OPENING
Claire: The 2015 musical Hamilton was groundbreaking and different in a lot of ways.
But something kinda niche is that the company, you know, the chorus of singers, often introduces the character who is about to start singing.
>> music: From the stage play Hamilton
Here comes the general!
George Washington!
//
The Schuyler sisters!
Angelica!
Peggy!
Eliza!
Work!
//
Ev'ryone give it up for America's favorite fighting Frenchman
Lafayette!
>>music ends
Claire: The writer of the musical, Lin-Manuel Miranda, uses this musical technique to introduce characters A LOT
>> music: From the stage play Hamilton
Eliza
I put myself back in the narrative
//
Alexander Hamilton
We are waiting in the wings for you
>>music ends
Claire: Sabrina Martinez noticed this right away because it saved her a TON of work.
Sabrina: Even though I'm sure Lin was not thinking this when he wrote it, but one of the things we do as audio describers is we help the listeners get accustomed to voices.
Claire: You see, Sabrina is an audio describer, which means she helps blind and low-vision people experience live theater.
Sabrina: So I will say the name of the character before they start talking, and so that way the listener knows this is the person talking or this is the person singing. But, if you listen to like what Lin did in Hamilton, you know, I can say something like, and from the back of the stage comes, and then the character says, Alexander Hamilton.
>>music: From the stage play Hamilton
Claire: If you’ve ever seen an audience member with a little headset, it’s likely there's someone like Sabrina, tucked away in a soundproof booth, describing what's happening onstage for them.
Sabrina: Any scenes, any sets. Any of the visual elements that are important.
Claire: A lot of times this means Sabrina is giving her listeners a heads up about who is about to speak. But she didn’t have to do that with Hamilton, which was a huge relief because that show had plenty of other challenges – mainly its wordiness. For those who have seen the show, you know it’s pretty much non-stop singing. And audio describers like Sabrina can’t talk over any of the characters, but they still have to describe the scenery, who is onstage, and anything else the blind patron might need to know.
Sabrina: The users, the listeners, want to laugh when the rest of the audience laughs. So you need to know what's going to be funny, what the visual jokes are, and you need to get yourself in there so they know what's funny at the same time as the rest of the audience.
Claire: This level of coordination and care takes a lot of practice. She’s basically writing an entire second script.
Sabrina: Depending on the show, if it's a, like if it's a play where the set doesn't change, it might take me like eight to ten hours to prepare.
But for a musical where there's a lot of characters, a lot of dancing, a lot of set changes, or even projection, um, it might take me as much as 20 hours to prepare.
Claire: So that’s on top of seeing the show at least once and consulting with other audio describers. However, the pay rate for audio describers isn't really on par with the level of time they put in, and the level of skill.
Sabrina: I'll tell you that in some theaters in Houston, I do describe as a volunteer. In others I am compensated, but it's more like an honorarium, but the compensation isn't commensurate with that amount of time.
Claire: So this is confusing to Sabrina because it seems like the directors of many shows don’t seem to care if all their audience members have an equal experience. That's reflected in the pay, or lack thereof, for audio describers. Also, very few directors provide scripts for these audio describers: each theater’s describer writes their own.
Sabrina: Ironically, there's no oversight at all. It's literally whatever you think it should be. In fact, I can share a story with you about, that happened locally, about Book of Mormon. I couldn't describe both performances that blind and low vision patrons were going to so one of my colleagues described another performance.
The problem with her description was she didn't stay true to the director's vision.
Claire: According to Sabrina, this particular describer found some of the scenes in the show racist. So they just lied about what was really happening on stage.
Sabrina: Ethically, we are supposed to be describing the director's vision, not our own vision of the show. We need to stay consistent because that's actually what the Americans with Disability Act provides for, is for a consistent experience for anyone with, with disabilities.
Claire: Sabrina’s friend was actually in the audience that evening and was relying on the audio describer to understand the show.
Sabrina: And she still says to this day, she never saw the Book of Mormon, just because she knows that she did not see the real show.
Claire: Sabrina wants to see a future where touring directors take audio describers on the road with them, instead of asking local theaters to provide their own. Their own, possibly untrained, describers. Sabrina hopes directors and costume designers and set builders and dance captains will all want to collaborate with audio describers, to ensure the audio description is just as amazing as the action on stage.
Sabrina: People don't realize that blind and low vision people attend theater.
I just feel like what we do with accessibility is just an extension of what's happening on the stage.
And if the people can come in and not have to worry about, am I going to be able to navigate this theater, I don't know what's going on, why everyone's laughing and I'm not in on the joke. Any of those things, any of those services we can provide just makes the experience of theater that much better for the people sitting in the audience.
