BROOKLYN COMMUNE PROJECT LABOR AND VALUE RESEARCH TEAM FINAL REPORT

Written by Nick Benacerraf CONTRIBUTING RESEARCHERS: Jessica Applebaum, Jillian Buckley, Brad Burgess, Samara Cohen, Leonie Ettinger, Seth Hamlin, DJ McDonald, Marisol Rosa-Shapiro
COORDINATOR INTRODUCTION We are artists of the ephemeral, largely invisible to mainstream America, yet integral to its continued growth. We are bound together in the pursuit of intergenerational sustainability, and we are reaching for the megaphone. The text that follows is intended to provoke and inspireelevating actions and perspectives that are already commonplace in our communities. This project has forced upon me a deep introspection about how I participate in the ecology of live performance and the nature of my interconnection with other artists. I hope that it will for others, too. I owe much of my intellectual and creative growth to my crew, The Assembly, a collectively-run performance group that creates new work about what it means to be alive in America today. We are nothing short of family; this document is for them, and for the dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of other micro-communities like ours that are finally banding together. I study social movements, art movements, and how ideas flow through society, and the student movement of the sixties is my particular area of expertise. I have found that the students were most powerful at affecting the behavior of everyday Americans in the moments when they were articulate, nonviolent, and eager to educate. Those values run deeply through the Brooklyn Commune. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps may not work economically, but is the only strategy that prompts genuine political transformation. These students, who in 1962 were considered apolitical by everybody including themselves, were able to radically alter the behavior of everyday individuals in a few short years, far too many to count. They did so by pulling themselves out of the shadows and into the center of the visible sphere: articulating a grievance with the current order, while demonstrating a forceful alternative on the public stage. And they provided ways for everyday people to join them in acts of solidarity. For countless individuals watching the drama play out on TV sets, radios, newspapers and in conversations with their

children, it was an easy choice. Within seven years, the student movement became the most powerful anti-war movement in American history, organizing actions that called millions to the streets. The moment is ripe for artists to rekindle the fires of social change, in the name of all democracy. This is our 1962, and the clock is ticking. THE ECONOMIC DILEMMA OF THE PERFORMING ARTS If the performing arts are so important, why wont people pay to support them? The tenor of todays discourse around arts funding gives the impression that artists who struggle financially are failing to make their work efficiently, to market it effectively, or to generate work that appeals to a broad audience. An embrace of conventional bottom-line economicsthat efficiency and austerity are essential for successoverlooks the reality that there are virtually no performing arts organizations in the United States that are making a return on their investments. It turns out there is a good reason for thatwhy it is literally impossible for the performing arts to remain competitive with the rest of the marketplacewhy workers in the performing arts make less money than those in virtually any other economic sectorit is called the Baumol Effect. Written in 1966, William Bowen and William Baumols book, Performing Arts, The Economic Dilemma1, sent shock-waves through the performance community, giving voice for the first time to the cause of the economic disparity between artists and the rest of the economy, and warning that it would only worsen in the coming decades. Nearly 50 years later, their stunning call has all but been lost to history. First, a little Economics 101. Traditional economic theory states that the economy grows when we become more efficient at making things. Every year, technological developments help us manufacture products faster, with less labor required to produce each item. With the help of machines and other innovative technologies, it takes less time to produce a coffee mug this year than it did last year, which means that we are making more things for the same amount of labor. As the economy becomes more productive, workers are able to argue that their wages should increase accordingly. So, if the economy expands by 4% every year, because better machines help us make more things for the same labor, workers wages will similarly increase by 4%. But things work differently in the performing arts. Our labor isnt a means to some product one can carry home; our labor is the very object that audiences pay to encounter. The economy of the performing arts is frozen in place by an unshakable truth: Today, it takes precisely the same amount of time to perform a Schubert string quartet as it did 200 years ago, and as it will in 200 years.
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Baumol, William J., and William G. Bowen. Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma A Study of Problems common to Theater, Opera, Music, and Dance. Burlington: Ashgate, 2001. Print. 2

