Theatre Without Borders

Photo by Dave Levy — Some Rights Reserved

Our blogger from Cuba, Harald Himsel, continues his series on creating a documentary film about Silvio Rodríguez and his influence on music and politics. (See our other Cuban posts.) Rodríguez, one of the founders of Nueva Trova Cubana, is a Latin American icon. Himsel is a German documentary filmmaker, and also the managing director of a consultancy firm that works in developing countries.

Silvio Rodriguez is presenting his newest CD, Segunda Cita. It is a big press conference which is more of a ceremony than anything else. There are more than 300 journalists in the room, and questions are flying in from all corners of the world, as well as via email and SMS. Silvio answers them all, with a certain kind of grandezza, a sovereignty of an artist that the western world would call “superstar”. Throughout the meeting, one thing is obvious: Silvio dedicates his art, his music, to the Cuban Revolution.

Roughly fifty years ago, Fidel Castro discovered the art and the importance of a media strategy. Fidel had invited the US-American journalist Herbert Matthews to his hideaway in the Sierra Maestra. At that time, the guerrilleros around Fidel were only a few with a handful of old guns. Castro knew that not only did he have to fight the Batista regime, but he also had to keep other revolutionary group such the Grupo 13 Marzo and the Socialist People’s Party at arm’s length. Even then, Fidel was very well aware of the power of the media, and he knew very well how to play it. Fidel let his men parade in front of Matthews in different formations and in different uniforms making Matthews believe that he had assembled quite a large force to be reckoned with. Whether Matthews really believed him is not known. None the less, Matthews’ article in the New York Times catapulted the M-26-7 movement (so named after the failed attack on the Moncada Barracks) into the world’s political limelight. Capitalism was to be fought on all fronts. From that moment on, the Cuban Revolution not only had a political dimension, but also a cultural one.

In his song Por Quien Merece Amor, Silvio Rodriguez addresses the US asking ‘Te molesta mi amor’ — is my love getting to you? — ‘mi amor de humanidad’ – my love for humanity? The lyrics and melody of this song remind one more of a love song than a political manifesto, which it is without question. In Cancion Urgente Para Nicaragua, Silvio sides with the fight of the Sandinistas. In the last verse he sings: ‘Te lo dice un hermano que ha sangrado contigo, te lo dice un cubano, te lo dice un amigo.’ – That’s what a brother tells you, a brother who bled with you; that’s what a Cuban tells you, that’s what a friend tells you.’

When we came back from Silvio’s press conference, we noticed that obviously there hadn’t been any power for several hours. We returned from revolutionary fervor to the real life of daily struggle in Cuba. Power shortages are frequent nowadays. The Cuban economy is dwindling. The country needs foreign exchange badly to pay for all the imports. The blockade does its harm, and it’s not only the US, it’s also Europe despite some lip service to the contrary.

We took a coffee on the rooftop of our house. Later in the evening long after dark, I am sitting in front of an elderly lady of eighty something. She once worked very closely with Che Guevara during and after the revolution. Numerous questions come to my mind, trying to get beyond the dreaming romanticizing beret-wearing face that looks at us from all those t-shirts, cups and plastic bags. Questions that nobody but she would be able to answer. But it would be futile to ask her. She suffers from dementia. She does not remember anything. All about the Revolution is lost for her. All is forgotten.

Some time ago, Fidel said: In real life we are far behind our own utopia; In our arts we have surpassed it since long.

Is this the remaining truth of the revolution?

- Harald Himsel

Wilco created a perfect festival.

The band’s devoted fans have known for years that Wilco performs music that is so genuine, so honest, it is irresistible. Imagine rock stars who don’t know they are stars. They dress like you, write what you’re thinking, play together with the same enthusiasm as a high school group having fun in someone’s garage, and are as accessible as your best friends. And, they make great art. Now, they’ve made a great festival.

This past weekend, Wilco teamed up with the Berkshire’s MASS MoCA to curate the Solid Sound Festival, a festival of music, visual art, theatre, comedy, film, and fun.

