Performing Community 2 : Short Essays on Community, Diversity, Inclusion, and the Performing Arts

By Blair Ruble Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars One Woodrow Wilson Plaza 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20004-3027 www.wilsoncenter.org

ISBN: 978-1-938027-59-8

October 2016 SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l III l

THE WILSON CENTER, chartered by Congress as the official memorial to President Woodrow Wilson, is the nation’s key nonpartisan policy forum for tackling global issues through independent research and open dialogue to inform actionable ideas for Congress, the Administration, and the broader policy community. Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publications and programs are those of the authors and speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organizations that provide financial support to the Center. Please visit us online at www.wilsoncenter.org.

Jane Harman, Director, President, and CEO

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Thomas R. Nides, Chair Public members: William D. Adams, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services; David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States; Carla D. Hayden, Librarian of Congress; John F. Kerry, Secretary of State; John B. King Jr., Acting Secretary of Education; David J. Skorton, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Designated appointee of the president from within the federal government: Fred P. Hochberg, Chairman and President, Export-Import Bank of the United States

Private Citizen Members: Peter J. Beshar, John T. Casteen III, Thelma Duggin, Lt. Gen. Susan Helms, USAF (Ret.), Barry S. Jackson, Nathalie Rayes, Earl W. Stafford, Jane Watson Stetson

WILSON NATIONAL CABINET Ambassador Joseph B. Gildenhorn & Alma Gildenhorn, Co-chairs

Peter J. Beshar, Eddie & Sylvia Brown, Armeane & Mary Choksi, Ambassador Sue & Ambassador Chuck Cobb, Lester Crown, Thelma Duggin, Judi Flom, Sander R. Gerber, Harman Family Foundation, Frank F. Islam, Willem Kooyker, Raymond Learsy & Melva Bucksbaum*, Frederic V. & Marlene A. Malek, Ambassador Robert A. & Julie Mandell, Thomas R. Nides, Nathalie Rayes, Wayne Rogers, B. Francis Saul II, Diana Davis Spencer, Earl W. Stafford, Jane Watson Stetson, Leo Zickler

*deceased

SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l V l

CONTENTS

Chapter 1- Communities and Change / 1

Living Diversity: Documenting Arlington, Virginia’s Inclusive, Safe, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities / 2 Washington’s Rose Park and the Lessons of Welcoming Public Space / 5 Feasts for Eyes Too Blind to See: Destroying Communities in the Name of Ideology / 8 Washington’s Changing Neighborhoods: Looking East / 14 From Collards to Kale: Redefining Washington’s West End / 16 Small is Beautiful: A Washington Tale of Little Red Rockers and Ducks / 18 Washington, D.C. The Anxious City / 22

10 Steps to a More Genuine D.C. Experience / 25

Chapter 2- Mobility, Community, and Equality / 27

A Public Management Train Wreck: The Lessons of Unaccountability and the Washington Metro / 28 CARPETing the City with Transit: Essential Elements for Promoting Mobility and Equity with Sustainable Development / 31 Returning to Plato’s Cave: How the Light of Smart Technology Brings Us Back to Old Debates / 36

Summer of Washington’s Capital Discontent: Lessons from the Past / 38

Chapter 3- The Arts and Community Making / 41

Feel that Funky Beat. The Sound of Converting Dreams of Community into Reality / 42 Hometown D.C.: America’s Secret Music City / 45 Down By the Riverside: Jazz Over the Volga / 48

How Naples Became Europe’s Great Musical Machine / 51 Building Community Through Theater; Lessons from the Setagaya Theater / 55 The Cirque Comes to Town. Learning about Culture and Cities from Montreal / 57 Bringing New York to the Broadway Stage / 61

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INTRODUCTION

The Wilson Center’s Urban Sustainability sufficient number had appeared to be Laboratory has long promoted holistic gathered in Performing Community: views of cities as places of promise. Short Essays on Community, Diversity, Whether sponsoring discussions about Inclusion, and the Performing Arts. This expanding peri-urban communities in first collection included twenty-one essays Africa, innovative housing in Latin America, focusing on the role of the performing arts or new smart transit systems in Asia, the in community building around the world. Center’s urban programming has sought This second collection adds nineteen to embed the discussion of specific more recent essays expounding on these urban challenges in larger conversations previous themes to examine the impact about community, governance, and of enduring change, the importance of transparency. Our approach to the urban mobility and equality, and the role of the condition very much aligns with the arts in community making. intention of United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 11 advocating for Writing about Amsterdam, the eminent cities that are inclusive, safe, resilient and Dutch novelist, poet, and journalist Cess sustainable. Nootebom asks what makes a city? His response to his own question offers a The Laboratory began posting short broad framework for appreciating why essays about these themes by Director cities are indispensable. For Nootebom, a Blair A. Ruble in 2012. By 2015, a city consists of SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l VII l

“everything that has been said discourse, the pamphlet, the death there, dreamed, destroyed, announcement, the calling of the undertaken. The effected, the hours, the words of nuns, whores, disappeared, the imagined that kings, regents, painters, aldermen, never came to be. The living and hangmen, shippers, lansquenets, the dead. The wooden houses that local keepers, and builders, the were torn down or burned, the persistent conversation along the palaces that might have existed, canals in the living body of the city, the bridge which was drawn but which is the city. Whoever wishes never built, the houses still standing can hear it.”1 where generations have left their memories. But there is much more The purpose of the essays to follow is to than that. A city is all the words help those who want to hear the city in a that have been uttered there, an Nootebomian manner to do so. unceasing never-ending muttering, As in the first collection, the essays whispering, singing, and shouting presented here are by Blair Ruble. They that has resounded through the have benefited tremendously from the centuries and been blown away support and contributions of Urban again. This cannot have vanished Sustainability Laboratory colleagues Allison without having belonged to the Garland, Thea Cooke, Kathy Butterfield, city. Even that which is never to Savannah Boylan and Minh Tran. be retrieved is part of the city because once, in this place, it was called out or uttered on a winter night or summer morning. The open-field sermon, the verdict of the tribunal, the cry of the flogged, the bidding at an auction, the ordinance, the placard, the

Endnote

1 Cess Nooteboom, “Amsterdam,” in De Filossof Zonder Ogen [1997], as translated by Manfred Wolf and Virginie Kortekaas in Manfred Wolf, editor, Amsterdam, A Traveller’s Literary Companion (San Francisco: Whereabouts Press, 2001), pp, 3-4. Communities and Change l 2 l

Living Diversity: Documenting Arlington, Virginia’s Inclusive, Safe, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities

On September 25, 2015, the United resilient and sustainable” city look like? Nations adopted 17 Sustainable One answer emerges from the once Development Goals intended to shape “suburban” county of Arlington, Virginia UN and other international development across the river from Washington, D.C. strategies and agendas over the next 15 With more than 200,000 residents, years. The goals replace the previous Arlington is a small city embedded in a Millennium Development Goals adopted larger metropolitan region which, over in 2000 to provide a roadmap for the course of the last half century or so, engagement with the globe’s most vexing has been transformed from a suburb that development challenges in a holistic was home to segregated populations manner. of Southern whites and blacks to an The new strategy explicitly identifies increasingly urbanized community in which urbanization as a key part of the UN no racial or ethnic group constitutes a framework for combatting global poverty minority. and inequality. Goal 11 recognizes cities Arlington, in other words, is at the and focal points for ideas, commerce, forefront of demographic processes culture, science, productivity, and social which are changing the face of American development while simultaneously communities as well as the United observing that many challenges strain States in its entirety. Arlington is doing urban well-being. Therefore, it urges UN so with relatively little rancor as well as actions to “make cities inclusive, safe, with improving economic opportunities resilient and sustainable.” and advancements, achieving low crime Words and exhortations can inspire; to rates and far-reaching transportation become calls to action they must embrace opportunities. Arlington, in other words, realizable visions of a new future. What, reveals how an “inclusive, safe, resilient we may ask, would an “inclusive, safe, and sustainable” city looks. l 3 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

You don’t have to travel to Arlington to Chartered by an Act of Congress in 1810, see what has happened. The Columbia the roughly five-mile long Columbia Pike Pike Documentation Project’s new volume, was once a main approach to Washington Living Diversity,1 features the works of five from the South. Cut off from direct access remarkable photographers – Lloyd Wolf, to the Nation’s Capital by the construction Duy Tran, Paula Endo, Xang Mimi Ho, and of the Pentagon in the 1940s, bypassed Aleksandra Lagkueva – who capture the by larger more ambitious roads as well as dignified yet casual interaction of people by the Washington Metro System, the Pike with great cultural differences living next to remained a corridor of affordable housing one another. Inspired by Lloyd – the son and small businesses.

The area began to change rapidly following the fall of Saigon, as those fleeing Communist regimes in Vietnam and neighboring Southeast Asian nations made their way to Arlington. They were followed by Central Americans and Africans fleeing brutal civil wars. Often times, neighbors coexisting peacefully along Columbia Pike had been combatants in wars back home. There was little reason to believe urban harmony was possible. Yet, even then, other groups followed, settling their homes and businesses in the area.

Columbia Pike, Arlington Virginia The neighborhood’s primary zip code Photo courtesy of Brett VA/Flickr – 22204 – is home to 51,262 residents just over half of whom are white, just of German immigrants who recalls growing under one-fifth Black, and over a up in Arlington when it was White, Black, quarter Hispanic. A mix of Asians, and segregated – the photographers biracial residents, American Indians, reveal that it is possible for people of great and Hawaiians constitute a multicultural difference to be neighbors; and to thrive as balance. Immigration specialists Audrey they do. This is an important lesson at a Singer of the Brookings Institution and time when the world appears to be awash Marie Price of George Washington with cities that are divisive, dangerous, University rank Columbia Pike’s eclectic vulnerable, and fragile instead of realizing and hyper-diversity as among the most the UN’s goal of inclusive safe, resilient culturally varied neighborhoods on earth. and sustainable. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 4 l

As Singer and Price note in their The ability to constantly recalibrate policies contribution to Living Diversity, Columbia became an underlying component of Pike’s micro-ecosystem is ideal for Arlington’s success at responding to immigrants to the United States. rapid demographic change. Columbia Newcomers, they suggest, have settled Pike’s diversity was never planned or along the Pike as their predecessors foreseen. Local authorities amplified the have because of its proximity to the credits accrued from hyper-density—and urban core, employment opportunities, minimized the debits—by respecting and and relatively inexpensive rental housing. granting dignity to each new community. They came from El Salvador, Vietnam, The county’s tolerance and welcoming Bolivia, Ethiopia, Peru, and the Philippines. ethos cultivated a “go-along, get along Today, they have been joined by residents way of life” which enabled newcomers to from South Asia (India, Bangladesh grasp opportunities which enriched the and Pakistan) as well as Mexicans and community in turn. In this way, the lessons Guatemalans creating an ever-changing of Columbia Pike are universal. ethnic landscape. In one of the Living Diversity’s many An important challenge for Arlington – and interviews, Cairo-born Dahlia Constantine any urban community trying to follow the exclaims, “This neighborhood is diversity UN’s guidance to become “inclusive, safe, nutso… Different blocks have different resilient, and sustainable” – is that cities ethnic mixes.” In contrast to diversity are ever-changing. The communities in California, she continues, “here there around Columbia Pike are dramatically are many layers of diversity.” Urban different from what they once were within communities that are as inclusive, safe, single lifetimes. People not only have to resilient, and sustainable as the UN aspires adjust to one another, they have to do so to nurture are going to be those which within an environment that is continuously adapt to the unevenness of deeply layered evolving. and complex urban life. As Living Diversity elegantly illustrates, there is no better way to begin that journey than with a walk down Columbia Pike.

October 7, 2015

Endnote

1 Lloyd Wolf, Paula Endo, Duy Tran, Xang Ho and Aleksandra Lagkueva, Living Diversity: The Columbia Pike Documentary (Arlington, VA: Columbia Pike Project, 2015). l 5 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

Washington’s Rose Park and the Lessons of Welcoming Public Space

Rose Park, Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of MJWein/Flickr

Nestled between Washington, D.C.’s urban park can be; a healing interval in an lovely eighteenth century village of overly competitive town. Georgetown and the ravine forming Rock Creek Park, Rose Park winds its Rose Park is noteworthy not only for way along a foot-and-bike path running what is, but for what was. The Park was between M and P Streets NW. Early set aside following World War I by the mornings are given over to joggers and Ancient Order of the Sons and Daughters dog walkers; mid-afternoons to families; of Moses for the recreation of African and later on, baseball and tennis players American children.Both Georgetown and join with shoppers at a popular weekly West End neighborhood across the Rock greenmarket. Some of the city’s most Creek were historic, dating from before the competitive street basketball games Civil War. Predominantly African American assume center stage pretty much any time communities, they were joined in the in a basketball-mad town. early twentieth century by the original P Street Bridge. Concerned that the area’s Rose Park is a gem; a pause in the hectic overcrowded streets and alleyways were cityscape that would make any community no place to play, the society’s elders proud. This bucolic patch is everything an raised the money to knit together a park SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 6 l

for their community’s children. Known black children playing together offended variously as Patterson’s Park, Jacobs municipal authorities. Beginning in the Park, and Winships Lot, these community 1940s, whites began to move into grounds eventually fell under control of Georgetown in a very early example of the the D.C. Department of Recreation, which process of private revitalization now known undertook major renovations just before as “gentrification.” In desperation, around the outbreak of World War II. 1945, the D.C. Recreation Department started posting signs warning that the The park and its community thrived. park was “For Coloreds Only.” This Nearby Mt. Zion Church and other move was widely protested by black and churches banded together to organize white community members alike, forcing summer camps and Boy Scout troops, authorities to accept Rose Park as the first while the Rose Park Warriors played integrated recreational area in the District other amateur baseball teams across the of Columbia. city. Tennis stars Margaret and Matilda Roumania Peters, who lived around the In 1947, freshman Congressman John corner at 2710 O Street, learned their skills F. Kennedy joined the gentrifiers, as at the local courts, as did many a standout did several of his family members and basketball player. friends. A few years later, he proposed to Jacqueline Bouvier in a booth at Washington was a Jim Crow town at Georgetown’s Martin’s Tavern and settled the time and the presence of white and

