749 --> 00:01:17.139 While we initially heralded the Internet as the fantastic new marketing device 00:01:17.163 --> 00:01:19.382 that was going to solve all our problems, 00:01:19.406 --> 00:01:21.803 we now realize that the Internet is, if anything, 00:01:21.827 --> 00:01:23.446 too effective in that regard. 00:01:23.470 --> 00:01:25.976 Depending on who you read, an arts organization 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:28.466 or an artist, who tries to attract the attention 00:01:28.490 --> 00:01:30.711 of a potential single ticket buyer, 00:01:30.735 --> 00:01:35.976 now competes with between three and 5,000 different marketing messages 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:38.494 a typical citizen sees every single day. 00:01:39.260 --> 00:01:40.977 We now know, in fact, 00:01:41.001 --> 00:01:43.768 that technology is our biggest competitor for leisure time. 00:01:43.792 --> 00:01:45.043 Five years ago, 00:01:45.067 --> 00:01:49.776 Gen Xers spent 20.7 hours online and TV, the majority on TV. 00:01:49.800 --> 00:01:51.635 Gen Yers spent even more -- 00:01:51.659 --> 00:01:54.221 23.8 hours, the majority online. 00:01:54.626 --> 00:02:00.261 And now, a typical university-entering student arrives at college 00:02:00.285 --> 00:02:04.596 already having spent 20,000 hours online 00:02:04.620 --> 00:02:07.956 and an additional 10,000 hours playing video games -- 00:02:08.456 --> 00:02:11.674 a stark reminder that we operate in a cultural context 00:02:11.698 --> 00:02:16.471 where video games now outsell music and movie recordings combined. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:17.905 --> 00:02:20.660 Moreover, we're afraid that technology 00:02:20.684 --> 00:02:23.723 has altered our very assumptions of cultural consumption. 00:02:23.747 --> 00:02:24.911 Thanks to the Internet, 00:02:24.935 --> 00:02:27.909 we believe we can get anything we want whenever we want it, 00:02:27.933 --> 00:02:29.752 delivered to our own doorstep. 00:02:29.776 --> 00:02:32.320 We can shop at three in the morning or eight at night, 00:02:32.344 --> 00:02:35.277 ordering jeans tailor-made for our unique body types. 00:02:35.301 --> 00:02:39.227 Expectations of personalization and customization 00:02:39.251 --> 00:02:41.100 that the live performing arts -- 00:02:41.124 --> 00:02:43.976 which have set curtain times, set venues, 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:47.374 attendant inconveniences of travel, parking and the like -- 00:02:47.398 --> 00:02:48.803 simply cannot meet. 00:02:49.625 --> 00:02:51.266 And we're all acutely aware: 00:02:51.290 --> 00:02:53.085 what's it going to mean in the future 00:02:53.109 --> 00:02:55.285 when we ask someone to pay a hundred dollars 00:02:55.309 --> 00:02:57.777 for a symphony, opera or ballet ticket, 00:02:57.801 --> 00:03:01.113 when that cultural consumer is used to downloading on the internet 00:03:01.137 --> 00:03:05.050 24 hours a day for 99 cents a song or for free? 00:03:07.402 --> 00:03:11.441 These are enormous questions for those of us that work in this terrain. 00:03:11.465 --> 00:03:14.576 But as particular as they feel to us, we know we're not alone. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:15.157 --> 00:03:16.531 All of us are engaged 00:03:16.555 --> 00:03:21.219 in a seismic, fundamental realignment of culture and communications, 00:03:21.243 --> 00:03:25.007 a realignment that is shaking and decimating the newspaper industry, 00:03:25.031 --> 00:03:29.061 the magazine industry, the book and publishing industry and more. 00:03:29.710 --> 00:03:33.572 Saddled in the performing arts as we are, by antiquated union agreements 00:03:33.596 --> 00:03:38.584 that inhibit and often prohibit mechanical reproduction and streaming, 00:03:38.608 --> 00:03:42.452 locked into large facilities that were designed to ossify 00:03:42.476 --> 00:03:45.823 the ideal relationship between artist and audience 00:03:45.847 --> 00:03:48.132 most appropriate to the 19th century 00:03:48.156 --> 00:03:51.333 and locked into a business model dependent on high ticket revenues, 00:03:51.357 --> 00:03:53.430 where we charge exorbitant prices. 00:03:53.837 --> 00:03:57.242 Many of us shudder in the wake of the collapse of Tower Records 00:03:57.266 --> 00:03:59.581 and ask ourselves, "Are we next?" 00:04:01.134 --> 00:04:05.976 Everyone I talk to in performing arts resonates to the words of Adrienne Rich, 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.174 who, in "Dreams of a Common Language," wrote, 00:04:08.198 --> 00:04:11.345 "We are out in a country that has no language, no laws. 00:04:11.910 --> 00:04:14.448 Whatever we do together is pure invention. 