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My friend Julie works with the Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre. We've been partners in organized art slinging for the length of our professional careers, so it wasn't surprising to see her at a press conference for the World Cultural Economic Forum this Monday (which is an initiative of the Lt. Governor's office that, among other things, awarded grants to organizations across the state in the hopes that for the entirety of October our peacock feathers would be in full array). We sat, one behind the other, listening to the preacher speak to the choir. We ingested those hopeful phrases branded on Louisiana tourism brochures. Everyone in the room, by association, had an emotional or professional buy into the notion that Louisiana is great, is culturally significant and unique, and is one of the best places on earth. Yes, we've got it all.

After the conference Julie and I started talking about the art programs we put on. Comparing notes on how effective we are, analyzing the strengths and weakness of other programs, trying to anticipate the public psyche. Eventually she starts talking about the Martha Graham event at the River Center that the Ballet is putting on. I am nodding out of habit at this point, thinking, sure Martha, modern dance, of course, you're the Ballet, what else would you be doing...Then it struck me to ask how many people attend the Nutcracker, a standard and seasonal favorite for BRBT.

"Thousands," she said.

"How many people are lined up for Martha?" I asked.

"Not nearly that many."

Why is this? Julie went on to describe Martha Graham as the mother of modern dance, the woman who grounded ballet to the earth, whose movement was so definitive and emotionally charged she developed her own technique. I had never heard of her; this was all news to me.

"Her name is known all around the world. Her style has influenced almost every modern dance company you see," she said.

After our conversation I was slightly embarrassed to have been so initially dismissive of the event. This is a group of world-class dancers, one of the oldest company's in the world. Why would the Nutcracker attendance eclipse something like this? How do we get just as much enthusiasm for a bunch of New York City ballerinas as we do our home-grown dancers?

Perhaps the answer lies on the backside of the tourism brochure. The part where it shows you all the companies from different countries that have businesses here. Or maybe the answer is in the part of the cultural sermon that reads from chapters written not by the French, but by the Japanese and Hispanic communities. We have a rich past as a result cultures converging and our future can only be equally as rich if we continue to experience and welcome the alien and unfamiliar.

Without sounding too new wave, it seems that we have to reach into the world that surrounds us in order to interpret ourselves with a contemporary and useful sensibility.

This might be annoying, but it's true; for all our lustful ambition toward becoming an intellectually, artistically viable place it takes more than just supporting local art. Both patrons and artists will have to actively pursue the world when it comes to our doorstep in order for it to keep coming back, in order for that cultural exchange to mean anything.

So, you could go to An Evening of Works by Martha Graham on Oct. 5 at the River Center or a book in advance a plethora of other events driven by artists from out of the state, such as the Japan Fest, Festival International and the works at the LSU Museum of Art.