95688
The Nutcracker: All Mixed Up 2016
The East Los Angeles Performing Arts Academy opened as neighborhood pilot school in the Fall of 2010. The mission of our school is to develop creative, contributing members of society through a standards-based curriculum featuring rigorous interdisciplinary instruction that is rich in the performing arts.
Our commitment to the arts led us through the process of becoming an arts Magnet school in 2014. We are now the only arts magnet on the East side of Los Angeles.
95703
A Week of School Year Successes
I’m always amazed at what a teacher can do with a small grant. This year, as I managed another round of grants through our partnership with Vans, I was again filled with appreciation for how much impact $2,000 can have for an arts program at a school. For the next week, Americans for the Arts will be sharing success stories from schools that were awarded Custom Culture grants.
95631
The Vision Thing
Brad Erickson is an Americans for the Arts member and recipient of the 2016 Alene Valkanas State Arts Advocacy Award. Find out more about the Americans for the Arts Annual Leadership Arts Awards.
In 1988, as then Vice-President H. W. Bush was preparing to run for the Presidency, he found himself fending off complaints from within his own party that while he had a firm grip on the complexity of the many issues facing the nation, he lacked an overarching narrative that would tie his policy positions together in a clear and compelling way. His advisors suggested that he borrow Camp David for some time away to collect and articulate his thoughts. "Oh," the Vice-President responded dismissively, "the vision thing."
95630
WAASTST
Michael Spring is an Americans for the Arts member and recipient of the 2016 Selina Roberts Ottum Award. Find out more about the Americans for the Arts Annual Leadership Arts Awards.
This occasion instigates a rumination about some of the keys to longevity (almost 33 years!), if not to success, in the local arts agency field. Thank you for asking.
Try not to say “no.” There are just so many “no’s” allocated to each of us professionally and it is prudent not to use them indiscriminately. For example, you can say, “Instead of starting a new global festival in celebration of left shoes, how about partnering with the annual 5K run and distributing one multi-colored shoelace to each runner designed exclusively for left shoes?”
Realize that the person with the most energy prevails. In meetings, put on your performance face and emote your point of view as powerfully and persuasively as you can muster. If all else fails, make sure that you and your staff outnumber the “opposition.”
95635
Representation AND Revolution
I've been listening to the audiobook of Shonda Rhimes' Year of Yes, which includes a recording of her amazing speech at the Human Rights Campaign Gala in 2015. In this speech she talks about how she sees her work as "normalizing" rather than diversifying. She is showing us the world we actually live in, not the whitewashed world we're used to seeing on television (in film, in theatre, etc.).
YES!
95634
Measuring Progress Towards Equity
Figuring out where to start measuring progress towards equity can be a daunting task. Honestly, any evaluation can be overwhelming when the need is great, the resources are scarce and every outcome is critically important.
But here’s the thing: without evaluation, you will never know whether you’ve made a difference. If you don’t baseline to know where you started, how will you know that what you’re doing is improving things? For that matter, unless you determine what it is you’re trying to change, how will you even know that the change you’re seeing is an improvement?
95629
Arts For All Day: Welcome to the Party—Everyone Invited!
Flora Maria Garcia is an Americans for the Arts member and recipient of the 2016 Michael Newton Award. Find out more about the Americans for the Arts Annual Leadership Arts Awards.
Given the distinct disconnect between Central Florida cultural groups’ programs, audiences and boards regarding diversity, United Arts of Central Florida for the past year has focused its efforts supported by a generous grant from Duke Energy, to engage the groups in an intensive education on demographics, spending power, education levels, and target marketing tactics to diverse populations.
95639
The Arts Are a Master Key
“The arts are everything. They are like a master key.”
I recently had an opportunity to spend a couple of hours with the brilliant high school-aged leaders of the Milwaukee Public Schools’ Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council (SSAC). I was one of four presenters discussing city-wide community/collective impact initiatives that are focused on improving outcomes for students. We presented about the mission and vision of our organizations and our own personal backgrounds, but the highlight was when the students presented to us about their “fires” – the issues or injustices they are attempting to tackle through their capstone projects over the course of the next couple of years.
95633
The Time is Now for Two Art Worlds to Collide
Institutional and cultural change is slow and doesn’t come easy. In my experience there are two art worlds. The one I have lived in for over a decade that is inclusive, creative, queer, DIY, and POC centered. In this world we support each other and produce interesting and challenging art exhibitions in creative, nontraditional spaces.
And then there is the other one, the white male dominated world that reinforces and creates reasons to bar entry to the rest of us.
95632
Straight Talk
Cultural equity. Two simple words with seemingly clear, every day meanings. Merriam-Webster confirms the plainness of these words. Cultural: "Of or relating to a particular group's habits, beliefs, traditions, etc.," or "of or relating to the fine arts (such as music, theater, painting, etc.)" And equity: "justice or fairness in the way people are treated, " or "freedom from bias or favoritism." So putting these words together, we've got a concept that speaks about fairness and justice in the realm of arts and culture, about the arts treating people without bias or favoritism.
The Statement on Cultural Equity being released by Americans for the Arts addresses this issue of fairness and justice in the arts in a beautifully simple and straightforward way. Fairness is something we value as Americans, and yet injustice is rife within our nation, and the same power structures that perpetuate inequity in the larger society are present in the cultural sector. We shouldn't be surprised by this and yet, quite often, we are. Aren't we, as workers in the arts, all liberal-minded, good people?
95628
Why Does Art Need Collaborations
Octavia Yearwood is an Americans for the Arts member and recipient of the 2016 American Express Emerging Leader Award. Find out more about the Americans for the Arts Annual Leadership Arts Awards.
Yes, jelly sandwiches are great and so are peanut butter sandwiches, but put those babies together! [Not to mention with a cup of milk] *no words *. Chocolate is amazing but sprinkles some nuts and/or salt in there and voila! Magic! Just the simple fact that your parents collaborated to create the art that is YOU should be proof enough, but we forget sometimes!
It is always daunting to me when organizations, non-profit or otherwise, have this mission to save or enhance the lives of young people via arts mediums and shy away from coming together to reach more youth. They jump at the ground pushing and shoving like children, after someone cracked the piñata open! I get it though—we all want enough to bring back. We forget that if we take what we have and combine it with another, you both automatically have more! More importantly, your capacity to positively affect more people grow exponentially!