00:04:14.472 --> 00:04:18.385 The maps they gave us are out of date by years." 00:04:20.204 --> 00:04:22.109 And for those of you who love the arts, 00:04:22.133 --> 00:04:24.976 aren't you glad you invited me here to brighten your day? NOTE Paragraph 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:26.976 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:28.442 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:28.466 --> 00:04:31.976 Now, rather than saying that we're on the brink of our own annihilation, 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:35.646 I prefer to believe that we are engaged in a fundamental reformation, 00:04:35.670 --> 00:04:39.395 a reformation like the religious Reformation of the 16th century. 00:04:39.906 --> 00:04:42.976 The arts reformation, like the religious Reformation, 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:44.650 is spurred in part by technology, 00:04:44.674 --> 00:04:47.411 with indeed, the printing press really leading the charge 00:04:47.435 --> 00:04:49.262 on the religious Reformation. 00:04:49.286 --> 00:04:52.337 Both reformations were predicated on fractious discussion, 00:04:52.361 --> 00:04:53.770 internal self-doubt 00:04:53.794 --> 00:04:57.207 and massive realignment of antiquated business models. 00:04:57.846 --> 00:05:01.232 And at heart, both reformations, I think, were asking the questions: 00:05:01.256 --> 00:05:02.976 who's entitled to practice? 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:04.706 How are they entitled to practice? 00:05:04.730 --> 00:05:08.718 And indeed, do we need anyone to intermediate for us 00:05:08.742 --> 00:05:11.824 in order to have an experience with a spiritual divine? NOTE Paragraph 00:05:13.835 --> 00:05:16.537 Chris Anderson, someone I trust you all know, 00:05:16.561 --> 00:05:19.573 editor in chief of Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail, 00:05:19.597 --> 00:05:22.701 really was the first, for me, to nail a lot of this. 00:05:22.725 --> 00:05:24.396 He wrote a long time ago, you know, 00:05:24.420 --> 00:05:29.945 thanks to the invention of the Internet, web technology, minicams and more, 00:05:29.969 --> 00:05:33.424 the means of artistic production have been democratized 00:05:33.448 --> 00:05:36.172 for the first time in all of human history. 00:05:37.223 --> 00:05:39.676 In the 1930s, if any of you wanted to make a movie, 00:05:39.700 --> 00:05:41.976 you had to work for Warner Brothers or RKO, 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:43.976 because who could afford a movie set 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:46.096 and lighting equipment and editing equipment 00:05:46.120 --> 00:05:47.903 and scoring, and more? 00:05:47.927 --> 00:05:51.106 And now who in this room doesn't know a 14 year-old 00:05:51.130 --> 00:05:53.661 hard at work on her second, third, or fourth movie? NOTE Paragraph 00:05:53.685 --> 00:05:55.480 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:05:55.504 --> 00:05:58.588 Similarly, the means of artistic distribution 00:05:58.612 --> 00:06:01.393 have been democratized for the first time in human history. 00:06:01.417 --> 00:06:04.368 Again, in the '30s, Warner Brothers, RKO did that for you. 00:06:04.392 --> 00:06:06.432 Now, go to YouTube, Facebook; 00:06:06.456 --> 00:06:08.380 you have worldwide distribution 00:06:08.404 --> 00:06:11.000 without leaving the privacy of your own bedroom. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:11.954 --> 00:06:14.330 This double impact is occasioning 00:06:14.354 --> 00:06:17.342 a massive redefinition of the cultural market, 00:06:17.366 --> 00:06:20.114 a time when anyone is a potential author. 00:06:21.282 --> 00:06:23.629 Frankly, what we're seeing now in this environment 00:06:23.653 --> 00:06:26.753 is a massive time, when the entire world is changing 00:06:26.777 --> 00:06:29.915 as we move from a time when audience numbers are plummeting. 00:06:29.939 --> 00:06:32.353 But the number of arts participants, 00:06:32.377 --> 00:06:36.190 people who write poetry, who sing songs, who perform in church choirs, 00:06:36.214 --> 00:06:39.383 is exploding beyond our wildest imaginations. 00:06:40.320 --> 00:06:42.813 This group, others have called the pro-ams, 00:06:42.837 --> 00:06:45.734 amateur artists doing work at a professional level. 00:06:45.758 --> 00:06:47.951 You see them on YouTube, in dance competitions, 00:06:47.975 --> 00:06:49.658 film festivals and more. 00:06:49.682 --> 00:06:51.597 They are radically expanding 00:06:51.621 --> 00:06:54.800 our notions of the potential of an aesthetic vocabulary, 00:06:54.824 --> 00:06:56.976 while they are challenging and undermining 00:06:57.000 --> 00:06:59.976 the cultural autonomy of our traditional institutions. 