NEA ASKS THE ARTISTS.

How should the National Endowment for the Arts best employ its resources to help the arts? Where does the NEA turn to gain insight and evidence for persuading the White House, Congress, and the public to allot funding? The NEA brought together artists from different disciplines for two all-day colloquia to gather advice and information for the future. First, a dancer/choreographer, a composer, an independent filmmaker, a visual artist, and a musical theater book writer explored the creative process at "Artists Making Work." Second, a media-arts producer, a director of a presenting organization, a publisher, a theater company director, and a poet examined the life of an artwork after its creation at "Artists Finding an Audience."

Panelists agreed that art blossoms in various ways: out of leisure, face-to-face engagement with other artists, personal trauma, social dynamics, economic necessity, and more. Ernesto Pujol distinguished between curatorial and educational art-making: "pedestal" art, and art relevant to the community respectively. He also noted that artists, especially those of color, are mediating between elite institutions and immigrant communities.

Representing dance, Christopher Wheeldon, who choreographed his first ballet at age 7, (a Swan Lake) and got serious about choreography at 11, is now resident choreographer at New York City Ballet. He showed an excerpt from Polyphonia, his 2001 choreography to music by Ligeti. Wheeldon spoke about what inspires, assists, or hinders choreography; the various points in one's career that can affect dance composition; and consideration of the audience in the creative process.

Serendipity affected Wheeldon's career, as it had the careers of other panelists. While in the corps of The Royal Ballet, he was injured, and he spent time watching television while healing. When he saw an advertisement that offered, "Buy a vacuum cleaner and you'll get a free ticket to the United States," off he went. He took class at New York City Ballet and was shocked. Having grown up with the classics, he was now "seeing dancers hungry for space and ballets that sang." Wheeldon showed Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins some tapes of the choreography he had made. (Students at The Royal Ballet were encouraged to make dances.) Impressed, Martins increasingly offered Wheeldon creative opportunities.

Wheeldon's motivations are threefold: "I love to make ballets to stimulate dancers as artists. I'm interested in taking classical vocabulary and using it in new ways. My great drive is to communicate with the audience. I always try transporting them." He adds, "I like feedback from the audience."

Wheeldon continues, "I'm lucky to be part of a wealthy organization." But his biggest need is for previews of his choreography, "the opportunity to fail and to rework," he sighs. Choreographers for NYCB usually get "three weeks to choreograph a piece on the dancers and they present their work one night. The critics and a 2,800-member audience decide." Wheeldon feels the stress and pressure. "If given a lot of money, I'd have a place to choreograph without the pressure of coming up with a product."

Panelists noted that audiences seem to be terrified of dealing with nontraditional media, regarding them as foreign to their lives and so often avoiding coming to see or participate. One way to bridge this feeling of art-as-other is to take the art where the people are. Face-to-face meetings with artists and their process often break down barriers and create a sense of community.

The artists and presenters participating in the colloquia provided NEA representatives with insights for stimulating and sustaining creative work. They urged the NEA to support four essentials: artists' time for the creative process, venues to show art, opportunities to interact with audiences, and arts education. This validated what an objective NEA study had also concluded--that level of education is a major predictor of participation; therefore, arts education is essential to increase the pool of artists, audience members, and public support for the arts.

Judith Lynne Hanna, Ph.D., is senior research scholar in the Department of Dance at the University of Maryland.