Sensemaking and Artistic Directors in the Performing Arts Sector

Artistic directors play a crucial role in the performing arts sector, often portrayed in literature as revered visionaries with little interest in the business operations of arts organizations that employ them. Such organizations prepare and disseminate job descriptions for this senior leadership role, outlining the experience and expertise required of artistic directors and their key responsibilities. By undertaking textual analysis of these documents, this paper provides insight into how the artistic director role is changing in Australia’s publicly funded performing arts sector. Through the lens of sensemaking (Weick 1995) and critical sensemaking (Helms Mills, Thurlow, and Mills 2010), it extends theorizing on the role of artistic directors and advances understanding of the complex relationship between artistic and organizational visions, prescribed programming mixes, and the increasing merger of organizational leadership roles of artistic director and executive director. Findings point to a broadening of the artistic director role as arts organizations grapple with funding cuts, relevancy, and viability.<p></p>