Black social clubs held activities at the Monticello House on the right. Georgetown, Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of the Historical Society of Washington, DC l 7 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

into an impressive Federal-style row house nonetheless was unique among the city’s at 3307 N Street, NW to start a family. recreational facilities for embracing all Both daughter Caroline and son John, Jr. comers regardless of their race. It provided were born in that house before the family a model of what the city and country could moved to the White House in 1961. For become. young mother Jacqueline and daughter Caroline, Rose Park was their playground. In all probability, very few of those enjoying African American Washingtonians of a the park today know this history. African certain age fondly remember playing with Americans were pushed out by planning Caroline as Jacqueline looked on. and zoning regulations intentionally designed to drive them away. Over time, Jacqueline was already familiar with Black the park became the playground for the Washington, having studied photography neighborhood’s new residents who were as a young reporter with master African whiter and wealthier than those who came American photographer Robert Scurlock before. They benefit from the foresight and at his famous studio on U Street in the civic vision of the elders of the Ancient heart of the city’s Black community. At Order of the Sons and Daughters of Rose Park, she is remembered as having Moses. Rose Park, in this regard, is an mixed with her African American neighbors example of how urban space can evolve with ease. over time, enriched by its own past and those who created it. Rose Park hardly was a biracial paradise. More often than not, Blacks and Whites May 27, 2016 were alone together as they enjoyed the playground, rarely crossing over the color boundary in any meaningful way. The area SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 8 l

Feasts for Eyes Too Blind to See: Destroying Communities in the Name of Ideology

The end – as Nomvuyo Ngcelwane would could become part of a freshly cleansed, recall decades later in her memoirs Sala white central city. Kahle District Six: An African Woman’s Perspective1 – proved to be unremarkable. The Ngcelwanes—a working-class One early October day in 1963, an family of Xhosan cultural heritage from ungainly truck rumbled up to 22 Cross the amaBhele clan, adhering to the Street in Cape Town’s District Six, in Protestant Christian Methodist faith that the heart of one of the most diverse had come to town decades before—were neighborhoods on the African continent. A forced to move from a neighborhood team of brutish movers descended upon that had been home to a community of a modest but much-loved abode, climbed perhaps as many as 60,000 souls that thirteen narrow steps to a second-floor included Afrikaner-speaking descendants flat, gathered up the Ngcelwane family’s of East African slaves, Afrikaner- and earthly belongings, and quickly dispatched English-speaking former Dutch and them miles away to the distant “black” British working-class colonists, Muslim township of Nyanga West. Mr. Ngcelwane merchants, shopkeepers whose ancestors was off at his job with the United Tobacco had arrived in Cape Town as Dutch Company in Observatory at the time, so chattel, Jewish immigrants fleeing Russian his wife and children took their new keys pogroms at the beginning of the twentieth and went off to start an unwanted alien life.

The Ngcelwanes were members of a community that was being written out of history. They were Africans living in an historic part of Cape Town known as District Six. Because it was more often thought of as a “coloured” area, District Six stood as an affront to the racial dogmatists who had designed South Africa’s apartheid policies. The guardians of racial purity— empowered by the passage of the Group Areas Act in 1950—systematically set out to obliterate everything associated with the area so that its convenient real estate District Six Museum, Cape Town Photo courtesy of Jasmine Nears l 9 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

century, Christian missionaries and their newly empowered authorities likewise flocks, and residents of every conceivable eradicated Johannesburg’s Sophiatown complexion. Individual and group identities and Fordsburg, Port Elizabeth’s South formed around jobs, clan, ethnicity, End, East London’s North End, and other, language, religious belief, gender, and smaller integrated areas. In fact, District birth generation. The last pre-apartheid Six managed to hold on a bit longer than census in 1946 officially identified 28,377 some similar neighborhoods, thanks in District Six residents, including 20,184 part to the stubborn resistance of Cape “coloureds,” 1,096 “Asians,” 5,957 Town’s City Council and other local “Europeans,” and 840 “natives.”2 Holiday leaders. Overall, between 1913 and 1983, traditions were shared, distinct cuisines at least 3.9 million people were forcibly enriched one another, and a pulsating removed from their homes in South Africa blend of musical cultures took shape. to enforce what the ideologues of state policy defined as “racial purity.”3 Such a mélange of humanity could only offend those who preoccupied themselves District Six had been among the most with defining and enforcing concise racial, diverse and vibrant of Cape Town’s ethnic, religious, gender, and linguistic in-town neighborhoods for decades, a boundaries. When they had the power creation of the days when the former to do so, the proprietors of racial “purity” Dutch provisioning station had become, in dispatched the Ngcelwanes and their the eyes of the city’s Victorian and mid- neighbors to “scientifically” organized twentieth-century boosters, a “tavern of “monoracial” settlements remote from the the seas.” District residents provided basic city itself. Such official deportations—as services to their neighbors, labored on the opposed to less formalized, market- and docks, and worked in the warehouses and custom-based segregation—first occurred workshops that were a quick walk downhill in Cape Town with the removal of Africans in town. from District Six in 1901 following a bubonic plague epidemic. Resettlement Many residents of District Six were the gained ferocious regularity once Afrikaner descendants of slaves known locally as nationalists, led by Daniel François Malan’s “Malays,” who had been brought by the National Party, gained control of the Dutch in the seventeenth and eighteenth country’s Parliament in 1948. centuries from their South Asian colonies. Their Afrikaans speech, Arabic education, District Six was hardly the only “mixed” shared occupations, distinctive sartorial, South African urban neighborhood to culinary, and medical practices, music disappear under the separation policies and festivals, and one- and two-storied of the Nationalists’ apartheid regime. The flat-roofed whitewashed houses bespoke SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 10 l

a cosmopolitanism that seemingly Yet, District Six was always far more. distinguished the area from anyplace else Musicians fused Dutch wedding and folk in the Cape Colony. songs, melodic revels sung at picnics (the ghommaliedjie), and lively comedic songs This neighborhood was precisely the (the Afrikaans moppie) with American sort of place that outsiders look upon minstrel music as well as British brass with scorn. The area appeared to be band traditions. New Year’s carnival in a constant state of decrepitude, groups celebrating the Kaapse Klopse, because its poor residents and landlords — held on Tweede Nuwe Jaar (January lacked the capital needed to upgrade 2) — consistently attracted thousands their residences. The district seemed to of minstrels in bright garb, often carrying overflow with the sort of hucksters who colorful umbrellas as they marched in feed off the poor, offering up an endless blackface. variety of entertainment to be enjoyed by sailors (and by those socially proper If Cape Town had become a bustling sorts who wanted to pursue their sporting entrepôt on the central trade routes life beyond the scrutiny of family, friends, of the world’s largest, wealthiest, and colleagues, and coreligionists). Criminals most powerful empire, District Six was were thought to lurk in various shadows, its déclassé roadhouse, close enough looking for easy prey. to the main road to be visited and far

Land claimants at a “handing back District Six” rally in District Six, Cape Town Photo courtesy of Henry Trotter/Author releases it to the public domain l 11 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

enough away from prying eyes to offer a similar neighborhood a world away in any good or service that the imagination Washington, D.C. In Washington, those of an entrepreneur and a customer in power feared that images of poor rural might conjure. It was the space where migrants from the South living in the the human diversity of the larger city shadow of the U.S. Capitol threatened intermingled, creating more than the to undermine Cold War visions of the “exotic” “local color” that so pleased good society. Rather than improve the colonial voyeurs. It was, in fact, a vibrant lives of those enduring such conditions, and rich community that nurtured bountiful Washington’s power brokers acted cultural expression and a potent social more simply to remove them from view. intelligence, a place where residents By 1950, plans were well under way to were able to share their everyday displace the city’s poorest residents. They experiences and to live not as “coloured,” began by obliterating the homes of rural “whites,” “Africans,” or “Indians” but as African American migrants and the Jewish “Capetonians.” immigrant families who shared their lives in the city’s Southwest quadrant. District Six was just the sort of place, in just the sort of city, where new ideas burst The 113-block area south of the Mall forth—even if no one in authority cared and north of the Washington Channel to take note. Mrs. Ngcelwane and her was home to 22,539 residents in 1950, neighbors and their descendants have the vast majority of whom were African praised their old home over and over American. Long the arrival area for again, whenever and wherever they have the poorest migrants to the city, the been given an opportunity to speak. This neighborhood had a dilapidated presence. desire found the most vivid and touching Yet the social capital ran deep. Southwest expression at the District Six Museum, D.C. was precisely the sort of down-at- which opened in December 1994 in the the-heels urban village that can nurture former Central Methodist Mission on poor migrants on their own terms. Buttenkanrt Street. Returning residents arriving at the museum lovingly mark In the end, the National Capital Planning their former homes on a giant street map Commission’s reconstruction of the of the old neighborhood painted on the area destroyed the neighborhood with museum’s floor. almost none of the residents remaining. Only a third of the area’s residents were About the same time that Apartheid’s able to secure alternative housing in ideologues moved to destroy District Six, public projects elsewhere in the city. another group of overseers took aim at Approximately 2,000 families moved into SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 12 l

private rental units outside Southwest trust in others and a sense of safety in the Washington; while others among the world. They felt disappointment, anger, displaced remained completely lost from helplessness, and bitterness. official records. A paltry 391 residents were able to purchase homes, virtually none in In Washington, a quarter of the expunged Southwest. residents reported five years after their relocation that they had not made a single Washington’s Southwest Redevelopment new friend in their new neighborhoods. Project—once proclaimed by the Only 14 percent of these former prominent architectural critic Wolf Southwest residents felt as safe in their Von Eckardt as bringing “suburban new homes as before. wholesomeness with urban stimulation” to downtown—destroyed the social networks Bitter debates still rage over whether that held the city together. Unlike their or not the Southwest Redevelopment South Africa counterparts, Washington’s Project removed unspeakably poor planners paid little attention to where housing, and built an attractive, racially those losing their homes might end up. integrated neighborhood in its place or With few options at hand, the poor turned destroyed a closely knit neighborhood to relatively stable, white middle-class and removed its institutions. However lofty neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River, the planners’ goals, the project’s result and to African American neighborhoods is unequivocal as an upper middle class, north of downtown, such as U Street. biracial neighborhood replaced a densely These massive disruptions combined with organized, poor African American one. the lingering pathologies of segregation to Presently, Southwest is being renewed push the city to the precipice of communal once again, re-linking streets that were violence. The pent-up anger of thousands divided by the previous renewal. In Cape of displaced and powerless poor residents Town, vacant fields left behind by the continued to build as Washington hurtled destruction of District Six cut a foul gash toward civic meltdown. across one of the world’s most beautiful Resident reactions to the destruction cityscapes. Meanwhile, the ideological of old Southwest Washington are wars that animated their annihilation ended suggestively reminiscent of those long ago. displaced by the destruction of Cape February 10, 2016 Town’s District Six. District Sixers reported that they felt at sea in a larger world, losing l 13 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

Endnotes

1 Nomvuyo Ngcelwane, Sala Kahle, District Six: An African Woman’s Perspective (Cape Town: Kwela Books, 1998).

2 Denis-Constance Martin, New Year in Cape Town: Past to Present (Cape Town: David Philip, 1999), p. 132.

3 Sean Field, “‘I Dream of Our Old House, You See There Are Things That Can Never Go Away’: Memory, Restitution, and Democracy,” in Lost Communities, Living Memories: Remembering Forced Removals in Cape Town, ed. Sean Field (Cape Town: David Philip, 2001), p. 119.

4 Howard Gillette, Jr., Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D.C. (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), pp. 161-168.

