Coming soon to DC – Intersections New America Arts Festival

Three-weekends of multi-disciplinary arts that celebrate differences and discover commonalities among artists and audiences of diverse races, ages and cultures.  Feb 19 – Mar 7, 2010 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center (1333 H Street NE, Washington DC)

More information visit the festival website or blog.

National Arts Index Reveals Lower Health and Vitality of Arts Industries in 2008

(from the Foundation Center, http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=282200002)

Due to losses in charitable giving and declining attendance at larger cultural institutions, the health and vitality of the arts in the United States was lower in 2008 than it was in 2003, a new report from Americans for the Arts finds.

According to the National Arts Index (146 pages, PDF), attendance at art museums decreased by 13 percent over that period, while audiences at popular music events were down by 6 percent. At the same time, the report found that between 1998 and 2008 there was a steady increase in the number of artists and arts organizations and in arts-related employment. Indeed, while attendance at arts events is shrinking, advances in technology are changing how Americans experience the arts.

Conducted over four and a half years, the first study of the health and vitality of the arts industry in the United States looked at seventy-six indicators in nine categories to arrive at a decade-long view of trends in arts philanthropy, participation, and creativity as well as the relationship of the arts to other areas of American life, including employment and education. The measures include capacity and infrastructure, participation, contributed support, employment, nonprofit, creativity, demand for arts education, arts business, and competitiveness.

Measured against a base a core of 100 (in 2003), the overall index score fell to 98.4 in 2008 and achieved its ten-year high, 105.5, in 1999. “The current economic crisis offers a unique and important opportunity to begin a national conversation about the value of the arts — to us as individuals, communities, and a nation,” said Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute and one of the project’s advisors. “We need to rethink a nonprofit arts sector that in many ways remains tethered to support models that have remained unchanged for a half century. Arts organizations need to find creative ways to engage their audiences, build on the public’s growing interest in personal creation, and stimulate audience demand.”

Although the national study was funded in part by the Rockefeller and Henry Luce foundations, the Michi-gan-based Kresge Foundation has awarded $1.2 million to Americans for the Arts to create a companion Local Arts Index and provide workshops and materials necessary to assist communities in the effective application of the local data. “Our work in all parts of the country suggests that the National Arts Index will have a valuable impact on local communities of every kind,” said Kresge Foundation president Rip Rapson “The Local Arts Index — the local application of this national tool — will help local leaders in one hundred communities make better-informed decisions about arts and culture investments. It will also contribute to heightened community understanding of the importance that arts and cultural activities play in a community’s economic health and social vitality.”

“First-Ever National Arts Index Measures Health and Vitality of Arts in the United States.” Americans for the Arts Press Release 1/20/10.

Trescott, Jacqueline. “The Nationals Arts Index, a New Survey by Americans for the Arts, Paints a Troubling Picture for Arts Organization.” Washington Post 1/21/10.

Link to the index:

http://www.americansforthearts.org/pdf/information_services/art_index/NAI_full_report_optimized.pdf

From “Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space” Richard Layman’s blog

(urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com)

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Theater in DC

Last summer, I was part of a panel discussing the topic of theatre and urban revitalization at the annual conference of the organization Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. The paper I prepared for that event is in the blog entry “Art, culture districts, and revitalization.”

And last weekend, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, which has been in operation in the city for 30 years, had a private conference to which I was invited, as part of a “strategic planning” process they have chosen to embark upon to grapple with the issues of what do they want to be now, now that they have a permanent and beautiful facility located just off 7th Street NW and a couple blocks from the National Mall.

I think what Woolly Mammoth is doing is a really gutsy move. It’s not a typical formal strategic planning process involving consultants and lots of Powerpoint presentations, but a messy process involving actors, patrons, board members, staff, and audience. The presentations and discussions convinced me that I was on the right track with the presentation in the summer.

An approach to arts-inspired civic dialogue

The social/political obligations of cultural organizations to their respective communities will be examined in “Love in a Cemetery,”…

Nilaja’s note from the Conference

*Immensely thankful to be thought of for this groundbreaking inspirational day.

*It says so much, Howard, that you have the openness and confidence to receive what we all have to say from our hearts.

