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Showing posts with label government funding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government funding. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Oh, Canada!


Eh, Canada! Your new Prime Minister is gorgeous, progressive and supports the arts, too?

Why Canada’s New Prime Minister Might Be Good for the Arts, Eh?
by Gabriella Santiago-Vancak, Hyperallergic, October 20, 2015

Monday, February 23, 2015

A few thoughts on the 2015 Dance/NYC Symposium

I attended just one complete session at the Dance/NYC Symposium held yesterday at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center. No surprise--given what is surely my explicit/implicit bias--it was the three-panel Power, Privilege, & Perception: Voices on Race and Dance session curated by Dance/USA Executive Director Amy Fitterer and former Dance/NYC Director Michelle Ramos-Burkhart.

Before attending those panels, I did manage to catch maybe the final ten minutes of Department of Cultural Affairs commissioner Tom Finkelpearl's presentation on Diversity & NYC Cultural Leadership, just enough to note that there's a serious disconnect between what neighborhoods, small, homegrown institutions and independent artists need and what city government can imagine and support. Under repeated questioning by Dr. Marta Moreno Vega (founder, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute) and other audience members, Finkelpearl--former Queens Museum ED and president, well regarded in that post--sounded lightweight and defensive. I thought back to Bill de Blasio's lackluster performance at a 2013 mayoral candidates forum on the arts when, as a potential mayor, he clearly had one thing on his mind: the looming contract battles with city unions. De Blasio seemed reluctant to engage with the arts community, even under the constrained and very safe arts-are-wholesome-for-schoolkids premise that governed that forum. I also thought back to the recent New York Times item announcing that children and families of the South Bronx would soon benefit from "films, music, dance, opera and more from Lincoln Center’s resident organizations’ great and talented artists." As if the South Bronx has not long nurtured its own artists and initiatives worthy of much more exposure, funding and other resources that make creativity and survival possible.

As introduced by Fitterer, Power, Privilege, & Perception sounded far more promising. Panelists would examine how racist power and privilege within the arts ecology cannot be dealt with while ignoring systemic, societal racism. Moreover, panelists would be encouraged--as they were, repeatedly--to offer practical solutions.

In her opening section, My Lens, My Dance, Ramos-Burkhart argued that everyone harbors implicit bias which may be detected through a cognitive test. Earlier in the day, she had administered this test to two dance artists--a white woman and a Black man, both of whom joined Ramos-Burkhart at her presentation. The white dancer-choreographer confessed that the test had made her deeply uncomfortable; the Black artist recalled tensing up as he grappled with the test. We were left to imagine the test's content as Ramos-Burkhart reported that the white artist's test results were inconclusive while the Black artist's results showed a slight bias in favor of Black people. The white artist interpreted her results as a sign of ambivalence due to her wanting to not be, as she called it, "a bad white person." Ramos-Burkhart issued no judgement of the results, which was fine, but her silence around the Black artist's results troubled me.

This idea that everyone has bias might have merit (especially dear to a self-serving racist) but is merely part of the story. After all, why shouldn't this Black artist have, at the very least, some small bias in favor of Black people given what we have experienced under white supremacy? All things are not equal until they are. The white artist's possible bias (even as she struggled to not be a bad white person) would not be equivalent to the Black artist's bias.  I would expect the Black artist to embrace and struggle for his people. Racism, naturally, has created in people of color a spectrum of resistance from mild to militant. It has also shaped a people who, when truly healthy of mind and heart, love themselves fiercely and seek to uplift their own whenever possible.

BTW, I'd be delighted to see the typical New York dance critic or culture desk editor take Ramos-Burkhart's test. That could prove revealing--and useful--but that's a matter, perhaps, for another day.

Ramos-Burkhart also directed several people in a demonstration showing the limits of how we think about diversity and privilege, how we fail to take into account how possession of privilege shifts as the social context changes. Like, say, when a white actress, wielding her new Oscar, declares that it's time for gay people and people of color (all presumed to be men, I guess) to fight for women's rights as hard as women (white?) have surely fought for theirs.

Tammy Boormann, chair of Urban Bush Women's board, is a white ally to a venerable dance troupe founded by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, a Black choreographer and educator grounded in commitment to social justice. In Boorman's panel--National Voices--Fitterer and Ramos-Burkhart were joined by Denise Saunders Thompson (chair and ED of International Association of Blacks in Dance) and Carlton Turner (ED of Atlanta-based Alternate ROOTS). Boormann made repeated efforts to solicit solutions but, in this, the panel came up short. Instead, we learned how difficult it is to revise the Dance/USA mission statement in a meaningful, progressive way without alienating the organization's board.

I appreciated Turner's stark, contextual perspective: Why would we expect a society that does not value our lives to value our art? For Turner and Alternate ROOTS, the bottom line is transformation, and the choice is clear: You either contribute to societal transformation, or you do not. Not every artist is going to make explicitly political work or participate in overtly political actions, and yet, as artists make and share their work, they can consciously choose to strive to serve progress towards equity and justice.