Townhomes located at 6th and G Street, SW in the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development headquarters is in the background. Photo courtesy of https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 14 l

Washington’s Changing Neighborhoods: Looking East

I was approached the other day by a to a safer neighborhood; he just wishes distinguished older gentleman as I made such a transformation would benefit those my way through a neighborhood metro who already live there. At least, he hopes, station on my way to speak at Anacostia change will not be permitted to obliterate the Senior High School. We’ll call him Mr. memory of all the hard working families who Williams. I had just passed through the found a home in Anacostia over decades. turnstiles as probably the only white person among the dozens of passengers Mr. Williams – like many longtime catching trains and busses, or heading Washingtonians – knows the pattern. to the street. Aside from Mr. Williams, I Ever since the end of World War II, our certainly was the only passenger wearing a city has experienced an unrelenting suit and tie. march eastward of gentrification and displacement beginning in the once Mr. Williams wanted to know if I had come African American neighborhood of to his distant corner of town because of the Georgetown, and now about to leap “recent incident.” Washington local news across the last frontier of the Anacostia was focused on a lethal armed robbery gone River. Despite decades of experience, the bad on a Metro train. Once Mr. Williams city has yet to find a way of improving the made sure I was neither a cop nor a reporter, quality of life of longtime residents as real he began to speak about the city’s “last estate values rise. Displacement, as Mr. frontier East of the [Anacostia] River.” What Williams observed, is closer to the norm. has happened elsewhere in the city was sure to obliterate his neighborhood in the years The bitter local debate over gentrification ahead, he continued. has fallen into slogans. Cities must evolve if they are to survive, proponents proclaim. When newcomers to Washington speak Gentrification is nothing more than about change in their neighborhoods they deportation, respond opponents. One discuss recently-opened coffee shops might think given the city’s long history with WiFi and the trendiest new eatery. with this process of “private neighborhood For old timers, “change” equates to crime revitalization” that local authorities might and gentrification. For Mr. Williams, have begun to plan for displacement rising real estate values will mean lower before it happens. crime as the bad guys will be priced out of the market. Unfortunately, so will Truth be told, D.C. has had some success good folk. Mr. Williams is looking forward in retaining affordable housing (often so l 15 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

discrete that no one notices). The District Beyond the ongoing tensions that inevitably response to the loss of affordable housing arise as cars, cyclists, and pedestrians in the face of rising real estate values, vie for access to the same streets and while not completely devoid of success, sidewalks, bicycling in Washington has remains inadequate to the challenges at come to be seen by many long-term hand. Nearby suburban Montgomery residents as evidence of a reorientation County in Maryland – one of the wealthiest of municipal policy toward the demands jurisdictions in the country – has enjoyed a of newly arriving, upwardly mobile, young far more accomplished affordable housing professionals: the so called “millennials.” program than anything our city leaders A means of conveyance becomes much have implemented. more: a symbol of disruptive social and cultural change. As Mr. Williams pointed The challenge, as Mr. Williams eloquently out, the city started extending bike lanes reminded me, is not just economic. east of the river last year. Perhaps displacement is inevitable, he wanted me to know. He just wants to The economic transformation Mr. Williams be sure the memory of those who were sees bounding across the Anacostia here is not lost. This is no idle concern. River plays out in a divided and complex The profound and rapid demographic, city that is more vibrant, vital, and economic, and public policy changes that changing than tourist postcard scenes have swept across D.C. in recent decades of munificent parks and public spaces have led to equally profound conflicts might suggest. D.C. has been a city of over city, neighborhood, community, and great foreboding as long-standing social individual identity. and racial conventions collapse; hundreds of thousands of newcomers inundate Communities carry meaning beyond the region, and tens of thousands of their economic function. They re-define locals move from one neighborhood to – and are re-defined by – cultural identity another. Mr. Williams understands what and become social network hubs which is happening all too well; which is why he provide a context for how residents wanted to be sure the unwanted interloper think about themselves. In a city divided at his metro station – me – knew that he historically by profound conflicts over and his neighbors are not about to let identity – black versus white, international down their guard. hub versus national symbol, national capital versus hometown – skirmishes March 3, 2016 over identity are omnipresent. Identity frequently becomes attached to shifting symbols, illustrated by the case of bicycling in Washington. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 16 l

From Collards to Kale: Redefining Washington’s West End

Buildings in the George Washington University-Old West End Historic District of Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of familypedia.wikia.com I recently discovered reading a real estate was an early signal that developers would advertisement that my neighborhood – take an interest in this tired section of D.C.’s West End – was being “redefined.” town. Issued by the District’s Office of I suppose that it is. Certainly development Planning and Management, the plan long ago “redefined” the area’s historic envisioned a “new town for the West End”; African American community out of which is precisely what would happen over existence. I wonder who might be next. the next several decades.

A once noteworthy blue collar “Urban pioneers” quickly followed the neighborhood, the West End had fallen cessation of highway planning. Area into disrepair by the 1970s after having buildings soon filled up with the 1970s been targeted for demolition to make way version of today’s millennials. Over time, for an inner beltway circling downtown. as people came and left, new residents Investment and property values fell despite once were undergraduate students. They the area’s convenient location between were replaced by grad students. Similar Dupont Circle and Georgetown. The transitions followed every half-decade neighborhood came on-line again once or so as grad students were followed by highway planners lost their battle to plough professional school students, and then an interstate highway through the front lawyers and World Bank economists. door of the Luxembourg Embassy. The story is a model of great success from the perspective of District officials, The preparation of a neighborhood planners, and developers. This was not renewal plan that was released in 1972 l 17 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

always the case for those who lived in the There now are precious few reminders neighborhood before. of what the West End had been before. A post office substation marks Duke Precise moments are readily apparent Ellington’s Ward Place birthplace; the in the transition from a neighborhood of historic African-American Francis-Stevens African American wage earners to one School has become an “education with the embassies of Qatar and Spain, campus;” the façade of an apartment a Ritz Hotel, and a Trader Joe’s. For building that once housed African example, on one area side street mid-way American staff for the White House through the 1970s, the first white resident remains despite the construction of a pricy moved into what had been a completely apartment building on the rest of its site; African American community for decades. and those who know what to look for can The entire neighborhood came out to help still find the Secret Service motor pool. him move in as is the tradition in African Otherwise, virtually nothing can be found American Washington. When everyone of the historic African American West End. was done and a neighborhood cookout ensued to celebrate, he overheard one of Washington, D.C. has lived through almost his new friends ironically declare, “There seven decades of gentrification, beginning goes the neighborhood.” with Georgetown in the 1940s and continuing until today when it is reaching A more true prediction could not have Brookland and beyond. Much has been been uttered. Within just a couple of years, gained. Washington has become a safer, poorer African American renters had been more interesting, and more vibrant city. forced out by condominium conversions However, as the story of the West End and rising rents. Many African American reveals, much has been lost. homeowners held on, aging in place. Their children and relatives had scant interest in Argentine novelist Manuel Vázquez keeping their houses once their parents, Montalbán once wrote that “triumphant aunts and uncles had passed on. Within cities smell of disinfectant.”1 Contemporary a decade or two not a single African Washington’s challenge has become how American resident remained. Meanwhile, to embrace pioneers of every race, gender, “historically accurate” brick sidewalks creed, and generation without having and street lamps have replaced towering them become colonizers. The city appears stanchions with super-charged anti-crime to fail at this challenge at least as much lights glaring down on cracked cement as it succeeds. The odor of disinfectant sidewalks. Long abandoned fire call- becomes more pronounced in Washington boxes became art projects. every day.

October 22, 2015 Endnote

1 Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, The Buenos Aires Quintet, trans. Nick Caistor (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2003), p.3. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 18 l

Small is Beautiful: A Washington Tale of Little Red Rockers and Ducks

Sometimes the smallest of interventions to correct previous mistakes in city and into the life of a city are the most regional development. Once empowered, appreciated. This lesson is on display the National Capital Planning Commission once more with the addition of a dozen aggressively advanced a proposed inner or so bright red rocking chairs around the beltway through poor African American Southwest Duck Pond in Washington, D.C. neighborhoods adjacent to the central city.

The pond was once conceived as a The disastrous Southwest Freeway and community center for one of the most accompanying urban renewal project important 1960s urban renewal projects reveal the Commission’s vision for a D.C. in the United States: Washington’s remodeled around highways bringing Southwest Redevelopment Project. suburbanites in their cars into and out Neither the pond nor the surrounding of the city with hardly a poor or African community quite lived up to such American neighborhood in view. As billing. Once proclaimed by prominent Jerome S. Paige and Margaret M. Reuss architectural critic Wolf Von Eckardt as observed, “middle and upper income bringing “suburban wholesomeness citizens wanted the slums, which they with urban stimulation” to downtown saw as a reproach to their city, removed. Washington, the larger project in fact They wanted a clean, sanitary and destroyed many of the social networks beautiful environment and they were that had held the city together. The rockers beguiled by the promise of an increased – which just appeared a few weeks ago – tax base.”1 Their efforts to build highways are a small sign that, after half a century, and to remove slums echoed initiatives in the city and neighborhood finally are nearly every major U.S. city at the time. recovering from a colossal planning fiasco. Washington, however, was different. Without home rule, D.C. was presided The redevelopment of Southwest was over by a Congress that was notoriously part of a more extensive slum removal and unconcerned with the preferences of local highway construction effort promoted by residents. planners and their Congressional allies in the hopes of turning Washington into The story is more pernicious than the a model demonstration of how planning dreams of misguided planners. By can solve urban problems. During the 1952, Washington Post publisher Philip 1940s and 1950s, Congress passed Graham and well-connected wealthy a series of laws that unleashed planners white friends on the Federal City Council l 19 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

had pulled together a half million dollar the public relations onslaught promoting plan to create a new city alongside the the project, as when Eleanor Roosevelt proposed freeway. They enlisted New York inquired about the fate of the people who construction magnate William Zeckendorf once lived in the area after visiting the and a young unknown architect, I.M. Pei, project in 1959. to create a new community of apartments, The Southwest slums were particularly office buildings, and homes from which unseemly and forlorn, a degradation they would profit as investors. Local made more poignant by the presence of residents were no match against such a the Capitol and national monuments and powerful array of investors, media moguls, museums in view.2 and their Congressional sponsors. Only The 113-block project a few skeptical voices would rise above zone south of the Mall and north of the Washington Channel was home to 22,539 residents in 1950, nearly 80 percent of whom were African American. Hundreds of buildings had no indoor plumbing; many more were obsolete and below current building code.

Dilapidated though the neighborhood was, few residents wanted to leave. Unfortunately, no one cared to contemplate the answer to Eleanor Roosevelt’s query. The National Capital Planning Commission destroyed 99 percent of the buildings within the project area. As a consequence, almost none of the original residents remained. By 1972, the replacement

Washington’s Southwest Duck Pond Photo courtesy of Blair Ruble SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 20 l

community had half as many residents, The fountains necessary for circulating nearly 80 percent of whom were white. the shallow, cement constrained water They inhabited 5,900 new housing units, often failed, leaving behind foul-smelling of which only 310 were classified as being algae and breeding grounds for disease- reserved for low-to-moderate income carrying insects. Carefully planted trees residents. A densely organized poor often blocked activities in the park from African American community had become view, intimidating many a passerby. replaced by an upper middle class, biracial Uncontrolled landscaping provided refuge neighborhood. Land use patterns shifted to drug dealers and other miscreants. as the population density of the new The innovative layout of islands and inlets community was closer to that of inner made those who did enter feel trapped suburbs than to the city as a whole. in dead ends with no escape. The Park Service gradually replaced the carefully This is when the ducks arrived. designed furnishings with more serviceable The designers understood that park space fare. Empty more often than not, even the represented the sort of suburban amenity ducks stopped coming to the park. their new neighborhood lacked. They By the early 2000s, the city abandoned the set aside a three block long parcel at the notion of preserving the original visionary corner of Sixth and I Streets SW for shared Southwest Plan and began rebuilding the community space. By the late 1960s, area yet again. Another “new” Southwest planners, architects, and builders started was more thoughtfully renewed with work on a town center park on the site of carefully planned in-fill projects and other what had once been Cow Alley. When it urban interventions designed to draw fresh opened in 1972, the park incorporated the life into the area. Ironically, some of these modernist design principles of the larger initiatives reconnected the very streets cut community, including gently curving walks off by the earlier round of “regeneration.” and walls and custom-crafted wooden benches. They added an undulating The Duck Pond had remained much loved concrete pond with a picturesque island by many residents despite all of these waiting for migrating ducks to drop in. trepidations. Once firmly in control, the city government began a concerted effort None of the public spaces in the to return the park to its original vision. development area fared well over time as Plants were trimmed; the pond resealed; neighborhoods south of the National Mall the fountains repaired; new benches generally fell on difficult times. Despite appeared. By the 2010s, the pond was efforts by the National Park Service to a much appreciated and visited respite maintain the park prior to turning it over to for residents coming and going to a new the city in 2007, the very design features upscale grocery store nearby. Even the meant to attract people drove them away. ducks reappeared. l 21 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

One day in August 2016, red rocking loners catching up on their email; still chairs popped up. About a dozen or so others were grocery shoppers ready for a were scattered around the benches and brief respite before their trek home. on the various little pods and islands, adding charm to an otherwise dismal Even if the red rockers do not survive until man-made pond. They formed movable the autumnal return of the ducks, they conversation pits just as the heat of high already are a success. The smallest of summer cranked up. People came. Some all possible interventions, their impact is were small groupings hanging out on a huge as they lure new users into the park. gentle summer’s evening; others were Sometimes, small really is beautiful. August 10, 2016

Endnotes

1 Jerome S. Paige and Margaret M. Reuss, Safe, Decent, and Affordable: Citizen Struggles to Improve Housing in the District of Columbia, 1890-1982 (Washington, D.C.: Dept. of Urban Studies, University of the District of Columbia, 1983), pp. 21-22.

