Dance/NYC 2015 Symposium: Collaboration, Partnership, Cultural Equity

DanceNYC & Gibney CtrMarlowsphere Blog (#118)

One hundred and seven guest speakers, 26 sessions, 5 meeting spaces—all in one place in one day.

On February 22, 2015,  400+ registrants from various aspects of the dance world—policymakers, advocates, funders, artists, managers, scholars, and audiences, mostly from New York City—gathered for the sixth annual Dance/NYC Symposium held this year at the brand new Gibney Dance Center at 280 Broadway.  The number of participants was impressive given that Dance/NYC, led ably by Executive Director Lane Harwell and his staff, and a host of volunteers, describes the performing art form as having 1,200+ dance makers and companies in the New York City metropolitan area.

The day’s concurrent sessions focused on various aspects of technology, including a hands-on workshop dedicated to “Save Your
Lane Harwell and Gina GibneyVideotapes.” Other tracks included panels on facilities and geographic equity, dance companies and corporate partners, and funding. There was even one panel that dealt with issues of seniors and artists with special needs. Dance/NYC also organized all-day, one-on-one consultations with legal and financial experts.

The track that attracted many attendees (held in the Gibney Dance Center’s theatre space) was the six-sessions that dealt with diversity: “Meet NYC Arts Advocates,” “Dance Education for Every NYC Child,” “Diversity & NYC Cultural Leadership,” and three variations on “Power, Privilege, & Perception.” These six sessions naturally touched on issues that went beyond just aspects of Dance/NYC.

In a mid-afternoon solo talk, Tom Finkelpearl, current New York City Commissioner, Department of Cultural Affairs, started with some pointed statistics. His first slide showed that nationally, minorities represented 35% of the overall population. In New York City, on the other hand, minorities represent 65% of the general population. The question then became: does this latter figure translate into the field of dance (or the arts generally)? The answer is: no.

Kerry McCarthy, Senior Program Officer, Arts and Historical Preservation, with the New York Community Trust, keynoted the several Kerry McCarthy, Senior Program Officer, Arts and Historical Preservation, with the New York Community Trustsessions with the following opening remarks:

We know that despite the excellent work of companies like Ballet Hispanico, we still have a dance diversity pipeline issue. As Dance Theater of Harlem’s Virginia Johnson has said, “Black Swans are still all too rare.” The BFA/MFA/PHD project verified that in a recent counting of the City’s working artists and residents with arts degrees. It found that New York’s art world appears to be 200 percent whiter than the general population. A report from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy confirmed that just ten percent of arts philanthropy dollars are classified as benefiting marginalized communities.

Later in this same session, two speakers especially—Denise Saunders Thompson, Executive Director of the Washington, D.C.-based International Association of Blacks in Dance, and Carlton Turner, Executive Director of the Atlanta, GA-based Alternate Roots, both pointed out in their own individual ways that the lack of recognition of diversity, especially in terms of funding, is not just a local or regional problem, but that it is a national and perhaps international problem with roots that transcend the early 21st century. It is an issue with deep historical precedent.

In this regard, the much larger issue is “The Global Forces That Are Re-Shaping the Arts.” In my last blog  I posit that there may be a strong relationship among the stagnation of human rights freedoms (on a global basis), media consolidation in the last 30 years or so, and wealth concentration, i.e., the growing disparity between rich and poor/income inequality.

All these forces, together with the negative impacts of various electronic technologies, have re-shaped the arts in the last 30-35 years. For example, it is clear that, in the United States at Panel Discussion at Dance/NYC Symposium 2015least, the number of arts & culture reporters and critics has diminished greatly. The greatly reduced coverage of the arts, including dance, has also had a major, negative impact on the people in the arts world, especially in the pocketbook.

The questions then become: what can be done about “diversity exclusion,” and what can be done about so-called “culture crash” in this context? In other words, there are inexorable forces surrounding the world of artists, and these forces cannot be surmounted in the short-term, but in the long-term perhaps there are steps artists can take to raise the level of their survivability.

Kerry McCarthy answered this question in part in her opening remarks with respect to New York City:

The City Council and the Mayor are taking steps to support a more inclusive arts sector. For example, the Department of Cultural Affairs will survey arts groups to see if the staffs, boards, and visitors reflect the demographics of our minority-majority city. Then, it will outline a plan to help the field better diversify. Meanwhile, the City Council set aside new funds for small immigrant community groups to provide cultural programs, as well as for a Communities of Color Stabilization grant program. It then doubled support of the Coalition of Theaters of Color.

The Mayor also launched the extremely popular Municipal ID that will connect New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status, to new services and benefits—including free admission and discounts worth $2,100 at museums and other arts groups. The biggest step towards cultural equity came when the Mayor allocated $23 million to hire 120 new arts teachers, who, in turn, will help reach the disproportionately affected students of color at schools without art teachers.

And, finally, City Council is advancing legislation to create a cultural plan for the City, one that we expect will be undergirded by the values of equity.

As the City talks more about diversity, it is working towards cultural equity, or a world where all artists and arts groups, not just those representing traditionally dominant European forms, are valued and supported equally. This means that culturally-explicit groups and artists of color that have been historically underfunded and marginalized, whether intentionally or unintentionally, begin to get a larger piece of the pie.

In the interim, the larger question is still: what will happen to the “creative arts,” including dance, going forward in an economy that for the last 30-35 years has increasingly distained major support for those in the creative arts?

If you have any questions or comments about this or any other of my blogs, please write to me at meiienterprises@aol.com.

Eugene Marlow, Ph.D.
March 2, 2015

© Eugene Marlow 2015

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