The Playgoer last week posted a link to a very interesting “thinkpiece” that Scott Timberg wrote a couple of Sundays ago for the Los Angeles Times, which discussed various cultural trends that seem to be currently in play, most especially the blurring of the distinction between ”high culture” and ”popular culture”. There are a lot of intriguing tidbits in the article that I’ve been reflecting on, so I’ll probably come back to it in subsequent blog posts. One of the things that first struck me, though, is this quote from the terrific writer Pico Iyer (his twenty-year old book Video Night in Kathmandu: And Other Reports from the Not-So-Far-Eastis still, in my opinion, one of the most informed, most understanding, and most articulate observations of Southeast and East Asian cultures that I have read from someone not from those cultures), one of the culturatis and intellectual types that Timberg interviewed: “What we seem to have nowadays is more of a hierarchy of media…whereby, for example, dance, classical music, opera, and even theater and books, all of which commanded their own sections in Time magazine only a generation ago, are now regarded as lofty and remote subjects for only a handful of connoisseurs.” Timber then says that Iyer further notes that we feel guilty that we have become “elitist” if we go and listen to chamber orchestra or jazz, or any of the arts that the current cultural milieu have labeled “elitist”. It’s a fascinating, and to be honest, frustrating point for me. I have touched on a similar vein in this blogpost from last November: I’ve noticed that many of my peers, my peeps, the late20/thirty/early40somethings desired as cultural consumers, have not had consistent experiences in the theater, or at the opera and symphony, or with modern or classical dance. Actually, some of them have never had any experiences at all. Which is really disturbing for me, because for these art forms to continue and flourish in the future, they should have an influx of new, fresh, rejuvenated audiences. One thing I wanted Iyer, or Timberg, for that matter, to further expound on is the reason why our current culture have labeled these art forms as “elitist”. Is it because theater, the symphony, etc. are seen as “expensive”? Hmmm…last Saturday, I was at a FREE (yes free) Grant Park Orchestra concert, sitting in the orchestra section of the fantastically minimalist and acoustically-superb Harris Theater, listening entranced to highly-acclaimed (and current Chicago Symphony Orchestra composer-in-residence) composer Osvaldo Golijov’s searing, profound masterwork “Last Round”, based on a short story by famed Argentinian novelist Julio Cortazar, while some of my friends paid for a $60 day pass (or maybe even a $190 three-day pass) for Lollapalooza. The Hypocrites, TUTA, Greasy Joan, Red Orchid, Strange Tree Group, or any of the myriad storefront theaters who bring innovative, intelligent, exceptionally acted and directed theatrical productions to Chicago audiences, charge only 20 bucks a ticket, which is so much less than what one would be spending at Retro on Roscoe or the multitude of interchangeable summer street fairs in Chicago, and only slightly more than an IMAX ticket for The Dark Knight. Is it because theater, opera, etc., require a lot of time commitment? Well, only if you’re going to Wagner operas or O’Neill plays. Keith Huff’s Pursued by Happiness, the most impressive of the three new plays currently being staged in repertory at Steppenwolf’s First Look Repertory of New Work, clocks in at a compact 90 minutes of engaging and surprising emotional situations. Or is this purported “elitism” really a codeword for cultural forms that require focus, concentration, introspective appreciation, abstract thinking? Of course, going to a Brecht play is a different intellectual experience that going to a Radiohead concert. Both can be equally satisfying, but not a lot of people in my generation seem to want to give Brecht a chance. Yes, it is a generation that is used to mass media, commoditized consumption, and instant gratification - and have these then made it a generation lacking in intellectual curiosity bordering on laziness?
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