25 Years Curating Performing Arts at the Walker: An Interview with Philip Bither

Walker Publishing Filed to Performing Arts · Part of People Make a Museum

Philip Bither in the Walker Offices, 2022. Photo: Sho Nikaido. Courtesy Walker Art Center.

What led a rock-’n’-roll–loving teenager from the suburbs of Chicago to head the Walker’s Department of Performing Arts for over a quarter century? On the eve of his 26th performing arts season, Philip Bither sat down to reflect on his unorthodox journey to becoming a professional curator, the unique power of the live experience, and what lies on the horizon for performing arts.

Walker Art Center

Where are you from?

Philip Bither

I grew up in the western suburbs of Chicago, Western Springs and LaGrange, Illinois.

WAC

How did you start your career in the arts?

PB

It was all through music. At an early age, I got deeply, deeply into pop and rock music, which led to an interest in more experimental music, contemporary classical music, and avant-garde jazz. I had radio shows while I was still in high school where I would put elaborate programs together. That continued when I went to college at the University of Illinois, where I also was on the student concert board.

Honestly, we were a bunch of young kids who didn’t know what the hell we were doing, but there was a unique setup at the University of Illinois where they gave a big budget over to us students and we had to self-organize. We brought in Talking Heads for their first U.S. tour. We did a Springsteen show in the assembly hall. I started a jazz festival. During all this, something seeped into my blood about the joy of connecting artists and audiences. 

WAC

Did you study the arts at college?

PB

Actually, I was a journalism student. On top of all I was doing with the student concert board and radio shows, I also wrote for the university’s daily newspaper. I was constantly writing record reviews as well as investigative pieces [about events] taking place in the local community. There was one about [whether] the scrubbers working in the coal-power plant nearby were doing a good-enough job, [despite] hazardous particles still getting into the air. Another article was on reproductive options for women and the terrible state of birth control at the time. 

Journalism was good training for a multidisciplinary curator because it forces one to learn quickly and be curious about a whole range of topics. You learn how to dive first into a topic you might not know a lot about at first.

WAC

Did you start curating right out of college?

PB

Oh, no. Not at first, but I really lucked out. After graduating, I went to New York, because I had a brother who had an apartment that would be open for a while—an illegal sublet in 1980s East Village. First I got a job at a publishing company, but then a job opened three months later at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in their development department. They wanted someone young who could write about the stuff they were doing, which was very large-scale, avant-garde, [with] primarily European but [also] American artists. This was for a new format they were making called the Next Wave Festival. One of the great masters of development at the time was my boss and, through her, I learned how to fundraise in two years. Through that work, I become friends with the director of the festival, who hired me to be the associate director of the Next Wave Festival. Shortly after, I also became the music curator.

We were inventing something new at a big organization, and everyone was learning on the job, but it was incredible training. I got to work with everybody from Merce Cunningham to Pina Bausch, Cecil Taylor, and Mark Morris. At the time I felt my primary job was to protect these artists trying to work within a big institution and leverage everything I could on their behalf, all while deeply getting to know and understand their histories and their current work. So many of the artists we were working with felt like they had the New York Times breathing down their backs and were under such duress. My job was to help support them during all of this.

Then, every night that I wasn’t at BAM for a performance, I was out in the East Village, SoHo, or wherever, seeing all the downtown performance spaces and learning about contemporary dance. I did that constantly for about six or seven years.

WAC

Performance in downtown New York City in the 1980s has become the stuff of legend. What was it like for you?

PB

My memories might also be romanticized, but I lived in Stuyvesant Town on the corner of Avenue C and 14th Street. Walking down the street there would be Pyramid Club, CBGB’s, Palladium, and all of these really cool clubs in a quite dangerous moment in New York’s history, but [it] had this edge of excitement. It was still the fairly early days of hip-hop and the punk scene. I remember it as a super exciting, edgy, and sort of a precarious but totally energized scene.

WAC

What came after BAM?

PB

Over the years at BAM, it started to feel like we had the same people coming to Next Wave Festival shows every time, like we were repeating ourselves. I started to wonder, “Do we really have to have Philip Glass, as much as I love him and his work, here again this year?” 

