Arts Program Essay

Community Arts Partnerships:
Nurturing Unique Voices, Strong Identities

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By Claudine K. Brown
Director, Arts Program

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"More than two-thirds of the nation's 3,800 local arts agencies have developed or provide funding to arts programs that address social issues. In the 50 largest U.S. cities, a full 100 percent are involved in such programming, up from 88 percent just two years ago and only a handful a decade ago."

--Robert Lynch
President, National Association of Local Arts Agencies

Throughout this country, when school districts and city and state governments encounter economically depressed times, they are forced to separate their wants from their needs. All too often in making these determinations, the arts are viewed as wants--extraneous activities that communities can do without. The end result is that arts educators are laid off and visual, performing, and literary arts are often eliminated from the required school curriculum.

Simultaneously, municipalities which are suffering from eroding infrastructures, aging hospitals and schools, and growing crime, often cut funding for arts institutions and redeploy these funds for social services, capital maintenance, and crime control. Yet, as social problems persist and multiply in cities and counties with limited resources, many community leaders are recognizing the importance of the arts as a catalyst for social change and a focus of community pride. New partnerships are being brokered that enable groups of thoughtful citizens to address social concerns creatively and proactively.

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"There is no way to fast forward and know how the kids will look back on this, but I have seen the joy in their eyes and heard it in their voices and I have watched them take a bow and come up taller."

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The Nathan Cummings Foundation's arts program has identified arts organizations that are working in partnership with their communities to enhance and improve the physical environment, support the creative and vocational development of youth, and sustain and preserve the culture of the many diverse groups that make this country their home.

Supporting the Artistic Development of Youth

In Chicago's North Lawndale and West Town, the Community Television Network (CTVN) uses video education, training, and production as a tool to draw low-income children and young adults back into the education system. Neighborhood video workshops, classes in two alternative schools, and a weekly cable series called "Hard Cover" provide African-American and Latino youth with an opportunity to develop skills and confidence while making television programs about themselves and their communities--in their own images, with their own voices.

As one student, Edwin Cartegena, said, "At Hard Cover, I meet people from different neighborhoods than my own. We all share our thoughts and make tapes about the problems we face in our streets. We figure out what to do about problems so society can't take advantage of us."

"When I make tapes," Lillian Prayer, another CTVN student, added, "I'm expressing what I feel. This is important because there comes a point when you've got to figure out how you feel rather than what everyone tells you to feel. You've got to be independent."

Students from the video classes help produce "Hard Cover," while mentoring other youths from neighborhoods around the city. Advanced video training and part-time employment are also available from CTVN's professional production company, Video Services.

Visual technology is also the focus of a new arts education program of the Brandywine Graphic Workshop, which has a long history of teaching printmaking to students and community members in Philadelphia. Their integrated arts and technology program will train inner-city high school students computer graphics, video, multimedia production, and other computer technology applications in the visual arts.

Helping low-income minority students gain access to advanced technology is vital for promoting diversity in the arts. Computers have revolutionized the manner in which graphic artists design, musicians compose, dancers choreograph, and storytellers record their experiences. Videography has enabled young people from cultures having a strong oral tradition, and those facing language barriers, to tell their stories and preserve their art forms.

Another example of the value of arts education to at-risk youth is the Children's Art Carnival in Harlem, which for over 26 years has helped hundreds of thousands of young people become positive, creative, and productive adults through their participation in the organization's school, afterschool, weekend, and summer arts programs. The Carnival has also nurtured an impressive number of successful arts professionals, some of whom have returned to the organization to serve as staff and members of the board. Graduates have gone on to work in computer graphics at Fox TV, as CEO of Motown's Animation Division, in architecture, and in the New York City public school system.

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"When I teach kids drawing, I say, 'The wonderful thing about drawing is you can be anywhere, and you can do it. You can draw anything you want. It's an ultimate freedom for you.' There's almost no other place on this planet where you can experience that." --Carlos Uribe

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The Cummings Foundation believes that high quality community-based arts programs do make a significant difference in the lives of young aspiring artists. Children who participate in community-based arts education programs, more often than not, do not view themselves as youth who are at risk. They are often young people who have chosen to use their time constructively, and who value the discipline and productivity that these programs encourage. Whether these students chose to pursue careers in the arts or are simply learning to express themselves through alternative means, they are acquiring skills that will enhance their sense of the possible and they are being encouraged to dream, act, and achieve.

Enhancing and Improving Communities

In addition to empowering young people to develop skills and take control of their lives, community-based arts organizations can help transform entire communities by inspiring residents, young and old, to restore abandoned buildings and refuse-strewn lots into places of functional beauty.