The characteristic of live performance which precludes substantial change in its mode of operation is that the work of the performer is an end in itself, not a means for the production of some good. When a customer purchases a typewriter, he usually neither knows nor cares how many man-hours of what kind of labor went into its manufacture. Any innovation which reduces the number of man-hours embodied in such machine makes absolutely no difference to its buyer--except, of course, insofar as this affects its price. But in live performance matters are quite different. The performers' labor themselves constitute the end product which the audience purchases. Any change in the training and skill of the performer or the amount of time he spends before the audience affects the nature of the service he supplies. For, unlike workers in manufacturing, performers are not intermediaries between raw material and the completed commodity -their activities are themselves the consumers' good. The immediate result of this technological difference between live performance and the typical manufacturing industry is that while productivity is very much subject to change in the latter, it is relatively immutable in the former. Whereas the amount of labor that is necessary to produce a typical manufactured product has constantly declined since the beginning of the industrial revolution, it requires about as many minutes for Richard II to tell his sad stories of the death of kings as it did on the stage of the Globe Theatre. Human ingenuity has devised ways to reduce the labor necessary to produce an automobile, but no one has yet succeeded in decreasing the human labor expended at a live performance of a 45 minute Schubert quartet much below a total of three man-hours. (Baumol and Bowen, p. 164) There is simply no way to become more efficient at producing that art work without fundamentally changing its content, or without seriously compromising its quality. Artists could conceivably increase efficiency by cutting down on rehearsal time, or by slashing costume and scenery budgets, but those often come at the expense of the impact of the piece itself. So on the surface, it appears that we are stuck. Services and goods that rely primarily on machines can cut costs every year, but services that rely on human labor (e.g. teaching, health care, and the performing arts) see increased costs each year. Our work does not and cannot compete by the rules of the marketplace, despite our conviction that it is essential for the health of our democracy. As the rest of the economy expands by becoming more efficient, performing artists can only raise their annual salary by increasing the price of tickets. This, of course, does not happen for a variety of ethical reasons (that everybody should have access to good art) and practical reasons (that the live performing arts must remain competitive with film and television). What results is a continuously growing economic disparity: the wages in the rest of the economy grow, as the wages of performers remain relatively stagnant. As most workers make more money to spend on goods and services, their buying power increases, and the prices for those things grow. (Thats inflation.) However, the buying power of artistswhose income remains somewhat constant from one year to the next, despite inflated pricesdecreases each year, and artists fall deeper and deeper into relative poverty.

Accordingly, virtually every single performing arts organization operates at a deficit. The earned income of any given companywhat they can earn from ticket sales and merchandise invariably falls short of their expenses. It is only through an elaborate system of grants and fundraising that artists can create performance, even at the highest commercial levels. It is extremely rareand indeed is the exception rather than the rulefor a performing arts venture to recuperate its initial investment. THE BENEFITS OF THE ARTS TO SOCIETY There exists a fundamental presumption in this country that people will pay for things that they find valuable, and if a person is not making a profit then he or she is not making valuable work. However, there are certain situations when goods and services that cannot pass the Market Test are nonetheless considered absolutely essential to the health of a thriving democracy. The concept of public goods refers to things like clean air in Los Angeles, which almost no single individual could be convinced to pay for, but that everybody desires and from which everybody benefits. In these instances, the market cannot deliver what is in our common interest, and we accept the argument that government and philanthropy must intercede. While public goods cannot pass the market test, it does not follow that such items are unwanted by the general public. Even though consumers cannot be made to pay for them, they may regard them as well worth their cost. In such a case it is the normal commercial mechanism and not the consumer demand which has failed to function. A government's decision to supply a public good is, therefore, not necessarily a decision to flaunt the wishes of the consumer. On the contrary, government financing may be the only way in which the wishes of the body of consumers can be put into effect. (Baumol and Bowen, p. 381) There are other goods that are considered mixed commodities, like Education, that offer both public and private benefits. Although it benefits any given individual to receive a strong education, it also benefits our collective interest, because that person is able to contribute more effectively and intelligently to our society. In this case, the governmentthrough primary education and public universitiessubsidizes practices that are in the interest of the social wellbeing, but that individuals cannot fully pay for themselves on the market of exchange. There is a strong case to be made that the performing arts are mixed commodities, offering benefits not only to those who directly encounter them, but also to the greater society, by fostering reflection, creativity and empathy. There are several reasons why Americans should invest in a thriving performing arts culture. First, American artists enjoy international prestige as some of the worlds best performing artists, something which brings great pride to many Americans who do not engage directly with those experiences. Given the current state of US foreign policy, artists traveling abroad offer a strong counter-argument to the perception that we are self-interested and sometimes outright hurtful,

