Guest post: "Born leaders, made leaders", by Assis Carreiro (Belgium) and Thomas Edur (Estonia)

I often think about what makes a good leader; a great leader. That person who has the vision and derermination to trace and follow a path, and, at the same time, is able to inspire, gather and lead many others, essential for accomplishing the mission. So, I got very interested when my friend Caroline Miller, Director of Dance UK, wrote to me about Rural Retreats, an international think tank looking at the future of ballet and dance. The sessions bring guest speakers from the world of business, sport and the arts to interface with the dance leaders and to share experiences and allow opportunities to think 'out of the box' about the place of dance in today's society. Are great leaders born or made? Or is it a bit of both? Assis Carreiro, the Artistic Director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders and the person who conceived and launched Rural Retreats, and Thomas Edur, Artistic Director of the Estonian National Ballet, give us their insight and tell us about the challenges they´re facing. Interestingly, they both talk about egos; and they both talk about people...mv

Assis Carreiro with Lynn Seymour and Karen Kain at Rural Retreat 2012. 

As the founder and producer of the Rural Retreats, I approached the latest gathering of Artistic Directors from around the globe with exictement, but also nervousness, since for the first time I would not only be playing host but also taking part, as I had just become Artistic Director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders. This latest edition was, therefore, a double bonus for me. On the one hand, I got to produce a think tank that I am very passionate about and committed to delivering to a community of leaders - desperate for support, peer discussion, debate and stimulation from guest speakers from other professions. It has been evident from the success of past gatherings how crucial and necessary they are to the well-being and development of existing and future dance leaders. On the other hand, the weekend was just what I needed four months into the role of artistic director - an opportunity to learn and listen, to ask lots of practical questions about the day to day job and deeper, philosophical questions and thoughts about the art form that we are all so passionate about.

When I conceived the Retreats twelve years ago, I would never have thought for a moment that I would one day be leading a company. But, as time went by, I thought it was a challenge I would relish and... here I am. I have to say that I couldn't have done this job before now. I needed not just professional work experience but life experience - that is crucial and it is the wealth of experience that I can grab from my very deep bag that helps me find solutions and keeps me sain. And, having a family, whilst adding constant challenges and negotiations, also keeps me sain and makes me realise that there is more to life than ballet. They are also the most amazing support system and fan club when the going gets tough!

This is very much a people job. As Artistic Director, I am responsible for careers - their development - and these are fragile and short careers and it is all personal. Dancers are constantly being judged and difficult decisions made. I really do have to park my ego and look after 52 egos plus the artistic team, guest choreographers and repetiteurs, administration team, board members and, of course, the needs of our public. It is juggling a lot of plates at breakneck speed, always with a smile and a strong, clear and positive attitiude...

The challenges:

1) Money, money, money: if there was the right amount we could just do our jobs, but it is a constant frustration and challenge and, in these difficult times, we really have to think out of the box of how to survive and continue to keep our art form relevant and vibrant and understood by the wider world, outside our small but fragile one. 

2) Being new: I am new so I have to prove myself to everyone and gain their trust. That takes time. I had to put together an entire season in only 2 weeks - which was sheer madness, but I did it and the team rallied around me to make it a reality. This has been amazing and I hope have slowly begun to gain their confidence and trust - as always the proof is in the pudding.

3) Every day is a steep learning curb in year 1: I am not afraid to ask questions and I joined a company with a wealth of experience, so I ask and learn and I can also teach from my 32 years working in the profession, in a range of companies and roles that have given me the confidence to take this new one on.

4) People: getting the right people on board to come on the journey and follow my vision. If they aren't right, they should find another boat to sail, as we need to work together as a tight knit team of committed individuals. It is hard in dance, because it is often not about whether people are great or not, but whether they fit into the new way of working and are open to change and new ways of moving forward. In Antwerp I am really trying to create a strong ensemble of dancers and fortunately inherited a strong base from which to do this, but the technical and production teams and administration are equally critical in making the whole ship sail in the right direction.

5) The joy: there always has to be some! The work of wonderful choreographers performed by incredibly talented dancers and then seeing the audiences's reaction; that makes it all worthwhile and the wonderful enjoyment of programming for both and taking them on a journey - and me too!

