Willow Creek Arts - Day 1 - Session 2 - Gilles Ste-Croix
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008The second session today opened with a sweet jam session by the worship band. Those guys have such a tight sound.
Then there was a Rock Band competition with judges from worship bands from big churches like Mosaic. It was actually pretty entertaining.
Then there was a great performance by a 14 year old girl. She did a great job.
The main session this time was featuring Gilles Ste-Croix, the Sr. Vice President of Creative Content for Cirque du Solei. He was interviewed by Nancy Beach on the basis of how Cirque develops their unique program and achieves such excellence and awe.
What I took away was:
- Spend time developing the event pays off.
- Test audiences of non-artists provide valuable insights into what works and doesn’t.
- Challenges create success if overcome.
Then was lunch.
About to go into session 3 with Brian McLaren.
Wanna see all of my Willow Arts Conference 2008 recaps?
June 11th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Look at all those Apple branded pseudo-geeks… what a waste of design intelligence
June 11th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Oh yeah, good point here…
“Test audiences of non-artists provide valuable insights into what works and doesn’t.”
It’s surprising how often what the artist thinks is a “good composition” is really not pleasing to the consumer. Usually the case is that the preferred aesthetics are so simple it’s embarrassing for self-titled “professionals” to have to create. But that’s the nature of any sort of design intended for “marketing” (whether that’s commercially or at church) as opposed to for the sake of art.
And on that note, the fact that church creative ministry is so similar to commercial marketing is something that astounds me. It really usually just boils down to “what works and what doesn’t work” as opposed to what God plans to miraculously use (i.e., the story of five loaves of bread and two fish doesn’t apply). Which is something I wish were different - but that’s just the way of thinking in the industry, I suppose.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Mikey B, I like you.
June 11th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
thanks for the Willow recaps!
June 11th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
nice pictures man. rock band was pretty awesome.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:56 am
You guys here?
June 12th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
[...] what ideas and truth I can off of him and pray God teaches me something through him. It, like the interview session with Gilles Ste-Croix, was a sit down question and answer with the topic of “How can artists be a part of changing [...]