and artists are better ambassadors for the thoughtful, compassionate character of this country than our violent actions over the last decade might otherwise suggest. Indeed, in the 1960s during the Cold War, the US government funded artists to show their work abroad in order to counter the image that Americans were materialistic and devoid of values. (Bowen & Baumol 383) Although we often avoid using the language of economics, there are many facts on our side. The arts offer extremely tangible benefits to local business and government revenue. A 2006 study published by Americans for the Arts2 (Arts & Economic Prosperity III) demonstrated that the Non-Profit Arts Organizations alone generate over $166.2 billion annually: $63.1 billion in spending by organizations and an additional $103.1 billion in event-related spending by their audiences. The impact of this activity is significant, supporting 5.7 million U.S. jobs and generating $29.6 billion in government revenue. (Americans for the Arts, p. 3) This study also found that the typical attendee spends $27.79 per person, per event, in addition to the cost of admission. (p. 1) Cultural diversity has also emerged as an essential component in corporate strategy. When deciding where to locate corporate offices, organizations often consider the cultural environment of their employees. In order to attract the best workers, corporations locate their offices in thriving cities. There is no feasible reason that is rooted in capitalist philosophy to explain why Google would open a major corporate office in Manhattan, where rent and other expenses rank among the highest in the world. The only argumentthe argument that brings countless businesses to New York Cityis that the workers want to participate in a thriving and diverse culture of ideas. This environment helps them to think, grow, and become better, fuller versions of themselves. A STRONG TREE GROWS DOWNWARDSA VISION FOR A HEALTHY ARTS ECOSYSTEM. A strong tree grows downwards as it grows upwards. The same can be said of a healthy arts ecology. At its best, the arts foster new forms, new identities, and new ways of being. These inventions are nurtured underneath the surface, and many of them grow into fruit that is plainly visible to masses of citizens. Nonetheless, we are confronting the undeniable truth that the roots of the performance community are malnourished. What resources we have are largely misplaced, supporting intransigent and idling structures from past decades, failing to leverage the points of collective interest, and indifferent to the free flow of new ideas. A new consciousness is emerging. The independent performing arts community has exploded in recent decades, producing work that completely defies the laws of efficiency in search of long2

Americans for the Arts. Arts & Economic Prosperity III: The Economic Impact of Nonprofit Arts and Culture Organizations and Their Audiences. 2006. PDF File. < http://www.americansforthearts.org/sites/default/files/pdf/information_services/research/services /economic_impact/aepiii/national_report.pdf> 5

incubated and nuanced truth. For the first time in American history, the number of individuals who dedicate themselves to artmaking, without even expecting a living wage in return, vastly outnumbers those whose art practice generates their primary income. A 2001 study by the RAND Corporation3 estimates that these artists outnumber professionals by 20 or 30 to 1, and there is every reason to believe that proportion has increased greatly over the past decade. We are learning how ideas flow through society like waves, but the structures and apparatuses that deliver these ideas to the people are idling. In the performing arts, the competitive pursuit of individual success comes at a great cost to the entire field, which cannot convincingly articulate its relevance to the American public. Virtually nobody benefits from these systemic problems not the artists, not the audiences, not even the investors who seek only economic profits from the arts. We are learning that consumer culture tends to keep recreating the same success-stories until we are absolutely sick of them. Baumol and Bowen write, It is easy to visualize what might happen to the performing arts if their prime objective were profit maximization. One can envision the nation's performing arts reduced to a vestigial state, with a very small number of theaters and orchestras catering to an exclusive group of persons who could afford to pay the very high and ever-rising prices necessary to keep them going. (Baumol and Bowen, p. 173) The commercial arts world is built to look retrospectively at art practices that appeal on popular, often superficial grounds, and rapidly churns out formulaic work that is more or less assured to sell. In this way, the commercial arts world tries to balance tried-and-true successful strategy against the need to seem fresh. When this sector of the arts economy engages with new ideas, they tend to no longer be new, but rather are replicas of ideas that have found a persistent counter-cultural following. In the end, we all struggle. Artists starve, forced to weigh their desires to fulfill their lifes calling against their fundamental human right to raise children in stable and sustainable homes. The reality is that even Broadway usually fails by its own standards of generating a profit on its investments. In schools, children are denied creative classrooms under the pretense of standardized success. Something is rotten in America. We hope that becoming aware of these trends will help us create something genuinely new. DEMOCRACY AND PATRIOTISM We are learning that there is a patriotic argument to engage in the practice of artistic change, in
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McCarthy, Kevin F., Arthur Brooks, Julia Lowell, and Laura Zakaras. RAND. The Performing Arts in a New Era. 2001. xix. PDF File. 6

