Dayton and Cinci folks (including those who live in the nearby suburbs) should take offense to this ridiculous plea from a guy representing the Warren County Arts Council who is basically saying that those who currently support the arts in the urban cores of Dayton and Cinci should shift their focus (and dollars) to Warren County so they can duplicate the arts and cultural venues that already exist in each core city for their exurban convenience...

 

Nathan Smallwood: Arts sector should reach out to booming Warren

 

Few places in America are experiencing more dramatic "exurban" growth than Warren County.  Across the nation, massive numbers of families are trading their traditional suburban lifestyles for bigger homes and yards and increased distance from perceived urban ills.

 

More below:

http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/content/oh/story/opinions/editorial/2008/01/02/ddn010208voicens.html

 

Regards,

Bill Pote

Downtown Dayton Resident and Business Owner

[email protected]

 

 

There is a reason Warren County doesn't have these institutions...it's because its residents don't want to pay for it.  This is why people move to places like Butler/Warren Counties...they want all the amenities of big-city life nearby, but want the illusion of a different/better life.

 

I don't know the donor lists for the Cincinnati and/or Dayton Arts, but I would bet that residents of Butler/Warren Counties make up very little of their overall money donors.

 

On a side note, this is the same reason why these counties have lousy park systems, library systems, and really any kind of public amenities.

"In sharp contrast to southwest Ohio's overall stagnant growth, its population has boomed a staggering 21 percent since 2000."

 

Ohhhkay... so he's completely admitting that the overall market isn't growing, but the existing institutions should suffer in order to prop up rinky-dink operations in far-flung exurbs? He doesn't even realize how utterly repugnant he is. I wouldn't find boring white people so f#cking repulsive if they'd learn to not inflict their boring white peopleness on me.

 

Looks like he's part of http://www.warrencountyarts.org/ and their site looks exactly as I'd expect - boring and uninspired - go figure. 

Further research shows that Mr. Smallwood is the former president and CEO of CultureWorks in Dayton. 

http://news.nky.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20071202/ENT07/712020327

Speaking from someone lives in the exurbs in Clinton County... Why would this guy forego all the rich history and cultural heritage of Cincinnati and Dayton and hope for a new cultural center in Warren County of all places? Personally, growing up, I have always enjoyed a trip to Cincinnati, either for a show at the Aronoff, a Reds or Bengals game, A GRAETERS (we seriously have to get a branch out here!), volunteering at the Red Cross, and just soaking up the beauty of the city. Why does this guy want to spread out the urban cores even more? Go downtown to experience those things crazy (crazy referring to that man)!

 

In addition, all people who live in the exurbs aren't urban haters, fearers of the city... we just like the openness, the small towns, personability, and freshness of the land outside the city limits.

I haven't read his statement above, but he wrote what sounds like a similar piece a year ago arguing that Warren County should expand its arts, and cincy/Dayton should consider shifting some of their arts to this area.

 

He has some good and bad points in his arguement.  He argues that Warren County tries to bill itself as the 'playground of Ohio', but lack any sort of cultural arts presence.  He is right on this account.

 

And it's fair to say that the people of Butler and Warren county, particularly Warren county, are underserved by the arts in general (both performing and non-performing).  Butler county has some quality stuff in Hamilton, but Middletown area is struggling.  Mason has little at this point.

 

But I do not think expansion of the arts should come at the expense of those in Cincinnati and Dayton.  There is no need for another museum to be built in Warren/Butler County as the Cincy/Dayton have 7 or so excellent museums.  And as to performing arts, again Cincy/Dayton has that well covered. 

 

There may be room for a performing arts institution in Warren county, though, if run more as a summer performing arts series or a regional 'arts' school.  This would allow for some quality performances, even if only by 'developing' students, to take place in the summer time.  The Cincy/Dayton  troups are primarily a school-year calendar.  There is room for a summer performance series, and locating it between 2 big cities that, but for a smaller segment, turns its attention to sports in the summer.

 

With the Fraze pavilion and Riverbend (with its new facility this year), there is no real need for a summer amphlitheatre.  It would have been nice if the CSO had built riverbend in Warren county back in 1988, but oh well, the opportunity was lost back then.

 

I live in Waren county but love the arts of Cincy/Dayton.  I've thought about this issue to some degree.  I'll take a better read at the OP and the responses, and then write more.

Warren County!!  (Yawning....!!)

If the OP means that the Ballets and Operas of Cincy & Dayton should move to Warren county, then I disagree.

 

But if the OP is saying that those organizations should consider putting on performances in Butler/Warren counties, then I would agree. 

 

The Cincinnati Children's theatre puts on a few public shows in Cincy for each of its productions, then performs any times more shows for local school groups.  Why couln't they also go to the Middletown branch of Miami U. (near the Butler/Warren border) and put on an additional 2 or 3 public shows there?  This would allow the 600k people living in those 2 counties easier access to the shows of the Childrens Theatre.

 

(Finkelman Auditorium at MUM probably seats 500 - 700 people, and its pretty central to Bulter/Warren counties)

 

The same could be said for the Dayton Ballet.  Why can't they put on a number of performances in outlying areas, such as Springfield or Middletown, even if its just a family (children)-oriented mini-production?

 

As a parent of 2 elementary school children, I've been dismayed at the lack of school field trips my children take to cultural places in Cincinnati and Dayton.  Growing up in Middletown, we regularly went to museums in Cincinnati and Dayton.  Now the local school children do not.  As a result, parents have to take the responisbility to expose their children to the arts in orde to develop a better appreciation of world.  I took my children the the CSO family show one Saturday morning.  Next Saturday we are headed to the Cincy Art Museum to see the Madcap Puppets and to see the museum.  (Last weekend's planed trip the the Dayton Art Institute was cancelled due to illness, or we would have seen the 'ROME' exhibit.)

