Partnerships drive R.I. promotion of the arts

MAKING IT WORK: Squonk Opera performs at FirstWorks Festival On The Plaza in Providence in September 2012. The event drew more than 40,000 participants to Kennedy Plaza. / COURTESY ERIN X. SMITHERS
MAKING IT WORK: Squonk Opera performs at FirstWorks Festival On The Plaza in Providence in September 2012. The event drew more than 40,000 participants to Kennedy Plaza. / COURTESY ERIN X. SMITHERS

Newport ballet troupe Island Moving Company has 10 dancers and five staff members, but manages to draw hundreds to its performances of “The Nutcracker” at year’s end, in part by holding it at the city’s Rosecliff mansion.

Normally a draw for architectural and history buffs, the mansion’s hosting of a ballet tranforms the experience of both the setting and the dance, said Dominique Alfandre, the troupe’s executive director.

“That’s the most important thing the arts have to offer,” she said. “The arts make people see things in a completely different way. As [Preservation Society of Newport County CEO and Executive Director] Trudy Coxe says … ‘We make the house come alive.’ ”

The value of the arts to tourism in terms of economic impact is robust, said Mark Brodeur, the R.I. Commerce Corporation’s director of tourism.

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Tourists patronizing the performing arts in Rhode Island in 2013 contributed $83 million in spending to a total tourism impact of $5.88 billion, the most recent data available, said Melissa Czerwein, senior communication manager at the R.I. Commerce Corporation. And that is just a piece of the arts pie, which includes everything from visual arts to jewelry, ceramics and more.

“It’s hard to talk about Rhode Island without talking about the arts,” said Randall Rosenbaum, executive director of the R.I. State Council on the Arts. “People understand the arts are ingrained as part of Rhode Island’s brand. It’s a natural part of what people think about when they think about Rhode Island.”

The economic impact is made without statewide branding or added funding, Brodeur said.

The R.I. State Council on the Arts and the Commerce Corp. jointly host an arts calendar that appears on the council website and the www.visitri.com site, Brodeur said, but with little additional marketing money, the council is “messaging to artists all the time, encouraging them to come in and submit their events. That works for us because we have not had the resources or the staffing to keep this database robust,” said Brodeur.

But patrons’ databases can be shared by artistic partners like the Newport Society for Historic Preservation and the dance troupe, for instance, as well as tourism, convention and visitors bureaus such as Discover Newport, Alfandre said.

“The thing that works best for us is partnerships,” she said. “So, we are a partner with the Preservation Society, which, of course has many more thousands of [patrons’] names in their database than we could ever gather up.”

Another tactic is to market the nonprofit troupe using branding associated with Newport, as well as partner with local employers, she added.

“We brand the company as a Newport company because the name Newport itself has a much broader reach than the name of the company,” Alfandre said.

Kathleen Pletcher, executive artistic director of Providence nonprofit FirstWorks, the organizer for the 2012 Festival on the Plaza at Kennedy Plaza that drew more than 40,000 people, agrees that leveraging partnerships not only with other nonprofits, but with the city itself, leads its shows and events to become successful draws.

The Providence International Arts Festival spearheaded by FirstWorks and Mayor Jorge O. Elorza scheduled for June 11-14 is expected to draw crowds above 60,000, Pletcher said.

With many smaller events leading up to it, the festival will include international artists in visual art, sculpture, music, public art, civic dialogue, educational workshops, community play, spectacle and parade. Events will be centralized around program hubs that unify the downtown into an “arts corridor” that extends from City Hall to the Washington Street corridor.

Elorza, who has enjoyed Austin, Texas, festivals for years, says Providence’s first international festival will be equally ambitious.

“[Austin] has invested in [festivals] over a long period of time and this is the No. 1 economic driver for [Austin] for the entire year,” he said. “It’s become a part of their brand and who they are. We have all the elements to do the same thing here and to make this a signature event that brings in tourism and a lot of revenue.”

Partnerships and promotion of Providence as the “Creative Capital” notwithstanding, arts proponents are eager to see what Gov. Gina M. Raimondo does to advance the arts even more effectively through a statewide brand. One centralized database instead of two for the arts would be a start, said Brodeur. New funding and resources will help the state develop that, he said. He cited WaterFire in Providence and the Stadium Theater Performing Arts Center in Woonsocket as major destinations for entertainment for residents and tourists alike.

“With branding we hope to influence these high-end consumers using the arts as part of our messaging,” Brodeur said. •

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