peacefully upending power structures and calcified ideas. This change is central to the very concept of democracy, which promises equality not in each individual momentwhen there is always a hierarchy of some kindbut in the long term, when everyone eventually gets his or her chance to be in charge. The trouble, of course, is that people who have power want to keep power, and therefore it is only through continuous change and intervention, that we keep the gears of democracy moving. This is at the very heart of what the arts can offer to a thriving democracy, and why all Americans should cherish them, in the interest of our long-term health. A healthy arts ecosystem has long been considered an essential barometer of democratic health since our countrys founding. John Adams, in a letter to Abigail on May 12, 1780, wrote: I must study politics and war, that our [children] may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our [children] ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. Most people resist social change because of the inherent discomfort that comes with it, and the uncertainty that it brings. But our children will never know the difference or the discomfort bound up with the social change that we face bravely. Consider the success of the Civil Rights movement in forcing an unwilling adjustment among a large portion of the American people, especially regarding segregation, something for which we are now all thankful. We believe that time has come for us, and that our children deserve a better and more sustainable future. We seek to elevate the role of the arts in society, because with the arts comes sustainable thinking. The arts contribute to the vital sustainability of the democratic process, of continually elevating the counterpoint, and offering an antidote to any kind of power that has become too extreme. THE FLOW OF IDEAS IN SOCIETY In todays saturated media landscape, storytellers of all kinds depend upon a steady supply of new stories and new styles to hold our attention. There is very little authentic culture left in the world that has not already been appropriated and sold to us as the newest trend. Our ancestors have slowly and deliberately commodified them all into new clothing styles, musical trends, and exotic art styles (e.g., Picasso, whose work borrows heavily from African sculpture). In todays globalized world, these indigenous ideas are all but tapped-out, but new art movements and arts-based communities remain rare fountains of creativity, which keep sprouting new forms and ideas. Our economic system colonizes these enclaves as they sprout, practicing a new form of cultural colonialism. But it is empowering to realize that the independent arts community serves as the Research & Development branch for the mainstream arts sector; it demonstrates just how deeply interconnected we all are. Independent and experimental artists are beginning to see that theres real value in appropriation. As ideas flow from the underground into the mainstream, they inevitably change and expand societys understanding of whats possible. For instance, consider the 2008 Broadway hit In the Heights, which adheres to the traditional musical structure, but nonetheless broadened our expectations of what music can sound like on Broadway. It remains a forceful

demonstration that Latino music and Hip-Hop have a place in the Broadway cannon. Some may choose to be on the vanguard of creating new forms, forms that are often begrudged as too experimental. Experimental theater director Reza Abdoh assumed this role during the 1980s, creating transgressive performances that were among the very first to collage a wide variety of texts and media, something that is now commonplace in todays culture. Others can choose to bridge the gap between the experimental and the accessible, as playwright Charles Mee did for this same kind of collage-based theater, stripping away much of the vulgarity that pervaded Abdohs work (which dealt with HIV, queerness, race, and grotesque bodily functions), and using many of the same strategies to speak about themes of love and interconnection. Others still may choose to take those ideas to the masses as pure, unbridled entertainment, as commercial theater often does. Whether consciously or not, all three of the aforementioned groups are participating in the process of social and artistic change, cycling new ideas through the veins of our democracy, and continuously expanding our ideas of whats possible. Artists today may choose to locate ourselves at any point in this cycle of creativity or appropriation. The only consequencewhich we seek to transcendis that the real innovators are rarely credited for their creativity in establishing new trends and aesthetics. In the music industry, or in visual art, there always remains a recorded object with a time-stamp that serves as the proof of creativity. In the ephemeral arts, our ideas disappear as soon as they are spoken, and those ideas can be re-created by others without attribution. Feeding the sources of innovation benefits the entire arts ecosystemeven commercial artists will have more, and better, material to sell. And the true innovators will receive a fairer share of the profits. THE ARTIST As artists, our job is to render visible the invisible, stretching the imaginations of our communities, and widening reach of our empathetic spheres. Oddly, we are finding that our own struggles are invisible to most Americans, and we are taking the steps to render ourselves visible, inviting like-minded strangers to join us in solidarity. Many Americans today do not believe that they have a voice in politics. In the wake of the ongoing financial crisis that began in 2008, it has become clear that the United States has abdicated on its promise of economic mobilitythe essential foundation of the American Dream. Still, artists today are dedicating their lives to the betterment of the human condition, and the improvement of life in this country. Indeed, Baumol and Bowen remind us that we are willing to undertake considerable hardship associated with leading an artistic life:

