Symbolic Force Majeure
August 2020
Are you or is someone you love a theatre artist, dance maker, choreographer, or creator of onstage performance of any kind? Have you, like so many others, been struggling to reimagine your artistic practice during this current pandemic—focusing on your future output—without additionally worrying about the threat coronavirus poses to work you’ve already made? Are the contracts and copyrights protecting your work sufficient to withstand the havoc this crisis is wreaking on the conceptual plane?
In short: Is your artwork safe?
If you’re finding yourself unprepared during this unprecedented time, you’re not alone. You may not yet realize it, but although the performance world has been reeling in the face of this pandemic, we have yet to feel the full impact of CoViD-19: Only when we’re back in the theater seats will we truly comprehend the extent of the devastation the pandemic has wrought on the symbolic landscape. Symbolic force majeure insurance is now more important than ever to protect your artwork from conceptual damages incurred due to the ongoing crisis.
Maybe you've already experienced a taste yourself: Binge-watching a television program, say, the scene cuts to a crowded house party: That knee-jerk shudder, a near-Pavlovian reflex at the sight of congregated people, borne of months of reinforcement that anyone in your field of view—yourself included—is a threat of infection. The TV show originally aired decades ago, but today you’re seeing it through plague eyes. As a responsible citizen, you may have followed every guideline, done everything possible to reduce your risk of physical exposure—still, your spectatorship is infected with coronavirus.
Like your TV show, theatre performances made months, decades, even centuries ago now ooze CoViD: Thebes is overrun with plague--why is the Chorus standing so close together? Juliet declares her star-crossed love from a balcony—a sensible distance for casual lovers to maintain. The eerie gaps between seats in now-gutted auditoriums evoke the spacing between chairs in Rosas Danst Rosas--and vice versa. Six feet was once the perfect "neutral" distance between performers--not so close as to imply a relationship, not so far as to imply avoiding a relationship. Now it is dripping with significance.
This has happened before, of course—signifiers hijacked by sudden connotative collapse: Nowadays any two adjacent buildings taller than they are wide conjure the twin towers. Every preening, self-indulgent, petty tyrant carries more than a whiff of Trump. Liquid trauma fills any shaped container, loading it indelibly. Once-fruitful webs of associations pruned to a single referent.
It’s never anyone’s fault—we couldn’t turn it off if we tried. Yet this undeniably damages the work.
Fortunately, insurance can cover these damages. Throughout the crisis we’ve seen audiences turned away, festivals shuttered, contracts reneged upon; gigs have been postponed, repostponed, and cancelled, often with little to any contractual obligation in the face of a global “act of god”. But symbolic force majeure insurance reliably protects artwork in the event of unexpected fractures in the collective psychic landscape: What would you do if your lead dancer turns out to be the spitting image of Biden’s eventual running mate? Where would you turn if the otherwise unremarkable city in which your play is set hits the front page following a recent flood, fire, or earthquake? How are you handling a virus dramatically recontextualizing physical touch and proximity onstage? Any such disaster can radically over-determine the audience’s spectatorship, reducing your once-fecund performance into a conceptual one-liner “about” CoViD-19. Don’t let this happen to you.
Actuarial science can determine the precise dollar amount per audience member by which an artwork decreases in value due to historical calamities outside the artist’s control. For the foreseeable future, a single handshake—even (and sometimes especially) if altered to an elbow-bump—could easily depreciate your performance in the neighborhood of $30,000 depending on the context. In this economy, not every venue is going to sign on to a ticket price increase to offset their loss. As physical contact scales up, your risk does too: Any extended closeness, even between just two performers, even if period-appropriate, can send damages skyrocketing. God forbid there’s any kissing.
Think you can edit out every red flag? Think again: The CoViD-19 era is replete with representational catch-22s. Whether performers wear masks or don’t wear masks, your piece is making a statement. Whether characters interact or stay in full isolation, the performance reads as “coronavirus drama”. Your best bet in times like these is to get full, professional coverage of your entire symbolic menagerie. After all, who knows what fresh hell 2020 has yet to unleash?
Premiums have never been lower, and responsible artists who demonstrate consistent use of stable imagery are eligible for additional discounts. The emergent use of contact tracing—tracking every audience member who has been exposed to your performance, as well as anyone to whom they may have described the performance secondhand, and so on—further ensures our ability to guarantee the value of your artwork during this unprecedented time of uncertainty. Remember: You’re not just buying insurance coverage, you’re buying peace of mind.