00:07:00.437 --> 00:07:04.277 Ultimately, we now live in a world defined not by consumption, 00:07:04.301 --> 00:07:05.571 but by participation. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:07.297 --> 00:07:09.064 But I want to be clear, 00:07:09.088 --> 00:07:11.868 just as the religious Reformation did not spell the end 00:07:11.892 --> 00:07:13.905 to the formal Church or to the priesthood; 00:07:13.929 --> 00:07:18.113 I believe that our artistic institutions will continue to have importance. 00:07:18.137 --> 00:07:20.315 They currently are the best opportunities 00:07:20.339 --> 00:07:22.615 for artists to have lives of economic dignity -- 00:07:22.639 --> 00:07:24.824 not opulence, of dignity. 00:07:24.848 --> 00:07:26.630 And they are the places where artists 00:07:26.654 --> 00:07:29.474 who deserve and want to work at a certain scale of resources 00:07:29.498 --> 00:07:30.707 will find a home. 00:07:31.583 --> 00:07:35.712 But to view them as synonymous with the entirety of the arts community 00:07:35.736 --> 00:07:37.567 is, by far, too shortsighted. 00:07:38.462 --> 00:07:42.172 And indeed, while we've tended to polarize the amateur from the professional, 00:07:42.196 --> 00:07:46.426 the single most exciting development in the last five to 10 years 00:07:46.450 --> 00:07:50.253 has been the rise of the professional hybrid artist, 00:07:50.277 --> 00:07:51.907 the professional artist who works, 00:07:51.931 --> 00:07:54.652 not primarily in the concert hall or on the stage; 00:07:54.676 --> 00:07:57.976 but most frequently around women's rights, or human rights, 00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:00.897 or on global warming issues or AIDS relief for more -- 00:08:00.921 --> 00:08:03.051 not out of economic necessity, 00:08:03.075 --> 00:08:05.629 but out of a deep, organic conviction 00:08:05.653 --> 00:08:08.145 that the work that she or he is called to do 00:08:08.169 --> 00:08:11.845 cannot be accomplished in the traditional hermetic arts environment. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:12.734 --> 00:08:15.205 Today's dance world is not defined solely 00:08:15.229 --> 00:08:18.418 by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet or the National Ballet of Canada, 00:08:18.442 --> 00:08:20.888 but by Liz Lerman's Dance Exchange -- 00:08:20.912 --> 00:08:23.976 a multi-generational, professional dance company, 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:27.608 whose dancers range in age from 18 to 82, 00:08:27.632 --> 00:08:31.218 and who work with genomic scientists to embody the DNA strand 00:08:31.242 --> 00:08:33.427 and with nuclear physicists at CERN. 00:08:34.178 --> 00:08:36.310 Today's professional theater community 00:08:36.334 --> 00:08:39.599 is defined, not only the Shaw and Stratford Festivals, 00:08:39.623 --> 00:08:42.167 but by the Cornerstone Theater of Los Angeles -- 00:08:42.191 --> 00:08:44.976 a collective of artists that after 9/11, 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:48.487 brought together 10 different religious communities -- 00:08:48.511 --> 00:08:50.299 the Baha'i, the Catholic, 00:08:50.323 --> 00:08:51.976 the Muslim, the Jewish, 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:53.728 even the Native American 00:08:53.752 --> 00:08:55.925 and the gay and lesbian communities of faith, 00:08:55.949 --> 00:08:58.976 helping them create their own individual plays 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:00.976 and one massive play, 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:03.630 where they explored the differences in their faith 00:09:03.654 --> 00:09:04.976 and found commonality 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:08.437 as an important first step toward cross-community healing. 00:09:09.838 --> 00:09:13.350 Today's performers, like Rhodessa Jones, work in women's prisons, 00:09:13.374 --> 00:09:16.886 helping women prisoners articulate the pain of incarceration, 00:09:16.910 --> 00:09:19.808 while today's playwrights and directors work with youth gangs 00:09:19.832 --> 00:09:23.831 to find alternate channels to violence and more and more and more. 00:09:25.358 --> 00:09:27.976 And indeed, I think, rather than being annihilated, 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:30.478 the performing arts are poised on the brink of a time 00:09:30.502 --> 00:09:33.113 when we will be more important than we have ever been. