By Dr. Sue Snyder
I went to a concert at a national music/movement educators' conference last week. The next day there seemed to be conflicting opinions about the quality of the performance. Some were enthralled and excited. Others were quite disgruntled and disappointed. How could this be?
There are many standards by which concerts/performances can be evaluated. These range from a Western art-music, children's choir standard to the standards applied to authenticity of multicultural performances. There are also standards for those dance or music products that student performers have created, versus the performance of adult-composed or choreographed selections. Common to all performance evaluation standards is the preparation of the performers, smooth flow from beginning to end, audience engagement, and the value of the preparation and performance experience to the students.
The evaluation standards for performance must be taken in context of the performance itself. In the above-cited case, the children represented all schools and every child, coming from a situation where there was little support for rehearsal time. The children were presenting a history of African/African-American experiences through song and dance. They created the dances and many of the accompaniments themselves, based on authentic cultural models from different regions, and historical periods. The performance was carefully planned, skillfully constructed, well organized and delivered. Through the performance and performers, history was brought to life. For the students, this may have been a peak experience.
When a performance such as this is evaluated from the "contest" perspective, matching it against highly trained choral groups, it is comparing apples to oranges. They represent different circumstances and perhaps different goals. They may have different emphasis on process and product. Both have quality and value, both provide moving experiences for the audience, and both have teaching/ learning value for the participants. It is not a contest, and one need not be judged better than the other. We can celebrate each for its own unique values, using the appropriate standards. We can discuss whether it is desirable to strive for blending creativity of the first into purity of the second, or balance the ebullient energy of the first with the controlled excellence of the second. Or perhaps it is more useful to think of these as two totally different styles or genres of performance that are as diverse as the people who make up our nation and world, two different things that are more powerful separate than combined. These are all choices and personal/ professional decisions for which there are no single "right" answers, but there are powerful convictions. If the blending of the two is ideal, each stands as a product of what is real.
I do know that using inappropriate evaluation standards for a performance is a detriment to the audience member, who misses the point, and therefore loses the opportunity to feel uplifted by a performance that is in a style not understood. This person may feel threatened by something different from what is known, or just unwilling to broaden her/his repertoire of perspectives. It happens in both types of concerts. There are audience members who are using the wrong yardstick. We don't need yardsticks, and we don't need other inappropriate measures. It's not a contest. It can be a win-win for us all. We need to touch the hearts, souls, and minds of children through every available means. And we need to broaden our own experiences so we know which evaluation standards are appropriate when evaluating children's performances.