Turner moderated the session's concluding panel, Making Change: Artist Voices, which included representatives from three major troupes--Dance Theater of Harlem (Virginia Johnson), Ballet Hispanico (Eduardo Vilaro) and American Ballet Theater (Richard Toda). In addition, Sydnie Mosley (Artistic Director, Sydnie L. Mosley Dances) and Alice Sheppard (independent dancer and choreographer) brought more of an urgent, activist, community-invested experience of resisting silence and invisibility. Mosley's work as a performer, choreographer and educator deals provocatively with issues of race and gender; Sheppard's work affirms the capacity and rich language of dancers with disabilities. Much more could have been learned, especially from these last two artists, had we had time to examine details of their ideas and projects. I would argue that Dance/NYC would do well to offer an expanded version of Turner's panel with indepth presentations by artists like Mosley and Sheppard on how to innovate around the challenges and opportunities of difference.

For the purpose of this afternoon's program, the Gibney theater proved to be fatally formal with the audience seated in rising rows opposite panelists lined up behind a long table. Off in the far distance, sheets of paper covered the theater's wall of mirrors, but few people accepted the many invitations to take markers and share their evolving thoughts and feelings. It seemed a little awkward to get up from your seat and cross in front of the panel to reach the paper. Maybe, for future events, each participant can be issued a sheet of paper or a few index cards or grab a few sticky notes to capture words or sketches while listening. We can then hand them in or tack them up when the event is finished--a better way to draw out spontaneous responses and feedback.

******

For information about Dance/NYC Symposium's full day of programming, click here.

Friday, July 6, 2012

LMCC announces all-Manhattan grant programs

Lower Manhattan Cultural Council - Grants

Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) is pleased to announce its 2013 grant cycle. Each year, LMCC offers three grant programs to support arts and arts education programming in Manhattan: The Fund for Creative Communities (The Fund), Manhattan Community Arts Fund (MCAF) and Creative Curricula (CC). Together, the programs provide over $500,000 annually to support over 200 projects and enliven communities from Inwood to the Battery. These grants support both individual artists and nonprofit organizations to develop and lead arts projects in their Manhattan communities.

The Fund and MCAF grants are funded by New York State and New York City to help Manhattan-based artists and organizations cultivate new community-based projects and programming. Both grants award up to $5,000 to grantees and enable arts projects to reach public audiences. Past projects have included film festivals, mural projects, children's theater, chamber music, capoeira training and performance, art in community gardens, Chinese opera concerts in community centers and site-specific dance performances. The Fund’s support focuses on small to mid-sized nonprofit organizations seeking to develop and sustain arts programming in Manhattan, and MCAF supports individual artists and small nonprofit organizations that often have little access to government funding. In many cases, MCAF is the first grant the recipient has been awarded and acts as leverage for an artist or organization seeking funding in the future.

Creative Curricula is an arts-education grant funded by the New York State Council on the Arts to support new and emerging arts-based programming in Manhattan’s public school classrooms. For the 2013 grant cycle Creative Curricula has increased the amount of funding available for projects and has also expanded the range of projects eligible for funding. Grants are now available for up to $5,000.

“When people think of the arts in Manhattan, museums and large-scale institutions may first come to mind; but there are literally hundreds of incredible arts programs happening in every neighborhood—in parks, plazas, schools, theaters, galleries and community centers,” says Kay Takeda, Director of Grants & Services at LMCC. “LMCC’s grant programs are designed to encourage and sustain these activities and to seed new ideas for arts projects and programs. Access to arts and culture is an essential part of what makes this city so livable, and so vibrant every day.”

Information Sessions

LMCC will offer a schedule of 14 grant information sessions in which prospective applicants can meet with LMCC staff and learn more about the application process and program requirements. Attendance at one of these sessions is a requirement for all new applicants, all Creative Curricula applicants and for any Fund and MCAF applicants who have not attended a session since 2009. Sessions begin in July and continue into early September, and will take place at various locations including El Museo del Barrio, Artists Space, St. Peter’s Church, Joe’s Pub and HERE Arts Center. There will be a session in Mandarin Chinese on July 18 at 4pm at Chatham Branch Library and a Spanish-translated session on August 22 at 6pm at Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance.

Complete program information and application forms are available on LMCC’s website, www.LMCC.net/grants.

About LMCC


Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, has been a leading voice for arts and culture Downtown and throughout New York City for nearly 40 years, producing cultural events and promoting the arts through grants, services, advocacy, and cultural development programs. www.LMCC.net.

LMCC's Manhattan Arts Grant Programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; and Wells Fargo.

Friday, February 24, 2012

UK: arts and environmental sustainability

Speaking at the Tipping Point conference in Newcastle, Alan Davey, Chief Executive, Arts Council England has today announced that the Arts Council is the first arts funding body in the world to embed environmental sustainability into the funding agreements of its major programmes.
Read more:

Arts Council England to embed environmental sustainability into funding

Friday, January 27, 2012

Valentine's Day is Arts Day in Albany

On Tuesday, February 14, join Dance/NYC and other New York State arts advocates in a day of face-to-face meetings with Albany legislators in support of public funding for the arts.

Get the facts, learn what you can do and get involved here.

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