MASS MoCA is one of the most visited museums of new art in the United States. Based in North Adams, Massachusetts, MASS MoCA is a sprawling complex of industrial buildings that has presented some of the most boundary-stretching visual and performance art of the last ten years. Current exhibits include “Gravity is a Force to be Reckoned With” and Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective , a once-in-a-lifetime presentation of LeWitt’s work.

Before the Solid Sound Festival began, the museum’s director, Joe Thompson, said: “MASS MoCA is about giving artists the opportunity to make new work.” Although they have hosted a number of performing art residencies and productions, “This is a stretch, so I hope you have fun watching us be stretched!”

Wilco curated the festival, pulling together all the acts across the artistic disciplines, and featuring some of their own forays into new territories. In a KadmusArts podcast, Wilco’s Glenn Kotche spoke about making “something a little different.” On the afternoon before the festival kick-off, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy said that the band had been looking for a place a bit off the beaten path. Sitting in one of the open-space galleries of MASS MoCA he said, “We are grateful that a place like this would have people like us.”

This is part of a trend. Other artists who have begun to curate festivals include Richard Thompson at Meltdown, David Byrne for one of the stages at Bonnaroo, and David Bowie with High Line, to name a few.

After all, aren’t you curious about what kind of music your favorite musician likes? What kind of art inspires them? What creative works make their day better? It’s like your best friend who tells you, “you’ve got to hear this!”

The spirit of a Wilco-infused MASS MoCA was also defined by the audience. The crowd included small children, teenagers, the middle aged, and the old; gen x and gen y, hippies of yesteryear and today, urbanites, and country dwellers; a crowd made for a perfect party.

Every event at the festival had the same vibe as Wilco’s music: honest, genuine, fun, deep, intimate, generous, and in the end, made you glad to be connected to others.

In other words, the very elements of a perfect festival.

- Bill Reichblum

Photo by Antoine Nexon — Some Rights Reserved

Have you ever watched a performance and thought, “Wow. They got a grant for that?”

Many artists, especially those who push their art form’s boundaries, have suffered from overhearing such a comment. If we’re being honest, sometimes the comment is deserved. However, one way to meet the criticism head-on is to have a better understanding of the artist’s intention, in order to be able to evaluate the implications of the artist’s execution. Right?

Well, according to the editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine… Wrong!

In a recent post, as featured on KadmusArts’ daily arts news feed, Wendy Perron is angry about having to read choreographers writing about their work. You would think Dance Magazine would be at the front of connecting audiences to dance. You would be wrong.

Perron writes, there is “…an annoying new trend of blogging about the process of making a dance… I am talking about young choreographers, anxious to be in the public eye, who think that writing about what happened that day in the studio will somehow 1) bring them a wider audience and/or 2) make them a better choreographer.”

Oh, so the problem is both about using online platforms to connect with your potential audience and that articulating your vision in words doesn’t translate into what happens in the studio. Is that really a big problem in the dance field? Are their audiences growing so much and so hip to what’s taking place that they just want to watch and not understand? Are the best and brightest incapable of writing about their process?

Perron, who has taught as well as danced, covered her own inspirations as a “third-generation postmodern choreographer” in the book Reinventing Dance in the 1960s: Everything Was Possible. Well, I guess it no longer is. (By the way, anyone want to add to the blog to help us understand what it really means to wake up and approach our daily work as “third-generation postmodern”?)

Even though Perron’s approach appears to be audiences-be-damned, she is trying to help the next generation (fourth-generation postmodern?): “But explaining how you make a dance, the problems you encounter and how you solve them, is not going to help either you as the choreographer or your potential audience. To dig into your imagination enough to make a dance, you need to be embroiled in a place where there is no explanation.”

A place with “no explanation.” Oh, please. A theatre with no audience.

