New buildings for arts necessary to foster 'culture of creativity' at university
BY BARBARA PALMER
Violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman once chided President John Hennessy about the inadequacy of Stanford's performing arts space right in the middle of a concert at Memorial Auditorium, Hennessy told members of the Faculty Senate Thursday, June 9.
"You should be embarrassed," Perlman told the president when he paid the violinist a backstage visit. Perlman continued: "You should be embarrassed about the quality of performance space that a great university like Stanford has, and you should do something about it," Hennessy recalled.
Hennessy recounted the conversation during a discussion of the planned multidisciplinary arts initiative, which will not be officially launched until at least a year in the future. The initiative's co-directors, Bryan Wolf, the Jeanette and William Hayden Jones Professor in American Art and Culture, and Jonathan Berger, associate professor of music, presented a preview of the initiative to the senate on May 12. There was no time for discussion of the initiative at that meeting.
The arts initiative is planned to be similar in scale to initiatives in biosciences, the environment and international studies. At its core is the goal of creating a systemic "culture of creativity" at Stanford, Wolf said at the earlier meeting. The arts initiative would expand existing arts programs and interdisciplinary arts and culture-related initiatives and add new elements, including a Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts, to link the arts to virtually every other area of study at the university, Wolf said on May 12.
Facilities are an important part of each initiative, but improving performance space and visual arts facilities on campus are particularly crucial to the success of the arts initiative, Hennessy said. "Both in the visual arts as well as in the performing arts, we just don't have something that we can be proud of," he said.
Hennessy spoke generally about arts facilities at the meeting, saying that it is too early to elaborate on plans. "A performing arts facility is not a small endeavor," he said, adding that it is likely to cost more than a football stadium, "unbelievable as that sounds. So we just have to find a way to do it."
Discussions of the possibility of partnering with Palo Alto to create a shared performing arts facility revealed several problems, including costs, the city's desire for a facility within walking distance of downtown Palo Alto and potential scheduling conflicts, he said. The difficulties of a shared project "probably exceed the benefits," Hennessy said.
Hennessy also mentioned plans for an "Arts to Anatomy" project, which will move the Art and Art History Department to the Old Anatomy Building behind the Cantor Arts Center.
The projects would "create a dramatic revolution in terms of the quality of performance and the opportunities for students to also engage in the visual arts," he said. "So that's our dream. I think our challenge will be to find some donors who will help us translate that dream to reality."
As Berger and Wolf fielded questions about the initiative, Cecilia Ridgeway, sociology, commented that the plans that Berger and Wolf presented for the arts initiative seemed to lack a tangible center. "It sounds to me like everyone agrees it's a good thing, but where's the 'there' there?" she asked.
The initiative's academic programming plans are in the process of shifting from a visionary to a concrete stage, Wolf said. "One of the first things that we feel we need to do is to be as inclusive to all faculty and all schools and all departments as we possibly can," Berger said. "We've been having an unbelievable amount of meetings in the past—more meetings than can be imagined. We've been going from colleague to colleague and group to group." One of the dangers of an interdisciplinary initiative is that departments can run the risk of feeling that something is being forced down their throats, he said.
"We've had a year of focus and vision groups. We expect next year to be a year of steering committees" that will culminate in particular goals, Berger said.
"Whatever we do, we should do it in a big way and make sure it comes out number one, the best, and it's noted that way," said John Eaton, mechanical engineering.
In his response, Berger alluded to remarks reported to have been made by Harry Elam, drama, about the $85 million plan to renovate the football stadium. Along with Elam, he is a "fellow radical proponent of the idea that to be number one, we need a first-rate theater before we need a refurbished football stadium," Berger said.