Because performers frequently are dedicated individuals who are willing to work under economic conditions which would be considered appalling in other activities, the performing arts are relatively insensitive to general wage trends, especially in the short run. Even in the long run, earnings in the performing arts may lag behind wages in occupations which provide less in the way of psychic income. Whereas most unskilled workers, for example, are likely to regard the hourly wage as their primary reward for working, the typical performer presumably receives, in addition, considerable pleasure and personal satisfaction from his work. The important point is that, as the general level of real income increases over time, people may well feel that they are better able to afford to pursue careers which offer relatively lower money incomes but larger psychic incomes. It is largely for these reasons that performing arts organizations in financial difficulty have often managed to shift part of their financial burden back to the performers and to the managements, who also are often very poorly paid by commercial standards. The levels of income in this broad field must be considered remarkably low by any standards, and particularly so in light of the heavy investment often made by the artists in their education, training, and equipment. (Baumol & Bowen, p. 169) It has become clear during our conversations that todays artist is not simply an actor, or a designer, or a playwright. Todays artist embraces a multiplicity of identities, and generates material in many parts of the event at the same time. We find that many of the presuppositions for how to make work efficiently are unnecessarily limiting to our creativity. The fact is that the creation of good art is simply not an efficient process. Todays artist is not confined to the theater, nor to the gallery, but takes pleasure in seeking new frontiers that were previously categorically off-limits. The gallery, the concert, and the theater are impregnating one another. Rules and vocabularies conventionally located in one place are carried freely into another. The initial results are compelling, making work available to new audiences and revitalizing the energy of each space; we expect these experiments to continue for several years to come. We hope that our very identities are forcing a deep introspection upon our audiences about what is possible, and upon the large institutions who are struggling to support these developments. We believe that democracy, a fledgling project in mutual betterment, should unequivocally support the goal of exploring the unknown with all the tools available to us. The performing arts offer a unique set of tools with which to do that. Unlike past decades when New Yorkers could more easily squat in empty buildings or afford the rent in abandoned neighborhoods, nearly every artist today fills their time with a mosaic of work that includes passion-projects, money-jobs, and everything in between. We struggle with astronomical rent prices that continue to soar, and we are hopeful that our new mayor will begin to offer us protection from a housing market that threatens to price-out the citys creative class.

We generate income by working as educators, food workers, administrators, and public relations experts. We often devote this income directly to our own art-work, paying for rehearsal space, design materials, and the time of our colleagues. Taken collectively, these remittances constitute an enormous and invisible sector of the economy, not captured on tax sheets. We are saddled with crippling student debt, a problem that plagues an entire generation of young people. We expect that there will be cultural reckoning with this in the course of our lifetimes, because the situation is untenable for a healthy democracy, which seeks to produce educated and informed citizens with a real chance for economic mobility. We agree to unpaid internships that insult our value to society, while, paradoxically, reaping certain creative and career benefits years later. The last 10 years have seen an explosion of horizontally-organized performance collectives, each with a radically different method of working. For many in our community, the smallest unit is the collective, rather than the individual, and there is newfound faith that a work created equally by many brains is more nuanced and compelling than what any single person could do alone. This document is a living example of that conviction. By virtue of necessity, we have become administrators and analysts. Getting funding from the NEA or private foundations is largely an exercise in financial self-analysis. The surprising byproduct of this requirement is that the structure and apparatus of how we make work has become a form of artistic expression, too. We think it is possible that artists today are positioned to lead a social movement over the next decade that can prompt a reexamination of our structures and their underlying values. We were the first to get our budgets slashed, the first to experience reductions in philanthropy and government assistance. Yet our work is essential for the full functioning of democracy and the free flow of new ideas. Our emphasis on sustainability rather than greed, on community rather than individualism, is an essential counterpoint to the idea that markets should be left to run without regulation. Many of us believe in capitalismmany do notbut most of us believe in checks and balances; the artistic mentality offers a forceful opposition to the market mentality in a way that nothing else currently can. We seek wisdom and compassion, for ourselves, our communities, and our planet. We are fighting for survival and hoping for sustainability. THE COLLECTIVE BARGAIN Within the performing arts community, there remains a dark blanket over our conversations about money. There is very little transparency about how much everyones making. Those who struggle (or fail) to make ends meet often carry a heavy burden of shame; those who are financially comfortable feel a sense of guilt that prevents them from discussing the details of their economic lives with their less-fortunate colleagues. Indeed, many of us enjoy economic