“What if you’re in the studio working on a piece, and you’re thinking about what you’re going to say about it in your blog? Wouldn’t that compromise your process?” Well, sure, if you had nothing to say, or were incapable of articulating your idea. The whole point is to help us dumb outsiders understand the process. There is a process right?

Connecting audiences to art is all about context. The more you know about a work of art the more you can appreciate the work of art.

High schools and universities that have included dance programs not only as part of accessible activities, but also as part of the practical and intellectual curriculum, not only produce future dancers, but perhaps more importantly also produce future dance audiences. Wouldn’t these kinds of blogs that so irritate Perron be a wonderful resource for future generations of artists and audiences?

The more an artist is part of an audience’s community, the more the community can appreciate what it is the artist is trying to do.

Many of those students who took Martha Graham classes, either from Graham or her acolytes, became the audience — and the funders — for dance in their communities. They understood Graham’s technique, expression, and mission from the inside and then became ambassadors for the modern dance movement.

The online platforms that so distress Perron are the very platforms that help us learn more about artistic work. To provide context and “backstage” access about the making of an event has helped propel audiences to the arts, to sports, and to all live events. Surely dance is not in such a strong position to be able to afford turning away from effective audience development. Online context has helped to deepen the connection to current audiences and reach new audiences.

Can modern dance really afford to be silent?

- Bill Reichblum

Wear a red nose with pride.

Posted in our culture news feed this week was an Economist interview with a clown. Not one of those clowns who doesn’t know they are a clown (a politician for example?), but a young woman who celebrates the title, Selena McMahan.

McMahan is a member of an incredibly wonderful organization, Clowns Without Borders. Clowns Without Borders (CWB) is devoted to providing support and laughs to communities affected by trauma from natural disasters and political tragedies.

CWB raises funds to send clowns to refugee camps, countries in conflict, and areas affected by humanitarian emergencies. CWB’s recent projects include working in Egypt with Sudanese refugees, in Ethiopia with orphans, in Myanmar with children in distressed areas, in Guatamala after the hurricanes, and in Haiti after the earthquake.

CWB was founded in 1993, when Tortell Poltrona, a professional clown, was invited to perform at a refugee camp in Croatia. Seeing laughter’s effect on so many children in such a dire situation, Poltrona founded CWB to create a network of clowns willing to help. Currently, CWB has organizations in nine countries: Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, and the United States.

CBW’s tag line? No Child without a Smile.

That’s not just a great tag line. That’s a great mission.

For another story of art as a powerful aid, listen to this week’s podcast with Sonya Mazumdar about the Laya Project.

- Bill Reichblum

Photo by Mark Chang — Some Rights Reserved

This just in: It helps to be special, and to be fair.

As posted in this week’s news, the Wall Street Journal reports on a tepid summer for aspects of the live music business. Is it a long-term trend? Or, is it a short-term lesson?

Good news: it’s only a short-term lesson, and one that’s great news for fans.

Lesson one: You know your business is in trouble when your model is in the airline industry. A number of concerts this season have adopted the airlines’ approach to selling tickets: you never know how much or how little your fellow passengers have paid for a seat. While airlines at least favor those who commit to travel the most in advance, some concerts have lowered their prices closer to the event, so that their most devoted fans who bought early are paying more than those who waited. That’s no way to run an airline, or to build fan support. The key is make your best fans feel that they are getting the best price.

Lesson two: You know your future is in doubt when you rely on the past tense. Who’s not doing so well on the road? The baby-boomer oldies’ acts that keep doing the same show year, after year, after year. On the other hand, special event acts, such as James Taylor and Carole King Troubadour Reunion tour is doing boffo biz. In other words, just like everyone else, the boomers pay for live events that are genuine events.

Selling special events is why the festival business continues to grow. Noted in the same WSJ report, festivals are doing very well. Festival business thrives because it combines a bang-for-the-buck pricing value with the atmosphere of a special event. One price for multiple acts gives everyone a sense of value. Moreover, the best festivals combine acts you know with acts you are delighted to discover. Life is great when you can report: “We were there, when….”

