Soon-Tek Oh, 85

Soon-Tek Oh, Actor Who Chafed at Asian Stereotypes, Dies at 85
by Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times, April 25, 2018

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Oprah Winfrey, Cecil B. deMille Award, 2018 Golden Globes

Time's up!

A new day is on the horizon!

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"Confusing times" call for clarity: Discuss!

Judy Hussie-Taylor
Exective Director and Chief Curator
Danspace Project
(photo: Michael Kirby)

In these confusing times, why and how do performing arts presenters and curators decide what work to present in their season? What is the interplay of determining factors – sociopolitical climate, curatorial vision, audience trends, diversity, the bottom line?

--publicity text for "Commissioning and Presenting in Confusing Times," an Open Spectrum Community Dialogue presented by New York Live Arts and co-curated with Brian Tate of The Tate Group

"For some reason, I kept calling this panel Presenting in A Crisis," said moderator Judy Hussie-Taylor, introducing Commissioning and Presenting in Confusing Times, hosted by New York Live Arts last week. Her alternate title made more sense, really, since most of us in the arts are not at all confused. We're clearheaded enough to be damned angry.

That sense of specific, political outrage seemed elusive at this gathering of five of New York's most powerful curators and presenters--Lili Chopra (French Institute Alliance Française), Tim Griffin (The Kitchen), Kamilah Forbes (Apollo Theater), Jay Wegman (NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts) and Hussie-Taylor herself, an innovator who has made space for award-winning "Platform" programming at historic Danspace Project.

Referring to our current American moment as "a crisis, the turning point in a disease," Hussie-Taylor suggested that her panelists might tackle four questions:

• What needs to be explored?
• What or who needs to be honored?
• What or who needs to be challenged?
• What needs to be jettisoned?

Relatively new to their positions, Forbes and Wegman are both clearly still researching, experimenting and seeking their best path at institutions with, respectively, formidable cultural legacy (the Apollo) and conventional, somewhat muddled programming (NYU Skirball). Wegman--formerly, and famously, artistic director of Abrons Arts Center--was forthcoming about challenges he faces in replacing stodgy Skirball fare with something actually attractive to NYU students. To do so, he has let go of familiar acts that, as he put it, tend to do little but recycle their material. The 2016 election re-energized his focus, inspiring him to produce more adventurous events such as an appearance by author Ta-Nehisi Coates and the U.S. premiere of a controversial Palestinian play, The Siege.

All the panelists expressed, to one degree or another, dedication to supporting artists and putting artists' needs and concerns at the center of operations--with all the practical complications that can entail. Forbes argued that the job of the institution is to be the locus of transformation and a vehicle for creating the "21st Century canon." But, for the most part, I must say I walked away still questioning how this might be achieved, not just at the Apollo, but elsewhere in what is arguably the arts capital and most progressive city of our nation.

Even in New York's dance and performance community, we are still looking at citadels of power in need of the knowledge, skill, insight and visionary courage of more women and more people of color. The expertise and talent, which I witness regularly, are out here in abundance....and not in the least in a state of confusion. 

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New video series on Black Philadelphians in ballet

Portraits of Black ballerinas
From top:
Judith Jamison, Delores Browne and Joan Myers Brown
(photos: Eva Mueller)

We are still like unicorns, and I wanted to make the invisible visible.

Theresa Ruth Howard, keynote address, Dutch National Ballet's Positioning Ballet Conference 2017

Theresa Ruth Howard--founder of MoBBallet, dedicated to the reinstatement and preservation of the history of Black artists in ballet--announces the launching of a video documentary series on its website. Funded by a $50,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, And Still They Rose: The Legacy of Black Philadelphians in Ballet will feature legendary Judith Jamison, Joan Myers Brown (Philadanco) and Delores Browne (Ballet Americana/New York Negro Ballet) discussing their early training and barrier-breaking experiences in the field. To view the series, starting October 22, click here.

