Filed by Bil at 9:08 pm under Pop Culture, Social Issues, The Arts

…the relevance of existing cultural activity.

These are the last six words of the mission statement of a theatre company which, like a newborn galaxy, is ready to burst into existence with a grand display of shining stars and gravitational hullabaloo. (…Except without all the stars.)

Every now and then, I think about how much art there is that I don’t see. Especially temporary art, like plays that only run for a certain amount of time and then are never produced again. Or some orange gates in Central Park. Or ice sculptures.

I don’t really get too sad about it, since I don’t actually know what I’m missing, but it certainly makes me want to seek out art in all its forms, and, even more strongly, it makes me want to create. I have a degree in theatre – obviously, it’s what I’ve chosen to do with my life (outside of a day job). I’m in the midst of creating a theatre company to do exactly that – to create theatrical productions to the best of our ability and share them with as many people as we can.

In many ways, I feel like this is one way I can contribute to my culture – my current, American, living culture. By producing plays for people to see. The idea is that people will see the plays, be affected somehow, and carry on with their lives which are now just a little bit richer. And my hope is that by doing this, people who see plays, whose lives are now of course richer, will enrich the lives of those around them. Of course, this theory also then makes it my civic duty to go and see plays – and movies, and paintings, and photography, and music concerts, and so on – because when I make my own life better, I make the lives of those around me better. It’s kind of like the trickle-down Reaganomics idea, but with good vibes instead of money.

Now, obviously, there’s more to our culture than just arts and entertainment. That’s just what I’m into. The relevance of existing cultural activity is grander than that. Our culture as a country is made up of all the things we do, big and small. It’s our politics. It’s our prejudices. It’s our entrepreneurship. It’s our beer. It’s our traffic. It’s our broad scope of family values. It’s our tiny way of flirting by eye contact from across the room. It’s our pride in our sports teams. It’s our fashion. It’s everything, and it’s alive. It’s constantly shifting, reshaping, evolving, changing, consuming what was there and replacing it with something else. Everything is vastly different from one generation to the next. And one of my hopes as a theatrical artist is to remind the audience of what it is we have right now (be it with a contemporary piece, or in contrast to times long past – or times yet to come), because our current existing culture may be different tomorrow. And we’ll be sad about it, because we’ll actually know what we’re missing.

Go and see some art!