2 Howard Gillette, Jr., Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D.C. (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), pp. 161-168. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 22 l

Washington, D.C. The Anxious City

Ever since the year began, I have been In speaking with residents, disorienting speaking to groups across Washington, change is taking place along five D.C. about how our city is changing. dimensions that undermine notions My 2016 tour has taken me to all four of neighborhood and community: city quadrants, addressing groups as demography, economics, generational diverse as freshman at impoverished divide, the built environment, and identity. Ward 8’s Anacostia High School and The result is a city that becomes ever retired professionals brought together more anxious about its own future. in wealthy Ward 3 by the Chevy Chase D.C. Historical Society. I have discovered Demographic Change: Washington’s a profound overarching commonality population is growing with newly arriving among all who have turned up to listen to primarily white young professionals me despite deep differences. Everyone replacing older blue collar African complains that they are losing “their” Americans. Traditionally white Washington; and, everyone is, to some neighborhoods in north and west parts extent, correct. of the city simultaneously are becoming home to larger numbers of visible Sometimes thought of as a “sleepy minorities – though more often Hispanic Southern town,” Washington in reality has and Asian rather than African American. become a vibrant, vital, and changing Everyone’s mental map of where one is urban center that has been traumatized “supposed” to be is discernibly out of date since World War II as long-standing social as a consequence of dramatic changes in and racial conventions have collapsed, who lives where. hundreds of thousands of newcomers have inundated its region, and tens of Economic Change: The transformation thousands of locals have moved from of the metropolitan Washington economy one neighborhood to another. These from a government company town to a shifts shatter everyone’s understanding post-industrial powerhouse is evident of how the city is put together and how it in the evolution of the city and regional works. As a result, Washingtonians of all employment structure. While the number races, socio-economic standing, gender of jobs in D.C. has risen, employment and generations find themselves looking in the federal sector has declined. This around and seeing a city that is something shift in traditional employment patterns different from what they thought it to be. becomes more pronounced once suburban jobs – which presently stand at l 23 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

H Street corridor, Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of Ted Eytan/Flickr over 3,000,000 – are brought into view. young whites and African Americans think Even when supported by government of the city, and how to use it, in ways that contracts, newer private sector jobs fail to are more similar to one another than to provide the stability of earlier civil service the patterns of their grandparents. New employment. points of conflict emerge over zoning for coffee bars, spontaneous crowd-sourced Economic adjustments are visible gatherings, and noise levels in which once along a broad income range so that antagonistic middle-aged white and black inequality continues to mark the city, Washingtonians find themselves united on becoming apparent in ever new ways. the same side of the generational cultural Simultaneously, long-standing racial divide. divisions continue to plague D.C. As Georgetown University historian Maurice The Built Environment: New cultural Jackson recently recorded, the median preferences, new wealth, new employment income for D.C. whites is $101,000; and patterns, and new leisure patterns for D.C. Blacks $39,000.1 exert pressure on a built environment of a different era. Developers replace Generational Divide: D.C. has become their sturdy 1970 cement office building a favored destination for “Millennials” who facades with snappy glass; new owners make up the preponderance of the city’s of traditional 1920s townhouses add newcomers. Wedded to social media, two or three more stories on top of the SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 24 l

old; once open parks are reorganized as multitudinous obituaries were written fenced-in dog walks; basketball courts for our city. From the perspective of give way to bike paths. Not only are the those years, Washington now enjoys all people walking city streets now unfamiliar; sorts of problems that would have been the streets themselves look increasingly inconceivable. different. As the familiar erodes, residents across Identity Change: These profound D.C. are becoming ever more anxious. and rapid demographic, economic, Among a school group in Southeast, or a generational, and physical alterations preservation organization in Northwest, a sweeping across D.C. have led to equally shared lament appears to be taking hold in profound conflicts over city, neighborhood, Washington: Everyone feels disoriented as community, and individual identity. H a new city emerges around them. Street, Columbia Heights, the Southwest Waterfront, Anacostia, U Street, Mount Having had the opportunity to speak Pleasant and many, many more D.C. recently with so many different neighborhoods have experienced Washingtonians, I am reminded that significant identity dislocation within a no urban reality is immutable. Anxious broader sweep of “gentrification.” The though they may be, my D.C. neighbors present era is perceived across the city throughout the city remain deeply as one of unbridled development and committed to making their communities displacement. work. Living in – let alone governing – cities requires a constant recalibration of As a long-time Washingtonian, I am struck how everyone sees the world. That has by how each of these challenges would always been part of the fun. have seemed welcome in the depths March 28, 2016 of the 1970s and 1980s, a time when

Endnote

1 Maurice Jackson, The Health of the African American Community in the District of Columbia: Disparities and Recommendations, prepared for the D.C. Commission on African American Affairs (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, 2016). l 25 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

10 Steps to a More Genuine D.C. Experience Originally published by The Washington Post, August 15, 2016

Every year, around Labor Day, recent “real” place – like back home in New York college graduates descend on the District City or Iowa. Well, yes, Washington is like in hopes of finding a job. I am writing to itself more than it is like either New York or offer them some advice about how to Iowa or anywhere else – but it is real. adapt to their new home. To step outside the stereotypes, here Dear New Washingtonians: are 10 paths to a more genuine D.C. experience. Welcome to Washington, an exciting city full of opportunity, yet one that is frequently 1. Volunteer for a community-based misunderstood. As you settle in, please try organization. Find a church, a school or to expand your horizons beyond politics a neighborhood club, and you will meet and building your résumés. This is your many people living “real” lives. chance to discover a city full of people pursuing their dreams. 2. Shop at a local market where farmers sell their produce. Seek out the small Admittedly, discovering the real neighborhood markets scattered across Washington can be difficult and you will the metropolitan area on any day of the encounter far too many people who week – for instance, the Bethesda Farm never have. You can spot them by their Women’s Market. litany of grievances, including perhaps the most tiresome trope: “No one is from 3. Seek out performing-arts venues and Washington.” focus on the dozens of locally run and managed theaters, music series and faith- Actually, tens of thousands of people are based venues featuring local talent. World- from the greater D.C. area and many have class performers in music, dance, theater families that have lived in the District for and more live and work in Washington, generations. These native Washingtonians and they are often more accessible most often are African Americans – the here than they are in New York and Los snide observers on the absence of Angeles. What’s more, you easily could hometown residents are frequently white. find yourself seated next to a member Those who think no one is from here may of Congress at Southwest Washington’s be confirming certain aspects of American Westminster Church on Blue Mondays. race relations rather than illuminating any peculiarity of the nation’s capital. 4. Visit a different museum every week and seek out the many small art and history Others lament that Washington is not a museums around the D.C. region. The SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 26 l

Kreeger Museum, Phillips Collection and opened up. By the 2010s, cuisines from Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens are all over the world had proliferated in the among the best of their kind and retain the region. For some of the best Uzbek food feeling of entering someone’s grand home anywhere, for example, check out Rus-Uz, (which reflects how each of these private a restaurant in Arlington’s Ballston area. collections came together). 9. Explore beyond the Capital Beltway. 5. Head to a library. Every jurisdiction in Visit a small town on the Eastern Shore the D.C. area has vibrant library facilities such as Chestertown, Md., less than an while one of the most impressive libraries hour from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Or, in the world – the Library of Congress – is go for a hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains; situated in the heart of the District. Not better yet, visit one of the many Civil War surprisingly, Washington has been home to battlefields within 100 miles or so of the many of the country’s leading authors, as Beltway. Head from Hagerstown, Md., to is revealed on the fascinating D.C. Writers’ historic and natural touring opportunities Homes website. ranging from Antietam National Battlefield to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal 6. Engage in Washington sports. True, the National Historical Park. professional teams can be maddeningly frustrating to follow, but amateur and 10. When in doubt, make an excursion community sports opportunities abound. to Baltimore. Washington’s neighbor is If you think you’ve got game, try out your nothing if not real. Visit Lexington Market, hoop skills in a game of pickup at the one of the oldest continually operating legendary Rose Park court in Georgetown. markets in the United States. A more down-home scene is difficult to imagine 7. Ride the bus. Metrobuses are the than Lexington Market on a Saturday workhorses of local transportation, and afternoon. they’ll take you all over the city and beyond. Discovering a Washington beyond politics requires effort, but it’s worth it and will 8. Find a locally owned restaurant. Ethnic make your life here far more agreeable. restaurants and tiny neighborhood eateries abound here. In the 1980s, the truism Welcome! seemed to hold that Washington diners August 15, 2016 benefited from lost revolutions abroad as excellent Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Salvadoran and Afghan restaurants l 27 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2 Mobility, Community, and Equality A Public Management Train Wreck: The Lessons of Unaccountability and the Washington Metro

I didn’t ride the Washington Metro the day smile, and cut a ribbon proud of the it opened in March 1976. I waited for the expanding Metro empire. Meanwhile, crowds to abate before I shuttled back behind the scenes, they ruthlessly slashed and forth in the Red Line between Farragut maintenance budgets. Among their early North and Union Station for the first time. choices, the custodians of the public trust operating Metro decided to shut down its I did ride the Blue Line on its opening day internal escalator repair service in favor in July 1977, and was off-loaded due to of contractors. Within a few months, a “disabled train” for the first of too many broken escalators would become an iconic times to count. The engineers, it seems, symbol of the increasingly dysfunctional had scrimped on the specifications for system. the metal used supporting the car floor. Not anticipating high ridership, they chose As the lines opened, Metro began flooring that bent under the weight of a purchasing new cars. Sometimes, crowded train. This malleability, in turn, someone got the design and inspection prevented the car doors from closing. Little wrong and cars would break down with did I realize just how much this failure was unknown frequency. Other times, the a precursor of things to come. procurement process dragged on for years. At all times, disabled cars delayed Meanwhile, I eagerly awaited each new increasingly frustrated passengers with line as the original 101 mile system map growing regularity. The signs of decay, filled in with bright solid colors. The Metro malfeasance, and mismanagement was transforming Washington, making became increasingly unavoidable as the it feel more and more like the cities that system crumpled in open view. Farce had shaped my life before – New York, turned to tragedy as passengers began Toronto, Moscow and Leningrad. Within a to die in accidents that should have been couple of decades, the Washington Metro avoidable. had garnered the second largest ridership of any transit system in the country. With Robert McCartney and Paul Duggan each new line, politicians would gather, recently published a slashing exposé of l 29 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

ineptitude on the front page of billion budgeted. Gross safety violations The Washington Post, “Metro at 40: A are still uncovered even after the federal Mess of its own making.”1 “‘America’s government sent in teams of inspectors. subway’,” they write, “which opened in Fundamentally, individuals at every level 1976 to great acclaim – promoted as of the Metro system act as if they are a marvel of modern transit technology completely unaccountable for their actions. and design – has been reduced to an Meanwhile, expert commissions, embarrassment, scorned and ridiculed consultants, and ponderous reports from station platforms to the halls of identified with mind-dumbing regularity the Congress.” After reviewing thousands of same failures. With callous disregard for pages of reports issued over the past half- the public, far too many Metro managers century – amazingly issued even before and employees stumbled on in a no-fault the system began operations – the writers world punctuated by fear among those reveal that Metro’s problems began from who knew that they would be punished the very beginning. for speaking up. Those with responsibility With a jerry-built governance structure for the system sat by, failing to respond as and an absence of a secure funding every Metro ride held out the unfortunate source, amplified by a culture mocking promise of becoming an unexpected transparency and accountability, Metro adventure. could well have been programmed Back in the 1990s, I sat through more than for failure from the outset. Incredibly anyone’s fair share of lectures by American inept managerial decisions nonetheless “experts” admonishing Russian and accelerated decline. Ukrainian public officials on the dangers Believing that technology would solve of inadequate information sharing, scanty problems beyond its own design public consultation, and unaccountability capabilities, managers and employees in public management. My Russian and simply became lazy; relying on machines Ukrainian colleagues frequently concluded to send off alarm bells rather than trusting that the visiting Americans were preaching their own eyes and ears. Politicians poured sermons that they themselves did not money into new lines while short-changing observe. the sort of routine maintenance that is Local Russian and Ukrainian officials required to keep trains running, escalators came to loathe American advice even climbing, and lightbulbs burning. as they acknowledged the merit of the Unbelievably, those in charge couldn’t actual proposed measures. “How can you spend the money they had. From 2001 Americans constantly tell others what to to 2015, McCartney and Duggan report, do when for you it is all just a game?” one Metro spent only $3.7 billion of the $5.1 Russian city council member once asked me. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 30 l

I now know what my response should to Washington Metro, the transparency have been; I should have recommended and accountability that sustain efficient that all those American experts and and effective public services won’t just consultants return home and do all that come about without more than a push. they could to clean up our own house. If After McCartney and Duggan’s article, only they had perhaps Russian-American we all know that every tough question relations would have improved, and that has needed to be raised has been Ukrainian public officials might listen asked on numerous occasions. Until and more to our sermons about the evils of unless those with custodianship take full corruption. Perhaps I might have been responsibility for their actions – has anyone able to rely on an on-time trip home with in management or in line operations, for regularity. example, ever been disciplined for past accidents leading to passenger fatalities? But this didn’t happen. When it comes – the Washington Metro isn’t going to even begin to improve.

April 26, 2016 Endnote

1 Robert McCartney and Paul Duggan, “Metro at 40: A Mess of Its Own Making,” The Washington Post, (2016).

A runaway train crashed into another at the Woodley Park station. Only minor injuries resulted, as the runaway was empty and everyone fled the standing train. Photo courtesy of futureatlas.com l 31 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

CARPETing the City with Transit: Essential Elements for Promoting Mobility and Equity with Sustainable Development1 Originally published as a Meeting of the Minds blog, posted May 10, 2016, and presented at the World Smart City Forum, Singapore, July 13, 2016.