Looking back, I think I was really itching for an opportunity to be in charge. A job came up in Burlington, Vermont, running the Flynn Center, where they really valued the connection between artists and the local community. It was a small city, but a very sophisticated one. In order to help foster this connection to the local community, I developed residencies where a lot of the New York artists that I fell in love with would come and develop work with the local audiences. We set up potlucks, workshops, hangouts, and school visits. All of that helped the local public understand who these artists are and what they are doing. They got a chance to understand how much serious work and deep thinking artists put into what they are doing. It really grew a sense of appreciation. For instance, when we staged Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane’s Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land, which required 50 Vermonters [to appear] naked on stage, there was no problem getting local people to be in the work.

It was such a thrill to see people from the local community be so into the artists’ work, even if their day job was being a mailman. When they understood the artist, they would be so open to some weird stuff. It was great, and then the Walker called.

WAC

What was that decision like?

PB

I had admired the Walker since I was first at BAM. On the other hand, we had two young kids by that time and loved living in Burlington. Kathy Halbreich and Richard Flood [the Walker’s director and chief curator respectively at the time] took me out to dinner and offered me the job. I said, “No.” (laughs)

I had never worked at a museum and really didn’t have a deep background in visual art. I felt like I just wasn’t cut out for this museum gig that seemed too formal and academic. But later on, while chatting with my wife, Kathleen, in the middle of the night, we said to each other, “We have to try it. Why not?” So, we moved to Minnesota, and I started at the Walker in 1997, over 25 years ago. 

WAC

What were those first years like?

PB

Hard. (laughs)

It was hard because John Killacky [director of the Walker’s Performing Arts Department, 1988–97] had a health issue and had to leave the job earlier than expected. I felt like I had big shoes to fill and a real legacy I wanted to honor and build upon. I’m so thankful that the Julie [Voigt] and Doug [Benidt] were already here in the department. We still work in the Walker’s performing arts department together all these years later.

When I look back at those first few seasons, I’m always struck by the really cool commissions and projects that I’m proud of to this day. It was a time of learning the history and culture of both the Walker and the Twin Cities. It was about finding ways to be responsible and responsive to local needs, while at the same time bringing in artists from other places around the globe. One of the first projects was with “action-hero” choreographer Elizabeth Streb, who did a four-minute performance at the Twins baseball stadium right before the game started. She always wanted to perform in front of the Yankees, and the Twins were playing the Yankees that day. I had always really admired the boldness and risks that John took in his years at the helm of performing arts at the Walker. Works like Streb’s helped me feel that we could continue that legacy.

That is really the hallmark of performing arts at the Walker: a belief in artists and their ways of working. Although it’s a big organization, the Walker is anti-institutional in a sense. It pushes out edges and takes chances in ways that larger organizations might be very reluctant to do.

WAC

Has the approach to presenting performing arts evolved over time? 

PB

I do feel like things have evolved, and it is something I credit the Walker’s openness to—to rethinking and trying new brand-new things. While a part of the curator’s job is to seek out and invite artists from around the world to the Twin Cities, there also needs to be a connectedness and responsiveness to the Twin Cities. For instance, asking, “What is the history of dance, theater, and music in the Twin Cities, and how does this work add to it?”

I always take it super seriously and agonize over choices and try to shape each performing-art season in a way that is responding to our times while also challenging myself. There should be room for artwork that may not be exactly to my taste but is an important work of this moment. Those kinds of works and artists need to be seen and have support from the Walker. Making those choices is always hard because there are a thousand times more artists who would love to have their work seen at the Walker than there are spots or budgets available. It is constantly making decisions about what feels like the right mix and what can we do within [our] capacity at any given moment.

WAC

Have there been any turning points over the years?

PB

The building of the McGuire Theater was a huge turning point. Being able to be in a room with the architects and a seasoned theater-design team was just amazing. Instead of having some star architects build a theater for you and your [being] left [to figure] out what works after the fact, we got to help design the theater as what we considered the ideal performance space in America.

It was a nerve-wracking process, too. We didn’t even have a chance to do a sound check in the theater before Phillip Glass performed solo on the opening weekend of the building. We just hit the ground running.

WAC

How about the artists’ work? How has that shifted over the last 25 years?

PB

In recent years the work has really responded to questions of power inequity, lack of diversity, hidden and public forms of racism, and questions of marginalized peoples and artists who don’t get institutional attention or support. In addition, there are more and more artists working interdisciplinarily, as well as exploring notions of process versus product in their work.

WAC

Is there a topic, or topics, artists have been tackling in recent years?