Assis Carreiro became Artistic Director of Royal Ballet of Flanders in September, 2012. She was Artistic Director & Chief Executive of England’s DanceEast between 2000 and 2012, where she created Rural Retreats, a series of international think tanks supporting the developing of dance leadership for existing and future artistic directors;  Snape Dances, an international dance series at Snape Maltings; and the National Centre for Choreography. She led DanceEast’s capital project, which in 2009 culminated in the opening of the £9-million Jerwood Dance House on the Ipswich waterfront. During 1998/99, Assis was dance programmer at DasTAT for William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt. From 1994-96, she was Director of DanceXchange in Birmingham and went on to work for Wayne McGregor|Random Dance. Prior to moving to the UK in 1994, Assis was Director of Education, Community Outreach and Publications for the National Ballet of Canada.

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Estonian National Ballet (Photo: Harri Rospu)

I've been Artistic Director of Estonian National Ballet for nearly four years. I took on this role after being a principal dancer, performing for many years with the English National Ballet. The transition from being a self-contained freelance principal dancer to dealing with, and being responsible for, a company of over 70 people was huge. I had been thinking about how to deal with this over the years, because I knew I wanted to be an Artistic Director one day. A few years ago, I'd taken part in DanceEast's Retreat for future dance company directors and spoken to other colleagues about the role, but nothing really prepares you for the reality.

Lessons leraned?

1. Don't do it for the ego, do it if you like to pass on your knowledge.

2. Teach somebody something and you will learn about yourself and your leadership style.

3. Communication and talking to people is vital - yet you will be overwhelmed with work and find you don't have time to talk to people. Make time, it's essential.

4. Try and be reasonable and fair.

5. Be prepared for long hours and huge demands on your time - but recognise you must find a balance for your life outside work to stay sane.

When I attended DanceEast's Retreat in England this year I had the chance to spend time with 27 other Artistic Directors of dance companies from around the world. We not only shared our challenges and opportunities, but also heard from speakers working in elite sports, psychology and opera. We had lots in common.

Estonia is a small country and every country is facing different challenges, but finance is always the big question. It affects the artistic work we can create, but it can never stop us from creating. Sometimes I think it's a creative opportunity to have your resources squeezed. Lavish production budgets can mean that you throw away the opportunity to express only with the body. That's what it's all about - music and the body.

For me personally, the challenge that concerns me most is dealing with individual artists. I am constantly thinking about how to develop them, not just in the immediate future, but in the long term. Keeping them motivated and fresh can be hard. Dancers are strong and independent and often this characteristic is overlooked because the art form is silent. This isn't something that society easily relates to. Everything is about self-promotion, being interviewed on television, having your voice heard - whilst dance is about showing what you can do, rather than talking about it. Very few dancers will become famous and those who will, will soon after be at the point when they retire from dancing.

Being the Artistic Director of a ballet company means your most important asset is the dancers. You are dealing with people who are striving to achieve something and sometimes they can be misunderstood. All professional dancers are working towards achieving their peak physical performance. It’s very similar to dealing with talent in sport. My challenge as a leader is to show them that if they listen to me they will see themselves dancing better and this is a long term process. As an Artistic Director you have to show results, and when one dancer succeeds, another will follow.

Thomas Edur has been Artistic Director Estonian National Ballet since 2009. Thomas became an acclaimed international ballet star, performing as a principal and guest artist with the world’s leading dance companies, both as a soloist and in a world-renowned partnership with his wife, Agnes Oaks.  He is also a teacher and choreographer with a lifelong commitment to promoting excellence in dance. In 2001, Thomas was presented with the Order of the White Star by the President of the Estonia.  In 2010, her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II  appointed him Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE), in recognition of his services to the arts in the UK and to the UK-Estonia cultural relations.

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My thanks to Caroline Miller for all her help.


Further reading

Rural Retreat 2012 report

Also on this blog

Leaders are needed

Thomas P. Campbell to me

Some time ago, I watched a presentation by young social media expert Jasper Visser entitled The future of museums is about attitude, not technology.  Even before watching it, the title stroke a chord with me. Indeed, what impact can technology alone have if one doesn´t know how to use it, if one doesn´t understand or is not interested in exploring the possibilities it offers and use them with vision and imagination? This requires attitude, indeed; or rather, it requires the ‘right’ attitude.

A couple of weeks go I received an email from Thomas P. Campbell, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He wished to inform me about a new project, called 82nd and 5th, a series of new videos, where a Met curator talks about a specific work of art in the museum collection which has inspired him/her or changed his/her life or way of thinking. Thomas P. Campbell informed me that I could subscribe in order to receive all new videos by email and suggested I informed my friends about it.