So, no need to fret from complicated pricing schemes and has-been saturation. Celebrate festival value and discovering new sounds.

(P.S. One way to build fan support is to give away free tickets through special offers. Want a free ticket?)

- Bill Reichblum

Photo by noquarter — Some Rights Reserved

If only more artists were fans of The Grateful Dead.

Of course, it might be hard to imagine not using a soundtrack of the Dead for many of life’s dramas and celebrations. But, it is even more startling how many artists ignore the business lessons of The Grateful Dead.

Before Facebook, they knew how to generate a community of fans.
Before YouTube, they knew how to capitalize on user-generated recordings of their shows.
Before Twitter, they knew how to create a social network.

Too often artists and their organizations, especially outside of music, turn to their marketing departments to purchase services from web developers and turn to the interns to figure how best to communicate their “message” through online social networks. Ugh.

How did The Dead succeed where so many continue to waste money and fail?

The artists who made The Grateful Dead were intimately involved in the business of The Grateful Dead. Their goal was to drive fans to the live event.

The Grateful Dead probably played more free concerts than any other band in the history of rock ‘n roll.

The band made sure each performance was a one-of-a-kind — not only changing set lists, but never playing the same song the same way.

Perhaps most importantly, The Grateful Dead encouraged fans not only to record their shows, but to disseminate the recordings for free. They even set up a dedicated taping section so that all the individual microphones did not interfere with the band’s PA system. Often they would allow those who were recording to tap right into the sound system for a better recording.

That’s how to play smart.

Of their 2,340 live performances, apparently around 2,200 were taped by members of the audience. This user generated content created one of the most determined fan bases in the history of the arts — one that not only bought tickets, but also Dead merchandise. (The Grateful Dead did keep control of that kind of copyright and license.)

Last March, Joshua Green of The Atlantic wrote about the academic study of The Dead’s business model. Green also spoke to the former Dead lyricist, John Perry Barlow, who went on to become not only a rancher but a critical thinker about the internet, including his position with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Two examples of Barlow’s words of wisdom to propel your art: “The best way to raise demand for your product is to give it away”; and, “Familiarity has more value than security.”

If you lead an arts group or band and you think business and social networks are for the managers and the interns, then you should probably get out of the business of the arts.

It’s not about the latest social network. It’s not about the latest graduate student research into how the arts use the web. It’s not about the latest intern who has so many friends, followers, and FourSquare badges. It’s about driving audiences to the live event. It’s about the business lessons from The Grateful Dead.

Sometimes, the light’s all shining on me.
Other times, I can barely see.
Lately, it occurs to me – what a long, strange trip it’s been.

Just keep truckin’ on.

- Bill Reichblum

When theatre artists talk, they like to act.

One of the world’s great theatre and art cities, Chicago, hosted the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) national conference this past weekend. Unlike many other conferences, TCG puts the focus squarely on its own members: America’s not-for-profit theatre artists and workers. The majority of sessions featured TCG’s constituents and provided the opportunity to maximize participation.

KadmusArts had the chance to present our way of deepening the connection to current audiences and reaching new audiences for live performance. What came out of that discussion was a clear consensus that too often artistic directors leave the theatre’s online space to their marketing staffs. What takes place online is not only an opportunity to brand their theatre, but also becomes an extension of their theater’s creative work for the audience. The engine that drives the music industry should also drive the theatre industry: digital material compels audiences to the live event.

(We also might have provided a TCG first: beginning the talk with a large photograph of Ronald Reagan. Although his governmental policies were not friendly to the arts in general and artists in particular, he does represent one kind of way theatres think about developing their online presence: we call it waiting for the “trickle-down messiah” who will come in and solve all problems. The other two ways are the Kim Jong-Il approach, which is to ignore the modern world and pretend online apps don’t exist; or, the Will.i.am approach which is to maximize sponsorship, mash-ups, and creative work. If interested, you can see more here.)

