Don’t try to ‘get’ challenging shows

People attend performances for many reasons — entertainment, inspiration, to feel a sense of shared humanity, even to be shocked out of complacency. But what if you go for a good time and find yourself scratching your head over a production that is complex or emotionally challenging?

“People often ask me, how do I watch this so I ‘get it’?” says Alison Friedman, The James and Susan Moeser Executive and Artistic Director of Carolina Performing Arts.

But that’s the wrong approach, she says.

Friedman has devoted her career to studying and promoting the performing arts, so The Well asked her how performing arts newcomers — or those who feel out of practice after the long pandemic-related hiatus from in-person performance — should respond to an edgy work of art.

How do you respond when someone asks you: How do I watch this so that I “get it”?

I begin by suggesting that maybe they shouldn’t try to “get it.” Instead of experiencing art in hopes of finding an answer, I suggest they pay attention to what questions the performance raises.

Often the first question is: “What on Earth is going on?”

It’s perfectly natural to feel confounded by a new experience.

Alison Friedman

For example, longtime Carolina collaborator Bill T. Jones and his company performed “What Problem?” last semester. The production involved professional dancers, a cappella singers, beat boxers and Jones himself reciting text fragments from famous writings by Martin Luther King Jr., W.E.B. DuBois and Herman Melville. In addition to the four live vocalists, there was a score with beeps sounding at random intervals. As the music played, 30 participants from the local community joined the dancers in their movements. Near the end of the piece, each person on stage spoke a deeply personal revelation into a microphone.

There were so many “languages” on stage — languages of dance, lighting, sound, spoken word, singing. I don’t think it was possible to “get it.” There was no one answer.

So, for a show like that, I suggest starting with questions.

What do you notice? What does it make you wonder about? What about it made you uncomfortable? What about it inspired you? What was fun about it? What bored you? Why do you think Jones chose the elements he chose and arranged them in that order? What did it make you want to know more about — the text? The singers? Did a particular dancer or community performer stand out to you? What about them caught your attention?

Once the questions arise, what next?

Instead of immediately looking for answers to those questions, look for tools, languages and people to help explore the questions.

I choose the word “explore” deliberately. You explore questions; you don’t necessarily always answer them. This is a shift from how many of us were trained in elementary and even much of high school — to get the right answer on a test or prove the right hypothesis in a term paper.

But with art, as in life, you often have only questions: big, complex, juicy, confusing, inspiring, frustrating, mind-bending, open-ended questions. The faculty at Carolina are here not because they have all the answers but because they love and believe in the importance of asking questions.

A Carolina education gives students exactly what they need to explore big questions — tools, languages, perspectives and experiences, not necessarily to land on hard and fast answers, but to examine questions from different vantage points, different disciplines and different backgrounds.

You once compared experiencing the performing arts to landing in a foreign country. What did you mean?

When I went to Beijing for the first time in 2000, I thought I would go for just two months. But after two months, I had more questions than when I arrived. Two months in Beijing turned into another four months in Harbin, in Sub-Siberian Manchuria. After graduation, I returned for a one-year fellowship, which turned into 20 years facilitating performing arts exchange in more than 50 countries on five continents. Every new experience in every new country and culture gave me new information and new people with whom to explore these questions, which only led to more questions.

Experiencing new and challenging art raises questions. The more art experiences you have, the more skills you’ll learn in order to deeply and collaboratively explore some more.

Do you have any other analogies to help people understand that it’s OK to venture into unfamiliar territory?

CPA, working with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, recently collaborated with Carolina Athletics and men’s basketball on a video (below): “Artists Are Athletes / Athletes Are Artists.” Sometimes sports and the arts are viewed as different worlds or different cultures. But our point is that they are more closely related than you may think. Sometimes it’s as simple as feeling comfortable with the logistics: Where to find the schedule of what’s on? How do you buy tickets? Where to park? What do you wear? People who love sports love to see new fans checking out a game for the first time and falling in love with a team. It’s the same at the theater. I firmly believe that the arts are a powerful force for bringing people together. Sports can do the same. No one should feel insecure or reluctant to try something new, because once you’re in the door — of the theater, of the arena — we’re so happy you’re here!