To be sure, there are whole anthologies of “coronavirus drama” in our future. Toilet paper references, confessions of loneliness, dances obviously choreographed in the living room. Zoom calls as a performance form. But even if our future work isn’t about CoViD-19, the pervasiveness of the pandemic now means every drama is a coronavirus drama. It's possible that it once mattered what we put on the stage, but this new era will make it clear--the audience will only find what it's looking for. Get your performance insured today.
In short: Is your artwork safe?
If you’re finding yourself unprepared during this unprecedented time, you’re not alone. You may not yet realize it, but although the performance world has been reeling in the face of this pandemic, we have yet to feel the full impact of CoViD-19: Only when we’re back in the theater seats will we truly comprehend the extent of the devastation the pandemic has wrought on the symbolic landscape. Symbolic force majeure insurance is now more important than ever to protect your artwork from conceptual damages incurred due to the ongoing crisis.
Maybe you've already experienced a taste yourself: Binge-watching a television program, say, the scene cuts to a crowded house party: That knee-jerk shudder, a near-Pavlovian reflex at the sight of congregated people, borne of months of reinforcement that anyone in your field of view—yourself included—is a threat of infection. The TV show originally aired decades ago, but today you’re seeing it through plague eyes. As a responsible citizen, you may have followed every guideline, done everything possible to reduce your risk of physical exposure—still, your spectatorship is infected with coronavirus.
Like your TV show, theatre performances made months, decades, even centuries ago now ooze CoViD: Thebes is overrun with plague--why is the Chorus standing so close together? Juliet declares her star-crossed love from a balcony—a sensible distance for casual lovers to maintain. The eerie gaps between seats in now-gutted auditoriums evoke the spacing between chairs in Rosas Danst Rosas--and vice versa. Six feet was once the perfect "neutral" distance between performers--not so close as to imply a relationship, not so far as to imply avoiding a relationship. Now it is dripping with significance.
This has happened before, of course—signifiers hijacked by sudden connotative collapse: Nowadays any two adjacent buildings taller than they are wide conjure the twin towers. Every preening, self-indulgent, petty tyrant carries more than a whiff of Trump. Liquid trauma fills any shaped container, loading it indelibly. Once-fruitful webs of associations pruned to a single referent.
It’s never anyone’s fault—we couldn’t turn it off if we tried. Yet this undeniably damages the work.
Fortunately, insurance can cover these damages. Throughout the crisis we’ve seen audiences turned away, festivals shuttered, contracts reneged upon; gigs have been postponed, repostponed, and cancelled, often with little to any contractual obligation in the face of a global “act of god”. But symbolic force majeure insurance reliably protects artwork in the event of unexpected fractures in the collective psychic landscape: What would you do if your lead dancer turns out to be the spitting image of Biden’s eventual running mate? Where would you turn if the otherwise unremarkable city in which your play is set hits the front page following a recent flood, fire, or earthquake? How are you handling a virus dramatically recontextualizing physical touch and proximity onstage? Any such disaster can radically over-determine the audience’s spectatorship, reducing your once-fecund performance into a conceptual one-liner “about” CoViD-19. Don’t let this happen to you.
Actuarial science can determine the precise dollar amount per audience member by which an artwork decreases in value due to historical calamities outside the artist’s control. For the foreseeable future, a single handshake—even (and sometimes especially) if altered to an elbow-bump—could easily depreciate your performance in the neighborhood of $30,000 depending on the context. In this economy, not every venue is going to sign on to a ticket price increase to offset their loss. As physical contact scales up, your risk does too: Any extended closeness, even between just two performers, even if period-appropriate, can send damages skyrocketing. God forbid there’s any kissing.
Think you can edit out every red flag? Think again: The CoViD-19 era is replete with representational catch-22s. Whether performers wear masks or don’t wear masks, your piece is making a statement. Whether characters interact or stay in full isolation, the performance reads as “coronavirus drama”. Your best bet in times like these is to get full, professional coverage of your entire symbolic menagerie. After all, who knows what fresh hell 2020 has yet to unleash?
Premiums have never been lower, and responsible artists who demonstrate consistent use of stable imagery are eligible for additional discounts. The emergent use of contact tracing—tracking every audience member who has been exposed to your performance, as well as anyone to whom they may have described the performance secondhand, and so on—further ensures our ability to guarantee the value of your artwork during this unprecedented time of uncertainty. Remember: You’re not just buying insurance coverage, you’re buying peace of mind.
To be sure, there are whole anthologies of “coronavirus drama” in our future. Toilet paper references, confessions of loneliness, dances obviously choreographed in the living room. Zoom calls as a performance form. But even if our future work isn’t about CoViD-19, the pervasiveness of the pandemic now means every drama is a coronavirus drama. It's possible that it once mattered what we put on the stage, but this new era will make it clear--the audience will only find what it's looking for. Get your performance insured today.
