Letter from the Editor
Stay Vigilant. Artists Still Need You in 2021.
By Luke Tatge
Publisher
Sioux Falls Stage
2021. It’s a seemingly innocuous number that will likely carry something of a special power for many people. It’s a number that likely inspires relief, anticipation, desperation and, most of all, hope.
Because in the performing arts space, that 2020 number has carried a pretty heavy weight. One where plans changed, organizations scrambled and for every triumph there were three failures. It was a year of dashed dreams and halted growth. And it was unrelenting right to the bitter end.
And though the “way we usually do things” isn’t exactly roaring back first thing in 2021, there’s the hope that it will. We’re clinging to a semblance of normalcy in the performing space to return before the year’s end. For some months it might be a healthy amalgam of “the 2020 version” with “the old ways” and it’ll at least feel like progress.
But in the meantime, you’re important. Whether you’re a creator, a technician, a performer, a patron or a financial supporter, you matter. Whether or not you spent the whole of last year doing some combination of grieving the state of things, trying new ways of creating art or planning for a future that looks a little different than the way we’d originally conceived it—your contributions are vital.
Your purchase of a season subscription with nothing in return says, “I want you to be here when time delivers us a return to the stage.” Your eyeballs on a virtual concert says, “I know it’s not the same, but it’s a modicum of that live-entertainment feeling I miss so very much.” And your strength in finding new ways to keep Sioux Falls entertained says, “Creating and performing and making others happy is so vital to who I am as a person, I’ll do it any way I can.”
That’s the theme of this quarter’s cover roundtable, and, frankly, it’s the theme of 2020 as a whole. Innovation has driven so much creativity throughout this past year, but it’s also been exhausting work often falling on deaf ears. The artists in our community have changed mediums, they’ve tried new things and they’ve stepped out of their comfort zones—all for that dual purpose of continuing to ignite their own passions and unrelentingly bringing joy to the community in whatever way they could.
As we look to year two of Sioux Falls Stage, we’ll keep doing the same. We’ll spotlight visionaries in the community who are putting that extra-special touch back into our everyday lives. Entertainers and purveyors of beauty who have spent the past 12 months shifting and swerving—and creating work that has never ceased to be intriguing, notable and, sometimes, brave.
Our first year in publication has been unconventional and certainly not what we expected when we launched issue number one last January. But seeing how a community of artists responded to upheaval and how said community rose to the occasion to support them has been well worth covering.
The truth is, it’s been a year where many artists perhaps put in more time, energy, resources and creativity than ever before, despite largely having little to no audience, in-person, virtual or otherwise. And though most of the passion that fuels art is heart, soul and camaraderie, community support is critical to keeping it possible and willing it into existence.
Your city’s dreamers had a rough go of it in 2020, despite the plucky, upbeat optimism they’ve managed to keep at the surface at every turn. Crisis has a way of showing where the chips fall when pushed—and many live entertainers realized the chips had vanished from their own corner when all was said and done.
But it doesn’t need to be that way. Small gestures and remaining vocal through a mess of noise is one tiny way that an everyday resident can show arts orgs and the people they employ that there’s a reason to hope. That there’s a brighter future waiting. That the mountainous efforts being put in to stay in the hearts and minds of the community’s citizens will be worth the wait.
So though 2021 is here, and we’re all breathing a hopeful sigh of relief, know that it’s not over. Vigilance and attention are needed to keep art thriving in Sioux Falls. Don’t rest on your laurels and avert your eyes until things are “normal” again. Innovation is happening. And its long-term impact is worth supporting.