In September 2015, the United Nations requires opening up channels for greater approved 17 Sustainable Development mobility of all kinds, including social and Goals (SDGs) intended to shape the economic; but most especially physical. global effort to end extreme poverty, To escape from cycles of poverty and fight inequality and injustice, and tackle injustice, residents need to be able to climate change. Among the 17 goals, one move around the city. is devoted to the urban condition that is shared by more than half of humanity. Goal What would mobility look like in an 11 calls for action to make cities inclusive, inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable safe, resilient, and sustainable. city? Some might consider Copenhagen a model: a city designed to promote Achieving the SDGs would be difficult cycling as the quickest and easiest under any circumstance; no less so given means for getting around. Traffic lanes that the present is an era of growing are segregated to separate bicycles from inequality. Nowhere are exclusion and cars and pedestrians, cycle tracks are inequality more apparent than in cities prioritized in service plans so that snow where extreme wealth and poverty coexist removal takes place on bicycle lanes side-by-side. Promoting shared prosperity before car roadways, and traffic lights are adjusted to favor cyclists’ speed. According to some estimates, around two-thirds of all Copenhageners ride bikes. If Copenhagen defines success, than nearly every other city will come to be seen as a failure no matter how much investment is made in multimodal transit options, support of bicycling, and other, perhaps

Metrocable Medellín, En dirección a Estación San Javier Photo courtesy of Álvaro Ramírez/Flickr SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 32 l

small, interventions to maximize mobility. from their homes to employment centers, responding to social need through mobility Another place to look for innovation is is more complex. The following guidelines to the US Department of Transportation, help to frame the challenge more clearly. which recently launched a Smart City Together, they represent a CARPET of Challenge for mid-sized American cities. transportation options that envelope the According to challenge guidelines, cityscape: success includes using advanced technologies to “help citizens address CONTEXT matters. In considering new safety, mobility, and access to opportunity, transportation projects, planners need to sustainability, clean energy, economic have a solid grasp on existing conditions vitality, and climate change.” including present transport, employment, and housing patterns. This analysis is In thinking about the goal of promoting already standard. What may be a little inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable unusual is that thought needs to be given cities, perhaps there are more meaningful to political context over time. In situations criteria to consider. The simplest test involving multiple jurisdictions, for example, would be to consider whether or not long-term funding and administrative mothers would want their children to support must be secured at the outset. grow up in a given community. Meeting that standard depends on ensuring To point to a negative example, the foundations for opportunity and security. political agreement bringing together Do transportation and mobility have any several jurisdictions of various sizes and role in achieving such urban success? legal status to build the Washington, D.C. metro system did not include provision On the one hand, developing and for permanent secure funding streams. introducing new transportation systems is With a jerry-built governance structure an engineering problem. But engineers are and an absence of a secure funding neither social workers nor politicians. Since source, the Washington Metro could well large transportation projects are among have been programmed for failure from the most expensive that communities the outset. Inept managerial decisions undertake – and have consequences accelerated decline so that a once state- which last several generations – their of-the-art system now languishes under economic and social value need to be neglect and an absence of accountability taken into consideration as well. The and transparency as no single authority contours of new transportation projects can be held responsible for the system’s will shape economic development, social dysfunctions. geography, and environmental resilience for decades. On a more positive note we see how in France, employers are taxed for local While it is relatively easy to build efficient transportation authorities, providing a transport systems which carry the well off l 33 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

reliable funding source. Therefore, funding with disabilities – in the communities is secure and with it, accountability have protested that the system is hardly mechanisms. Without this structural a substitute for the provision of basic context in mind we would have difficulty services such as sanitation, health, and understanding how the Washington and education. Homes and public spaces Parisian transit systems achieve such have been removed for construction disparate results. of stations. The system has failed to meet expectations not because of any questions. Potential users of ASK technological flaw, but because planners any new system – especially the most and officials did not consider the broader disadvantaged among them – often know social context. more than experts think they know about how a system must function. There often RIGHT SIZE plans. Transportation are differences between actual ridership projects, if they are to be sustained over patterns, projected future transport time, need to conform to the financial and systems, and real demand. Listen to what administrative capacities of communities. is being said to be sure that new systems There is little to be gained by building go where people actually want to go. a cutting-edge system in communities that neither have the funds nor the In 2004, the Colombian city of Medellin, management capacity to support the created a gondola transit system to serve system over the long haul. Bankrupting particularly disadvantaged communities. local government undermines potential It is the world’s first modern urban aerial gains from new systems; while requiring cable car transport system, constructed external skilled personnel to operate a as part of neighborhood upgrading system similarly diminishes chances for projects, all of which were designed with long-term sustainability. active input from community members. The system has improved residents’ Oftentimes, building a Bus Rapid Transit quality of life, decreased violence in the (BRT) system is more manageable and neighborhood, and addressed spatial cost effective than rail-based systems, for inequality as well as reducing emissions example. The world’s first BRT in Curitiba and maintaining sustainable mobility. has been copied around the world ever since. BRT addresses congestion by Meanwhile, planners in Rio de Janeiro designated lanes for buses, consolidating moved forward building a similar system, bus stops to reduce their number along in part based on the Medellin experience. a route, and by single payment systems. The Teleferico, as it is called, has been A BRT can cost up to 50 times less controversial from the very beginning. than rail, and it doesn’t take decades for While the system has benefitted some construction. residents – such as elderly and people SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 34 l

However, a BRT system is not a sole consumer complaints will advance the solution to all transit issues as it may capacity of management to operate more provide insufficient capacity to meet efficiently going forward. demand. BRT might be an optimal solution in some instances while not in For example, the Straphangers Campaign others. Systems must fit with capacity and within the New York Interest Research circumstance to right size a project. Group, has played a leading role over several decades for building a consensus PROTECTED space. Transit systems for new investments by engaging riders need to provide citizen security, with to rate bus services and rail lines. The adequate resources being provided straphangers regularly publish rankings over the long haul to make them safe of New York’s twenty subway lines and and resilient. Public transportation periodically hold other contests such as systems such as LA County Metropolitan reports on the 10 best and worst transit Transportation Authority and Charlotte events of the year. Area Transit System have launched safety apps that allow riders to call the police By contrast, planners and managers of or report a problem quickly and easily, mass transit in Miami failed to respond to allowing for two-way communication. the demand of potential riders for more, Riders can submit a photo or video, and better located bus stops as well as for choose to report a problem anonymously. a rail transit connection to the airport (an oversight that took a quarter-of-a- Meanwhile, in all too many cities women, century to alleviate). Public transit trips and especially the poor, rely more on continue to consume much more time public transportation than men and have than automobiles despite some of the concerns about personal safety affecting worst traffic congestion in the hemisphere. the way they travel. Space is only Important feedback mechanisms that protected when everyone feels safe. could have led to improved service remain inadequate for the task of continuously riders. Reaching out to ENGAGE informing decision-making. communities on an on-going basis is important for success. To do so, transit TRACTABILITY in the face of change. authorities much nurture persistent and Adaptability to new realities moving long-term relationships with their ridership forward is important in sustaining mobility throughout the lifetime of a system rather in an urban system. Transportation than single consultation sessions during projects are designed to operate for the planning process. Rider unions, decades during which time any number meaningful public meetings, constant of political, economic, social, and monitoring of ridership patterns and technological changes will take place. l 35 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

Systems should be designed to respond political will to initiate the construction of to those changes. new lines, authorities relied increasingly on a system that failed to serve growing The Paris Metro started out as a classic numbers of the metropolitan region’s urban system operating within the residents, degrading service on what administrative boundaries of the city. once had been a gold standard for transit As Paris expanded beyond city limits, systems. planners began thinking in regional terms. The RER-Reseau Express Regional is Collectively, the sensibilities reflected operated jointly by Paris Metro operator by a CARPET for transportation RATP and national rail operator SNCF. policies – CONTEXT, ASK, RIGHT SIZE, It connects Paris and suburbs; running PROTECTED, ENGAGE, TRACTABILITY underground like metro in Paris, – create the milieu in which transportation functioning outside the city as a ground- policies can promote the inclusive, safe, level commuter rail, and operating with a resilient, and sustainable cities embedded single fare structure. in UN Sustainable Development Goal number 11. Together, they help insure that The Toronto subway system was mobility can be maximized to address constantly ranked among the best in North inequality and marginalization. America a half-century ago. Lacking the May 10, 2016

Endnote

1 The author would like to thank Wilson Center intern Marina Kurokawa for her assistance in the preparation of these remarks.

Metro, Paris Photo courtesy of katsuhiro7110/Flickr SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 36 l

Returning to Plato’s Cave: How the Light of Smart Technology Brings Us Back to Old Debates

Originally published as a Meeting of the Minds blog, posted July 18, 2016

Dozens of the world’s leading specialists emphasized that Smart Cities begin and practitioners making cities around with smart leaders and citizens. New the world “smarter” gathered recently in information technologies, they argued, Singapore to discuss how information are not ends in themselves. The present technology can assist cities manage is a period when new opportunities of energy, water, security, and transportation unprecedented analytical power become challenges. The World Smart City available; but to what purpose? The Forum, organized by the International assembly broadly agreed that smart Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) technologies must promote holistic in partnership with the International problem-solving in the service of citizens. Organization for Standardization (ISO) and Participants repeated this message the International Telecommunication Union be they engineers or elected officials, (ITU), took place just as cities across the from cities in societies thought of as globe are utilizing all manner of innovations authoritarian and from societies known for to collect knowledge and deploy resources democratic engagement. All agreed on the to advance public safety, economic transformative potential within the act of efficiency, and public service. making a city smart.

As expected, much of the discussion As technology gathers ever more revolved around advances enhancing information, city management is municipal management; the opportunities challenged to expand accountability and presented by Big Data for improving enhance service provision. More than urban administration; and, the challenges ever, cities hold out the promise of greater of securing the avalanche of increasingly citizen engagement and expanded access vast information about urban residents. to opportunity across urban boundaries. The information revolution has arrived in Precisely because this is the case, Younus town, speakers suggested, and has done al Nasser, Assistant Director General of the so with a vengeance. City authorities Smart Dubai Office, argued, the primary are continuously adopting new data and objective of urban governance becomes tools for understanding and responding people’s happiness. to what is taking place on city streets. For every new opportunity there appear to be At a time when some engineers seem sobering new challenges. motivated primarily to innovate for the sake of innovation; industry leaders One common theme shared by speakers gathered at the World Smart City Forum from several continents and professions accentuated the responsibility of inventors l 37 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

and implementers to accept technological hands. As they settled in, they personified advancement as an enabler rather than as everything that had been said during goal. This perspective drives discussions profound deliberation at the Forum. of the contemporary city toward an They gossiped and giggled charmingly agenda as old as the Ancient Greek about the day’s events in multiple shared concern for public virtue: what is the good languages as they passed messages on life? their phones back and forth, probably enthralled like the rest of the world with The message from Singapore makes the latest game craze. They were three strikingly apparent that each new smart, self-assured, citizens of the world opportunity holds fresh challenges within. in the making, living in a city that has To succeed at optimizing the impact of become one of the “smartest” in the world technology, engineering is not enough. (the train they were riding is driverless, for Philosophical reflection and debate on example). These girls have grown up in a the nature of public purpose and public world unimagined by their parents. Their virtue is as pressing today as it has been future is bright; if the smart technology across centuries. Smart Cities, like all revolution enables them to reach their urban space, remain very much rooted in human potential. For all the change in the time, place, and culture. The challenge is world, as the participants in this year’s universal; the response is particular. World Smart City Forum emphasized over Beneath the streets of Singapore just and over, the challenges of being human as the Forum came to an end, three remain the same. And the answers to what young giggling girls scampered onto it means to lead a virtuous and happy life the local metro (MRT) dressed in their are as diverse as they always have been. school uniforms holding iPhones in their July 18, 2016

Marina Bay, Singapore Photo courtesy of Leonid Iaitskyi/Flickr SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 38 l

Summer of Washington’s Capital Discontent: Lessons from the Past

Captiol building with scaffolding, Washington D.C. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock This has been a summer of discontent that Washington has become a city. Cities in Washington best symbolized by the constitute humankind’s largest and most region’s collapsing metro. In addition to complex products and, like all human large sections of the system being shut inventions, are given to failure over time. down for too-long deferred maintenance, Washington, as a planned city, more often one major station – Cleveland Park – was than not is thought of as a symbol rather recently flooded following an intense but than a place; and certainly is talked about hardly rare outbreak of thunderstorms. in American national discourse as such. National politics, the city’s biggest industry, Yet, at some point, Washington like all has become a dystopia of theorists’ planned cities eventually just became a nightmares; and even in local politics, place. three of Mayor Bowser’s stalwart allies on the city council went down to ignominious Washington is a special kind of city, the defeat in party primaries. Even the iconic planned new capital. Vadim Rossman, Capitol Dome is under scaffolding during in a superb encyclopedic new book – Capital Cities: Varieties and Patterns of much needed repairs. Development and Relocation – chronicling What is going on? There are many the history of planned capitals (they are explanations, of course, but one is simply everywhere having been built ever since l 39 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

politicians needed a place to be) argues Despite all the commentary suggesting that new capitals are only as successful that Washington is “broken” and the as the political regimes which build them.1 country would be better off without it, Moreover, at a certain point the new Washington would not disappear were the becomes the old; and capitals become capital to move to, say, St. Louis. This just cities. Washington is now past that was not the case in the nineteenth century point. when such proposals gained traction for a while. However, at a minimum, There is, of course, no fixed moment the region’s half-dozen major research when a new capital becomes a city. In universities and many more additional some instances, such as St. Petersburg smaller colleges would remain. It simply and Washington, the process required would be too expensive to leave. Like a couple of centuries. Why so long? St. Petersburg’s industry, much of its Because there needs to be sufficient lived economic power would remain, though life to take abstract places set down in certainly in muted form. plans detached from any local reality to take hold. Perhaps there is a need for Washington may be an unhappy town at all memory of the founding moment to the moment, but hardly more or less so have been lost to living memory, requiring than many other cities around the world. the grandparents of city dwellers to have Cities created as Washington was – out become familiar with the capital as a place of whole cloth – are human inventions just and not a plan. More important, it requires as their more organic cousins, port cities that all sorts of institutions take hold which and market towns, are. At some point, would sustain a city even was the capital cities just stop being new. Perceptions, to leave. however, always lag.

St. Petersburg is a case in point. The Naples, Italy, is so old that few remember Bolsheviks moved their capital to Moscow that its name came from the Greek for almost a century ago and St. Petersburg “New Town.” Founded as a Greek colony, remains the fourth largest city in Europe. Naples was the sort of colonial new town The Soviets still needed the educational, that we think of as being somehow more cultural, and, most importantly, industrial pure and rational. Yet, “the wonder of the enterprises that had emerged in St. place,” as the novelist and writer on the Petersburg even after its “true” function as arts Benjamin Taylor reminds us in Naples a seat of power had come to an end. Declared: A Walk Around the Bay, “is that SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 40 l

it has not been annihilated by so much would be like twenty-five centuries from history. Ask yourself what New York or now. Meanwhile, Washingtonians are Chicago or Los Angeles will be twenty-five reaching for the pails to bail themselves centuries from now. Imagination falters.”2 out.