It´s not the videos I wish to talk about (the quality and interest of which you can easily verify on the museum website), it´s the details in communicating this new initiative. As you can imagine, the email I received was not from Thomas P. Campbell himself and I received it because I´ve subscribed the museum´s mailing list. The Met could have easily done what most museums do: send an email to all those on the mailing list from its general email address. Instead of this impersonal way of communicating, they created a specific email address, the museum director being identified as the sender. He´s the one addressing us and presenting this new intiative, asking us to use it, embrace it and help the museum promote it. And this small detail makes a whole lot of a difference. It shows attitude.

Indhu Rubasingham, Tricycle Theatre artistic director (Photo: Alastair Muir for The Guardian)

I had another special encounter with a cultural organization´s director a few months before. When I called the Tricycle Thearte in London in order to reserve tickets for a play, the phone rang, but before getting through to the box office, I listened to an automatic answer. It was a message from the theatre´s artistic director, Indhu Rubasingham, who thanked me for getting in touch in order to buy tickets and asked me to consider paying an extra pound per ticket in order to support the theatre in its work. It was a simple, direct, friendly message, that made it impossible to resist. I supported a theatre I had never been before, which is something I haven´t done for those theatres I´ve been attending for some time now. Maybe because nobody ever asked. Indhu Rubasingham and the Tricycle Theatre have got attitude.

None of the examples given above required a huge investement. Actually, they didn´t require any investment at all. Lack of money or fancy means cannot be an excuse for lack of attitude. Furthermore, a lack of attitude when having the means, but not using them to their full potential, also indicates a lack of vision.

One of the most common concerns of culture professionals when I give training in cultural communication around the country is the inability to use the technology and the means available autonomously in order to promote their venues, work and activities. I especifically refer to organizations belonging to local authorities or private foundations which are not allowed to have their own websites (they´re usually an item on a sub-sub-menu) or manage their own facebook pages. Information is managed centrally and not by those who have the best knowledge on the subject matter and are more interested than anyone else in promoting it. And who would do it better than anyone, if they had proper training.

Let´s be the client for a moment. Are you interested in finding out if the Electricity Museum in Lisbon organizes birthday parties? Well, you start by searching for the museum on Google, like I did. The first links refers you to EDP (Portugal Electricity) Foundation website, where the museum is an item in the menu. Reaching that page, it seems like you´ve arrived on a portal presenting boxed news. Each box is a link to pages with a desciption of the current exhibition; the permanent exhibition; the latest statistics or other news. The museum itself has got no menu. 

(URL: www.fundacaoedp.pt/museu-da-electricidade)

 

Do you wish to visit the Museum of Ceramics in Sacavém? A search on Google will refer you to (by order of appearance): a reference regarding the museum building on the website of the now extinct Institute of Museums and Conservation; the Greater Lisbon Tourism; Wikipedia; Lifecooler; a number of other websites... If, by intuition, we decide to search for Municipality of Loures, we will find a link leading us to a page with a general description of the museum under Municipality of Loures / Getting to know / Tourism, Culture, Leisure / Museums. 

(URL: http://www.cm-loures.pt/Ligacao.aspx?DisplayId=2#topo)

I chose the examples of two museums I like. Because this makes me think of how much different and better, given the tools available, my online and at a distance relationship could be (not to mention their relationship with those who don´t really know them and might be interested).  There are may more examples of this sort. How can a museum or a cultural venue ever establish a relationship with current and potential visitors/users when it´s so well hidden (starting from their URLs)? Or when the information it can actually give is so static (and boring and incomplete)? When there´s no open, direct, constant, informal dialogue?

A communications professional like me totally understands the need for coherence and I believe this is the main concern of local authorities or foundations which manage a number of venues and projects. Nevertheless, the solution is not to control them to the point of struggling them. People develop relationships with the organizations they visit, with the projects they love, not with the entities that manage them. No central communications office in a municipality will ever chat with people on Facebook on the day-to day life of a municipal museum, the items in its collections, the activities it has to offer the way a person who works in that museum would. There is, undoubtedly, a need for guidelines, for training, for orientation. But people are eager to receive them and be able to put them to good use in order to better promote what they´re doing and get to the people they wish to communicate with. It´s not a good idea to leave this to those who know less, who are – inevitably – less passionate, who have no real involvement in it – as is the case with Wikipedia, the tourism office or Lifecooler. This shows lack of vision which eventually condemns to a lack of attitude. And there´s no future there.

