Samantha Crownover, Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society | Stephanie Jutt, Professor of Flute, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Arts Enterprise of UW-Madison
Posted 1.2.2009
(Note: Samantha and Stephanie are both the Executive Director and, Founder and Artistic Director of the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, respectively).
You've begun a new arts entrepreneurship program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Can you tell us how this started?
Stephanie Jutt applied for a portion of a grant given to the University of Wisconsin-Madison by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. She had spoken to Chancellor John Wiley about the idea of providing practical career information and business-like training for artists, something the arts departments at the UW do not do in any consistent manner. Stephanie and I have worked together as many years as colleagues in our summer music festival. Through the grant, Stephanie hired me to work in partnership to develop Arts Enterprise of UW-Madison, because of my experience as the executive director of Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society (BDDS), a Wisconsin-based summer chamber music festival. Stephanie and I created a survey of arts entrepreneurship studies around the country and then began to act upon our own recommendations Stephanie is the founder and an artistic director of BDDS.
How is Arts Enterprise designed and what do you offer students?
1. A pilot class on Arts Entrepreneurship was taught this fall, 2008. Led by Stephanie, this class, Nuts and Bolts: How to Survive in the Real World and Remain an Artist was a one credit course for 18 students. In Spring, 2009, She will offer the class again, for either one or two credits and is open to all students.
2. A new Arts Enterprise website is under construction. It will include opportunities on campus and within the community, as well as references to other important developments in Arts Entrepreneurship nation-wide. It is being constructed by UW-Madison Communications and is expected to launch January 12, 2009.
3. Arts Enterprise, a three-day symposium on Arts Entrepreneurship, will be held at the Pyle Center Friday, January 30 – Sunday, February 1, 2009. Students as well as community members will be invited to attend. Keynote speakers who are leaders in this field are being invited to speak and teach at this event.
4. A student competition: “New Arts Venture Challenge” for best arts event will also be held in January 2009. A panel of experts will screen proposals at the Symposium for best arts proposal. Chosen finalists will present a “live round” for the judges and the public during the symposium after which prizes totaling $2500 and mentoring to produce the event will go to first and second place winners.
5. A new student association for Arts Entrepreneurship, Arts Enterprise of UW-Madison has formed and creates opportunities for performance, education, outreach, and networking. We are in partnership and have been directly inspired by the Arts Enterprise Student Association of University of Michigan. [See their AEEN interview here]. Our student association has been created in partnership with theirs.
6. Future goal: Arts entrepreneurship materials and Arts Career Services Center will be created at UW-Madison. This will act as a center for career services in the arts. It is hoped that the Arts Institute will take part in its creation.
How have your respective academic departments received Arts Enterprise?
Dance, design, and theater seem to have more of a handle on training their students for the real world, however, they still don’t offer consistent classes or opportunities for their students to gain this knowledge. Creative writing, visual art, film and music have the least available to help students. We don’t have any kind of arts career center here. We feel confident that once the faculty and staff see the benefit of this kind of education (partially because they have had to go out and get it themselves), and can understand how to make it happen, they will become very excited about it. Right now they’re “cautiously interested.” The deans of the three schools which house artists at UW-Madison: Letters and Science, the School of Education, and the School of Human Ecology are especially eager for this kind of education to take off! Still, we have been knocking on doors and hoofing it all over campus to meet with faculty and staff personally to explain to them what we’re doing and to solicit their input.
It is sometimes hard to gauge students’ reaction to new programs - entrepreneurship efforts included. Can you gauge student interest at this point? How are you generating participation for your students?
We have held some student focus groups and have met with nothing but enthusiasm for this idea. Those who have come from other schools with these kinds of programs are surprised (and disappointed) when they hear we don’t offer this kind of education. About 30 students attended the first Arts Enterprise Student Association event and we’ve joined up Arts Enterprise with lots of people through Facebook. As the word gets out about the New Arts Venture Challenge and the Symposium, enthusiasm continues to spread.
Can you tell us about the January conference?
The point of the Symposium is to educate students and artists in our community about the possibility of entrepreneurship in the arts. It is designed to empower artists of all ages and disciplines to fuel and inspire the culture of our community, the State of Wisconsin and beyond. At the Symposium, we will provide support and training and teach the strategic skills today's artists need to take leadership in the creative economy.
Our first-ever Arts Enterprise Symposium, will be a three-day event of inspiration and guidance for visual artists, filmmakers, dancers, poets, musicians, and more. It will open with a reception at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and the Overture Center and will feature a welcome by Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton. The Saturday and Sunday symposium will include both local and nationally-known speakers, who will address the state of entrepreneurship in the arts, offer tools that can put to use immediately, inspirational success stories, and personal mentoring by arts professionals. This event is open to the general public and is presented at a very low fee.
Among the fifty artists and entrepreneurs appearing at the conference will be Toni Sikes, founder of The Guild, and Guild.com, a publisher of sourcebooks for design trade professionals to help artists find greater markets for their work, Angela Beeching, Director of the New England Conservatory Career Services Center and author of Beyond Talent, and you, Gary! Springboard for the Arts from St. Paul, Minnesota, and Transition for Dancers from New York will return to Madison, and will present panels focusing on career development and marketing. Other local and national figures in all arts disciplines will also appear. Leon Fleischer, world-renowned concert pianist, will present a recital at Wisconsin Union Theater on Saturday night and also appear as a keynote speaker.
It will be quite accessible, $30 for the whole weekend for students, which includes breakfasts and lunches.
What courses or other offerings do you have planned for the next semester and next academic year?
Stephanie will be teaching her Nuts and Bolts class again. An art professor, Leslee Nelson, will also be offering a class called, Business of Art for Undergraduates and Professional Practices for Graduates. The undergrad class is at capacity and Professor Nelson just told us that she was surprised…but we’re not!
Are you planning any engagement or partnerships with the Madison, Wisconsin community?
The Arts Enterprise Initiative is a public/private partnership between UW-Madison and The Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society. Of course, we designed the Symposium to appeal to the general public as well as students from any university or college. We’re hoping to have a great cross-section of artists from our area as well as the student population. The new website will also appeal to artists in the greater Madison community (and those across the country as well). We would love to showcase the New Arts Venture Challenge winner (a UW-Madison competition) at a Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society event!
Do you see Arts Enterprise as an integral part of your UW-Madison student's college experience or something with which they participate only occasionally?
If you are a student in an arts discipline, Arts Enterprise of UW-Madison should definitely be an ongoing part of your education. A student should especially take advantage of one-on-one mentoring that will be part of the Symposium and students are encouraged to take that relationship on into the future.
How have your colleagues received the effort?
The vast majority of our work and ideas have been really well received. Stephanie and I have gotten lots of encouragement from our board members, arts leaders in our community and leaders at the University. We feel that most of the reluctance to participate has been on the part of those who are extremely busy with their own curricula. We’ve worked tirelessly to promote this kind of education and some of our biggest fans are those who know how hard it is to learn about entrepreneurship by trial and error. We want to make it better for those who come after us and this is one major contribution we can make toward that effort!