TCG’s magazine, American Theatre, will provide extensive coverage of the gathering in a coming issue. In the meantime, thanks to fellow twitter posts and eavesdroppers, here is a representation of voices from the corridors and the rooms:

Chicago theatre did not grow by placing a large cultural center in the middle of town, as in other cities. The theatre community developed not from a trickle down but a bubble up from below. (Richard Christiansen, former chief critic of Chicago’s main newspaper, the Chicago Tribune)

No mistake that theatre and democracy began around the same time.

How can we get theatre goers to EMBRACE the creativity of that failure?

Theatre is the most visceral form of empathy.

Artists have the same right to experiment and fail as a scientist does.

If artists need to respond rapidly to the needs of communities, how can cities respond rapidly to needs of artists?

Some organizations claim to engage their communities, but listening is more than just waiting to speak.

It’s not just playwrights who need prizes. Prizes need prizes, too. (Alex Kilgore of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize on accepting the National Funder Award.)

Producers should create the circumstances where the artists can take the necessary risks. (Bernard Gersten on accepting an award.)

Inclusion and kindness make for a better process, and a better process makes for better art. (Bill Rauch of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival on accepting an award.)

I couldn’t bear to go home and tell my children I couldn’t face the issues of my time.

And, a perfect exit line:

Everything’s all right in the end, and if it’s not all right, it’s not the end.

- Bill Reichblum

In the old days (from 3000 b.c.e. until the late 1990’s), “interactive” wasn’t about new media and marketing techniques, but about the interaction between artists and audiences.

Maybe it’s time for the live arts to leap from today’s technology to recapture the leading role in driving interactive possibilities and engagement.

This week, the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) will be holding its national conference in Chicago. The gathering brings together America’s not-for-profit theatres — the institutions, the boards, the artistic and management staffs, and the individual artists. (TCG is the central organization for the non-commercial theatre world in America. The organization publishes plays and books, a great magazine, collects data on trends and resources, and also hosts the International Theatre Institute’s USA office and outreach.)

In preparation for leading a session at the conference, KadmusArts put together a presentation on everything-we-think-we-know about web development, data, and how the arts tell their story online. (All in a few slides!) And, we’ve been thinking a lot about how the live arts can deepen the connection to their current audience and reach new audiences.

Clearly, innovations across technology, business and the arts are propelling new online opportunities to connect, exchange and inspire. Yet, how often are arts companies chasing the latest technology, social network, or mobile app instead of letting their content determine the tools? And, why is the conversation about online tools so often about marketing as opposed to being an extension of the creative work itself? In other words, who leads: the biz or the art?

In speaking with a playwright, the great director Harold Clurman said: “I can’t turn your shit into gold, but I can turn your gold into shit.” In other words, he knew that at the center was the creative work itself.

KadmusArts.com began as a simple link between the live stage and audiences all around the world. (Right now we are up to representing every kind of dance, music and theatre festival in 154 countries!) As we’ve watched the site grow (and thank you for its amazing growth!) and created online content packages for other arts, media and entertainment companies, we’ve seen the possibilities in what it means to be in the lobby, as it were, between the artists on stage and the audiences coming in.

The reason the best producers and artists hang out in the lobby is to be able to listen to what the audience has to say. The reason audiences like to hang-out in the lobby is to be able to contribute to the discussion, to the work itself. Everyone is trading stories. Don’t you think this is exactly how online engagement works at its best? And when it does, isn’t it the best way to maximize an audience connection today and develop the audiences of tomorrow?

Unlike the theatre lobby, the online space is open 24/7 as a gathering place for artists, management, and audiences. Once you fully appreciate that the lobby is always open and accessible, it becomes clear that the choice of tools and how to use them must change for the audience and artist interaction.

What do you think should be in the online 24/7 “lobby”? What’s your ideal online platform to propel not just the audiences but the artistic work, as well? How do you answer the question, “What if?”

