Dear Mistress Clara

My husband Duke Jonathan explained to me the problem with Kingdom 
A&S. With most Static Arts even if you don't win you are able to have 
your work viewed by the Laurels. The Laurel do not come and watch the 
performers. At the last A&S I was at only two Laurels watched and 
even her Majesty was unable to view the performers. Going to A&S is a 
way for static artist to get notice. Going to A&S as a performing 
artist is a waste of time
 Also the performers do not know that we have new forms. In the past 
40% of our points were on documentation this was 20% more than 
Static. If you do less than brilliant documentation it count more 
against you. The venue for performing is pretty bleak. There is no 
audience, no stage, no atmosphere. It is hard to give a good 
performance. If you have done wonderful documentation the fact you 
don't give a brilliant performance knocks you out of the running for 
the places at Gulf War or Kingdom Artisan. When we used to give out 
certificates of merit, special merit and excellence we had more 
performers because you had a greater chance of coming home with 
something.The Feedback the static artisn get keeps them coming back. 
I believe if the performers were assured of Feedback more of them 
would come.   

I am totally oppose to combining the performing Arts part of A&S and 
the Kingdom Eisteddfod. Our Premier Bard competition is important 
because the Performing arts/bardic community shape it to our needs. 
As proven by the low turnout at A&S performing arts that format 
doesn't work to well. What we have right now allows us (the 
performing community) to control what is happening. If we turned it 
over to the Laurels they would just start running it the same way as 
the A&S performing arts section. I am not for doing away of the 
performing part of the A&S and I would like to see it doing better. 
The performing section of A&S performs one role and the Kingdom 
Eisteddfod serves another role. Having the two is much better that 
having one. 

I would like to make a point. If you view performing arts as just 
another kind of art form you might discover that 3 is not a bad 
number. For example, how many wood block prints do you have or glass 
making. For any kind of art you will find only a limited number of 
people are ready to take on the stress of Kingdom A&S. Right now 
there are limited amount of performers in the kingdom that feel they 
are ready for Kingdom A&S. I do believe that is good to have the A&S 
performing section as a goal.

Yours Willow de Wisp, OL 


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