Watch an excerpt:

On Saturday, October 28, join Howard for a panel with Joan Myers Brown, Delores Browne and current Black ballet performers at Philadelphia's The Painted Bride Center (3-5pm). There will also be an exhibition of Eva Mueller's portraits of Black ballet dancers. This event is free or by donation with an RSVP here. To visit the Facebook event page, click here. For directions to The Painted Bride Center, click here.

Watch Theresa Ruth Howard's excellent keynote address on diversity issues in ballet at the Dutch National Ballet's Positioning Ballet Conference (Amsterdam, February 2017).  Click here.

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Family life, fantasy life: Tamar Rogoff at La MaMa

Cover of Cherry Ames, Student Nurse (1943),
the first volume in Helen Wells's popular novel series for girls.
(from Collection of the Museum of Health Care)

Core cast members of Grand Rounds, a world premiere by Tamar Rogoff
Center: Cadence Rotarius
At left: Morgan Sullivan, Glen Heroy, Cyndy Gilbertson
At right: Jake Szczypek and Emily Pope
(photo: Asya Danilova)

In the 1950s world of Grand Rounds, a 10-year-old inspired by the adventures of Cherry Ames, nurse and amateur sleuth, turns her perceptive gaze on the rituals of family life. What goes on behind closed doors and on the radio is fodder for her scientific reckonings. Rogoff invites audiences to sit bedsides to share the intimacy that propels her protagonist on a rescue mission of her own. 

-- from publicity for Grand Rounds

Core cast in rehearsal for Grand Rounds
(photo: Asya Danilova)

"They are the greatest cast I've ever worked with," said choreographer/director Tamar Rogoff after her world premiere of Grand Rounds at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre.

Well, they are certainly an interesting cast with individual backgrounds in everything from clowning for the Big Apple Circus to living with Parkinson's Disease. Working with all kinds of folks--even those without training in performance--is nothing new for the adventurous Rogoff. But while the unusual diversity of this cast, as well as their individual skills and all-in commitment, gives the work strength, none of that feels like enough. Even the expansive staging falls short of moving Grand Rounds from a curiosity to a consequential work of art.

Before seeing the show, I checked up on its title:

Medical Definition of grand rounds:  rounds involving the formal presentation by an expert of a clinical issue sometimes in the presence of selected patients (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

Grand rounds: A formal meeting at which physicians discuss the clinical case of one or more patients. Grand rounds originated as part of residency training wherein new information was taught and clinical reasoning skills were enhanced. Grand rounds today are an integral component of medical education. They present clinical problems in medicine by focusing on current or interesting cases. They are also sometimes utilized for dissemination of new research information. (MedicineNet)

You could say Rogoff brings her "patients" 'round to us--though, instead of hospital beds, we get a close-up view of beds in a family's home. The beds suggest a modest home and the relationships within.

Rogoff grew up the daughter of a doctor, and her research and work have led her to an understanding of the dual nature of her mission as an artist--transformation and healing. In this new work, she foregrounds a child--a stand-in for herself, one would assume--whose attraction to the Cherry Ames books, popular from the 1940s through the 1960s, leads her to examine family life with the avidity of a smart young sleuth. The happenings here are her "grand rounds," too.

To start, some of the audience members are made to sit on cardboard boxes for sitting shiva in traditional discomfort--clever, that--positioned around the performance space so that we face one of several makeshift beds. The characters--a young girl, her parents, her grandparents--will shift from bed to bed. But, at first, we don't know that. So, as dancers in front of you perform a long series of movements in and around a bed, you might find your interest drifting away to catch what's happening elsewhere, particularly when the noise over there distracts you.

But when I saw Grand Rounds last night, we only learned from Rogoff's Q&A that she had wanted each of us to stay focused on the bed directly in front of us. Since these initial performances rotate among the beds and repeat, she explained, we eventually get to see everything that each character does--the young soldier/brother handily slipping right beneath his bed and repeatedly lifting it like a set of weights, the grandparents coyly approaching each other and dancing to swing music, the parents (superb Emily Pope and Jake Szczypek) in stylized and tense, faintly erotic conflict.