- Bill Reichblum

Artistic diplomacy works. So does the freedom to transform a revolution.

KadmusArts’ Culture News feed featured a story this week of America welcoming back one of Cuba’s iconic singers, Silvio Rodríguez. In fact, we’ve been following the life of Rodríguez for the past couple of months.

KadmusArts’ guest blogger, Harald Himsel, has been writing about his project to capture the world of Silvio Rodríguez, Cuba’s “Bob Dylan”. Himsel’s three blog posts, In Search of Silvio Rodríguez, Coffee with Fidel, and Ay la Vida: A Hippie in Communism track the career, legacy, and impact of Rodríguez’s music and Nueva Trova movement.

Rodríguez’s American tour is clearly part of the diplomatic process of relations between Cuba and the United States. Bloomberg News reported the reaction of Christopher Sabatini, policy director at the Council of the Americas, “The fact that we’re willing to grant a visa to Silvio Rodríguez, an icon of the [Cuban] revolution, the bard of the revolution, demonstrates that the Cold War dynamic, the fear, the isolation, the retribution, we’re past that,” Sabatini said. Needless to say, that’s good news.

Even better news is Rodríguez’s political self-examination process. In one of his new songs, Rodríguez sings about “transcending the ‘r’ in revolution.” As he told the Associated Press, “I hope evolution takes us, as the angel in the song says, right up to the crossroads where we made the wrong decision and we rectify that.” That’s a new tune from the sound of experience-earned wisdom and with a note of hope.

Rodríguez is sixty-three years old and has lived through becoming the leading voice of a new generation, a political insider as a member of parliament, and world traveler as an “official” Cuban artist. Of course, no one can deny that there were, and are, other artists who never did and do not have the chance to sing for a new generation, to participate in the government, or to travel outside of Cuba.

One of Rodríguez’s songs was dedicated to five Cubans convicted of spying and imprisoned in America. There was no such dedication to any political prisoners being held in Cuba.

Still, this is a start: America allows a genuine dissident voice to come to perform and promote Cuba; Cuba allows Rodríguez to begin to stretch the envelope of new political thinking; and, everyone benefits from openly engaging an artist, his ideas, and his music.

In the sixties, when Silvio Rodríguez was finding his voice, it was forbidden in Cuba to listen to the Beatles, and for the past forty-seven years, America has enforced a travel ban and trade embargo with Cuba. This year, the American congress may have the opportunity to vote for the end of the travel ban and Cuba has survived even with a Beatles soundtrack.

Genuine leadership and legitimate government will always support the freedom of travel and the freedom of expression. It may be naive, but it’s true: all citizens have the opportunity to live a better life when ever and where ever artists are free to think, create, and perform.

As Rodríguez said himself at his open American press conference, “We have to get along well, sooner or later.”

Now, that’s something to sing about.

- Bill Reichblum

This week, everyone in Germany is probably wearing new blue underwear; or at least, they are singing about it:
I went everywhere for you
I even did my hair for you
I bought new underwear they’re blue
and I wore ‘em them just the other day

This is the best news Angela Merkel has had in weeks: Germany won. Not only that, it took the granddaughter of a former West German ambassador to the Soviet Union to bring home a prize.

Lena Meyer-Landrut and her song, Satellite, has won the Eurovision Song Contest. The recently-turned nineteen year-old, Meyer-Landrut was in the middle of taking her high school exams when the contest began. Thirty-nine countries entered a song, twenty-five made the final round, ten million votes were cast, and one hundred and twenty-five million watched Germany come out on top.

The contest, which is usually completely over the top in costumes and imbecilic songs, was started in in 1956 by Marcel Bezencon, director of European Broadcasting Union, to unify European cultural fans around a common event. The first Eurovision contest took place in Lugano with seven nations competing. (Switzerland won with Refrain by Lys Assia.)

