PSU Magazine Spring 1993

Dean Richard Toscan organizations-"not just internships," he says, but collaborations that pool resources to the mutual benefit of everyone involved. The first such collaboration begins this spring, with a visiting artists' pro– gram in conjunction with the Portland Art Museum. Under the program, an artist whose work is shown as part of a contemporary exhibition at the museum becomes a resident in Portland State's art department, teaching classes and workshops. "It means," says Toscan, "the art museum gets to have, in some cases, an additional artist be present for the opening of a show, and it means we can get an artist-in-residence here who we might not normally be able to attract if it weren't for the fact that he or she had a show at the Portland Art Museum." Toscan hopes to establish a similar relationship with the Portland Opera, using "dark nights" between performan– ces for joint productions with PSU students at lower admission prices. "This would not require any signi– ficant amount of money to do, but would be a wonderful gift for the city and our students and for the people in– volved in the Portland Opera as well." Another collaboration may evolve between PSU's acclaimed Contem– porary Dance Series and Portland Arts and Lectures. The focus would be to build an audience for contemporary dance by attracting high profile dance groups to Portland, the likes of Trisha Brown or Alvin Ailey, in addition to the smaller, more experimental dance companies that PSU normally presents as part of the dance season. "It's some– thing we could not really do on our own, but we can combine resources and reduce the risks for all of us." Toscan developed these types of artistic partnerships at USC, where he joined forces with two New York-based theater companies, New Dramatists and Circle Repertory Company. "They wanted access to Los Angeles, and we wanted ways for our students to per– form with professionals involving the development of new plays." He hoped to expand the program, but found it difficult in Los Angeles. "There's very little motivation for professional organizations to (establish partnerships with universities) because of the very strong donor bases they have, the history of the city, the rivalry between USC and UCLA. Lots of nonsense gets in the way of it. "Here, I found an arts community that is really eager to get involved in the University and that instantly sees very practical reasons for why what is good for us and our students is really good for them too." Such partnerships are ultimately designed to foster lasting relationships that enhance students' artistic develop– ment as well as the viability of arts organizations. "The arts in a university setting, from my point of view, really have an obligation to support the professional arts organizations that provide the jus– tification for offering the arts in the first place. These are really interdepen– dent players in the cultural life of the city. So we can't pretend that all we do is teach emerging artists, and then leave it to the free market to find their livelihood." The future of PSU's arts students is naturally linked to the long-term health of Portland's professional arts organizations, he says. "If you look at the list of arts organizations that have gone under in the past two years, it's an elaborate number. Normally when you see that many fold, it points to some manage– ment needs that aren't available in the metropolitan area. One of the things we'd like to do is try to plug that hole." Toscan is exploring ways in which the schools of Business Administration and Urban and Public Affairs might be able to provide support services and training at critical points in an organi– zation's development-beyond end-of– the-year tax accounting and helping establish non-profit status. He says that by improving these small- and medium– size organizations' chances of survival, such programs "create the kind of com– munity our students will be able go into as performers, as fine artists and so on." Toscan, who describes himself as "much more entrepreneurial than your average dean of fine arts," credits his unique approach to arts administration to an eclectic background. His love for the arts was nurtured during his youth in Manhattan, where he attended the theater (he saw the original Broadway production of Porgy and Bess when he was 5) took art clas– ses and won scholarships to major New York arts conservatories. He left New York to study engineering at Purdue PSU 11