The Invisible Gardener

The Office for the Arts (OFA) would have you believe that it serves as the soil, fertilizer and watering hose for creativity at Harvard. Such a pose, which the OFA strikes in its introductory pamphlet and in its newsletters, really overestimates the support provided by the University to the arts here. While the OFA does serve to centralize Harvard's efforts to inspire (and ability to control) artistic endeavor, it also over hypes the impact of the facilities and services it offers to student groups.

"Practice and Performance," OFA's "Guide to the Arts at Harvard and Radcliffe," is a fine showcase for what's happening on campus. But the groups detailed in the brochure actually have very little to do with the OFA. Like the cover photograph of an ancient bas relief from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the organizations included in "Practice and Performance" have only the vaguest correlation to the OFA. They are ordinarily self-sufficient entities which would not have existed except for student initiative and would just as easily pass from the scene without it. Take, for example, the Radcliffe Choral Society which rehearses in Paine and Lowell Halls and Sanders Theatre. In order to conduct after-hours rehearsals in those locations, the Society has to pay for security guards, yet it receives no financial support from the OFA.

The major discrepancy, though, between the image of the OFA as an overarching bureaucratic entity and the reality of it as a fine public relations organization lies in the provision of performance space. The Kuumba Singers, a group dedicated to the presentation of works in the African-American musical tradition, cannot secure rehearsal space anywhere in the University. According to a senior member of that group, the room in Sever Hall which it made use of last year has been assigned to the extension school and the other spaces which the OFA can make available are either too small or give preference to dramatic productions.

The Harvard-Radcliffe Dance Company also has run into scheduling conflicts with the OFA. Co-director Miranda J. Hodgson '97 praises the new Studio 74 rehearsal space and the grant money her organization receives from the OFA "without which we could not stay solvent." But she complains of the difficulty of performing at Radcliffe Dance Center because the Company must clear its stage set (including flats, scrim, strip lights and trees) after every performance to accommodate dance classes given by Radcliffe. Performance, it seems, gets second priority at Radcliffe.

Glenn A. Nano '98, a member of the Harvard band Daily Planet, complains that "there is very little in the way of space for anyone doing anything post-Stravinsky." He cites the absence of rooms designed for modern music which would require greater sound-proofing than those constructed for violin practice. The provision of instruments is another factor in OFA's classical bias, which Nano suggests is evident in its purchase of additional grand pianos rather than a single drum set. The non-existence of a modern music department since the departure of Anthony Davis is also of central concern to those interested in folk, funk, jazz and rock.

City Step organizer Nicole A. Barry '98 contends that the OFA makes the best out of a bad situation. "It is simply a matter of there only being one or two ideal performance spots for groups, other than play productions and dramatic productions," she says. The space which is available forms a finite realm within which artistic groups must compete for time. This unhealthy competition between creative organizations does not serve to better students' cultural expression or their exposure to that culture.

On a final note, it does not appear to be any sort of inadequate performance of the OFA administrators which is responsible for the deficiency of performance space on campus. Many heads of artistic groups had nothing but praise for the efforts of OFA workers. Nevertheless, the absence of adequate performance space belies the OFA's claim to be a foundation for the arts at Harvard and Radcliffe. In the future, the OFA should concentrate its efforts on advocating for the funding of student artistic initiative within the University.

Joshua A. Kaufman's column appears on alternate Tuesdays.