Technology is Ruining the Performing Arts–and That’s a Good Thing. Here’s Why.

Teaching is a live performance art. We don’t discuss it that way enough, but it is precisely that. New teachers struggle with that idea sometimes, believing that curricular content and assessment constitutes the bulk of the work. But that all just sets the stage, especially in our digital age. This talk by Ben Cameron of the Doris Duke Foundation offers insights about how the internet–that thing you have heard of responsible for the toppling of Tower Records–might usher in a new age of live performance. Out of the opera house and into the community. The arts can return a sense of consciousness to how we live our lives, one that for Cameron is in dire need today. What does it mean for teaching today, though? (Perhaps this Adrienne Rich poem he cites offers us guidance.)