And everyone deserves an equal experience of it.
>> music
INTRO
Claire: You’re listening to ARTS. WORK. LIFE., a podcast from The Association of Performing Arts Professionals.
I’m your host Claire Caulfield and today’s episode: Breaking the Arts Barrier.
There are many barriers to ensuring the performing arts are equitable, both for audience members and for workers trying to navigate the industry.
So today we’re featuring stories of artists and arts workers who dance through red tape, build better systems and are even working to rewrite the entire script.
>> music
ACT ONE
Claire: Act one, tours and tribulations
Justine Bayod Espoz grew up in an immigrant household – her mother was born in Spain and her father in Chile. And Justine’s childhood was defined by trips to Spain to see her mother's extended family, which helped her connect with her Spanish identity.
However, she didn’t have that same connection to her Chilean heritage, because her father was a political refugee – he had to flee the country in the 1970s after being imprisoned and tortured.
Many years after being in America, her father worked tirelessly to arrange a performance from a famous Chilean band in Justine’s hometown of Chicago. Being able to see these musicians in-person, and sharing that experience with her entire community, was a moment she’ll never forget.
Fast forward, and Justine is now the executive director of Torito Arts, and now she works tirelessly to bring touring companies from around the world to America.
And as Justine tells us, it’s much harder than just booking a flight.
Justine: The barriers are many. And, the first barrier I would say is the visa process.
>> music
>> bureaucracy montage, spoken by Justine:
There is a mountain of paperwork. We have to hire lawyers.
We have to pay the union a fee to approve this application.
We have to pay our lawyers, obviously. We have to pay an application fee to the federal government.
Having to have the artists go into a U. S. embassy in their country, that's an enormous financial barrier. But it's also a bureaucratic barrier.
We have to tack on several thousand more for them to legally be able to enter the country. You know, by law, anything that is paid to, to these foreign nationals, um, the, the payer has to retain 30 percent of what they're paying unless you file a CWA, which is, you know, withholding exemption for foreign artists. But then it's a whole other process and rigmarole of getting a tax refund, you know.
So, um, it's, uh, it's an extremely frustrating, time consuming, expensive process that can be extremely debilitating to a tour.
>> bureaucracy montage ends
>> music ends
*laugh*
Justine: I feel anytime I'm able to sell a show, I'm really proud because it's so incredibly hard bringing international artists here.
You know, I've heard everything like, why would I bring a klezmer band from Denmark when there are tons of klezmer bands here in the United States?
That's both a valid argument and an invalid argument because clearly an artist from Denmark is not making the same kind of klezmer that an artist from the United States is, right? There's a big difference.
And I have to oftentimes find the way to explain to that person in the most tactful way possible. You want to bring them because this is a different experience. You want to bring them because this is, there's a different culture behind it. There's a different sound behind it. And so you have to really advocate for the artists because I absolutely feel 100 percent that my job is advocating for these artists.
>> music
Justine: I understand that bringing an artist that does the same genre that lives in the United States, presenting them is much less expensive.
But, when presenters are willing to spend that extra money for authenticity because they want their audiences to experience an artist that they will likely not have the chance to experience if they don't present them, that's why I do this.
>> music
Justine: It's important to me as somebody who wants to have that connection with my parents' home countries, but I also want my home country, the United States, to have that access to those experiences and those viewpoints and those conversations, because they make us better.
>> music
Justine: You feel like your career really matters. You feel like the work and the immense amount of hours and the expense that goes into all of this is worthwhile when you live those experiences.
Like, seeing, you know, I work with a flamenco guitarist who after he played in Butte, Montana, which, you know, how often does flamenco get to Butte, Montana?
Who, after playing there, two, I don't know, must have been 16 or 17 year old kids were like Oh my gosh, how are you doing that with your fingers? And he like grabbed his guitar and was like showing them things that they could do on their guitars to practice.
And they were just so blown away. So to open a young person's eyes up to something different and have them then have enough curiosity to want to go into it and look into it for themselves is super rewarding as well.
>> music
Justine: We're making Americans more curious. We're making Americans better world citizens. And that's important, especially given the situations that we're living right now.
>> music
Justine: You know, we, we say that we, uh, abandoned isolationism a long time ago, but really we don't teach people to look outside of ourselves.
We don't, um, give people the opportunity to look outside of our own, um, our own, you know, borders.
You know, we really have to fight that and we have to fight that to make ourselves a better country, to make ourselves more willing to accept something that's different, different viewpoints. The arts are a good way to do that.