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privilege, in the form of regular family assistance or trust funds. We must agree to create a safe space for this conversation, for people to come clean about their everyday experiences. Only then can we act together, and leverage the market on behalf of the whole. The 2013 Performing Arts Censusa platform designed to collect anonymous data about the financial health of our communityis a step in that direction. Our intention is that this census will help articulate the issues that are common to our community but that nonetheless remain unspoken, giving people cover to speak openly about common concerns. We have noticed that there exists a sense of unhealthy competition among parts of our community. The ensemble-driven, horizontal values that drive many individual companies are often not extended from company-to-company, who cultivate donors and develop administrative strategy in isolation. But history has shown that real change has only erupted in moments of deep solidarity, when we have articulated values that are in the common good and acted upon them. To that end, we flatly reject the argument that scarcity is good for the arts world, that artists are more creative under adverse conditions. We are arriving at a collective bargain, amongst ourselves, to become more transparent. It is simply our only viable path forward. THE FIVE KINDS OF VALUE We have begun to identify several kinds of value. This is the beginning of a list that will continue to grow. We hope to offer the American people a vocabulary to understand what the arts can offer to society, besides entertainment value. Economic/Entertainment Value The most obvious, and the one thats most often referenced in our culture. How much money can you get a consumer to pay for the performance, and how many consumers will pay that amount? This often correlates directly to a pieces pleasurability. Value of Social Awareness How a piece can help us become more empathetic and worldconscious, not just entertaining. This kind of value is often difficult to communicate, because it is subjective; it can be either entertaining (e.g., RENT) or difficult (e.g., Twelve Years a Slave), but valuable nonetheless. Aesthetic Value There is value in seeking new forms, purely for the sake of new forms. These forms serve as vehicles for change, and sometimes we can only find the words for a powerful new idea after we have experienced it. Educational Value The value of trying, learning, and doing better next timeintegral to the success and growth of every artist. Nebulously Economic Value The indirect income generated by the arts community, including benefits to local business and the economic value created through gentrification. At the

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inaugural Brooklyn Commune lecture on March 24th, NYU prof. Randy Martin explained that through the process of gentrification (though deeply problematic), artists generate a surplus of value with their love and energy, that then becomes colonized and sold by the landowners. Artists never get to see that profit, even though they are the primary generators of that wealth. Nebulously economic value also refers to situations where artists (or communities thereof) invent new aesthetic forms that are then sold by others, higher up on the mainstream ladder. VALUES OF THE BROOKLYN COMMUNE The following information was noted and collected during the Brooklyn Communes events and activities throughout 2013. It does not necessarily enjoy the endorsement of every member of our communityindeed we are certain that in our diverse community there will be individuals who object to this or that pointbut it attempts to articulate values that are shared broadly, and places an emphasis on ideas that are not already part of our national dialogue. The arts can change the shape of fear. Our work seeks both to confound our presumptions of what we think we know and to contextualize that which we do not yet understand. Looking around, most of the work we see attempts to be complicated and contradictory, rather than didactic or instructionary. We no longer believe that people want to be convinced to think in a particular way. Our work often embraces chaos and contradiction in such a way that enables everyoneregardless of their perspective when they enter the roomto learn something new by the time they leave. One of our ultimate goals is to expand the empathetic sphere of everyone assembled togetherartists and audience alikeby showing them something they have never before considered. We value the process at least as much as we value the outcome. This allows us to build bonds and collaborations that last years, sometimes decades, and it offers us a more sustainable way to understand ourselves and the risks we take with our work. We value working with the people we want to work with. We value diversity, and we constantly confront the feeling that we are not inclusive enough or diverse enough. We believe that is a healthy feeling, and we take regular and concrete steps to grow our communities in new ways. We want to perform to new audiences. We want to perform to the whole of America, and to the whole of the world. We wish to engage in generous and open exchange with people who might disagree with us. We want to listen. We value seeing good work that inspires us, as well as bad work that teaches us which mistakes to avoid.

