At the beginning of 2020, while touring with a series of presentations around many cities in China, we glimpsed the danger which could spread over the world and the economic damage that it could cause and of course, the harm to public events and show companies like ours, Tango Lovers. Theaters closed, tours and concerts canceled, mass gatherings not allowed, and audiences avoiding the risk of contagion. And the reality is that the entertainment industry halted and artists and production staff are now jobless, laid off or placed in furlough, unable to generate income and some of them, in despair thinking that the survival of art is in danger. Not all countries have an unemployment benefits system or do not cover independent artists.
This is the current situation that the world is living just in the entertainment sector and it is now when human creativity is most needed because in every crisis inventiveness has deployed resources to overcome the situation. As Paulo Coelho said in his book “Eleven minutes” (1) : “Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.”
Art never dies because it is inside people and their ability to express it and the world needs art as a psychological panacea to alleviate situations of tension that crises cause. What would the world have done without music in these days of confinement and social isolation?
Having canceled tours for the rest of the year and needing to keep in touch with our audiences, we had to learn to use communication tools like Zoom to “meet” with our team and brainstorm ideas to make these days, weeks, months to use our long lasting free time and to ease our anxiety towards uncertainty. We did several activities like the rest of the world was already doing:
We released the rights of one of our shows to broadcast online so everyone could see it for free.
We did recitals and interviews online
We put segments of our show in social media
But we wanted to go one step further and thought of the idea of making our audiences part of the arts, not only as spectators but also as active participants by bringing out the talent that all people have and which due to obstacles or fears or inhibitions, they have not yet discovered.
We decided to create a tool that allows our art lovers’ audience of any age to unveil or polish their talent with our own artists, from any level, beginner or professional. We started to work with our production team and artists and that’s how we created TalentMe the only bilingual application in English and in Spanish that brings together three disciplines: Piano, Singing and Tango Dance.
It was not an easy task being in social confinement and the team distributed between the United States, Argentina and Uruguay, since we lacked the technical resources but, as in any crisis, creativity overcomes the obstacles and that is how we built TalentME and placed in APP Store and Google Play Store, with free content to inspire people in addition to classes designed to have them discover their talent in any of the disciplines or all three in 10 days or at the users’ own pace.
Free content includes segments from our show, behind-the-scenes episodes, tips from guest artists and from production experts.
Amidst this global situation, audiences have gained from the innovative ways in which the entertainment industry has used in order to reach out to the spectators. It has been a constructive way that will continue even when the industry returns to normal levels as it was known before the 2020 pandemic. So the “after” will be reshaped with the added value born out of creativity.
Art exists from Prehistoric times and will continue to be alive also inside each person.
Everyone can discover and unveil their talent , regardless of age.
- Coelho, P., & Costa, M. J. (2004). Eleven minutes.