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:34.441 --> 00:09:36.204 You know, we've said for a long time, 00:09:36.228 --> 00:09:39.568 we are critical to the health of the economic communities in your town. 00:09:39.592 --> 00:09:40.751 And absolutely -- 00:09:40.775 --> 00:09:44.738 I hope you know that every dollar spent on a performing arts ticket in a community 00:09:44.762 --> 00:09:47.860 generates five to seven additional dollars for the local economy, 00:09:47.884 --> 00:09:49.902 dollars spent in restaurants or on parking, 00:09:49.926 --> 00:09:52.474 at the fabric stores where we buy fabric for costumes, 00:09:52.498 --> 00:09:54.976 the piano tuner who tunes the instruments, and more. 00:09:55.785 --> 00:09:59.617 But the arts are going to be more important to economies as we go forward, 00:09:59.641 --> 00:10:02.142 especially in industries we can't even imagine yet, 00:10:02.166 --> 00:10:06.102 just as they have been central to the iPod and the computer game industries, 00:10:06.126 --> 00:10:09.959 which few, if any of us, could have foreseen 10 to 15 years ago. 00:10:10.830 --> 00:10:15.152 Business leadership will depend more and more on emotional intelligence, 00:10:15.176 --> 00:10:17.141 the ability to listen deeply, 00:10:17.165 --> 00:10:18.648 to have empathy, 00:10:18.672 --> 00:10:21.384 to articulate change, to motivate others -- 00:10:21.408 --> 00:10:25.228 the very capacities that the arts cultivate with every encounter. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:26.148 --> 00:10:28.499 Especially now, 00:10:28.523 --> 00:10:33.053 as we all must confront the fallacy of a market-only orientation, 00:10:33.077 --> 00:10:35.424 uninformed by social conscience; 00:10:35.448 --> 00:10:38.253 we must seize and celebrate the power of the arts 00:10:38.277 --> 00:10:40.837 to shape our individual and national characters, 00:10:40.861 --> 00:10:43.928 and especially characters of the young people, 00:10:43.952 --> 00:10:46.976 who all too often are subjected to bombardment of sensation, 00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:49.000 rather than digested experience. 00:10:50.246 --> 00:10:53.238 Ultimately, especially now in this world, 00:10:53.262 --> 00:10:57.883 where we live in a context of regressive and onerous immigration laws, 00:10:57.907 --> 00:11:01.246 in reality TV that thrives on humiliation, 00:11:01.270 --> 00:11:02.976 and in a context of analysis, 00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:07.678 where the thing we hear most repeatedly, day in, day out in the United States, 00:11:07.702 --> 00:11:10.807 in every train station, every bus station, every plane station is, 00:11:10.831 --> 00:11:12.094 "Ladies and gentlemen, 00:11:12.118 --> 00:11:16.148 please report any suspicious behavior or suspicious individuals 00:11:16.172 --> 00:11:18.134 to the authorities nearest to you," 00:11:18.158 --> 00:11:20.096 when all of these ways we are encouraged 00:11:20.120 --> 00:11:23.168 to view our fellow human being with hostility and fear 00:11:23.192 --> 00:11:24.920 and contempt and suspicion. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:25.916 --> 00:11:28.759 The arts, whatever they do, whenever they call us together, 00:11:28.783 --> 00:11:33.425 invite us to look at our fellow human being with generosity and curiosity. 00:11:35.210 --> 00:11:39.421 God knows, if we ever needed that capacity in human history, 00:11:39.445 --> 00:11:41.463 we need it now. 00:11:45.114 --> 00:11:46.976 You know, we're bound together, 00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:50.427 not, I think by technology, entertainment and design, 00:11:50.451 --> 00:11:51.690 but by common cause. 00:11:52.521 --> 00:11:55.804 We work to promote healthy vibrant societies, 00:11:55.828 --> 00:11:58.269 to ameliorate human suffering, 00:11:58.293 --> 00:12:02.897 to promote a more thoughtful, substantive, empathic world order. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:04.871 --> 00:12:07.451 I salute all of you as activists in that quest 00:12:07.475 --> 00:12:10.643 and urge you to embrace and hold dear the arts in your work, 00:12:10.667 --> 00:12:12.417 whatever your purpose may be. 00:12:13.346 --> 00:12:16.265 I promise you the hand of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation 00:12:16.289 --> 00:12:18.988 is stretched out in friendship for now and years to come. 00:12:19.012 --> 00:12:21.398 And I thank you for your kindness and your patience 00:12:21.422 --> 00:12:23.080 in listening to me this afternoon. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:23.104 --> 00:12:24.344 Thank you, and Godspeed.