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Some of us want a seat at the table of power. Some of us prefer to remain in opposition to the very concept of consolidated power, offering the counterpoint that keeps our social imaginations alive. We will do both. We want affordable space to rehearse and present our work. Under the Bloomberg administration, that space has diminished every year. We want funders who share this vision to come to us on our terms, as partners who respect the nuances of the creative process. We want the right to have children, and we wish to provide for them healthy, comfortable lives. We seek self-actualization, for ourselves, our communities, and our audiences. We seek to produce knowledge, community, aesthetic value, and civic participation. We seek to learn together and move forward together. WHAT DOES A POLITICAL ART MOVEMENT LOOK LIKE? A movement has been brewing for years, in rehearsal rooms and dive bars, settlement houses, theaters and galleries. When Bowen and Baumol wrote their 1966 study, there were too few independent theater companiesgroups like The Living Theatre or The Performance Group who could not fit comfortably into the Broadway of Off-Broadway economiesto be counted as a substantial part of the economic sector. Today, the independent arts community in New York City vastly outnumbers the commercial and Off-Broadway worlds combined. The first wave of the avant-gardewhen we picked a particular idea or process as a utopian vehicleis complete. Artists no longer believe that we are at the forefront of a single idea that will prompt utopian revolution. Social change moves faster than it ever used to in the Twentieth Century, and we have recalibrated our intentions. No single idea can change the world. But together, as a cultural force, we can regularly and forcefully expand the publics understanding of whats possible, and that is a profound and emancipatory act. We can see that a second wave of the avant-garde is emerging, with a developed awareness of media strategies, of power relations, and of arts very function as a vehicle for new ideas. It understands that capitalism eats, digests, and spits out fads, and that we can exert control over the system by sending cultural bombs that ripple through society. The avant-garde is becoming a long form game, one that uses aesthetics as tools rather than ends themselves. There is space for both systemic solutions (working within the system as it stands) and revolutionary solutions (overhauling the system), and indeed both are necessary if we are going to improve the lives of artists within and against the global economy of our time. We hope that the process of creating this document reflects the fundamental messages of solidarity and

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collaboration. Our solutions must not only be described, but also demonstrated. We see groups like The Yes Men and Pussy Riot who activate new strategies for manipulating the media, leveraging the inherent flaws and glitches to generate short-circuits for social change. We have a lot to learn from their performative and activist efforts, which incorporate a heavy dose of humor. In 2004, The Yes Men4 gained notoriety for impersonating the representatives of Dow Chemical / Union Carbide, an organization associated with a disaster in Bhopal, India that exposed over 500,000 people to toxic chemicals and killed thousands. On the twentieth anniversary of the disaster, The Yes Men impersonators were invited onto BBC World television, and announced that Union Carbide was, at long last, taking responsibility for the disaster. The representative declared that Dow would liquidate part of their organization in order to distribute major reparations to the Indian people, and the fake-news rippled around the globe. Representatives from Dow were then forced to publicly rebuke the story, saying that no they were not acknowledging their prior fault, and would not pay reparations to those injured, who still suffer today, thereby bringing attention to an issue that had long since receded from the headlines. Instances such as these, and those like Occupy Wall Street, reinforce our conviction that demonstrating alternatives to the public is more powerful than merely talking about them. A large part of this movement will play out on the streets and through the media. Performing artists are expert storytellers and craftpersons, and we are focusing our attention on the collective consciousness, inviting like-minded citizens to join us in the theaters, galleries, and streets. Knowing when and how to end a movement is a delicate balance, and not something that has actively been part of any previous movements. This arts movement must understand at the outset that it will one day die, and should die, or else become something that it was never intended to be. Too many movements have grown too large for their own good, ultimately compromising their ability to enlist new supporters, and putting future social movements at a disadvantage. We wish to be self-critical and proactive, understanding that trying always trumps paralysis, so long as it is rooted in the spirit of generosity. EDUCATION To all parents of young children: now, more than ever, send your children to the theater. Offer them a forceful contrast to their technological immersion and help them develop interpersonal intelligence. Share with them the value of collaboration and interconnectedness. Fight for creativity in your schools. As the threat of natural disaster rises in the face of climate change, the leaders of tomorrow will face even more challenges than we have, and they must be primed to work together for the common good.
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Dow Does the Right Thing. The Yes Men. The Yes Men, n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. 14