 

I'm not saying move the arts out of the urban centers.  In fact, due to the relative small size of the cities of Ohio these days, I think putting all your cutural/sporting/entertainment eggs in one (downtown) basket is the best way for Ohio cities to proceed. 

 

But centering the cultural institutions downtown does not proclude putting on the occassion show in the exurbs, even if its only oriented at families.  The CSO and Dayton Philharmonic  can still retain their Classics and Pops series in their showcase homes.  But putting on 2 performances a year of their Saturday morning 'Family' series in the exurbs would be a great investment in the metro area students and their future patron base.

 

I say the major performing arts companies of Cincinnati and Dayton need to re-think their business models to include many more 'sampler' programs that can performmed in the exurbs of their sprawling metropolitan homes.

There is a reason Warren County doesn't have these institutions...it's because its residents don't want to pay for it.  This is why people move to places like Butler/Warren Counties...they want all the amenities of big-city life nearby, but want the illusion of a different/better life.

 

I don't know the donor lists for the Cincinnati and/or Dayton Arts, but I would bet that residents of Butler/Warren Counties make up very little of their overall money donors.

 

Yes and no. Probably the biggest reason these things don't exist is because there has never been a critical mass of residents until recently. Now that the area is rapidly populating, residents and officials can justify the need.

 

Do you really expect a suburbanite to donate to organizations in the city? Obviously that is the hope, but just because they don't doesn't mean they wouldn't be willing to fund such amentities in their own jurisdiction/counties.

I don't really have any problems with the 'burbs trying to expand their artistic footprint. Some of the small towns in Warren Cty (not sure Butler has any left besides Oxford) could try for being an artistic center. Get visiting artists from Cincy, Dayton, C-bus. The big boys will be in the cities, but greater attention to arts would likely benefit the big boys than detract. You see a local symphony or even a small art museum and you are more likely to head to one of the big cities to see the real thing.

f Warren County wants a space for full performance it is going to have to be equivalent to the Shuster and the Aranoff in acoustics and backstage support (dressing rooms, fly, workrooms, etc).  That is going to cost quite a bit.

 

Yet,  If a new arts center manages to book both Cincinnati and Dayton performing arts groups that is going to increase the market for performing arts organizations in both cities. 

 

Right now I bet there isn't much interaction or shared audience between both cities. I know I've went to Cincy performances but that is still quite a drive from Dayton, especially on a weeknight.  I would think this would hold for a Cincinnati audience, too, that they rarely travel to Dayton for performing arts events.

 

Having a centrally located facility in, say, Lebanon, that hosts the Cincy symphony, ballet, and opera for occasion shows means these become more accessible to me as the performance venue is closer.  And vice versa for Dayton arts.  So a shared audience would start to develop.

 

A larger issue is that as Cincy and Dayton merge into "Daytonnati" maybe the performing arts organizations could cooperate more or coordinate more on their schedules.  I know there is already some collaboration on technical things and in borrowed performers (the Dayton Ballet used scene flats from Cincinnati for one of their performances), but this could be extended to marketing and scheduling, too.

 

I too have no problem with places like Warren County working to increase the arts in their communities, nor do I think it would be a bad thing for Dayton and Cincinnati groups to travel across the region to perform.  I do have a problem when those in charge of these efforts write pieces in the newspaper basically asking businesses that traditionally support the existing arts orgs in the urban core to shift their dollars to their towns so that they can build duplicate venues.  That would do considerable damage to the urban orgs that are already struggling.  It is no different than poaching our downtown businesses with unfair tax incentives.  And in an overall region that is struggling, it makes absolutely no sense.

 

I'm also offended by his argument that since the median income is so high in Warren County that this is a reason to more or less abandon the arts orgs in the urban cores.  Dayton has got more than its share of poor people, but that is not a reason to take one of the last few positives about this city away so that so-called rich (white) people out in sprawl land don't have to drive a WHOLE HALF HOUR away for a night of culture.  And btw - not everybody in Dayton is poor, despite what the average suburbanite believes.

 

And while I'm ranting - why is it that Warren County's growth is looked at as such an amazing thing?  Wasn't most of it farm land just a decade or so ago?  When you have that much cheap vacant land, it is pretty damn easy to grow - especially in the recent housing bubble that has since burst.

I would think this would hold for a Cincinnati audience, too, that they rarely travel to Dayton for performing arts events.

 

A very sad, but true point.  I live in the Lebanon area, but work in Cincinnati (Reading area, actually).  Everyone I work with is from inside I-275.

 

I attend performances and museums in both cities.  But when I tell people at work that so-and-so is coming to the Fraze pavilion, they have no idea what the Fraze pavilion is.  Likewise, when I say that there is a special 'ROME' exhibit at the DAI, they have no idea Dayton has an art museum.

 

Same with the ballet.  One co-worker (who lives in Westchester but is from Cincy) wanted to take her daughter to see the Nutcracker.  When I asked if she was going to Cincy or Dayton, she had no idea Dayton had a ballet.  I mentioned that she lives equal distance between the 2, and had her pick.

 

As a personal note, I've concluded most working people in Cincinnati think the world ends at I-275.  That may be changing somewhat now with the growth of Mason and WestChester, but the world definitely ends at that point.  They think Lebanon is a 2 hour drive away!   So locating a performace hall in the middle of Warren county will be a hard sell to attract audiances from Cincinnati.

 

That is why I think a smaller performance center that allows performance 'samplers' during the normal season and special summer programs when the audiance will be smaller makes sense for Warren County.  I do not see a performance center supplanting either Dayton or Cincinnati.