The Future of Performing Arts

Phillip Cartwright, Ph.D. and Founder, HorizonVU Group

Welcome to HorizonVU Sound & Movement. We've been very quiet for the last months. As an energetic and exciting team, we have comeback to life. As a first step, I am launching this column, "The Future of Performing Arts". If you are involved with the performing arts in any way, enhancing our understanding of the current state and innovative thinking focused on sustainability for the future are clear. In this spirit, we do not claim to have all of the key insights for today or tomorrow. You'll find my email below, and if you have some serious thoughts or ideas relevant to the column let me know along with a consent to publish in exact or summary form on this site.

Our world is changing and the rate of change is accelerating. Consequently, key factors that give the performing arts position(s) on the socio-economic-political and technological grid are changing. An obvious case in point, conventionally, the performing arts have funded at least partially by the public sector. On the basis of information readily available, especially in the United States, funding for the perfrming arts is under seige.

We can start our mission of looking to the future by taking a look at the conventional organizational structure of a performing arts organization. Aubrey Bergauer (2022) has published a good approximation to such a structure. See Aubrey Bergauer at https://aubreybergauer.medium.com/designing-a-modern-performing-arts-organization-63693c8fc3ed .

In this conventional structure functions are put into silos, i.e., each function is designated by a semi-autonomous silo. As we will see in future columns, this particular structure is not well-designed for the complexities of 21st century. There are a plethora of factors ranging from cuts in public sector support, opportunities for revenue enhancements, and shifting audience preferences to efficiency and introduction of new technology-based capabilities.

In the next installation of this column, I'll start from the conventional structure and consider issues and some possible solutions as we journey toward a better understanding of the future of performing arts. Thanks for taking time to join me.

Phil Cartwright

phillip.cartwright@hvusoundmovement.com