So, are we mourners? Are we doctors on grand rounds? Or are we--each of us--that little blonde girl who shows up everywhere to eye, or maybe imagine, influence, remember--what happens in each instance? The answer could be any or all of these things, but the problem, as I see it, is that it ultimately does not matter. Intimations of mortality--for instance, in the doleful soundscore, in the eventually overused shiva boxes--lead to events too predictable, and to drawn out, to land with emotional force.

And what of the rest of the staging, a sort-of fantasy placed at a remote distance from all of us and perched high on the theater's usual seating risers, where hospital scenes with cutesy doctors, student nurses and a patient could have been excerpted from a Broadway musical?

Neither here nor there: I had some Cherry Ames books when I was a child. I don't remember a thing about them except having once thought, "Why don't I have Nancy Drew books like everybody else?"  This slight resentment that might or might not have been justified. I have no idea. We can talk, another time, about how my seamstress mother and aunt chose to adorn me relative to what every other girl was wearing at the time.

Grand Rounds continues through May 14, Wednesday to Saturday at 7pm; Sunday at 4pm.  For information and tickets, click here.

La Mama (Ellen Stewart Theatre)
66 East 4th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)


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Lea Marshall: Who--and what--reinvigorates ballet?

Dance writer and educator Lea Marshall
(photo: courtesy of Lea Marshall)

Guest contributor Lea Marshall responds to New York Times dance writer Roslyn Sulcas's conversation with three contemporary ballet choreographers--Justin Peck, Alexei Ratmansky and Christopher Wheeldon (April 20, 2017).

*****

Open Letter to The New York Times

on the Memorable Occasion of 

“A Conversation With Three Choreographers 

Who Are Reinvigorating Ballet.”

by guest contributor Lea Marshall

Monday morning, when I opened my weekly ArtsJournal emailed roundup of dance articles from around the web, I knew better than to click on the title above. I knew better, but I clicked anyway. And then I posted the piece on Facebook with the comment, “Huh. Three white men. Imagine.”

The image alone was enough.  You wouldn’t even have to read the piece to understand whose voices are most valued in ballet today, according to the Times. There they are, all in a row: Justin Peck, Alexei Ratmansky and Christopher Wheeldon--three white men.

Under my Facebook post, a friend asked: “Lea, not being into the dance scene like you, and acknowledging the racist and sexist nature of the article, if you had written this article, who would you have included?”

In response, I realized I wanted to dismantle the whole premise of the article and start over. Editors, the problem lies not just with ballet, but with you.

If we’re presented with this question--“Which choreographers have reinvigorated ballet?”--and the answer we come up with is “These three white male choreographers,” we must re-examine the question. What does it mean to “reinvigorate ballet”? Obviously, in this equation it doesn’t mean taking dramatic steps toward diversity, or critically thinking about ballet’s de facto position at the “top” of our white, western, racist, sexist, popular cultural understanding of what dance is. Rather, it appears that in this context to “reinvigorate” means to make dances that seem fresh and appeal to the tired eye of the Eurocentric or Balanchine-worshiping balletomane.

Of course these choreographers make great work. But the context for that work demands examination and discussion. Sulcas actually asks the men why more women don’t hold “major choreographer” status in ballet. For the most part, their answers are laughably inadequate.

So, let’s change the whole question so that the answer includes Dance Theatre of Harlem; includes Misty Copeland, Michaela DePrince, Yuan Yuan Tan; includes American Ballet Theatre's Project Plié’s goal to diversify American ballet companies; includes Ballez (performance, company, class and community, that invites everyone to witness and celebrate the history and performances of lesbian, queer and transgender people). New York Times, you can do so much better.

Throughout the day after the piece appeared, a great flurry arose that focused in large part on the choreographers’ responses to that question about women. But the problem, as I’d hope we all realize, extends far past the privileged men; it’s with the system that privileges them, including the Times.

