Congress In Session

To my compatriots:

Allow me to rant for a spell on the importance of community to the arts.

As I wrote previously, Café Cino was the beginning of Off-Off-Broadway. It started as a coffee house for artistic friends to gather, talk, and share.

I am reading a book right now called The Era of German Expressionism. The pages are filled with name after name of the cafes and houses that Kafka, Kokoschka, Conrad Veidt and hundreds of other artists, writers, and actors frequented daily, drinking, arguing, and imagining a new beginning.

At Skidmore College (the ole Alma Mater) there were classes and parties and the theatre department met every Friday to critique, discuss, and present.

The precedent is there, so why isn’t there anywhere like any of these places in New York City??? This is the biggest city in America and it is bustling, brimming, bursting with theatre!

I know the information age has changed things and that there is much “artistic talk” on the Internet. I know there are blogs and discussion groups and informational sites and podcasts and interviews and reviews all at my disposal at the click of a button. And I go to a lot of shows (and occasionally a movie or museum) and I am starting to get to know other people in the biz. But why is there no physical home for it?

I am lucky to have the No. 11-ers and we do engage in a fair amount of artistic musings. But there is a difference between being in dialogue with my company and being in dialogue with a whole community of artists from different backgrounds and with different ideas. Maybe it does exist somewhere and I just haven’t found it yet.

I do believe part of this is jealousy at reading about the incredibly vibrant, stimulating, creative atmosphere of pre-World War I Expressionist Berlin. And part of this is probably some ‘I just graduated from college’ withdrawal. I guess I’m just feeling a little lost and uninspired right even though I am living in a city that should make me feel energized and brilliant and at home.

Community is important to me. I draw much of my energy from being around other artists who are driven and creative and passionate. I hope I can find that non-Internet NYC artist community that I am looking for. And if I can’t, well, then I hope that I can play a role in reviving it from its dormancy.

Written by Julie Congress