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Publication type:	Conference paper
Type of review:	Peer review (publication)
Title:	Evaluating the performing arts : insights from an ethnography study on dance companies
Authors:	Labaronne, Leticia
et. al:	No
Conference details:	15th International Conference on Arts and Cultural Management AIMAC, Venice, Italy, 23-26 June 2019
Issue Date:	2019
Language:	English
Subjects:	Arts management; Resource-based view; Artistic achievement; Organizational practice
Subject (DDC):	306: Culture
Abstract:	Issues of performance measurement and evaluation in the (nonprofit) arts and culture sector are recurrent topics in arts management research. The literature has proposed in the past decades numerous approaches to define, measure, and evaluate arts and culture activities and their impact on society. (See Hadida, 2015 for a critical literature review in the creative industries and Labaronne, 2017 for a meta-synthesis on the nonprofit arts sector). There is a need for studies that offer fresh insights and a deeper understanding of artistic processes and consider the context-uniqueness in which they are embedded in order to better define and subsequently measure and evaluate the artistic dimension of organizational performance. As an attempt to offer an alternative to the decontextualized approaches found within the positivist tradition, the present study aims to develop a contextualized approach for the evaluation of the performing arts that is derived from the field itself and is thus embedded in its specific artistic and broader environments. Based on the theoretical underpinning that artistic creation is, ontologically, process-based (Zembylas, 2014, 130) and that artistic activities and their outcomes can only be captured within the contexts that give rise to them (Chiaravalotti and Piber, 2011; Becker, 1982), this study puts the artistic 2 process at the core of the inquiry. The scope of the empirical work focuses on how evaluative performance is enacted by the artists themselves, as experts, self-evaluators, and peer evaluators. In order to do that, I study the evaluation practices embedded in the creation process of new choreographed dance productions in the context of world-renowned ballet and contemporary dance companies. The research design takes an ethnographic approach based on three in-depth cases studies: the Berlin State Ballet, the Vienna State Ballet, and Sasha Waltz & Guests. An ethnographic study at the Vienna State Ballet and the Berlin State Ballet offers in-depth understanding of artistic achievement in large organizations. Contrary to creative sectors in which work dynamics are temporary and freelance based, the performing arts in continental Europe are characterized by permanent ensembles and limited flexibility. By putting working practices at the core of the inquiry, the insideout and resource-oriented organization of work comes to the fore. Findings are framed using a resource-based view. The categories of reconfiguring, integrating, co-creating, coaching, and preserving elaborate on the disposition and development of resources to create and sustain artistic achievement.
URI:	https://digitalcollection.zhaw.ch/handle/11475/18065
Fulltext version:	Published version
License (according to publishing contract):	Licence according to publishing contract
Departement:	School of Management and Law
Organisational Unit:	Center for Arts Management (ZKM)
Appears in collections:	Publikationen School of Management and Law

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