Performance turned inward forgets its purpose

I've been watching TED.com videos like a madman for the past few months.  If you are not yet a regular TED watcher, I highly recommend it.  You will have you mind blown often!  Of course I tend to apply my stage performance filter to everything I see, and these videos are no exception.  So when someone mentions art and performance directly, they get my attention.

Most recently I watched a 20 minute presentation by Stephen Pinker about public reaction to his book "The Blank Slate."  I'm definitely going to get that book and read it.  Without going into detail about the book itself, here's what he says about modernism and postmodernism and what they have offered us:

• visual art without beauty
• literature without narrative, plot
• poetry without meter, rhyme
• architecture & planning without ornament, human scale, green space, natural light
• music without melody, rhythm
• criticism without clarity, attention to aesthetics, and insight into human condition

Stephen goes on to say, "elite arts and criticism have distained beauty, pleasure, clarity, insight and style.  People are staying away from elite art and criticism.  What a puzzle!"

What a puzzle indeed!  The whole leading edge of art has lost touch with its original purpose, namely to give people something they want and need from art, and instead has turned inward, each new work comparing itself to what came before, self-consciously terrified to be unoriginal.  I've heard that every great symphony has already been written.  I suppose that's why all the symphonic works past a certain date are, let's be honest here, unpleasant to listen to.

Pop music doesn't suffer from these issues.  If it did, it would never have become "popular."  Of course arguably it suffers from other issues - perhaps the subject of a future post.  Acting is also notably absent from the postmodernism fail list.  But then it's inherently built out of realism - real people doing believable things - so it's hard to take it in a direction like "poetry without meter and rhyme" or "music without melody and rhythm."

However, a lot of performance becomes inward looking for other reasons.  I happen to be rather familiar with the cutting-edge of barbershop arrangements (don't laugh - the style does change!), and amongst the elite arrangers, every new chart has to outshine the last, by being more complex and more impressive.  It keeps the elite arrangers motivated and passionate about their work, and it thrills a certain sub-culture of barbershop arrangement fanatics and elite quartet singers.  The general audience, though, is excluded often times from performances of these arrangements, because the purpose of the performer who chose that vehicle is often inward-focused.  "Look at me and how well I can sing this impossible chart!" they scream.  It's like watching someone juggle five kittens, a bucket of water and a chainsaw.  It's intriguing.  It's impressive.  You applaud.  Then you walk away and say, "that was neat.  I wonder what's on TV?"

Don't let your art lose touch with its purpose!  "Impressive" doesn't get standing ovations.