There’s an easy fix for this article, as a start. Change the headline to: “Privileged Positions: Three White Male Choreographers Get Extra Credit in Ballet.”

*****

Lea Marshall is Associate Chair of the Department of Dance and Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University, as well as a dance writer, critic and poet. She writes for Dance Magazine, Dance Teacher and Richmond’s Style Weekly.

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"Activate Equity": energy, fresh directions for equity in the arts

Rajeeyah Finnie-Myers,
Project Manager, Field Leadership Fund,
welcomes Activate Equity participants
at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center
(photo: Eva Yaa Asantewaa) 

How are we? 
We are here! 
-- Goussy Célestin

Sarita Covington (above)
and members of B3W Performance Group (below)
 in Forgiveness Part 1: Forgiving the Personal
by Emily Berry
(photos: Kerville Jack)

This is New York City in 2017, and yet here we are still asking the question, How can we create a more equitable arts sector? And asking. And asking. And asking some more.

The latest inquiry was launched yesterday by The Field, a nonprofit organization that has served the performance and media arts for three decades.

The Field is committed to empowering artists and cultural workers of all identities to achieve their visions.  We provide strategic services to thousands of performing and media artists and companies in New York City and beyond. We foster creative exploration, steward innovative management strategies, and are delighted to help artists reach their fullest potential. Freedom of expression and the rights of all peoples will be honored and respected via our programs, services, staffing and policies.

-- from Mission & History, The Field

Activate Equity: Insights, Inspirations & Connections, hosted by Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, brought together artists, arts administrators, community-oriented arts activists, educators and many for whom those roles overlap. They gathered for a full day of activities addressing concerns that, while predating this time of white supremacist rule in our nation, have only grown in urgency.

Morning events offered inspiration from artists currently enrolled in the 16-month Field Leadership Fund Fellowship program--Haitian-American music and dance artist Goussy Célestin; B3W Performance Group with choreographer Emily Berry; and Eric Lockley, an actor, writer and producer with a strong focus on POC community health issues. A stirring keynote address was given by novelist Renée Watson (founder of I, Too, Arts Collective) who successfully campaigned to raise funds to lease Langston Hughes's Harlem brownstone for programs serving emerging writers. Watson reminded the audience of the risk of feeling isolated and hopeless at moments of crisis and struggle.

"We are not in this fight alone. Thinking you're alone in this work is self-destructive," she said and used the example of her #LangstonLegacy campaign which met its 30-day deadline, raising the necessary $150,000 to sign the lease. "Change," she told us, "is dirty, hard, grueling work. Still, we must plant. We must put in," and have the kind of faith in seeds that farmers have. She reminded us of Assata Shakur's charge:

It is our duty to fight. It is our duty to win. We must love and support one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

The morning continued with a choice of workshops:

JACK Be Nimble: Choosing Collaborative Governance for Organizational Agility and Radical Process, facilitated by DeeArah Wright and Alec Duffy, examined their process of moving their Brooklyn arts venue JACK "from an organization with a strong hierarchy to one that strongly values collaboration and accountability."

I participated in Art Power: Owning our Capacity to Disrupt Racism, facilitated by Rachel DeGuzman, president and CEO of 21st Century Arts. Inspired by DeGuzman's study of D.W. Griffith's racist feature film The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Ava DuVernay's documentary 13th (2016), this workshop mobilized participants to identify cultural artifacts that stereotype and endanger people of color and, conversely, identify art that highlights the real truths and strengths of people and communities of color.

DeGuzman's workshop, though brief, was remarkably effective. It left me feeling exhilarated. The walls of our meeting room, decorated by colorful Post-it® notes with each of our contributions, gave visual evidence of the abundance of positive, progressive artistry originating in and available to communities of color. In contrast, the negative Post-its seemed puny. Reflecting on this difference, we then each declared and committed to personal strategies for disrupting racism and fostering more equity through our work. These were also abundant in number, specific and actionable.