>> music
Claire: Justine Bayod Espoz is the executive director of Torito Arts in Chicago, Illinois.
>> music
Claire: Before our next story, I want to take a moment to tell you about another podcast: The Art of Mass Gatherings.
The Art of Mass Gatherings Podcast flips the script on festivals, transforming community events into hubs for disaster preparedness.
Artists and event workers already play a vital role in their communities, and are a powerful latent force when it comes to building climate resilience. Since 2017, the Art of Mass Gatherings has turned beloved festivals and venues across the country into hands-on classrooms where people come together to plan for the best and worst of times through the four pillars of safety, accessibility, sustainability, and community engagement.
Now, they're bringing top luminaries, fresh tips, and groundbreaking ideas of 'creative resilience' straight to your feed. Tune in for inspiring interviews and to share your own stories.
Ok. Back to our show.
>> music sting
ACT TWO
Claire: Act two, mobilizing to move forward.
Daniel Phoenix Singh grew up in Chennai, India – the capital of Bharatanatyam, a form of Indian classical dance. However, he didn't see a live performance until he moved to the United States to attend college.
He was a computer science major, and only stepped into a dance studio to fulfill a physical education requirement – which completely changed his life.
He went on to formally study Bharatanatyam and other forms of dance, and then melded those forms with moves he was learning at queer clubs. The result isa completely unique dance company that celebrated his heritage while still telling a story of who Daniel is in America.
There was a problem, though. The dance establishment didn’t know what to do with Daniel – or his dancers. And this constant tension opened his eyes to the many ways diversity, equity and inclusion promises are falling short.
After 25 years in the arts ecosystem, Daniel recently stepped into a new job – as Executive Director of the Metro Nashville Arts Commission in Nashville, Tennessee.
In his story, he explains how his fresh approach to DEI is rocking the boat.
Daniel: So DEIA typically stands for diversity, equity, access, and inclusion. And folks have been adding justice and belonging to it as well now. And to me, that's an indication of why there's problems with that, right?
Like you keep adding acronyms to make it something that you think will eventually solve this racial capitalist system we're stuck with. And to me, anti oppression, anti racism is imagining radically new spaces. And if that's not what art is about, I don't know what art is about, right? Art is about imagination, about being radical.
And being grounded and connected to labor, right? It's not separated because anything you do or not, and for me as a dancer, there's a heavy physical labor involved in what you do, right?
It looks easy on stage, but there's lots of labor going on. And so I think anti racism in that sense is really connecting anti oppression practices, not only in thought, but to actual solidarity and labor and doing the work.
>> music
Daniel: So when you try to change by incrementalism, what you end up doing is you end up propping up this oppressive system rather than actually creating a radical new system.
So I've seen that in my life with grants I've tried to get, with reviews my dance company gets, uh, trying to hold on to my company during the pandemic. I was not able to do that. Um, you know, most ballet companies or modern companies have the dancers on full salaries so they could then get the 600 dollar per week subsidy the government was giving out during the pandemic, none of which I had the capacity to do so my dancers couldn't get the benefits. Right? And so this is how I became complicit in the process, right? I was paying my dancers minimum wage. I wish I could have put them on salaries because then I would have had better protections for them when the pandemic came.
And so I was kind of aware of it from the beginning, but I see now really how entrenched I was, how complicit I was in these systems.
And it's, it's complicated. Um, and it gets even more complicated because I'm single, I'm queer, I'm an immigrant, person of color, I have twin children. And so, I can't just drop everything and go do what I want to do because I have to take care of my children, right?
So sometimes I end up compromising my standards and taking on something that might not align with my moral values 100 percent because I have to put food on the table, right? So there's the reality of that.
>> music
Daniel: So I was brought to Nashville to address racial disparities. There had been a lot of allegations against the Arts Commission about racism. And, uh, there was some truth to it, right? So we looked at our history of funding for 35 years. We found that 70 percent of our budget for the last 35 years had gone only to 10 organizations in the city.
And that normally tended to be organizations from a patron class. Meaning, one individual philanthropist decided that, Oh, our city needs to have XYZ organization. And then their private hobby suddenly became taxpayer burden.
So those are huge disparities to kind of address and work through. So I started changing our funding formula by bringing in artists and arts organizations to tell us how to change them.
So we made some drastic changes. We cut down grant questions and then we also took away barriers such as needing a three year history and a match requirements for grants.
Already for that, we've been under a lot of attack by the organizations that feel like this is their funding, and I'm like, no, this is taxpayer dollars.