Looking at images of water streaming into June 22, 2016 Washington metro stations during this summer of discontent, the imagination indeed falters in thinking what the city

Endnotes

1 Vadim Rossman, Capital Cities: Varieties and Patterns of Development and Relocation (Routlege: 2016). 2 Benjamin Taylor, Naples Declared: A Walk Around the Bay (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2012), p. 5.

Naples, Italy Photo courtesy of Shutterstock l 41 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2 The Arts and Community Making SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 42 l

Feel that Funky Beat. The Sound of Converting Dreams of Community into Reality

Originally published by City Minded Annual, Vol. 3, 2015, pp. 7-8

Saturday, May 2, 2015 dawned beautifully iconic corner of 14th and U Streets. in Washington, D.C.; warm but not hot, breezes gentle not strong, skies azure As afternoon turned into evening, blue not cloudy or gray. The dozens of the magic of community embrace businesses, artists and neighborhood encompassed the heart of Washington, groups behind the city’s Second Annual a city perhaps better known for division, Funk Parade could not have asked for a tension, and distrust. Meanwhile, a couple more perfect day for their celebration of dozen miles up I-95, neighboring Baltimore community in D.C. An estimated 50,000 struggled to find calm following an ugly Washingtonians agreed, seizing on the outburst of civic unrest in the wake of the opportunity to enjoy local musicians and death of Freddie Gray while under police each other’s company. custody a few days before.

Washingtonians of all ages, sizes, The Funk Parade did not just happen. The shapes, colors, genders – both native celebration is the product of determined and newcomer – descended on U community organizing and collaboration Street NW, the venerable main street for among local businesses, clubs, arts and African American Washington, to catch neighborhood organizations in and around musicians ranging from school kids to Washington’s U Street and the surrounding veteran celebrities strut their stuff on Shaw neighborhood. The proud center eight performance areas throughout of African American Washington during the neighborhood. When cocktail hour decades of Jim Crow racial segregation, arrived, hundreds – including Mayor the area entered into a long period of Muriel E. Bowser – gathered in front of the decline starting in the 1950s. historic Howard Theater to fall in behind In April 1968, civic unrest following the Batala D.C. all-female drumming the assassination of the Reverend Dr. ensemble, the Eastern High School Martin Luther King, Jr. devastated the marching band, skateboarders, and an area. Over the course of three days of impromptu platoon of children in robot destruction followed by nearly two weeks costumes, and paraded their way to the of military intervention, the city suffered l 43 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

twelve deaths, 7,600 arrests, more than celebration of “the spirit of funk,” U Street, 1,000 fires, loss of nearly 700 destroyed and the city of D.C. businesses leading to the permanent loss of 5,000 jobs and the destruction of nearly Funk turned out to be a remarkable vehicle 700 apartments and homes. Much of the for bringing Washingtonians together. carnage – estimated to cost the city and It’s hard not to dance and feel good its residents over $27 million – occurred when you hear it: the genre is intensely along and around U Street. By the time rhythmic, mixing elements of soul, jazz, the metro system expanded into the area rhythm and blues surrounding a powerful in 1991, the streets around U Street had electric bass grove that came together in become among the poorest and most African American communities during the 1960s. With its deep musical history and crime-ridden in the city.1 strong Black culture, Washington emerged With the opening of several metro stations as a major center for Funk, eventually in May 1991, the U Street area began to producing its own distinctive sound attract new investment and residents, originated by local music legend Chuck leading to dramatic changes throughout Brown that became known as “Go Go.” the neighborhood. Over time, this once The First Annual D.C. Funk Parade on May proud center of African American culture in 3, 2014 attracted an estimated 25,000 Washington was no longer predominantly participants. With a city administration African American. If, in 1990, residents more concerned about traffic control than in the census tracts surrounding U Street community amity, the procession was were 77% African American, they were forced to march from the historic Howard just 22% African American two decades Theater through small streets ending in later. In light of the startling earnings gap an alley behind the Lincoln Theater and between D.C. African Americans and Ben’s Chili Bowl several blocks away. whites (the median income of the city’s A year later, a new mayor relented to black residents is between a quarter allow marchers to move along U Street, and a third that of whites), this extreme recognizing that the event already had makeover exacerbated long festering become a D.C. tradition. tensions. The Funk Parade and the positive shared The vision of Funk Parade came in a emotions it engenders did not happen by dream to U Street resident Justin Rood, chance. They are the result of the hard a D.C. native who had observed the work of community residents, business growing tension in his neighborhood with owners, civic and religious leaders, concern. With local music advocate Chris and politicians to create a moment Naoum, the two reached out to neighbors, encouraging everyone in the city to local business and civic leaders to transcend the travails of daily life in a long collaboratively produce an event in which divided city. “The Funk parade – free all Washingtonians could create together a SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 44 l

your mind and your city will follow,” read same rhythm, making music on a pleasant the original flyer which Rood and Naoum spring afternoon cannot heal decades of distributed to organize local businesses conflict. Sustained work is required, which and community groups behind the event. helps to explain why Rood has quit his job By strengthening shared community and is forming All One City, an organization identity, the Funk Parade promotes which will use public art and collaboration the deep social capital that expands to build resilience in D.C. and beyond. community resilience. But a parade on a lovely afternoon can Community, like a parade, is a process, begin to create bonds between neighbors not an object; a verb, not a noun. Uneasy through music and a shared love of place. relations still mark Washington’s sharp Such connections are a key ingredient in urban edges as the city grows and making city culture sustainable through changes. Tensions run deep among old- upheaval and change. In the words of timers and newcomers, between African Parliament Funkadelic’s George Clinton, Americans, African immigrants, Latinos, “Everybody’s got a little light under the Asians, and whites, and between rich and sun.” poor. Parading together, dancing to the

Endnote

1 The D.C. History Curriculum Project, City of Magnificent Intentions: A History of the District of Columbia (1985), p. 498.

2nd U STREET FUNK PARADE Assembly on T at 7th Street, NW, Washington DC on Saturday afternoon, 2 May 2015 Photo courtesy of Elvert Barnes Photography l 45 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

Hometown D.C.: America’s Secret Music City

In his memoir Music Is My Mistress, Duke musical environment has formed around Ellington fondly recalled whiling away the large institutions – schools, churches, days of his youth at Holliday’s poolroom colleges and universities, the Smithsonian, in Washington, D.C.. Holliday’s, Ellington the Kennedy Center, and the U.S. military wrote, “was not a normal, neighborhood- – rather than around a star system. For type poolroom. It was the high spot of musicians, institutions provide steady billiard parlors… Guys from all walks of life incomes and medical insurance. Large seemed to converge there: school kids – and, at times, overly bureaucratic – over and under sixteen; college students institutions rarely provide opportunity for and graduates, some starting out in law celebrity. and medicine and science; and lots of As a result, Washington’s music Pullman porters and dining-car waiters.”1 community gets overlooked even as But for Ellington, far more important was dozens of Washington-reared jazz lions the fact that the best piano players in town make their mark in New York, Washington- hung out at Holliday’s as well. based musicians such as Afro-Bop There was a time when D.C. was full Alliance and Shirley Horn win Grammy of such places where folks from all awards, and Washington bands such as walks of life came together with the the legendary Fugazi define entire musical city’s best musicians effortlessly and genres. On any given evening of the year, unceremoniously. Oftentimes, the Washington musicians are performing on a musicians were not “local” in that they half-dozen continents. played around the world. For every Duke Music abounds. The Washington area’s Ellington, Marvin Gaye, and Roberta Flack more than 2,000 professional musicians, who left town to make it, there was a their non-professional colleagues, Shirley Horn, Buck Hill, Bo Diddley, Keter students, friends, families, and audiences Betts, Chuck Brown, and Charlie Byrd sustain important Blues, Gospel, Jazz, who remained in D.C. even as they toured R&B, Go Go, Bluegrass, Gallic, and the planet. Hometown D.C. has long been Classical music communities overflowing – and continues to be – a music city. with talented masters. Many local Like the Neapolitan “music machine” of performers move among several of these the eighteenth century, Washington’s genres freely. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 46 l

Northeast Washington’s Jazz and Culture Society Photo courtesy of Blair Ruble

Public institutions – unlike the recording current jazz newcomers Kush Abadey and and film industries or the musical theatre Ben Williams are disappearing. Or so it – rarely have separate stage entrances only appears. Reality is more complex. for performers. Musicians and audiences arrive through the same door and share Just this year, an important new venue has the same space so that distance and opened which brings together musicians boundaries shrink. Jazz Diva Sharón Clark and the community just as Holliday’s Pool may be a superstar when she performs in Hall did back in Ellington’s day. Founded Russia’s St. Petersburg Philharmonic Hall; by Dr. Alice Jamison and DeAndrey in Washington, she is just a neighbor when Howard, a venerable trumpet player and she holds forth at Alexandria’s La Porta’s beloved figure, the D.C. Jazz and Cultural Restaurant. Society (JACS) prides itself on creating a community-oriented space for players and For the past two decades, Washington listeners. has been filling up with newcomers competing for space and driving up rents. Located in a storefront hidden away The sorts of micro-environments which in an obscure corner of the Brookland nurtured a young Ellington, sustained neighborhood, JACS is just the sort of a successful Shirley Horn, and trained place Ellington found so important: an l 47 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

informal and comfortable venue featuring Constance McLaughlin Green described top-flight talent that is always open to all. African American D.C. as a “secret city,”2 Performances run from six until nine every known to itself but hidden from others. Wednesday and Sunday evening (times This dichotomy between hometown and when musicians usually do not have gigs official, secret and known, runs through lined up). Entry is five dollars, and food is the city’s history, politics, and identity. available at cost. The room includes a stage Washington is one of America’s compelling large enough to hold a piano, an organ, and music cities. Like Green’s “secret city,” perhaps a half-dozen players. On a good D.C. remains absent from far too many night, others join in from the floor. narratives about American music.

Jamison and Howard have found the right Hardly hidden from those who want to spot for their venture. Located near the know, gems that enrich the lives of music intersection of Franklin and 12th Streets lovers thrive in the city’s various nooks NE, JACS is just far enough away from and crannies from a concert hall in the any metro station to have avoided quickly National Academy of Sciences along rising rents. Yet, one of the metropolitan the National Mall, to a parlor of an old area’s best Neapolitan pizza places – Victorian mansion on O Street NW, from Menomale – is no more than a football field a church in Southwest D.C. and a former away. Naval Hospital in Southeast, to the corner of Franklin and 11th Streets in Northeast. Gentrification is taking place here as Thanks to Washingtonians such as everywhere in D.C. with a luxury apartment Jamison and Howard, the city’s music building rising across the street. Covered makers – playing as diverse genres as by colorfully painted street murals honoring Blues and Bluegrass, Jazz and Go Go – jazz greats, JACS helps insure that the area insure that D.C. retains a community heart. will long look and feel like Hometown D.C. November 16, 2015 In her classic works on Washington history, Pulitzer Prize winning author

Endnotes

1 Duke Ellington and Mercer Ellington, Music is My Mistress (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973), pp. 14-17. 2 Constance McLaughlin Green, Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation’s Capital (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015). SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 48 l

Down By the Riverside: Jazz Over the Volga

The quiet Russian provincial city of Soviet era, reaching more than 600,000 Yaroslavl would hardly appear to be a by the end of the twentieth century. hotbed of jazz. Located around 160 miles Industries and residential districts grew north east of Moscow on the Volga River, up in concentric circles around one of the city retains a charming historic center Russia’s best preserved historic cityscapes shaped by Catherine the Great’s planners (which was among the very few largely in the eighteenth century, and embellished spared by the ravages of World War II). As by the region’s wealthy merchants in the a result, the Yaroslavl historic cityscape nineteenth. Founded in 1010 by Prince retained a sense of self-contained solidity Yaroslav the Wise on the site of the anchored by several striking sixteenth prince’s legendary wrestling match with a and seventeenth century cathedrals bear, the city thrived as a center of trade and monasteries as well as late imperial and religion throughout the thirteenth, provincial administrative buildings. fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. More recently, Yaroslavl has been Shattered by Russia’s Time of Troubles Russia’s hockey town, with the local (1598-1613), the settlement regained its professional team winning several Russian lost dynamism following the establishment championships during the 1990s and of the Romanov Dynasty in 1613. 2000s. The connection between the sport Not surprisingly given the town’s wealth, and the city has become more passionate Yaroslavl, throughout its history, supported following a plane accident at the local a distinctive school of iconography, airport on September 7, 2011 when the educational establishments, and literary entire Lokomotiv team was killed as they culture, as well as Russia’s first theater. were heading to their first match of a new In many ways, the city and the estates season. spread across its surrounding region Throughout its long history Yaroslavl has provided, before the Bolshevik Revolution, proven to be close enough to Moscow to an ideal setting for a Chekov drama. remain within its cultural and economic Yaroslavl grew rapidly during the Stalin-era gravitational field; yet far enough away industrialization drive of the 1930s, and to retain and protect a modest degree continued to expand into a major industrial of independent thought. Local notables city throughout the Soviet period. Prior to include numerous innovators across World War I, Yaroslavl had been home to the ages such as Valentina Tereshkova, about 114,000 residents. That number the first woman in space, poets Nikolay increased more than fivefold during the Nekrasov and Mikhail Kuzmin, Russian l 49 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

