It’s the year of the great pivot.
That’s what a panel of experts agreed on in a recent virtual discussion on the state of the arts in North Texas hosted by The Dallas Morning News. Whether it’s in classical music, dance, theater, literature or the visual arts, organizations are figuring out how to maintain their audiences — and staff — during the pandemic, while also planning for the uncertain future.
More than a few artists and groups have adapted by turning to the internet. But at least two critics believe this is not entirely satisfying.
“The problem with classical music is it depends on a certain acoustical ambience, which you can’t get in your living room,” says Scott Cantrell, classical music contributor to The News. “I see this only as a stop-gap measure. It’s certainly not a long-term solution.”
Manuel Mendoza, theater and dance contributor to The News, misses the visceral impact of the live experience. “It just isn’t the same,” he says. “The actors react to how the audiences are reacting. If you’re used to performing in front of live audiences, it’s very difficult to perform with nobody in the room.”
‘Rising to the challenge’
Shuttered since early March, major art museums in the region — including the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth — announced that they will reopen at limited capacity. More than a few galleries have been open since early May by appointment only, but gallery owners have told Darryl Ratcliff, a visual arts contributor to The News, that there haven’t been many appointments.
“Some galleries are shifting everything into 2021,” he says, adding that it’s unclear whether the Dallas Art Fair, which was rescheduled from April to October, will take place.
But artists on an individual level have been “rising to the challenge,” Ratcliff says. Many have engaged with the recent #BlackLivesMatter protests, including Teresa Nguyen and those involved in the Umbrella Project.
For this initiative, artists have painted yellow umbrellas with the names of people who have been killed by the Dallas Police Department since 1970. These umbrellas have been carried by Dallas protesters, shielding them from the sun and potential tear gas and rubber bullets.
Diversity and representation
Many are also looking to arts institutions, collectors and nonprofits to “make more lasting change and commitment to artists of color in the city,” Ratcliff says. “I think there’s a concern that this might be a fad, and once we get into the fall, this will be a distant memory, and institutions will go back to business as usual.”
One way to avoid this scenario might be to include more artists of color on arts boards so that they can “have a place at the table,” as Sanderia Faye, author of Mourner’s Bench and co-leader of PEN America Dallas/Fort Worth, puts it. “We really are just not there, and if we’re not there making the decisions, we’re going to continuously be left out,” she says.
Faye also notes that the pandemic came at a bad time for the area’s literary community. “We were quickly moving forward into making Dallas a literary city,” she says. Although the Dallas Festival of Books and Ideas was canceled earlier this month, programs including Writing Workshops Dallas and LitNight, a monthly reading series founded by Faye in June 2018, have gone online.
The News is partnering with the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture on an upcoming series of virtual panel discussions focused on social justice issues, but not under the umbrella of the Dallas Festival of Books and Ideas.
Looking ahead
Several panelists agree that the problems posed by the pandemic have been so severe that some arts groups likely will fold. While larger organizations, including the Dallas Symphony and Dallas Opera, have endowments that can help them survive, they’re often not as flexible as smaller operations because of their larger overheads. In addition, the DSO and Dallas Opera have initiated staff furloughs and pay cuts.
“I think it’s going to be a matter of sheer survival for the foreseeable future,” Cantrell says. “I haven’t seen any evidence that COVID-19 is going away any time [soon].”
“It’s going to be very hard to produce the kind of revenue you need for a lot of these companies to keep going,” Mendoza says.
But the future might not be all bleak. Ratcliff believes artists and institutions can consider “embracing the digital even more” and think about how they can connect with audiences at home and in smaller environments. “It’s an opportunity for our artists and arts organizations to be nimble and bold in what they imagine,” he says.
