Opening the Arts section in the Tribune for the 2021 Fall Arts Preview, normally the annual kickoff for the year of the performing arts, was a real wake-up call! The lead article, titled “Fall arts are back,” (Sept. 12) drove it home. The author asks, “Going on two years since we had a fall arts season. … A fall arts season that looks like a fall arts season. On the other hand, who cares anymore? I’m not certain I do.”
It feels as if we have all awakened from a bad dream just to realize that it’s not a dream at all. After almost two years of dormancy, severe financial pain and suffering, the performing arts industry, which was among the first industries to close, is now on the brink of being the last to reopen. But “who cares anymore?”
“Who cares anymore” that Chicago is a world-class city with our museums, our symphony, our dance, our theaters and our music?
For those considering a relocation to Chicago, or a visit as a tourist, culture is what differentiates Chicago from other cities, and whenever we can support culture, it not only impacts our economy — it adds to the quality of life for all of us who live here.
“Who cares anymore” that culture represents more than 3% of the state’s GDP?
“Who cares anymore” that culture provides more than 200,000 jobs?
“Who cares anymore” that culture supports Chicago’s retail, restaurants and hotels, driving more than 58 million tourists to our city annually?
Apparently, World Business Chicago doesn’t care. The agency whose mission is “to drive inclusive economic growth and job creation, support business, and promote Chicago as a leading global city,” just published a list of the top 100 reasons for businesses to move to Chicago. Culture didn’t even make the list (though the art and museums did get brief mentions). Could they have forgotten the fact that culture plays a big part in the health and vitality of a city’s population and luring and keeping the best and brightest young talent is the key to Chicago’s success?
The city of New York produced a mega event celebrating the reopening of the performing arts costing millions. They decided to support the cultural assets that make New York New York and, in addition, funded or supported many other initiatives that followed, trumpeted all over the national press. They cared and didn’t forget.
Do the city’s leaders care? Chicago’s arts institutions attempted to produce a major celebratory event to laud the return of culture earlier this year.The city chose not only to look the other way, but stood in the way of the private sector’s attempt to produce the event.
“Who cares anymore?” We all should.
And here’s why. Our children.
The arts introduce the power of imagination and possibility. The arts stimulate creativity and open young minds to new worlds. The arts inspire our youth with new ways of communicating — through song, poetry, dance and performance. Culture defines us. It allows us to celebrate who we are. The performing arts allow us to touch our hearts and minds, to enrich our souls at a time when we need it, maybe more than at any other time in our lives.
The performing arts are the backbone of the city’s social, emotional and economic recovery. We can give the city of Chicago, World Business Chicago, and the Chicago Tribune the benefit of the doubt, that in the dormancy, they forgot that Chicago was one of the world’s top cultural cities, and that the performing arts in Chicago were second to none. But do they think that the performing arts venues just turn on the light switch and the audiences appear?
One might say we should reach out to Choose Chicago or the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events since they should be advocates in our reopening, however the leadership of both agencies are gone, or on their way out, with no replacements yet announced. Who cares anymore?
In the words of William Shakespeare, “If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended, that you have but slumber’d here, while these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream. … Awake, dear heart, awake.”
Maybe it’s the city of Chicago, World Business Chicago and Choose Chicago that need to wake up.
Lou Raizin is president of Broadway in Chicago.
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