Jazz Center. Yaroslavl Photo courtesy of Vladimir Fedotov/Flickr theater pioneer Fyodor Volkov, rock critic on the Voice of America by the legendary Artemy Troitsky, Oscar-winning animator announcer Willis Conover, Gavrilov found Aleksandr Petrov, musician Alex Sipiagin, jazz wherever he could. and Gorbachev-era political reformer Alexander Yakovlev. Their stories often Unlike the immediate postwar periods led such achievers far from the protective when saxophones were declared illegal embrace of their provincial childhoods and subject to state confiscation, jazz had even as their youths shaped opportunities grudgingly won a degree of respectability to see the world on their own terms. by the time Gavrilov was growing up. The genre even had entered the curriculum at One such local hero – Igor Gavrilov – various conservatories around the country. chose to remain close to home. Like many Jazz nonetheless remained sufficiently of his generation, Gavrilov grew up in a daring to be of interest to slightly mutinous Soviet Union that was neither open nor youth, such as the young Gavrilov. completely closed. The outside world could enter through shortwave broadcasts Joining together with other university and tape cassettes as well as visiting students and graduates of his generation performers on various cultural exchange – in Gavrilov’s case at the Yaroslavl programs. Won over to jazz by broadcasts State Pedagogical Institute – he began SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 50 l

organizing jazz concerts which, like the Gavrilov has created a community asset music, teetered on the edge of propriety. which has kept both jazz and social In March 1974, he established his first jazz connections alive through the various club. Later, in 1979, he launched what vicissitudes of his city’s and country’s has become Russia’s oldest jazz festival, post-Soviet transition. On any given night, Jazz Over the Volga, which immediately Yaroslavtsy of all generations and social attracted world-class performers from groups gather to hear such performers around the Soviet Union and abroad. as Guntar Baby Sommer, Gunda The newfound openness of post-Soviet Gottschalk, Aleksei Kruglov, among many. Russia enabled Gavrilov to become ever Visiting artists stay on to teach after their more ambitious – especially as the local performances. economy recovered from its collapse at the time of the fall of the Soviet Union. The Center’s audiences come together for a good time, of course. They also gather The Yaroslavl Jazz Center continued to for the comfort of friends and the strength evolve and, in 1999, secured an elegantly of community. Igor Gavrilov has, over the modest historic building in the attractive course of his career, nurtured all that is center of Yaroslavl’s lovingly restored jazz at its best in a most unlikely setting. downtown. Gavrilov continued to recruit January 19, 2016 top-flight performers from Moscow, St. Petersburg, New York, and Berlin to take the stage in the Center’s invitingly small hall which seats several dozen listeners at a time. Visiting performers join with the staff in teaching jazz to local youth.

Beyond education Gavrilov, a natural historian, collected the Russian Jazz Archives. This venture has entered into partnerships with the Library of Congress and other major repositories to secure and protect Russia’s jazz legacy. Visitors such as the Library of Congress’s Larry Applebaum, the Senior Music Reference Specialist in its Music Division, have helped Gavrilov build his archive into an international facility. l 51 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

How Naples Became Europe’s Great Musical Machine

Originally published by The Wilson Quarterly, Washington, D.C., December 2, 2015

Ulysses, if Homer is to be believed, was Yet all was not quite idyllic. The inhabitants the first mariner to escape the temptations of this earthly paradise faced the of the Bay of Naples. According to The constant possibility of near-instantaneous Odyssey, Ulysses had heard of the annihilation by Mount Vesuvius. bay’s infamous sirens — part women, Categorized as a “red” volcano for the part bird or nymph-like creatures — that lava that periodically spews from its crater, lured sailors to their death by singing Vesuvius has erupted cataclysmically over so beautifully that no one could sail on the centuries, an ever-present reminder of without succumbing. Thus, when returning the transitory folly of human existence. from the Trojan War via the bay, Ulysses plugged the ears of his crew with beeswax This combination of natural appeal and and bound himself to the mast until they peril has nourished a lively culture marked had sailed safely out of range of the sirens’ from the time of its original settlers, the audible temptation. Angry over their failure Epicureans, by a distinctive blend of to seduce their prey, one of the sirens, sensuous, joyful hedonism and rigorous, Parthenope, drowned herself in the sea. stern sanctity — of paganism and piety. The original settlement on the bay was Thus, Naples has been home both to the said to have grown on the spot where she inventors of pizza and chocolate ice cream, washed ashore, claiming her name as its on the one hand; and to countless religious own (the area is now part of the city of orders, on the other. Naples, Italy). This fusion of heaven and hell — of so-called Various communities huddled around the high and low cultures — stands at the center Bay of Naples date, in one incarnation or of the Neapolitan creative impulse. Since its another, back to the second millennium founding, Naples has been a city of sudden before the birth of Christ. Ever since, and disconcerting juxtaposition of opposites, this urban area has remained one of the sort of place that creates and recreates the world’s great cultural fulcrums. The over and over again the kind of delirious bay’s environment is so perfect that local urbanism that constantly bursts forth with residents have rarely been forced to be invention and creativity. enterprising; they simply lived off the land This creative impulse has been visible in and sea in the mild Mediterranean climate, many forms, not the least of which is music. as safe harbor, turquoise sky, and indigo As sage Neapolitan observer Barringer Fifield sea sustained lush vegetation boosted by has suggested, Naples is a city that was a deep layer rich volcanic soil and an easy founded, after all, on a song. growing season. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 52 l

Music’s hold over the city has remained patterns of patronage associated with a omnipresent throughout its history. dominant family could not be sustained This was never truer than during the as the preferences of successive viceroys seventeenth century, when Naples changed over time. A hierarchy of privilege remained under its Spanish viceroys and and power evolved, often becoming linked became the music capital of Europe. to the changing status of the religious institutions at which a musician worked. Viceregal Naples was dominated by an endless number of religious institutions Musicians in Naples, as elsewhere, were — churches, chapels, monasteries, artisanal employees of their patrons. The convents, hospitals, orphanages, schools local love of the theatrical, music, and — connected to various orders within the dance greatly impressed visitors from the Roman Catholic Church. These oases of North. The seventeenth-century English calm and magnificence contrasted with diarist John Evelyn recorded that the city’s the chaos of the streets outside their high, “women are generally well-featured but protective walls. excessively libidinous. The country people [are] so jovial and addicted to music that Many of these establishments required the very husbandmen almost universally choral and instrumental music to celebrate play on the guitar, singing and composing God’s glory. As a result, baroque-era songs in praise of their sweethearts, and will Naples consumed musicians of talent. The commonly go to the field with their fiddle.”1 musicologist Dinko Fabris argued that the hiring of musicians rested more on merit Communal musical forms were than in other European cities because the immediately incorporated into the Spanish viceroys remained for more-or- increasingly popular performance art of less fixed terms. Consequently, permanent opera, as librettists drew on such stock

Di MM - Opera propria, Pubblico dominio Photo courtesy of https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2614439 l 53 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

comedic characters as nurses, pages, Neapolitan conservatories were more likely magicians, and allegorical figures in to pursue professional careers in music. their works. However, the Neapolitan environment — like that of Venice — was Orphanages sponsored conservatories dominated by institutions rather than by in order to provide their boys with a wealthy families. This system created a livelihood. As in the famous orphanages stable demand for musical talent, with for girls in Venice, some parentless employers hiring outsiders as well as children were the illegitimate offspring of musicians from socially unacceptable the wealthy and notable. Poor families groups who demonstrated talent. Some often attempted to send their sons to the of the most important contributors to conservatories because they provided free Neapolitan opera, such as the Sicilian- room and board. Some conservatories born Alessandro Scarlatti (who moved to recruited from particular regions around the city from Rome) came from elsewhere the kingdom — Apulia provided the most because they could compete more or less students — while others specialized fairly to earn appointment in a relatively musically. open system. Others were products of Boys who had been castrated were of the city’s remarkable conservatories, particular value given the popularity of which, with the exception of Venice, were virtuoso castrated vocalists — the castrati unmatched. — who were thought to supercharge According to some estimates, there were female vocal ranges with male lung seven conservatories and 617 religious capacity. Perhaps the most famous, Carlo institutions (including 248 churches) in Maria Broschi (known by his stage name, mid-seventeenth-century Naples, offering Farinelli), followed precisely this path from musical education to 368 boys in 1660, Apulia to Naples on to trans-European a number that later increased. The four eighteenth-century rock star status. most-prominent conservatories — the I Some of the best musicians in the city Poveri di Gesù Cristo (founded in 1589), earned their living by teaching at the Sant’Onofrio a Capuana (1578), Pietà conservatories. The opera master Francesco dei Turchini (1583), and Santa Maria Provenzale, for one, taught at two of the four di Loreto (1537) — fell under civic and conservatories during a 40-year career. At 2 viceregal control. Once again, Venice its height, this system produced a stream was Naples’ primary competitor, with of innovative musicians who transformed several vibrant conservatories of its own. the musical landscape of the era, including, However, Venetian musical education among many, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, was concentrated at orphanages for Francesco Provenzale, as well as Alessandro girls, whereas Neapolitan conservatories and Domenico Scarlati.3 catered to boys. This meant that, upon reaching adulthood, the graduates of the SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 54 l

Many graduates of Neapolitan Neapolitan throne by his brother-in-law, conservatories had significant eighteenth- Napoleon Bonaparte, consolidated the century professional careers as performers conservatories into a single school as part and composers across Europe. They of a general rationalization and reform came from a variety of backgrounds, and of local artistic institutions. This school, rose through recruitment and educational the San Pietro a Majella, inherited the networks that reached from the top to the remarkable music libraries and manuscript bottom of Neapolitan society. The city’s collections of its predecessors and musicians formed what became known as continues to train musicians today. the Neapolitan School, whose members were avidly sought by impresarios and Though Neapolitan music became aristocrats from Paris to Saint Petersburg, embedded in these larger Italian and from Madrid to Vienna to London. European trends, it retained a considerable degree of distinctiveness and reputational Such energy could not last forever, excellence. Across the 28 centuries of its however. Over the course of the eighteenth existence, Naples reveals the wisdom of century, political and economic crises the urbanist Rem Koolhaas, who famously eviscerated the Neapolitan institutions’ argued in Delirious New York, his evocation capacity to employ musicians. Faculty of New York during the 1970s, that “the members remained in place too long to Metropolis strives to reach a mythical allow replenishment of their ranks from point where the world is completely below, so dozens of highly sought-after fabricated by man, so that it absolutely conservatory graduates spread across coincides with his desires.”4 Since its the face of Europe. Nonetheless, by the founding, Naples has been such a city of early nineteenth century the Neapolitan sudden and disconcerting juxtaposition of music community was still renowned for its opposites — the sort of place that creates technical virtuosity. anew the kind of delirious urbanism that bursts forth with invention and creativity. It As the music world’s center of gravity has done so, singing and playing music all moved to Paris, Naples and the Neapolitan the while. music machine would be “reformed.” In 1806, Joachim Murat, appointed to the December 2, 2015

Endnotes

1 Manfred Pfister, The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Italies of British Travellers: An Annotated Anthology, Vol. 15 (Rodopi, 1996), p. 381. 2 Louise Stein, review of Music in Seventeenths-Century Naples: Francesco Provenzale (1624-1704) by Dinki Fabris (2007), Journal of Seventeenths-century Music, Vol. 17, No. 1, (2015). 3 Noel O’Regan, review of Music in Seventeenths-Century Naples: Francesco Provenzale (1624-1704) by Dinki Fabris (2007), Music and Letters, Vol. 89, No. 4, (2008), pp. 610-612. 4 Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan (New York, NY: The Monacelli Press LLC, 2014). l 55 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

Building Community Through Theater; Lessons from the Setagaya Theater

Nomura Mansai is among Japan’s most energies draw them to a non-descript famous performers, starring in popular commercial complex in suburban Tokyo Kyogen theater. He also is the artistic where they devote their natural gifts to director at Setagaya Public Theatre, one working with Japan’s most successful of Japan’s most extraordinary theatrical community theater, the Setagaya Public institutions. His rendition of Macbeth Theatre. Nomura arrived at this theater in adapted to the Noh and Kyogen traditions 2002 to direct and oversee the company’s has won rave reviews around the world. entire program; Hino started his highly successful Jazz for Kids program in 2005. Terumasa Hino is among Japan’s top jazz musicians, a master on the trumpet, Setagaya is one among two-dozen cornet, and flugelhorn. Hino became administrative wards that make up Tokyo a staple on the vibrant New York jazz, in a manner similar to the boroughs that fusion, and downtown loft scenes during constitute London. The area would not the 1980s and has remained based in seem very “suburban” to most Americans. New York. He returns frequently to Tokyo Home to around 900,000 residents, it where he still towers over the Japanese is the largest among Tokyo’s wards in jazz world. population and second largest in the amount of territory it occupies. Setagaya’s Nomura and Hino can be anywhere in population density is about twice that of the world. Their fame and talent open New York City. Americans will discover doors everywhere. Yet, their creative Setagaya soon as it will become the site of

Setagaya Public Theater Photo courtesy of Nemo’s great uncle/Flickr SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 56 l

the American pre-Olympic Games training the theater’s Kyogen performance. camp in 2020. Moreover, Hino hosts four-month jazz workshops for children (some of whom Founded in 1997 at the initiative of the have never played an instrument before) ward administration, the Setagaya Public which end with an annual Kids Big Band Theatre could well have languished Concert. underused and disconnected from its own community as happens in hundreds of The homespun flavor of so much of the towns and districts around Japan which theatre’s activities does not diminish once overinvested in now unwanted artistic accomplishment. Setagaya Public buildings. Setagaya proved different. Long Theatre’s mainstage has seen productions home to large numbers of visual artists of grand creative achievement such as and writers, the ward even created an Nomura’s uniquely Japanese Macbeth. autonomous literary museum to celebrate its own cultural successes. The goal was The theater estimates that between 80 to keep a living culture and arts central to and 90 percent of its audience arrives local life. from outside the ward, including from abroad. In addition, somewhere around The theater’s artistic team set out to a third of ward residents have attended promote modern dance and contemporary a performance. Setagaya Public Theatre theater by bringing the community to unquestionably remains a community the stage. The theater houses two halls asset. Its extensive outreach programs holding audiences of 600 and 200 that and community spirit carry unlimited are used almost every day. Outreach meaning for everyone in the ward. programs extend to the disabled and infirmed, to children and the elderly, and When asked what makes Setagaya the merely interested. Each year, the staff special, residents frequently credit their and producers create a play based on the neighbor Nomura Mansai and his role stories told by local residents. as artistic director, and Terumasa Hino’s Jazz for Kids, for some of the most This is where Nomura and Hino enter. creative theatrical performances in Japan For Nomura, as artistic director of the today. The community basks in a special entire company, the theater is a place to spotlight every time a performer – young experiment; for Hino, the Jazz for Kids or old, beginner or famous – steps out on program is where he not only seeks out stage merging master and novice into a the next generation of Japanese jazz shared enterprise. masters but also aims at developing December 28, 2015 children’s zest for living. At some point during their school career, each of the ward’s 6,000 schoolchildren will appreciate l 57 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

