Americans for the Arts

I’ve long held that audiences with disabilities, including deaf audiences, would benefit from being considered from a marketing perspective and understood from a multi-cultural standpoint, rather than a strictly legal requirement/service perspective.

So many teachers and other artists have asked, “Why bilingual?”, because it was how I wanted to share Latino culture through language, my personal mission as an Artistic Director. Then the old lightbulb exploded and for two years of graduate school I started (and continue) to work on my case study. Working in two counties and several schools, I have set out to quantitatively measure the percentage of higher comprehensive learning from students who have participated in one of our bilingual arts-integrated residencies. It has been exciting research for a data nerd because it is a unique study. I had to piecemeal it together: studies in arts integration, studies in bilingual integration, and all the other forms of both in between—for example, arts-learning does not necessarily imply arts-integrated.

This story is about what happens when the talents and interests of people with developmental differences are followed. In 1998 I was invited to set up an experimental art studio within a sheltered workshop in Athens, Ohio. A sheltered workshop is a day program for people with developmental disabilities that offers assembly line-like work options (capping pens, stuffing envelopes, bagging items). The work is repetitive with a clear expectation of the end product. In the back of the old factory was a 15’ x 25’ room where I was invited to set up a studio space through a grant from the Ohio Arts Council. When people were done with their work quotas they could come back to the art studio and explore. The enthusiasm and excitement that unfolded ignited something in me and I found my passion. This group was magical. They had talent, imagination, fearlessness, cooperation—everything needed to feed the creative process within a collaborative community making experience.

They say, “It takes a village to raise a child," but the need for a community of support doesn’t end after adolescence. As you move into adulthood, you have the opportunity to expand your village and seek out those who inspire you to join your team. But, before you welcome someone into your circle, you should learn what motivates them. Do they genuinely value the importance of sharing knowledge with the next generation, or are they driven by ego and status? If you are lucky enough to find a mentor who wants to see you succeed for purely altruistic reasons, welcome them with open arms and do everything you can to keep them close.

An access to a theatre education is as simple as teaching acting classes in a school. It’s allowing anyone to participate in shows and extracurriculars involving the arts. It’s giving kids a space in which to creatively express themselves without judgment, and giving them a group of people who will welcome them with open arms. And most importantly, it’s telling everyone’s stories, not just one kind of person’s stories.

It’s easy to see the end goal, but it’s harder to reach it. There’s too much left to do to summarize in a blog post, but I think these three ideas are a good starting point to make the arts more accessible:

I grew up as a white kid in the middle class—and rather racially homogenous—suburbs.  My father is a minister (as were his father and his grandfather), and the lessons embedded in the biblical teachings of “love thy neighbor” were taken to heart in our house.  My values were shaped to include service, fairness, and the responsibility to help others, particularly those in need.  From an early age, I also was aware of the inequities that existed between races, and I sensed that people of color hadn’t gotten a fair shake.  But I truly believed that, if I loved my neighbor as myself, and if I ensured that my neighbor was given an equal chance to succeed, things would change.