*Blessed to have a production of “No Child…” Jan ‘08 and Feb ‘08

*Had a great time

*Having had the opportunity to perform over 600 shows of “No Child…” in the past 3 1/2 years for close to 1 million people throughout the theaters of America, I say this with L.O.V.E. (but sadness in my heart) that from my perspective as the person on stage looking out : Woolly was the most segregated audience. (L.O.V.E.)

*Upon thinking about this in depth, it occurred to me that, as in Broadway houses the audience is positioned and seated by ticket price. Totally understandable. You pay more money, you get better seats.

*But, as a performer, especially of a show about inner city public school arts education, there is an energy you feel from the audience and what I felt was cold —-warm——–hot. And, I know the audience could feel that too - the ones that “got it” were in the back, teachers were in the back, folks of color in the back. Folks who were used to being in the back in society, are yet again sitting in the back even in a show where finally they are the leading characters. Luckily, their heat would ignite Alaska over here. And, everyone would start to inform each other by their responses. That took the first 20 min of the show. Whereas in most theatres it was the first five to ten.

*When I was asked by Michael to give a proposal for change, I started thinking about my work as a teaching artist. When I first enter a classroom and the kids don’t know me, many times they are in cliques.

Throughout the years, I have learned the benefits of scattering my students from the first class (secretly) using warmups and movement and theatre games.

Boys mix with girls

Dominican kids with the Puerto Rican kids with the Colombian kids with the Mexican kids

Pretty girls with the ever thankful nerd boys

*At first, they are like “EW!!!”

Then, they learn to tolerate each other

Then, they eventually ease up

Then, it’s like breathing

*QUESTION: Outside of the Pay What You Can shows (which we love so much), for 5 shows a week, could you afford to secretly bring 5 or 10 of the Rosa Parks nose bleeds into the front and/or sides hob nobbing with the Capitol Hill ‘my kids go to a Montessori school’ folks?

*Because now, those souls that have been told all their lives:

You’re black – get to the back

You’re poor – get to the back

You’re young – get to the back

You’re not one of us cultured theatre people – get to the back

they can now believe that you believe that they are worthy, that they are visible and they are valued in the theatre (no matter what value is on their ticket)

and that is a feeling they will want to recreate at your theatre AGAIN and AGAIN.

*Here’s the great news:

I was lucky enough to see last night’s performance and thought “That’s it!!!”

That’s what we do in the classroom:

Secretly weaving

silently manipulating

CLANDESTINE INTEGRATION

Until it’s just like breathing

Art for our country

From Rachel Grossman….

Just finished listening to Diane Rehm show from December 8, 2009.  She interviewed Robert Kennedy, former director of the national parks service, who collaborated on a new book When Art Worked.  The book is about the Public Works of Art Project–the first federal government program to support the arts nationally.

In the introduction, Rehm describes that time as a point when:
- artists were working for us/with the country.
- artists worked with the country to “find ourselves.”

Then, Kennedy shared a quote that I have been cooking on since I heard it:  “The work of art is to help to coax the soul of the nation back to life.”
Gutzson Borglum, the sculpture of Mount Rushmore, wrote this to Harry Hopkins, one of FDR’s advisors and major architect of the New Deal.  Hopkins kept the quote in his wallet for most of his life.

You can find the entire podcast on iTunes or wamu.org.

Wondering after your thoughts on whether our soul needs to be coaxed?  And who’s job is it to lead that charge?

Anu Yadav’s Remarks

Howard asked us to consider, ‘Who’s in your circle?’ in relation to the role of theater in our democracy.  To answer that question, I pose another:  ‘What is the nature of our democracy in these times?’

Well, 8 million jobs are gone.  Half of those losses are described by employers as permanently gone.  Half of all children in the U.S. will be on food stamps at some point in their childhood.  Meanwhile, Wall Street companies received swine flu vaccines before public hospitals.

Erik Ehn’s Remarks

WOOLLY 11/14/09

Knowledge and love advance in excess, in spill, breaking past themselves into what they do not yet know, what they have not yet loved. Ignorance and sentiment are stable.

DaSein, in Heidegger’s formulation, is one’s person, one’s presence, one’s position as a living thing, aware of its temporary, exact pulse against the limit of life. Our mortal excitement is: understanding exercised between a memory we may not own – ourselves before we were born – and a will superior to ours – death. We are a “this” made vivid by “not this.”

Conference Photos

Click Here to access the Facebook album with photos of the conference.  While you’re there, become a fan of Woolly!

 

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