For my part, I committed to continuing the work I'm already doing but with renewed drive for using opportunities in writing, editing, teaching, coaching, mentoring and curating to create new space and resources for artists of color and people dedicated to anti-racism and equity. DeGuzman encouraged us to find check-in buddies to act as sounding boards and keep us on track with these commitments. I hope, as you read this, you will also keep me posted with your suggestions.

After lunch break, the group reconvened for interactive movement exercises facilitated by Wilfredo Hernandez, Program Manager for The Field. The group then collaborated on data and ideas to contribute to the city's CreateNYC cultural plan which examines issues of access and inclusion; social and economic impact of the arts; affordability of living, working and presentation space for artists; educational strategies and neighborhood development issues. The day ended with a networking reception.

Many, if not all, of the people who attended Activate Equity are already deep into the work of anti-racism, equity and social justice in the arts and society. Someday, I want to walk into one of these events and be blown away to see people from a much wider range of the dance and arts communities of my city, resourceful people who are curious, interested, ready to learn, ready to contribute whatever they can. If you're reading this, know that you're an essential part of our city and of the world we're trying to shape. Each of you have something special to share in this work. We all need one another.

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Ballez: La MaMa Moves presents ballet on the wild side

Khadija Griffith (left) and Deborah Lohse in
Sleeping Beauty & The Beast,
a Ballez world premiere
(photo: Theo Coté)

Ballez is performance, company, class and community, that invites everyone to witness and celebrate the history and performances of lesbian, queer, and transgender people.

Ballez dancers claim our inherent nobility and belonging within, around, and on top of a form that has historically excluded us. 

Ballez celebrates the virtuosity of complexly gendered embodiment, energetic eloquence, queer coding, and the magical adaptability of expression that Ballez dancers have cultivated through their lives as a way to survive and thrive.

--some statements from www.ballez.org

Sleeping Beauty & the Beast--the latest project of Katy Pyle (with Jules Skloot and members of Pyle's Ballez troupe) is big.

How big, you ask?

So big, it requires more than two hours and two--not one--theater at La MaMa to tell its story.

So big, it's really telling multiple stories, mashing up classical ballets and fairy tale archetypes with Lower East Side labor organizing history and with L.E.S. queer culture--resulting in a hot mess that is and isn't.

So big, Pyle needs two dozen versatile, well-trained and coached dancers (most playing multiple roles) and eighteen classical musicians (New York's Queer Urban Orchestra playing straight-up Tchaikovsky for Act 1) plus a DJ JD Samson's house music (Act 2) and even that's not enough.

So big, it Occupies the Ballet Canon; big enough for a look-in from Graham and Loie Fuller; too big for the gender binary; too big to behave.

So big, it can embrace sweetness, humor, revolutionary fervor, sexual heat of diverse and ever-shifting varieties, and the pain of loss.

So big that--well, you know those old timers who regale you with stories about being there when so-and-so made her stunning debut or first danced with Nureyev and knocked their socks off in that difficult role? One day, if you're lucky, you will be that old timer, unable to shut up about how you saw Ballez premiere Sleeping Beauty & The Beast at La MaMa Moves.

That big. Historic. Meaningful. Moving.

Pyle and company get so much joyfully right, starting with the complex precision work of Act 1's opening yarn weaving dance. But I'm going to let you discover the best of Sleeping Beauty & The Beast for yourself, because you're going, right?  You're going.

Sleeping Beauty & the Beast continues tonight and through May 8--Wednesday to Saturday at 7pm; Sunday at 4pm. For information and tickets, click here.

