Holding Both: Art, Business, and the AndAlso Way
Running an arts company means constantly balancing two worlds.
Art and commerce.
Creativity and logistics.
Shows and availability spreadsheets.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about energy and artistry. It sits somewhere in the territory of work–life balance, but it’s actually a little more nuanced than that.
I’m the director of a small company that is arts-based but is also very much a business, and it operates constantly between those two worlds. We’re called AndAlso, and the longer we exist the more fitting that name seems to be. Nothing is really black and white, either/or. Everything is a question of balance, balance, balance.
For many people who consider a career in the arts, the sensible option is to take a steady, reliable job and pursue their artistic work as a hobby. Sometimes the plan is to take the 9–5 “for now” and return to the arts at a later, more convenient point. The risk, of course, is that “for now” becomes forever, and the pressures of everyday life mean the hobby quietly falls by the wayside.
On the surface, I chose the more difficult path: pursuing my passion as a career. But as a business owner I often find myself making small, constant decisions that push the art further and further down the priority list. I perform regularly. I teach and direct regularly. Yet when I look honestly at how the majority of my time is spent, a large proportion of it is administration. And even within that administration there is a lot of logistics and business development. That’s a different reality from pure arts administration, and I know I’m one of the lucky ones.
Running an arts company has taught me something I suspect many leaders and entrepreneurs experience: the real challenge isn’t choosing between creativity and practicality, but learning how to hold both at the same time.
This has been particularly on my mind because I’ve just returned from an eight-day arts festival that is arguably the largest of its kind dedicated to my artform: improvisation. During those days I was completely immersed in rehearsing and performing improv. I also had the chance to watch many of my peers and have rich conversations with colleagues from different countries who are navigating the same questions. As I wrote in a blog last week, it’s our version of a conference.
Watching performers from around the world step onstage night after night, creating something completely new in front of an audience, reminded me that this is the heartbeat of the work. And what became very clear during that immersion was that it reminded me (as cliché as it may sound) why I got into all this in the first place.
Improvisation is, at its core, about listening, adapting and building something together in real time. Those same skills are surprisingly relevant far beyond the stage. Increasingly, I find myself working with organisations who are interested in exactly those qualities: how people communicate, how teams collaborate, and how leaders navigate uncertainty. The same improvisation principles that allow performers to step onto a stage with no script also help people feel more confident contributing ideas, responding to change and supporting each other at work.
Over the years I’ve come to believe, in fact to know, that improvisation is an incredibly powerful tool for leadership, communication and personal development. It helps people listen better, collaborate more effectively and become more comfortable navigating uncertainty. At AndAlso, this sits right at the heart of what we do: using improv training and improvisation techniques not only as a performance art, but also as a way to support creativity at work and leadership development.
But I’m also not sure that work would have the same impact if we ourselves weren’t on the front line, under the lights, living that artistic life. If we weren’t still taking the risks ourselves.At this point it feels almost impossible to meaningfully separate art from commerce. And actually, I don’t want to. It just feels more important than ever to hold both equally, and proudly.
Of course, none of this even begins to take into account my personal life. I’m a mother to two young children, and it’s all too easy to spend 24/7 feeling like I’m failing everyone at everything: not having my head completely in the game at work, and not feeling like the other mums who seem to be living their best mum lives – with mum friends, neat school uniforms and immaculate houses.
But when I need to remind myself that I’m doing OK, I think about what I want my children to see me doing. What I want them to remember about their mum when they were growing up.Not that everything was perfectly balanced or that the house was always tidy. Not that the diary was perfectly organised but that I cared deeply about the things I chose to do. That I created things, took risks and tried to build something meaningful. And that sometimes life isn’t about choosing either/or. Sometimes the most important thing you can learn is how to hold both.
Art and business.
Passion and responsibility.
Work and family.
AndAlso.