The Challenge of "Culture"

[Snowflake]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

The Art community is often accused of being elitist, and deliberately obscure as a way of keeping out the "less cultured" - I wonder if that's true.

I also wonder, for those of you that dislike certain "cultural" things, what it is that bores or annoys you - as well as what it is that excites you?

I think opera and ballet definitely fall under the elitist category because of the money needed to produce them and this is reflected in the expense of the tickets to attend. I do not think the opera companies themselves try to obscure to keep the less cultured out. That would be silly as they are in need of a constant source of new funding.

It's more the patrons who support the opera/symphony/ballet who I think are more inclined to be exclusive and downright snooty. I was, myself, a member of the standing room community for many years since that was all I could afford (and I met some of my best friends on the planet in the standing line and along the rails in the uppermost balcony). The "patrons" who paid $14 for their last row balcony seat (to my $10 standing ticket) never ceased to look down their noses at the riff raff behind them. So it goes.

As for what excites me, gosh the list is a mile long. Any art from any era, from Ancient Greece on up to the modern age is exciting. I can take delight from the caves at Lascaux (how do you spell that anyway) to a Monet, a Keith Haring to a Warner Brothers cartoon. Photography is a special love, too.

I love many many forms of music and consider any deficiency on my part in appreciation of newer music to be simply my lack of exposure. Right now I live in the sticks and I don't find the annual Jimmy Buffett concerts worth my time, sorry.

Ballet on it's own bores me, except the short ones! Don't get me wrong, I love the music of Tchaikovsky and Glinka, but some of the old warhorses just make me snooze, especially after a good meal. I'm sure with prolonged exposure to Ballachine and other choreographers I'd find it less dull. Then again, some of the new stuff I have caught in passing on PBS I find irritating.

To make this answer all that much longer, I'm excited by just about anything in the arts. It stimulates the mind and feeds the soul. I may not like it all once I get to know it, but I'll appreciate the experience.

Donna
who is in a rambling mood today, sorry guys