Assembly LVII: The Performing Arts at Yale
Thursday, October 26 through Saturday, October 28, 2000
Sample Club Report
Anna Marsh
Graduate School

What role do the arts play for the artist, the audience, and society at large? What makes a creation good art? And how can we educate talented young people to create and discern good art? These were some of the questions posed and addressed in the 57th Assembly of the AYA.

Many speakers led us to explore the question: Why art? What draws us so compellingly to this form of expression? What aspects of our spirit does art so deeply satisfy? From the opening remarks of Susan Addiss ’69 MPH, ’69 MUrS, the Assembly Chair, to the keynote speech by Joseph Polisi ’73 MusM, ’75 MusAM, ’80 MusAD, and President of the Juilliard School, the speakers shed light and truth on this topic.

The arts entertain and divert us. They allow us to express, share, and hold in memory universal human emotions. The arts provide an emotional and imaginative release. They are a physical and temporal embodiment of our inner aesthetic sense. Art is a display of human excellence, of skill, talent, and beauty that inspire us. Art illuminates the true nature of beauty, justice, good, and evil. Art shapes character, civilizes human beings, and improves the quality of the world. Art nurtures a tolerance of individuality. Art deliberately provokes us, in the interest of intellectual honesty. Art is a summation of the human condition.

What makes a creation good art? Mr. Polisi suggested that civilization is the result of acts of imagination by minds that are historically formed. In other words, the act of creation, of imagination, of emotional and aesthetic expression is not, in itself, enough. That act must be informed by a deeper understanding of the historical, cultural, and intellectual context in which the artist acts. As noted by Richard Brodhead, Dean of Yale College, the artist must learn to situate her personal powers in a context of self-awareness in relation to others.

What is the relationship of art and commerce? Mr. Polisi distinguished between art and entertainment. He reminded us that the quality of the content of artistic expression must be paramount. Corporation member Roland Betts ’68 reminded us of the commercial realities of the entertainment industry with which young artists must learn to contend.

School of Drama Dean Stanley Wojewodski conveyed the tremendous risk that students take in embarking on careers in the performing arts. Many are called; few are chosen. Against all odds, the artist must be driven to create. Only a compelling need to practice his art will sustain him through his struggle with the practical obstacles.

How does Yale approach the education of talented young students in the performing arts? Leon Plantinga, Chair of the Music Department, and Marc Robinson, Director of the Theater Studies Department, described their undergraduate programs. The faculty of these programs teach drama and music within the context of the liberal arts education. The intention is for undergraduates to develop their minds broadly in the fields of thought and analytic skills that will enable them to understand the theoretical constructs, historical place, and cultural significance of dramatic and musical works. The faculty believe that this will ultimately make the students better artists because their intellectual maturity will foster deeper content in their work. Undergraduates receive instruction in the technique of performance, but this is not the sole focus of their work.

In contrast, Robert Blocker, Dean of the Music School, and Mr. Wojewodski described the Schools of Music and Drama as conservatories. Here, practicing artists--musicians, conductors, composers, actors, directors, playwrights, critics, and others--hone their craft and work on perfecting their technique. Still, the richness of the intellectual environment of the Schools and of Yale attracts students who seek a broad historical, cultural, and intellectual understanding of the content and form of their art.

The success of Yale’s approach to teaching the performing arts is evident in the remarkable success of Yale students and faculty in their fields. Still, dynamic tensions exist. As Dean Brodhead described, some undergraduates find the drive to perform so strong that it is difficult to delay a greater focus on this aspect of their education. Students in the Schools of Music and Drama need higher levels of scholarship support. And the performing arts programs need better facilities.

President Richard Levin announced a $250 million plan to renovate and expand arts facilities around Chapel and York Streets. He also announced an alliance of Yale, Oxford, Princeton, and Stanford to offer courses over the Internet. The courses will initially be offered to the universities’ staff and alumni and their families.

The morning before the assembly began, I paid a visit to a former professor. As he came out of his office to shake my hand, “Welcome home,” he said. The exuberance, talent, and discipline of the students, the compassion and skill of the faculty and their ability to give wings to the flight of our imagination—these are freeing experiences. They reawakened in me a sense of privilege, a love of learning, a need to express my own creative streak, and an obligation to give back.