ANIMATING DEMOCRACY E-NEWS
September 2005
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Animating Democracy News and Updates |
Americans for the Arts joins with you in expressing grief and concern about the devastation from Hurricane Katrina that has affected our colleagues in the mid-south region. Americans for the Arts staff are working hard to connect with our members in the affected regions and to offer help in any way possible. Learn more about our efforts and find out more about how arts organizations and others in the arts community are responding to this tragedy by clicking the links below. Americans for the Arts will update these pages as information becomes available. If you have information to share, please submit it to our Hurricane Relief Bulletin Board.
New book series from Americans for the Arts reveals findings from Animating Democracy www.americansforthearts.org/AnimatingDemocracy/reading_room/reading_004.asp
Americans for the Arts has published a set of books that explores the power of the arts and humanities to foster civic engagement and dialogue, based on the findings from its Animating Democracy initiative. The seven titles examine the role of these cultural institutions, highlight best practices and outcomes from their endeavors, and identify the challenges and complexities in arts-based civic dialogue work.
Titles include Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture, which synthesizes the findings of the Animating Democracy initiative; Critical Perspectives, a collection of essays about three Animating Democracy projects that seeks to expand who has voice and authority in critical writing about civically engaged art through an experimental, multiperspective writing approach; and the Art & Civic Engagement Series, five thematically framed books that offer in-depth case study analyses of some of the most illuminating projects in Animating Democracy.
To purchase the books, visit the Americans for the Arts online bookstore at www.AmericansForTheArts.org/bookstore.
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News from the Field |
Homeland Security project to premier this fallwww.centerforculturalexchange.org/projectsandtours.shtml
September 11, 2001, stands as the most significant temporal disaster in most Americans’ recent memories. Refugees and immigrants have seen their homelands and religions negatively portrayed by the media, and have hidden in their homes from their neighbors’ intolerance. The Center for Cultural Exchange in Portland, ME, has responded to this situation by commissioning, developing, and touring Homeland Security, a multimedia performance project that “reveals the resiliency, humor and collective strength of the new American communities even as it creates opportunities for co-operative engagement among all the communities who now call Portland ‘home.’” Led by artist and community organizer Marty Pottenger, the performance combines in-depth, one-on-one interviews with Maine’s governor, senate president, and attorney general; Portland’s mayor, Homeland Security chief, and the U.S. Border Patrol’s regional director; and story circles with members of the local Latino, Afghan, Somali, Sudanese, and French-Canadian communities to create a multimedia work focusing on security, safety, and sovereignty. The project will be performed at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, November 4, 2005, with workshops and discussions with Pottenger on November 2–3, 2005.
Community Arts Network reviews Sojourn’s session of Witness Our Schoolswww.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2005/09/listen_up_sojou.php
As a companion piece to the report on the Community Arts Network about the 2005 Ensemble Theater Festival, this month Linda Frye Burnham introduces a transcript of Sojourn Theatre’s session on its Witness Our Schools project at the festival. Witness Our Schools, Sojourn Theatre’s two-year project, explored the role of the public education system throughout the state of Oregon—using a theater piece based on interviews with students, teachers, parents, school board members, and others at sites throughout Oregon as a catalyst for civic dialogue. In her review of the session, Frye Burnham asserted, “What was interesting for the festival audience was Sojourn's groundbreaking method of community building and community activism that includes all voices and all sides of the debate. This kind of broad inclusion can be controversial for arts professionals, most of whom can be assumed to range politically from liberal to radically libertarian. We usually assume 'inclusion' means an effort to incorporate the voices of marginalized groups, but not necessarily the voices of the already empowered or the political right. But true inclusion means presenting all opinions, including those of the ‘other side.’”
Cornerstone Theater Company presents session at Theatre Communications Groupwww.tcg.org/conferences/conference_05/pop/cornerstone.html
In June 2005, company members from Cornerstone Theater and participants from the Faith-Based Theater Cycle led a panel at this year’s Theatre Communications Group conference. With the goal of exploring the challenges theater groups face as they work toward achieving understanding between people and cultures, the session examined the time line of the project and the conflicts that developed as Cornerstone worked with individual communities to develop each Festival of Faith. Within the Muslim community specifically, panel participants spoke about the experience of presenting a gay Muslim character, the response from the community, and the effects on the company.