There was a recent story that shook our hearts: a Boston principal of a struggling inner-city school fired security guards in order to hire art teachers. Fights dropped dramatically and the school is improving rapidly. What are the lessons here for the culture at-large? http://dailynightly.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/01/18005192-principal-fires-security-guards-tohire-art-teachers-and-transforms-elementary-school?lite Participating in the performing arts offers invaluable skills that last a lifetime. Over the course of this study, we have encountered countless non-arts professionalstrial lawyers, local politicians, business leaderswho attribute a great deal of their success to the communication skills they developed on stages as children. Indeed, performance can offer the confidence required to transcend cultural and economic barriers. As the arts are slashed from our childrens curricula, this privilege should not be confined only to those families with the means to pay for them. Creative development is the right of every child in America. THE PRESS We are learning that the press has failed all of us. The New York Times is almost exclusively staffed with critics who seem mostly interested in judging work by their mass-appeal, forgetting that they are responsible for helping audiences appreciate the value of art that they might not otherwise understand. One cannot identify a genuinely creative experience by judging it with yesterdays standards. Each art piece must instead be understood on its own terms, within the frame that it is proposing. The frame itself may also be subject to criticism, but only when it is married with an effort to bridge the gap between yesterdays standards and tomorrows standards. Sadly, the current state of criticism tends to automatically denigrate innovation, stunt aesthetic growth, and deny cultural fluency to the spectator. Taken collectively, the press demonstrates very little interest in preparing audiences for powerful and unfamiliar experiences. The press doesnt merely reflect the wishes of an audience that seeks entertainment instead of transformation; it actively creates that audience. It might take extra time to explain why Picasso distorted the bodies of his subjects, but that is time well spent. In the process, the spectator learns much about the world, and the limits of communication. Instead the highest levels of art criticism are nothing more than synopses, or shallow assessments of aesthetic craft. Those are the values that we should use to judge our entertainment, but not our art, which serves a larger social function, and deserves to be understood on its own terms, rather than on the terms of simply what is pleasurable by current standards. In order to get a review in the New York Times, it usually costs a company $2000-$4000 to hire a press agentan amount that is sometimes larger than the entire budget of the show. We are beginning to wonder why the opinion of the Times matters at all. We yearn for an accessible, democratic, and critically-engaged press. We want the media to encourage risk-taking among all audiences, and help usher in the ideas of tomorrow.

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SOLUTIONS AND PROPOSALS The independent performing arts community is in desperate need of more infrastructure, and of megaphones. We must develop a press strategy to maximize the amplification of new ideas, and of the needs of our community. And it is only up to us, in collaboration with visionary investors, to invent these new institutions. In New York City, there are several organizations that serve the entire community at once. Materials for the Arts (MFTA), run by the city of New York, give free materials of all kinds to Non-Profits, including printers, office chairs, fabric of all kind, crafts and much more. Build It Green sells building materials to all people at a radically discounted rate. Art Cube is a listserv that helps people in the film and theater community brainstorm construction-related problems. Fractured Atlas is an umbrella organization that gives Non-Profit status to artists and companies who could not otherwise afford it. Groups like the Alliance of Resident Theaters (ART/NY), the League of Independent Theatres (LIT), and Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET) offer interorganizational infrastructure and grants to theater companies of all sizes. All of these organizations have proven essential for the independent arts community, providing structure where there is none, and empowering the field to become more competitive with commercial theater, which spends an inordinate amount on internal organization. There are dozens of similarly-spirited organizations that have yet to be invented. We must convince commercial and mainstream institutions that it is in their long-term interest to fund the Research and Development work of the experimental community. What is experimental today will become mainstream in a few short years. The League of Independent Theaters (LIT) has started a $0.05 LIT Fund. Participating organizations donate $0.05 of every ticket sold to the fund, which helps the field of emerging artists. It is absolutely in the long-term interest of Broadway to participate. We are beginning to ask: Where is the subsidized shop space for the performing arts community, to help emerging artists engage deeply with design and environment, when tools and storage are otherwise prohibitively expensive? Where is the downtown and outer-borough version of Broadway.com, which can direct tourists to experimental theater of all kinds in a clear and articulate manner? Our performances tour regularly across the globe and are considered among the most inventive in the world. Many tourists, if they knew where to look, would certainly come, but there are few user-friendly portals for those audiences. Where is the subsidized storage space for scenery, where companies can keep items from old shows, and rent them out to other companies at a small fee that helps cover the cost of the space and its maintenance? We seek every possible ways for companies to create collaborative structures to work together and cut down on costs.

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Where can we go to share that a performance has changed us for the better? How can we harness the power of crowdsourcing to find those rare pieces that transform the mind and soul? The markets have failed us on that front. Its time we bypassed the system. And where is our real criticism, which is accessible, rigorous, and interested in continuous change? None of these infrastructure proposals can generate financial profit if they are to be truly useful, but they offer help to the entire community in a way that individual grants can never achieve. Governments have an essential role to ease the markets inability to support the performing arts. Communities around the country should consider instituting an Art Tax, as has been instituted in Portland, OR. We need as many of these programs that we can get. We need investors to step forward who value the creative spirit. And we need city, state, and national policies that demonstrate appreciation for the value of the performing arts as a democratic force, and that support the artists who create it. This is hard and important work, and our commitment to it grows every day.

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