This money is not earmarked for any one group or the other, right? And, but this is the entitlement of getting the funding for 35 years that they feel like this is their money and we're coming to take it away.
So there's a lot of, um, fight and ill will around the changes we've proposed. But I think we're here now and we hope we will be able to keep them moving forward.
And just the fact that there's a Nashville Arts Equity Group gives me a lot of hope, right, that the artists have taken upon themselves to form a group, mobilize, organize, and come to these meetings is a huge step, and I think that'll keep the momentum going for us.
>> music
Daniel: In 2022, when I applied for the position, I did some research and there have, there had been a lot of allegations of racism around Metro Arts Nashville. When I came on board, I said, I'm, I'm really serious about these changes. I'm not here to just rubber stamp something that keeps the status quo.
I'm going to be moving in bold and radical ways. And, at the interview, at least everyone thought that was the right thing to do. So, so I got the job and I'm here in Nashville. We'll see how long I last.
>> music
Daniel: Nashville's Historical Commission gives a historical designation to organizations that have been around for 50 years.
Well, guess what? Redlining was a reality in Nashville till the late 1990s. So, if you consider that, it'll take another 26 years before a non profit that's BIPOC led could get a historical designation, which has huge monetary value because it's a 30 percent real estate tax forgiveness once he gets that designation, right?
So, those are the kind of questions you have to ask when people are putting out policies. You have to point out that even though you say something stopped being racist in the late 90s, the consequences are still very much on the table now, affecting the lives of BIPOC artists, and we have to work at it from that place.
We have to keep pointing out these disparities, having difficult conversations, people will label you as combative, but that comes with the territory and you just have to roll up your sleeves and do the work.
>> music
Daniel: I always start by saying I'm complicit in all of this, right? Like I'm a, I'm a cis male.
I'm a middle class professional. I have two graduate degrees. So there's all these privileges that accrue to me because of that. And so I'm already a part of these racist systems because I bought into those structures, right?
I'm complicit. So my message is not that I'm pointing fingers at someone for whatever privilege they might have, but I'm saying all of us are complicit in these racist systems, and all of us have to work together to solve these issues.
This is about looking at our history, understanding it from a critical perspective. Otherwise, we won't be able to get to the solutions.
>> music
Daniel: Often in DEIA we're stuck with fixing existing systems as if the system is good. And so I really try to think about what are the new ways we can envision a system and I feel like the anti oppression, anti racist approach is where we have to go. It gives us the most space to be creative. It's the space that we can be taking bold risks and hopefully achieving a world that is not built on the skeleton of a leftover system, but it's really a place of possibility and liberation.
>> music
Daniel: So I will say I was surprised by the resistance. When I got here, people said a very few families run all of Nashville and always have for hundreds of years. And I said, that can't be true in 2022. We have a democratic process, our funding processes are gonna go through a community-led panel - with all of these measures in place we should be fine. And I find out that it's not fine.
These are the ways in which racism is really insidious and really entrenched in the South, and I think I was surprised, but I think I'm also really taking hope by the artists who are mobilizing. They're all coming together as a collective, and if there's any way we can make a difference, that's going to be it.
>> music
Daniel: I think you should connect with those who are doing this work in your area.
So I went to them and learned from them what their strategies were, what their concerns were, and how I can be a part of the movement that they're building, rather than me having a savior complex and trying to start something from scratch. You know, it's really about going to the leaders in your community who are working in the space of anti racism, anti colonialism, anti oppression, asking them what's working, where can you lend a hand?
How can arts be a part of the solution?
>> music
Claire: Daniel Phoenix Singh is the executive director of Metro Arts Nashville.
CREDITS
Claire: Thank you so much for listening.
ARTS. WORK. LIFE. is a production from APAP – the Association of Performing Arts Professionals.
APAP is the national service organization for the performing arts presenting, booking and touring industry. You can join APAP at APAP365.org.
I’m Claire Caulfield, your host and producer.
Jenny Thomas is our Executive Producer.
Music today from Blue Dot Sessions and the 2015 musical Hamilton.
This podcast wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of The Wallace Foundation. So thank you.
Other thank yous to Grace Asuncion, Cara Gluck, The APAP staff and board of directors, our storytellers today, and the hundreds of thousands of arts workers across the world.
Your stories matter. And arts workers ARE essential.
If you work in the performing arts and want to submit your own story to this podcast, visit APAP365.org/podcast.
And if you enjoyed this episode, which I really hope you did, can you just take a moment and make sure you're following us or are subscribed to us on whatever app you use. It will really help more people find the show.
Carolyn: Arts, Work, Life. *laugh* That’s real. *laugh*
>> music
