Digoweli
Location New York City Comment to the NYTIMES on Arts Outposts Stung by Cuts in State Aid I've worked in the New York City opera world as a performer, director, conductor and teacher for the past forty years. During that time I have believed in the value of the Arts as the prime developer of the performance of the human instrument. Recent brain studies by neurologists at McGill University and the DANA foundation here in the US tested the theory that the Arts were co-relative to the development of intelligence i.e. "intelligent people practiced the Arts" NOT "the Arts develops intelligence" which would be "Foundational" rather than "Correlative." The surprising results to these scientists were that they were Foundational and NOT Correlative at all. My father found that out at Picher, Oklahoma in the 1950s when he developed the school system of a severely impacted community by lead poisoning around the core curricula of the performing arts. The students had almost a 100% graduation rate and most went on to college and significant careers in business, education and in music. His discoveries spurred him to go on to two doctor's degrees in Psychometrics. It also made my working in the arts more palatable since he knew how American Artists have a post graduate failure rate of 98% in performance. I had put off going to Europe through the years because I didn't want to develop European Art but American Art and given the stories about Europe from my friends who worked and settled there I didn't want the temptation. Alas I recently returned from a music conference in Greve, Italy only to read, in the NYTimes, how depressed the Tuscan economy was. Funny, the people I met on all levels and the communities were wonderful, happy and beautiful. I'm not surprised the resisted IKEA at all. If I had it to do over again I would have immigrated and if I had the capital to do so now would immediately. America simply doesn't know the value of the Arts nor their reason. Indeed they don't understand the economic system and its artistic failures. Digoweli is my pen name. It's the Cherokee word for "book". REH The article can be found here. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/arts/kansas-and-other-states-cut-arts-fund s.html Another article from the NEA chairman is here and my comments are: number s 33,34. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/theater-talkback-what-rocco-lan desman-should-speak-about-next/ And for the most pertinent of all check out the performance art on wall street. In my opinion the artist missed the point. He should have had them dressed in formal dress from the waist up and only had their bottoms bared. That's more like the real Wall Street in my experience. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/bares-not-bulls-on-wall-street/ REH
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