Every time I think of all those frustrated professionals whose only wish is to communicate (and I think of them a lot), I´ve got Sting´s song at the back of my head:

When you love somebody

Set them free…

Free… free….

Set them free…

Guest post: "Nepal challenging itself and the world", by Sangeeta Thapa (Nepal)

Sangeeta Thapa is my colleague at the Kennedy Center Fellowship. In the summer of 2011 I had the chance to have a long talk with her about the first Kathmandu International Art Festival, Sangeeta being the driving force behind it. I saw the catalogue, I learned about some of the artists, one story was always bringing another. At the time, Sangeeta was already talking about the next edition of the Festival, that would be dedicated to environmental issues. It took place last November and the photos shared on Facebook were absolutely stunning. Sangeeta shares with us this amazing experience which brought together artists from 31 countries and which involved the whole country.This post was written together with Sharareh Bajracharya (Festival Coordinator)and Nischal Oli (KIAF Media Coordinator). mv 

"We may end up in the same boat", by Michelle Spalding (Photo: KIAF)

The Kathmandu International Art Festival (KIAF) is a non commercial contemporary arts festival which is organized every three years with the aim to “to firmly place Nepal on the global map as a venue for the contemporary arts, allow for artistic collaboration and exchange among international and local artists, and use art as a platform for critical reflection and the sensitization of society”. Each edition of the Festival focuses on a specific theme, which is of critical concern both locally and globally. 

In November 2012 the Siddhartha Arts Foundation hosted the 2nd edition of KIAF, which was centered on the theme of the environment, ecology, climate change and the human relationship to nature. Even though Nepal is not a global polluter, we are a vulnerable nation. Climate change is a topic of great importance to us, as the Himalayan ranges house the greatest water towers in the world. Global warming would result in a vertical tsunami that could inundate 33 nations. 

The management of the Festival involved a coming together of many different institutions and individuals in the arts community, and the Festival was seen as a platform to support a strong and emerging generation of contemporary artists in the country. One of the Festival's pervasive motives has been to promote contemporary arts of Nepal, so it was able to bring together an assortment of individual and collective energies, which attracted an even bigger audience to create a larger impact. KIAF fostered a platform for inter-disciplinary exchange on issues raised by the Festival's theme and goals. This exchange, through all the dimensions of the Festival, was created between institutions, artists, media, traditional communities, and educational institutions. There is a general agreement that the Festival was a collaborative effort and that people went outside the line of duty to make it happen. In this way, there is a collective sense of ownership.

Driven by our mission to make contemporary arts accessible to and in conversation with a wide public, the KIAF team placed the artworks in multiple venues across the city. The artworks were brought to people’s doorsteps. This meant that a larger audience visited the exhibitions and allowed us to take the discussions about global warming out of the realm of academia into the world of creative arts and to the public. The wide representation and variety of art forms allowed for the works to appeal to diverse audiences and left an impressive monumental impression. 

People from all over the country were witness to a contemporary arts exhibition and experienced an interpretive artwork about the mythical serpent, the ‘Naga’, stories around which most people in Nepal are deeply familiar. There is no guarantee that people fully understood the intention of the artist in creating the recycled plastic work from Cambodia, but it made every individual who entered the space, stop, look, wonder, and question. In general, in each of the exhibits, people read the labels and wanted to know more. Artists were able to go to each new venue, see new possibilities in terms of spaces to exhibit, ways to exhibit, and seeing a reason to do their work. 

"Naag", by Leang Seckon, at the Central Zoo (Photo: KIAF)

Guided tours were held for different age groups. The outreach work around guided tours has created a confidence and realization in the arts community of the necessity to involve schools, school children, families, in addition to a wider range of development institutions in their works. Horlicks (Glaxo Smith and Kline) sponsored and organized three art competitions in three cities, encouraging children to collect materials around them to create three dimensional installations, collages, or mixed media/paintings. Their paintings were displayed in the British Council atrium as an integral part of KIAF. 

Over 400,000 people visited or saw parts of the KIAF 2012 exhibitions, events, performances, outreach activities. Out of this figure, 100,000 visitors were recorded in the exhibition spaces. People felt a sense of excitement, joy, and wonder at the diverse forms of artworks, the places where people were coming from, and the issues that the artists were bringing up. Deep connections were made to Nepal by the visitors. The community responses from Patan were strong. A group of elder people got on to the Nevitrade bus because they were excited about the ride. They ended up seeing all the venues and appreciated the tour. One of the old men, when reaching Metropark, walked in wonder and stated: “It is because of you people I am getting to see this side of the city and being able to see artworks I have never seen or thought of before!”. 

