“The value of doing something live is that it gives us permission to not be perfect,” Kate Hawkes said.

Paul Friedman and Angel Guevara — the other two participants of the Friday, April 10, installment of Philosophy in the Public Interest Hot Topics Café, a Northern Arizona University program designed to foster public debate — nodded in agreement with Hawkes.

Each a professed lover of live performance, the three Sedona locals had come to take part in a discussion moderated by Russ Pryba, Ph.D., a professor in NAU’s Department of Philosophy.

“What’s the Value of Live Performance” inspired a variety of questions and responses to the topic, ranging from definitions couched in philosophical terminology to personal accounts of transformative performances.

“We yearn for it,” Hawkes said, adding that after times of catastrophe public performance is one of the first forms of art to bring a community back together. In this light, according to Hawkes — herself an experienced playwright, theater performer and producer — there is no greater value in a major Broadway play than a child’s ecstatic performance.

“I feel I understand more,” Friedman said. The experience of working together to create something powerful helps him expand his range of appreciation, an essential feature of art for Friedman. At the same time, he admitted that there are performances that please others that do not please him.

Pryba wondered aloud if such performances, those that arouse strong positive reactions in most viewers, are inherently valuable — or if the whole experience is subjective, simply up to taste.

To read the full story, see the Wednesday, April 15, edition of the Sedona Red Rock News.