Arts and entertainment. These two words are always paired together, but must art always be entertaining to have value? Or should it serve a greater purpose?

While I agree the entertainment factor makes art more enjoyable for the audience — whether it’s a concert, a stand-up comedy routine or a new installation at a museum — I recognize that just because something is entertaining doesn’t automatically make it good.

This weekend I went to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Center, just blocks away from campus, to see a performance of “Tellin’ It Like It Tis,” a choreopoem written by Milwaukeean Andre’ Lee Ellis that we covered last week in Marquee. The performance was definitely entertaining — it kept my attention for the full two hours — but it went beyond that. The show was profound, moving and incredibly thought-provoking.

What made it so good was the message it presented to the audience and the power with which it did so. The theme of the entire piece was to convey what it is like to be a black male living in Milwaukee. The actors covered topics from drug dealing to homelessness to strained family ties and aggressively addressed the negative stereotypes so readily attached to this demographic in our community.

This was art with a purpose. Art like this goes beyond momentary entertainment; it has a lasting effect.

All too often, I go to a show or visit a gallery, enjoy it while I’m there, go home and tell my roommates about it and then generally forget about it a week later. Sound familiar?

The arts have historically been considered a leisure activity, something to be attended as a reward for hard work. We go to shows to take our minds off our daily stresses, to mix up our routines or to just kick back and enjoy ourselves. And while I find nothing wrong with relaxing, that’s not to say you can’t enjoy yourself while also participating in a greater dialogue.

Art, in its many forms, can be extremely powerful. It has the ability to provoke us, to educate us and to promote change. It reaches audiences from all demographics and often brings people together who may not otherwise have anything in common.

This weekend, “Tellin’ It Like It Tis” drew a mostly African-American audience, but there were a few Caucasian folks sprinkled in as well. There was also about an equal split of males and females and a wide range of ages.

It wasn’t the most diverse crowd I’ve ever seen, but it wasn’t the most monochromatic one either. The poetry facilitated a group discussion about a real issue impacting the Milwaukee community, which elevated it from a show merely worth seeing to a show I would consider a must-see.

Our society is so wrapped up in art solely for entertainment purposes that we don’t demand art that is profound, meaningful and challenging. Most mainstream reviews of concerts, movies, dance and theater just tell us whether or not a show is entertaining — because that’s what readers use to gauge if something is worth seeing or not. They rarely comment on a piece’s relationship to a greater theme, or if it even has one in the first place.

It’s time we raise our expectations and start defining artistic value by more than degrees of entertainment. If we expect more meaning from the art we pay to see, artists will give us more, and we’ll all be better for it.