Often, the stranger the act and the weirder the song title, the better the chance to win. After all, who can forget Boom-Bang-a-Bang (Britain, 1969), DiggiLoo DiggiLey, (Sweden, 1984); A Ba Ni Bi, (Israel, 1978) and Ding a Dong, (Netherlands, 1975), or Germany’s big hit a decade ago (2000), Wadde Hadde Dudde Da? Satellite certainly not only sounds better, but is a lot less embarrassing.

For a Euro-pride event, strangely enough, songs sung in English have won twenty-three times. Volare, originally Domenico Modugno’s Nel Blu Di Pinto Di Blu, is the most covered song in Eurovision history. Still, ABBA’s 1974 winning Waterloo, with glittering costumes, did more than anything to make this contest the go-to smirk-and-fun event that it is today.

For the high-minded, there’s the Venn diagram analysis in a scholarly journal article, Comparison of Eurovision Song Contest Simulation with Actual Results Reveals Shifting Patterns of Collusive Voting Alliances; for the ironically-minded, there’s the Hell Has Frozen Over greeting to Finland’s victory by Finland’s own national newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat.

Still, at a time when many American sports team crown themselves “World Champions”, even if they have only played against teams from 34 states and a few cities in Canada, Eurovision gives us a Euro Champion taste of pan-European culture – for better or worse.

This year, Germany gives us all a little pop – to our playlist and to our step. Given the Euro-economy, a little pop and Satellite love is probably a good thing.

Maybe, Chancellor Merkel will be singing to Greece:
I went everywhere for you
I even did my hair for you
I bought new underwear they’re blue
and I wore ‘em them just the other day

- Bill Reichblum

Photo by David Muir — Some Rights Reserved

Some preach to the choir; others sing for freedom. The former is easy and common. The latter is hard and rare.

That’s why government leaders often choose the first. A perfect case in the point was this week’s decision by the Pakistani government to ban the use of Facebook because of anti-Muslim postings on the site. The offense was an “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” page as a provocation for freedom of speech. The page has since been taken down, possibly by its creator, after receiving plenty of press and posts.

There’s no doubt that for the religious this page was an inappropriate and offensive act. There’s also no doubt that the page tested a national approach to freedom of thought and expression. Pakistani officials acted as expected.

We should expect more from our artists, right? After all, few expect moral courage and intellectual leadership from any government in our modern world. However, we do look to politically engaged artists to show us the light.

As we learned about Pakistan’s decision, we also learned that Elvis Costello cancelled his tour’s upcoming performances in Israel. Costello wrote to fans that “After Considerable Contemplation” he could not countenance performing in Israel. Why now? It appears his tour would not receive any money from the Israeli government nor was their any other apparent connection between his stage and their Knesset. Moreover, it was not clear how the situation had radically changed since Costello originally made the tour commitment. Costello posted how he arrived at his decision, concluding:

Sometimes a silence in music is better than adding to the static and so an end to it. I cannot imagine receiving another invitation to perform in Israel, which is a matter of regret but I can imagine a better time when I would not be writing this. With the hope for peace and understanding.

It is his music and his right to perform when and where he wants. Surely, we all hope for a new time of “peace and understanding.” However, given his own country’s tortuous relationship with Israel and its global constituents (see the new book by Anthony Julius), this appears to be more about wanting to preach to the choir than singing for peace. This isn’t about taking money from a government or a company that one disagrees with. That, of course, is totally understandable. If a government turns your stomach, why would you turn up your palm for a hand-out? No, this statement appears to be more about making oneself or one’s actions appear noble. After all, Costello makes the argument that “sometimes silence in music is better.”

Really? In the face of injustice is silence the right response? Wouldn’t it be more powerful to get up on stage and sing about one’s beliefs? Wouldn’t it be more helpful?

Costello had a stage platform to bring people together, but has chosen to use his online platform to separate people.

Governments bring about change by silencing opponents. Artists can bring about change by bringing people together in song, poetry — and politics.

Here’s hoping more artists are up to the challenge.

- Bill Reichblum