La MaMa
at Ellen Stewart Theatre and The Downstairs
66 East 4th Street, 2nd Floor (between Bowery and 2nd Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Brian Asawa, 49

Brian Asawa, Celebrated Countertenor and Pathbreaker at the Met, Dies at 49
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, April 23, 2016

Fabian Barnes, 56

Fabian Barnes, founder/director of Dance Institute of Washington, dies at 56
by Sarah L. Kaufman, The Washington Post, April 12, 2016

Fly, fly, fly with Julie Ludwick's Fly-By-Night Dance Theater!

photo courtesy of Fly-By-Night Dance Theater

Audition/Scholarship News:

Fly-by-Night Dance Theater's annual scholarship audition for dancers of color  is coming this Sunday, January 17 (4:30-7pm). This free audition class celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Day. A few students will be selected for a course of study, under scholarship, with Julie Ludwick's Williamsburg-based aerial dance troupe.

For details on audition requirements and training schedules, click here.

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Billie Allen, 90

Billie Allen, Actress Who Bridged Racial Gap, Dies at 90
by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, January 10, 2015

Mattiwilda Dobbs, 90

Mattiwilda Dobbs, Black Soprano and Principal at Met, Dies at 90
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, December 10, 2015

Is it too soon to be thinking about The Nutcracker?

Photos from Dance The World Nutcracker Festival
courtesy of JP Dance Group

Maybe, even though Rockefeller Center's Christmas tree is already in place!

But JP Dance Group wants you to start thinking about its Dance The World Nutcracker Festival, devoted to New York's exciting diversity.  Three programs (December 15-20) will present dance forms from a wide variety of cultures represented in our city--Chinese, Bulgarian, Middle Eastern, African, Caribbean, Mexican and Indian.

For a complete schedule of festival programs, click here. For tickets, click here.

The Secret Theatre
44-02 23rd Street, Long Island City, Queens
(map/directions)

Sierra Leone-born ballerina Michaela DePrince featured in Glamour

Michaela DePrince
(photo: Alique for GLAMOUR)

BALLERINA MICHAELA DEPRINCE 

ON ACHIEVING HER DREAMS

GLAMOUR, August 2015

I Was Orphan Number 27:
Ballerina Michaela DePrince's Inspiring Story

by Erika Hayasaki

Michaela DePrince lost her family as a girl in Sierra Leone during the brutal civil war; now she’s a world-class ballerina, her triumph soon to be a Hollywood movie, Taking Flight. But her biggest goal? To inspire young girls through working with the Girl Scouts and War Child, a group that helps children in conflict zones. DePrince shares her journey in Glamour’s August issue, on national newsstands now and available digitally at glamour.com/app.

Bringing diverse talents to the MacDowell Colony

MacDowell Colony announces diversity fellowship
by Carolyn Kellogg, The Los Angeles Times, May 19, 2015

Creative Time's Anne Pasternak will lead Brooklyn Museum

Brooklyn Museum Picks Anne Pasternak as New Director
by Roberta Smith, The New York Times, May 19, 2015

Vivian Phillips: new leadership for Seattle's arts commission

Vivian Phillips
Chair, Seattle Arts Commission
(Photo by Jerry and Lois Photography)

Last month, the Seattle Arts Commission announced that Vivian Phillips--director of marketing and communications for the Seattle Theatre Group--would become the 16-member commission's new Chair (click here). Ms. Phillips has an extensive background in arts management, marketing and advocacy. She agreed to respond to a few questions about what's stirring with artists, communities and arts policies in Seattle.

*****

EYA: You have a background in media as well as marketing for arts organizations. What motivated you to become involved on a larger scale in arts advocacy and arts policy for your city?

VP: The majority of my work in media has been focused on elevating the arts. I’ve given 100% to arts advocacy, management, and support since the 1980’s. This is my second time serving on the Seattle Arts Commission, and it just happens that this time I’ve become chair. I have training as a political strategist and served a former Mayor as Director of Communications.

Policy is important to me, but assuring that a policy is implemented is often the challenge and even more important. As Chair of the Arts Commission, my experience and passion work together, and with my fellow commissioners, I advise on policy and its equitable implementation. 