The Nevitrade bus (battery-run bus) received great publicity and many calls for events after KIAF 2012. (Photo: Sangeeta Thapa)

The Festival attempted to reduce its carbon footprints as much as possible within its resources. One of the major ways we did so was by encouraging clean energy activities - the staff using bicycles and public transportation, and working alongside the cycling community. In collaboration with Nevitrade, we were able to operate a clean energy vehicle-bus that allowed people to reach the various venues. The Festival also looked into reducing carbon emissions by accommodating artists near their workspaces. Recycled flex bags were created from flex banners used by various organizations around the city. After the Festival, our banners were collected and made into bags and folders. 

In what concerns funding and fundraising, working with the government has been the largest anticipated challenge. The Secretary of Culture changed six times and each time their commitment needed to be reviewed. In terms of government budgets, only government workers’ salaries and basic requirements to run the institutions were released. Any amount they had promised could not be actualized. There was a similar problem with the Nepal Tourism Board. With the generous contribution of the Prince Claus Fund, the Brazillian Embassy, WWF, Hariyo Ban, USAID and others, the scale of the festival has expanded exponentially, resulting in the need to mobilize local business houses, banks, embassies, individuals and art foundations with affiliations to Nepal. It has been a challenge, to say the least. It has been extremely difficult to keep some of the funders accountable to their commitments. Embassies paid their sponsorship amount after the festival was over, and most of the money that was locally pledged still needs to come in. We will most likely be able to clear our outstanding payments only in the first week of March.

KIAF 2012 has created a path for the Siddhartha Arts Foundation to do more works that bring different organizations and institutions together to promote the contemporary arts in Nepal and to create an international platform for its growth. Regarding KIAF 2015, we will need to think it through carefully to ensure the scale and quality of the works continues. While preparing, the Foundation plans to continue to bring international artists to exhibit in Kathmandu, create community art projects to encourage public participation, work with local museums and create structures where children and the general public are provided opportunities to interact and reflect on the artworks. 

Sangeeta Thapa is the Founder Director of the Siddhartha Art Gallery which was established in 1987 in Kathmandu. She has organized 400 exhibitions over the last 25 years and has conducted several community art projects which brought together artists, poets, writers, musicians, theatre artists, dancers and people from disparate social groups. She has also conducted two International Art Festivals, the last one in 2012, in which artists from 31 countries were represented. In 2010 she co-founded with Celia Washington the Kathmandu Contemporary Art Centre (KCAC), located in Patan Museum, which hosts The Washington Library and serves as a residency space, where international and national artists share studios. In 2011 she registered the Siddhartha Arts Foundation which hosted the second edition of the Kathmandu International Art Festival. Sangeeta remains deeply committed to mentoring artists and arts managers who will be involved in promoting the contemporary arts movement locally. She is on the board of Patan Museum Development Committee and is the author the book “In the Eye of the Storm – The Drawings of Manuj Babu Mishra”. She works closely with the Australian Himalayan Foundation Art Awards program, which endows two Nepalese artists each year with a bursary, and in a similar vein with KCAC.

Discussing values, from Brazil to Lebanon

Image taken from www.cultura.gov.br

In June 2011 I was writing about a law proposal of the brazilian government that would create the Vale Cultura, a culture stipend that would allow for a subsidy of R$50 (approximately €22) for workers earning up to five times the minimum salary, in order to facilitate access to products and services in the areas of visual arts, performing arts, audiovisual, litetrature, music and cultural heritage.

I had been very critical at the time. Not because I didn´t believe that thousands of people would benefit, but, mainly, because of the objectives it was announced it was going to achieve. In its proposal, the government presented this initiative as a way “to allow for access and fruition of cultural products and services; to stimulate the visitation of establishments that provide the integration of science, education and culture; and to encourage access to cultural and artistic events and performances”. On the other hand, Roberto Baungartner, in his article Democratização do Acesso à Cultura (Democratizing access to culture), seemed convinced, that, apart from benefiting culture itself, the stipend would create more jobs and income, it would reduce violence, it would increment, on the side of the demand, the production chains involved and it would make brazilian companies more competitive at an international level.