Letter from the Editor

What Do the Performing Arts Mean to You?

By Luke Tatge

Publisher

Sioux Falls Stage

What do the performing arts mean to you? Is it an occasional escape from the stresses of home? An excuse to get a babysitter and hit the town with your significant other or best pal?

Or perhaps it goes even deeper. Perhaps it’s about engaging with art that’s meaningful, expressive and relatable. Something that makes you think, feel, learn and grow. An experience that can bring you joy, help you navigate grief, inspire you to create art of your own… or maybe all of the above?

The truth is, the performing arts are at a crossroads. Both globally and right here in Sioux Falls. And while leadership in these little sub-communities of theatre, dance, music and comedy are hustling behind the scenes more than ever before to amplify talented voices and change the way they operate to keep creating, it’s exhausting and often thankless work.

It’s work that takes time, energy, money and will power. And it’s work that can be even less gratifying and more difficult in an environment in which they’re being forgotten or overlooked.

As organizations and companies in the arts deal with the stark realities of the COVID-19 pandemic and how it has harshly stopped momentum, growth and community in the space, they’re also grappling with the notion that they might not be able to keep going beyond 2020.

Imagine that. Imagine a world in which the once thriving and beautiful Sioux Falls performing arts scene was cut off at the knees, fading away partially or completely, by the time we see the other side of our current crises.

I can’t bear to think of it.

Because of those very reasons why we engage in the performing arts, we need to band together. We need to acknowledge the work being done in the community to keep arts alive—that thankless, tiring, but necessary work. We need to reward inventiveness, lift up creativity and show our artist friends and neighbors that they are vital to quality of life in our city.

We need to look for opportunities to collaborate, support and celebrate artists, from our motivating educational programs to our professional-level entertainers and craftspeople.

We need to notice when businesses and venues take a chance on these artistic endeavors and lend their own encouragement and spaces to keeping arts thriving.

We need to make our own individual version of an effort to support financially, physically or collaboratively in any way we can.

We need to recognize the impact that the inability to gather indoors has had on an arena that needs that very thing to keep afloat. More importantly, we need to recognize those groups that are taking the extra step of adding safety measures and changing the game in this arena to continue being productive, imaginative and precautionary. It’s not easy, but we have scrappy artists in this town—with no shortage of ingenuity.

I’m taking this opportunity to weigh in to shine a light on these groups—from our impactful theatre companies and technicians to our elegant dance studios and choreographers to our earth-shattering musical ensembles and vocalists to our uproarious comedians and improvisers.

Don’t go anywhere. Sioux Falls needs you.

It may not feel like it now. In fact, it may feel like Sioux Falls has turned its back on you. But it won’t last. And you’ll be needed more than ever when we start picking up the pieces of what 2020 has wrought.

Because you provide a great service to all of us. You give us a reason to leave the house. You give us a reason to feel something. You have the ability to impact positive change, and you have the ability to provide sheer joy. You have the ability to inspire future generations, and you have the distinct pleasure to offer opportunity to someone just starting out in their discipline.

A Sioux Falls without the performing arts is a bridge too far. But the ball is in all of our courts. We can choose to look the other way and ignore the dissolution of this arts community we helped build up. Or we can keep our gaze firmly on what it brought us before—and since—this past spring.

So buy that ticket. Log onto that virtual event. Make that donation. Support that instructional program. Cheer on that dancer. That stand-up. That instrumentalist. That lighting designer. That friend. That neighbor.

It’s your move, Sioux Falls.