The Danville Project awarded $5 million in federal fundswww.danvilleproject.com
The Danville Project has been awarded $5 million in federal funds for the advancement of its project—a partnership of the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans), the Vermont Arts Council, and the town of Danville, VT, to maintain and reinforce local aesthetic and cultural values in downtown Danville while upgrading the portion of U.S. Route 2 that runs through the heart of the rural village center. Five years ago, the Arts Council was approached to involve artists in the design process and to help the town define its own vision for its future within the context of this large public works project. In 2002, consensus was reached on how to proceed with the design elements, and last year Senator Patrick Leahy secured the first funds for the roadwork portion of the project—nearly $2 million, bringing the total secured for the project by Sen. Leahy to $7 million. “These road and streetscape improvements in Danville are essential in improving traffic safety along Route 2,” said Leahy. “Thanks to community leaders in Danville, officials at VTrans and the Vermont Arts Council, Danville will get a safer and more efficient road that honors Danville’s past while providing for its future. This partnership and what it has achieved can be a model in Vermont for how to coordinate transportation upgrades and community development.”
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Articles and Publications |
Hope Unraveledavailable for preorderwww.theharwoodinstitute.org
In Hope Unraveled, a new publication by Richard C. Harwood, the author argues that many Americans have retreated from the public square. Illustrated through conversations spanning more than a decade in dozens of cities across the country, Harwood finds a nation struggling with growing consumerism, distorted realities, and false divisions that cut across cultural, political, and media landscapes. Through concrete examples, Harwood explores the reversal of this retreat through an examination of why people have retreated and under what conditions they will step forward. To preorder a copy of Hope Unraveled, call 800.600.4060.
Magdalena Goméz featured in New York Latino Journal
www.nylatinojournal.com/home/arts/theater/honor_her_with_justice.html
Magdalena Goméz, an active contributor to New WORLD Theater and Project 2050, is featured in the current issue of a new publication, the New York Latino Journal. In this interview by Rick Kearns-Morales, Goméz describes her work with youth and her new multimedia project, Touch, which explores how the loss of true community in America has given footholds to fascism and oppression. For more information about Goméz, check out her website, www.amaxonica.com.
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Events on the Horizon |
Leadership, Performance and Social Change: The Art of 'Acting' in the World
Date: September 16, 2005, 6:00 p.m.–8:30 p.m.
New York Cityhttp://wagner.nyu.edu/events/leadershipRsvp.php
Presented by the Research Center for Leadership in Action (RCLA) at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and the Center for Art and Public Policy at the Tisch School of the Arts, Leadership, Performance and Social Change: The Art of 'Acting' in the World is a performance/discussion event at New York University, featuring scholars and performing artists whose work contributes to social change. Panelists will include Mark Valdez (Cornerstone Theater Company), Dudley Cocke (Roadside Theater), and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (Urban Bush Women); and discussants will include Tisch School professor Jan Cohen-Cruz (author of Local Acts: Community-Based Performance in the United States), and Wagner School professors Ruth Ann Stewart (editor of a book series on the public life of the arts and expert in arts policy), and Sonia Ospina (director of the collaborative research project on social change leadership of the Leadership for a Changing World Program). The evening will include performance clips and a panel discussion with a lively exchange around the linkages among art, leadership, and social justice.
Creative Places + Spaces2
Dates: September 30–October 1, 2005
Toronto, Canadawww.torontoartscape.on.ca/cps
On a global level, a shift in community building is taking shape, and at its core lays innovation and creativity. By sharing a wide range of stories and transformative experiences, Creative Places + Spaces2 will demonstrate that with ingenuity and inventiveness, creativity, and courage, it is possible to shift mindsets and reframe the entire psychology of people and places. Through panels and breakout sessions, the conference will offer the opportunity to interact with worldwide experts from the fields of arts, science, government, commerce, education, and social services who are dedicated to motivating constructive change.
PSi #12: Performing Rights
Dates: June 14–18, 2006
London, Englandwww.psi12.qmul.ac.uk
PSi #12: Performing Rights, presented by Performance Studies International, in collaboration with East End Collaborations and the Live Art Development Agency (UK), will gather artists, activists, and academics who are making and researching performance within the field of human rights. The event will include research and resource materials, performances, interventions, new media presentations, installations, screenings, displays, artists-led laboratories, and spontaneous interactions in order to attempt to create a context for exploring the role of performance and the responsibilities of artists in effecting political, social, and cultural change.
World Summit on Arts and Culture
Dates: June 14–17, 2006
NewcastleGateshead, Englandwww.artsummit.org
The World Summit on Arts and Culture, hosted by Arts Council England and organized in partnership with the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA), will focus on the theme of regeneration of physical, social, and economic environments through arts and culture. Now through September 30, 2005, The World Summit will be accepting proposals for keynote speakers, panel members, and case studies for the 2006 event.
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About Animating Democracy |
Animating Democracy is a four-year initiative of Americans for the Arts and is made possible with support from the Ford Foundation.
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Share With Us! |
Do you have news you would like to share with Animating Democracy and the broader world of art and civic engagement? Send an e-mail to adi@artsusa.org with "Animating Democracy E-News" in the subject line. Please be sure to include full contact information.
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