The Seattle Arts Commission supports the Office of Arts and Culture as an advisory and advocacy body, so my primary responsibility is to lead the work of the Commission in ways that uphold that responsibility. This year, all of our work will be done with an eye on holding an equity lens up to all of our decisions, be it funding or community engagement. We are working closely with the Seattle Office for Civil Rights and developing a set of tools and philosophies that will help assure that we are being accountable to creating an arts environment that is more racially equitable in all areas.

In January, the entire Commission participated in two half-days of race and equity training so that we could all have a common starting place from which to move for our work together. A number of new initiatives and programs will launch in 2015, some of which could have incredible impacts on communities of color.  My job is to lead the body in a way that leads to successful outcomes.

EYA: What arts-related issues are top of mind today for Seattle's citizens?

VP: Equity! It’s not enough to be diverse. Along those lines, there is a big gentrification issue and we are in the process now of establishing the Central Area, as a Cultural Arts District. The Central Area is experiencing an enormous amount of development and gentrification and so with our capacity for applying an equity lens to all the work and investments we can make, this is a great opportunity to make a big difference. We don’t know yet how we will make it all come together, but we do know that we are willing to take a risk and do it in a way that increases not just the appearance but the true outcomes in an equitable fashion.   

Under the banner of equity, our work plan also touches on increased outreach and engagement with arts and artists from communities of color. Social justice is obviously a big part of achieving equity as well. The Office just held a #SeaArtsFem Twitter conversation yesterday, and the conversation garnered lots of participation. There are a lot of women making moves in the arts in Seattle right now. Women are expressing their leadership in the arts today in beautiful and effective ways. I think this is noticeable and also top of mind.

EYA: Do you see ways in which Seattle can model sound arts policy for other cities across the nation? What arts initiatives, resources or upcoming events are you particularly excited about this year?

VP: Seattle is already modeling. The Creative Advantage, an initiative to restore arts education to Seattle Public School classrooms, is a program out of our Office of Arts and Culture, and the Seattle Arts Commission. This initiative is unique and leading the path toward equitable arts access.

The Office just launched a Spacefinder Tool that literally documents and provides access to information on all of the cultural arts spaces in the city. And Artists Up is a program designed to support access to funding to targeted groups of artists. These are all programs are examples of sound arts policies that are of interest to arts policy-makers around the nation.  

I’m particularly excited about and focused on the successful transition of Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute into a private non-profit organization, and the designation of the Cultural Arts District for the Central Area. These are cultural assets that need to be fully supported in a thoughtful and strategic way and I’m thrilled to be in a position where I can take a more active role in shaping these two things.  

In addition to the two things listed above, Seattle will be experiencing it’s first District-based City Council elections in the coming year. Several current Council members are leaving and the field is getting quite full of potential candidates. The Commission will hold candidate forums this year so we are clear about who supports the arts and how they intend to deliver.  

It’s a very interesting moment in time, and I feel like this is where my experiences, skills, energy, contacts and history can all culminate for the benefit of the arts, artists and community I love so deeply!

*****

Keep up with Seattle's progressive arts initiatives here.

Sydnie Mosley reflects on "Power, Privilege, & Perception"

If you read my post discussing the Power, Privilege, & Perception: Voices on Race and Dance session of the 2015 Dance/NYC Symposium, you will remember that I made reference to panelist Sydnie Mosley (Artistic Director, Sydnie L. Mosley Dances and co-chair of Dance/NYC's Junior Committee). Mosley has written a series of three blog posts that detail her experience of preparing for and sitting on the final panel of that session, Making Change, Artist Voices. With cogent analysis, Mosley shows how an opportunity for open discussion of race and non-equity in dance got lost along with any chance of meaningful networking and follow-up action.

Read More to Say: Reflections on the 2015 Dance/NYC Symposium:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

More on bias and privilege in the arts sector

The Hypocrisy of the Artistic and Critical Left
by Beca Rothfeld, Hyperallergic, February 23, 2015