In Houston's Third Ward, artists and other community members organized by Project Row Houses (PRH) have repaired and renovated 22 shotgun-style houses and turned them into afterschool arts centers, performance spaces, galleries, and housing for teen mothers and their children. As a city planning and development study put it, "the redevelopment of the shotgun houses into a cultural arts complex will add a significant anchor of community stability to this area."

Project Chrysalis, a PRH education program featuring an art-centered, conflict resolution curriculum, was so successful with students, teachers, and parents that the school district has approved its expansion into a full-day alternative middle school program. PRH's afterschool programs have also succeeded in encouraging and developing promising artistic talent. Angelbert Metoyer, 17, created a portfolio so strong that he received full scholarship offers from some of the most prestigious art schools in the country.

In Philadelphia, another community-based arts organization has reclaimed a neighborhood from deterioration and apathy. The Village of Arts and Humanities is an arts and education center comprised of a cluster of parks, vegetable and flower gardens, studios, workshops, and low-income housing. The Village is an urban oasis, bustling with creative energy and community spirit. The Village has organized artists, builders, teachers, and local residents to convert over 50 abandoned lots and buildings into gathering places for children and adults seeking artistic expression. In so doing, they have given the community a sense of hope, and a belief in their ability to make things happen.

"The art created at the Village addresses not only the social conditions of the Village community," writes Lily Yeh, executive director, "but probes into the emotional and spiritual lives of neighborhood participants as well. The creative process becomes an empowerment process. The participatory act of the people becomes a ritualistic act through which the group is strengthened and individuals come into deeper contact with each other and make the building of a genuine community possible."

Among the Village's ventures: The Family Park with tables, benches, and barbecue pits for picnics and a healing wall with shrines created by neighborhood people to commemorate the loss of loved ones; the Pilot Teenage Entrepreneur Project, which will teach teens skills in photography, silk screening, fabric arts, and wood carving so that they can work and earn incomes in the Village's developing cottage industries; a 10th anniversary celebration this summer will include "Coming of Age in Philadelphia," a ritual performance created with the help of participating teenagers.

Promoting Cross-cultural Understanding

Recent interest in the arts of diverse groups has afforded the general public an opportunity to get to know their neighbors' customs, food ways, cultural traditions, and spiritual practices. In many cases, groups have come to terms with their affinities, while learning to respect their differences.

Ethnic conflict is a daily fact of life in the cities, towns, and suburbs of the United States. Even though our loftiest ideals include pluralism and tolerance, living these ideals is a constant challenge. The Ethnic Folk Arts Center in New York strengthens ethnic communities by preserving and promoting the music and dance traditions that help give a community its identity. Sharing these traditions with the larger society through concerts, festivals, tours, and recordings can foster understanding between groups and contribute to the content and substance of the nation's living and ever-evolving cultural heritage.

The Ethnic Folk Arts Center is developing cultural programs with immigrants in West African, Dominican, and Asian Indian communities. A primary objective of all the programs is to find modern ways of passing on traditions to younger generations so that they do not lose their cultural heritage as they assimilate into American society. In each community, the center will identify traditional singers, musicians, and dancers, integrate their skills into community life, and assure the survival of their art.

Crossing cultural barriers is not only about linking racial and ethnic groups. We must also consider the matter of artists and audiences who are marginalized because of physical differences. The National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, New York, is attempting to change the continued portrayal of deaf people as "dumb" and "mute" by organizing a national playwrights festival for deaf artists who are creating works in American Sign Language (ASL). The performing arts represent an excellent vehicle for communicating the richness of the language and culture of ASL and deaf people.

In this pioneering effort, the festival will select and produce four plays by playwrights whose first language is American Sign Language. In the past, deaf theater companies have performed classical plays, written for hearing audiences by playwrights whose focus was on the spoken word. Producers, publishers, agents, screenwriters, and TV writers will be invited to the festival in order to encourage more public exposure for the deaf performing arts community. The deaf taking the stage to speak in sign language can be seen as a metaphor for other under-represented communities insisting that their own unique voices be heard in a truly multicultural America. Community arts partnerships acknowledge that the arts can lift our spirits, bring us joy and personal satisfaction. The arts allow us to express ourselves in unique ways and share that expression with others. The arts also enable us to reach the minds and hearts of our youth. They empower us to modify and enhance our environments. Most importantly, the arts can be a tool for universal communication that transcends language, culture, ethnicity, distance, and time. While the arts possess the power to bring our differences into focus, they can also engage, unite, and affirm each one of us. s to reach the minds and hearts of our youth. They empower us to modify and enhance our environments. Most importantly, the arts can be a tool for universal communication that transcends language, culture, ethnicity, distance, and time. While the arts possess the power to bring our differences into focus, they can also engage, unite, and affirm each one of us.