PB

Trauma. The Covid-19 pandemic created a hard stop for artists in terms of being able to tour, show their work, and get paid. It also took away the ability to connect with audiences, which is at the core of performing arts. On top of all of that, the shifts in society toward more inclusion also bring up historic and contemporary traumas. Then you add the climate crisis and political crisis. Living through all of this at once has really racked people’s sense of well-being. More and more artists in performing arts have been exploring notions around healing and art. How has ritual historically been a part of that healing? How do we slow down, be less driven, and shift from measurable results to supporting one another? This seems to have also led to a greater interest in immersive works as well as works that focus on the transformational experiences of being in a room together as a group.

I get very excited about a lot of work I see around the world and, although a lot of these topics are dark and frightening, artists continue to create an optimistic sense of this moment that we’re in.

WAC

Looking forward to the 2023–24 Performing Arts Season, which I know is still in the works, do you see any topics or themes artists are exploring?

PB

This is just my personal take, but there are a lot of artists coming to the Walker next season who are exploring metaphysical and almost spiritually immersive experiences. There was some of this interest in participating, not just viewing, last season in Andrew Schneider’s N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars) and the Spektral Quartet: Enigma: A 360° Experience.

Additionally, a lot of the artists are also exploring the revolution in gender—the expansion of gender and the whole spectrum of gender identity. It is really heartening to see this expansion after so many generations have worked for it, even despite the backlash. Taking all of this together, there is a real interest in tackling these crises and changes communally. Not just communally between the persons performing and those in the audience, but also as individuals working within our communities.

I always have thought that artists are the bellwethers of society in general. In many ways, the artist’s role is to feel and receive the things that people who are not artists may be too busy to notice. They then present those parts of our world back to us. They make us slow down and take notice. It is a great service that artists provide us, in that they are building new worlds that we can all experience together.

WAC

Would you say that is at the heart of the performing arts? Collectively experiencing something together in a room for a set moment in time?

PB

I tend to side with Peggy Phelan versus Philip Auslander around the notions of what is replicable and what’s not. In Phelan’s writing, she feels that liveness is the essence of performing arts, that you have to be there in the room and experience the exchange of energies between creator and viewer in real-time. Auslander is more of the camp that if you record the performance using an excellent multi-camera video, it is just about as good as the live experience. I’m totally simplifying this. (laughs)

It has been an ongoing debate, and I tend to feel that there is a kind of magic or energy that only happens in the room. As questionable or “alternative” as that sounds. There is something in that: you know things are successful with a performing artwork when you can feel the connections being made in the room. You can feel the energy in a room with others. 

That experience dates back eons, thousands of years. After the Covid pandemic, I’m reveling in that shared experience because I feel like there is this heightened appreciation of people gathering together again.

WAC

Looking to the future, are there still projects or artists you’d love to work with? Any dream projects?

PB

Oh, man, of course! I do think about this because I am in the later part of my life in the arts. I feel such intense gratitude to have been able to work with so many remarkable artists and connect their work to audiences.

I’m here for a transitory time. Eventually, someone else will carry on the tradition of performing arts at the Walker. Looking back at the last 25 years, the most memorable projects have also been the hardest ones: presenting a Merce Cunningham work in a granite quarry (Ocean, 2008), mounting a dozen aerial dancers and 100 foot video images on the sides of a huge grain silonear Powderhorn (Joanna Haigood’s Picture Powerhorn, 2000), presenting a cast of 60 in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden recreating stories from the Hindu epic the Ramayana (Ragamala’s Sethu, 2004) . I always feel like, “How did I get so lucky to be able to be part of these kinds of experiences?”

I am really grateful to have been part of an institution that has supported the commissioning nearly 200 new dance, music or performance works during my time. I had the opportunity to co-curating multiple gallery exhibitions that featured major innovators like Jason Moran, Ralph Lemon, Merce Cunningham, Eiko & Koma, Trisha Brown, Sarah Michelson, Faye Driscoll, Meredith Monk, and Bill T. Jones among others.  On top of that, it’s been incredible to continue to provide, as the Walker has for decades, national leadership in multiple performing art and interdisciplinary art fields.  I’m excited about staging the next ambitious and risk-taking artwork. There are so, so, so many artists I still am excited to discover things with.

With so much in the works and coming back after the pandemic, it is a great moment at the Walker right now. That’s mostly what I’m focusing on: what we can experience in the here and now.▪︎

Curious which innovative artists will be part of the Walker’s 2023–24 Performing Arts season? Subscribe to the Walker’s newsletter to receive the announcement later this summer.