The Cirque Comes to Town. Learning about Culture and Cities from Montreal

Riding the Washington Metro one morning Paul a few years before, and survived by I entered a car completely transmogrified winning a Canada Council for the Arts into a rolling advertisement for the most award in 1983. recent production of the international entertainment conglomerate Cirque With a new government grant in their du Soliel. Washington seems to be pockets, they hired Guy Caron from the surrounded by Cirque du Soleil these days. recently established École nationale de As the ceiling of my metro car proclaimed, cirque de Montréal and consolidated their Les Grand Tour du Kurios opens later this month under a big group under the title Cirque du Soleil tent at suburban Tysons Corner, Virginia. . Their small assembly Meanwhile, a constant barrage of email would grow into the largest and most notices have informed me that I wasn’t successful among Quebec’s nouveaux quick enough to catch Toruk, which just cirques, constantly responding to the closed in nearby Baltimore; or Amaluna, rapidly changing political and cultural which ran at National Harbor in suburban environment surrounding its origins. Within Maryland last year. As nearly everywhere two decades, their troupe became the these days, it seems, Washington area largest entertainment company in the audiences can’t get enough of the world, earning 85 percent of its peak nouvelle cirque from Montreal. revenues in 2012 from the United States (largely from eight permanent productions The Cirque du Soleil story is about far in Las Vegas), while spending 85 percent more than acrobatics under a large tent. of its operating budget in Quebec. The Indeed, it highlights how particular urban initial public investment by Quebec micro-climates unleash powerful chemical taxpayers has paid off enormous dividends reactions of creativity and place. Cirque for Quebec and Montreal. du Soleil probably would never have taken shape anywhere other than in Quebec of Montreal – with its vibrant tradition of street the 1980s. culture; absence of established circus ensembles; strong related cultural sectors Two street performers – a juggler and a such as dance, theatre, music; and fire eater – applied for a provincial grant willingness to invest public funds into the in 1984 to take their little troop Les arts – shaped what Cirque du Soleil could Echassiers (The Waders) on a summer and would become. As a band of street tour of Quebec to celebrate the 450th performers working in a durable local anniversary of Jacques Cartier’s voyage to tradition, there was no place for animals Canada. Guy Lailberté and Gilles St-Croix to wander around as they moved through founded their company in tiny Baie Saint the province. Laiberté, who had supported SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 58 l

Le Rêve, Cirque du Soleil - Las Vegas ‘10 Photo courtesy of dRphotographie/Flickr

a trip to Europe by performing as a folk French nouveau cirque, Soviet acrobatics, musician and busker before becoming a and American entrepreneurship. fire eater, understood the power of music for driving a performance forward as did Lailberté and St-Croix returned from their many popular Québécois musicians of the initial tour of Quebec with empty bank period. Quebec’s fractured linguistic atlas accounts and reapplied for Canadian encouraged the performers to develop and Quebec support. The Province’s their own distinctive language of gibberish. grantmakers and cultural bureaucrats remained skeptical of their success. Caron, meanwhile, brought Franco In the end, the duo secured an all- Dragone on board. Dragone, from important funding renewal upon the Belgium, was well trained in commedia direct intervention of Quebec Premier dell’arte performance which aligned René Lévesque, whose Parti Québécois with the company’s emerging artistic government was busily promoting sensibilities. More generally, the company’s separation from Canada. The new money approach fit into an incipient Montreal allowed the crew to take their show on the brand of circus performance that blended road outside Quebec for the first time. l 59 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

While traveling around Canada, Lailberté The support of American funders enabled and St-Croix caught the attention of the Cirque du Soleil to continue to grow by organizers of the Los Angeles Arts Festival, leaps and bounds as they established a who invited them to perform at their 1987 major presence in many entertainment showcase. By this time Lailberté and St- centers around the globe. At the Croix managed to convince Mouvement same time, the company never lost its des caisses Desjardins (Dejardins Group attachment to its birthplace in Quebec. Credit Union) to cover more than $200,000 The corporation put down deep roots in in bounced checks. They decided to give Montreal, building a massive headquarters Los Angeles a try. California audiences and training center in the underprivileged fell in love with the company, as did immigrant portal neighborhood of St. executives from Columbia Pictures, which Michel. Their investment established offered to finance a grand North American Montreal as a major focal point of the tour. Cirque du Soleil would open a global circus world, luring top performers permanent outpost in Las Vegas three and ambitious amateurs alike. Their base years later. has remained firmly rooted in Montreal,

Cirque du Soleil Photo courtesy of Michael Anthony Saddul/Flickr SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 60 l

even after the company was bought out Quebec performing arts community. In by Chinese and American financiers. August 1948, a group of artists influenced by the French surrealists began to Cirque du Soliel’s influence on Montreal in discuss the future of the arts in Quebec, return extends beyond mere presence. As publishing a manifesto proclaiming home to so much circus talent, Montreal the “untamed need for liberation,” spawned a vibrant extended circus “resplendent anarchy,” and extoling community including gifted offshoots such the creative force of the subconscious. as Les 7 doigts de la main (7 Fingers), Mimeographed in four hundred copies, Cirque Éloze, and Cirque Alfonse. their platform sold for a dollar a piece at These alternative companies are not a local Montreal bookstore. The impact mere imitations of Cirque du Soleil. The of their proclamation Le Refus Global internationally successfully Les 7 doigts (Total Refusal) proved enduring as de la main, for example, has maintained commentators around Canada and abroad a distinctive aesthetic featuring more picked up their ideas for a “modern” human-scale performance styles. Les 7 Quebec culture. doigts de la main also has worked closely with physical theater groups such as Gilles The only dancer in the group, Françoise Maheu’s Carbone 14 and Robert Lepage’s Sullivan, would become one of Canada’s groundbreaking Ex Machina, dance best known abstract painters and companies such as Édouard Lock’s La La sculptors as well as founder of a distinct La Human Steps as well as with musical tradition in modern dance. Four decades groups such as Richard Ste-Marie’s La later, looking back on her career, Sullivan Fanfafonie. noted, “art can only flourish if it grows from problems which concern the age, and The growth of Cirque du Soleil has is always pushed in the direction of the been exceptional; even more so as it unknown. Hence, the marvelous in it.”1 transpired at a time when the circus Cirque du Soleil has taken that Montreal industry seemingly had entered a period sensibility to the world. of decline. Simultaneously, its success is a product of a larger trajectory within the July 5, 2016

Endnote

1 Françoise Sullivan, “Dance and Hope” in Refus Global: The Complete 1948 Manifesto of the Montreal Automatists, trans. Ray Ellenwood, 101-16 (Toronto: Exile Editions, 1998). l 61 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

Bringing New York to the Broadway Stage

Hamilton, The Musical, starring Lin Manuel Miranda Photo courtesy of Steve Jurvetson/flickr

In 1987, two very different reviews of the and interest pointed them in opposite state of New York City appeared almost directions. The titles of their work reflect simultaneously. The first was a report their divergent sensibilities: Wagner’s issued by an ad hoc Commission on report captured New York Ascendant,1 New York in 2000 chaired by Robert F. while Sleeper’s journal issue was framed In Wagner Jr., who was the son of the city’s Search of New York.2 beloved three-term mayor and grandson of a popular New York Senator, and was Both reports appeared at a turning himself deeply involved in city affairs and point in the city’s destiny. The economic a chair of the City Planning Commission. disinvestment that was beginning to The second review was a special issue become noticeable by the end of the of the distinguished leftist journal Dissent 1950s cascaded throughout the 1960s edited by author and journalist Jim and 1970s; the manufacturing sector Sleeper. Although both reviews presented collapsed; port facilities and hundreds a portrait of what was recognizably the of critical jobs moved to New Jersey same city, their differences in orientation following the containerization revolution in shipping; corporate headquarters fled SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 62 l

to the suburbs and beyond; and even started to transform how New Yorkers and the New York Stock Exchange and NBC others thought about both the city and its gave serious consideration to leaving state. Manhattan for New Jersey. A nadir was reached in a disastrous brush with More significantly, according to the municipal bankruptcy in 1975, widespread commission’s report, the profound civil breakdown during a 1977 blackout, changes in international financial markets, and excessively publicized violence on reflecting the beginnings of what we now the subway and in parks. In the 1980s, a know as globalization—including a newly tsunami of violence accompanying a crack assertive capitalism unleashed by the cocaine epidemic swept over the city, Reagan administration, and deregulation reaching its peak just as both publications of the financial markets—enabled New appeared. York to firmly secure its position as a leading global city and world financial In this dire context, Dissent’s contributors center. Technological changes—the told a tale of slow and inexorable urban opening of the Internet age—reaffirmed decline, decay, and death. New York New York’s position at the center of global was no longer able to create wealth for communications; and the maturation of the thousands of poor citizens struggling the smart economy expanded its reach to make their way in the city. As the city beyond Silicon Valley and Boston’s Route became more starkly divided by class, it 128 corridor, establishing high-technology became less attractive to those who had industries in New York. Immigration great wealth. New York was a tough, nasty pathways to the United States during the place full of paranoia, racial hatred, and 1960s similarly began to reshape the city economic conflict in which residents felt as it once more became a magnet for New under constant threat. Americans.

According to the ad hoc commission’s This dynamism, the commission’s report report, all was not lost. The commission’s argued, was gaining momentum so that, members viewed the restructuring of by 2000, New York would be ascendant the city’s finances in response to near once more. The report predicted that the bankruptcy as having improved New city would regain 300,000 jobs (matching York’s ability to respond to economic its peak employment in 1969 of 3.8 change. They found the boosterism of million) and 400,000 people, growing to three-term mayor Ed Koch, who held the 7.5 million by the turn of the millennium. office between 1978 and 1989, to have In fact, the city’s population reached a lifted civic identity. A New York State then-all-time high of just over 8 million in tourism campaign, begun in 1977 based the year 2000. This growth was largely on the song “I Love New York” similarly driven by immigrants. According to some l 63 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

estimates, more than 3 million immigrants In retrospect, the commission was closer made their way to New York over the past to the mark, in that New York once more half century, many remaining in the city. emerged as one of the world’s preeminent cities. Longtime New Yorkers are not quite Despite privileging different factors, confident of this success, seeing what has both Dissent’s and the commission’s been described as the “homogenization”— reviews identified many similar positive and even the “Disneyfication” or and negative trends. Both accounts hypergentrification—of their city, while lamented the absence of civility in New those without abundant means are forced York life, edginess that both saw as to leave town. Whether this perception counterproductive for the city and its is accurate for the city as a whole, there residents. These hard edges would is no doubt that Times Square has been continue to mar civic life throughout Disneyfied—by Disney itself. the twentieth century, softening only in the wake of the September 11, 2001 The fate of Times Square – and of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Broadway theater world so central to Thereafter, many New Yorkers subsumed it – captures the contradictions of the whatever differences they had under the past half-century. In a premature death shared experience of living in a city under notice for the Broadway theater, science assault. fiction master Thomas Disch sardonically noted in a 1991 edition of the Atlantic, For the authors of the commission’s New that bulldozers were gathering to attack York Ascendant, positive developments the squalor of Times Square by leveling were offset by growing income disparities, many of the blocks around 42nd Street continued high rates of crime and violence, to replace low life with high-rise towers. and a floundering educational system that This is, in fact, what transpired as poorly served both the city’s youth and mayors Rudy Giuliani (1994–2001) and employers. In spite of their pessimistic Michael Bloomberg (2002–13) promoted outlook, the contributors to Dissent the conversion of Times Square into recognized New York was experiencing a a tourist and corporate wonderland remarkable mixing of different traditions— embodying broader transformations especially of Hispanic and African throughout the city. The Times Square cultures—which produced unprecedented Alliance, established in 1992, lured major creativity on city streets. Both reviews corporations to the area and promoted emphasized the importance of the arts, attractions—such as giant LED screens with Dissent highlighting the creativity and live television broadcasts—that would bubbling up from below and New York create a nonthreatening urban vibe. Ascendant identifying culture as a draw Bloomberg closed the square to most making the city attractive to what we now automobile traffic in 2009, securing the call the “creative class.” SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 64 l

area’s place as a major tourist destination. wizardry and lushly mounted revivals often do not deserve accolades. Broadway and its theatrical scene have flourished as a tourist attraction, with the Serious theater has not died, either in number of productions and audiences New York or in the United States but it growing once again. By the 2014–15 has moved, shifting to Off and Off-Off season, Broadway was setting new Broadway in New York, and to regional records for the number and value of theaters around the country. Broadway tickets sold, drawing more than 13 million benefits from these networks. Shows from people paying $1.3 billion. Broadway has Washington, Chicago, and Seattle make become so successful that there is now a their way to Broadway and enrich the New shortage of theaters rather than a shortage York scene, even as Broadway shows go of productions. Shows are queuing up to on tour. There has been a maturation of find a Broadway venue. American theater, in which Broadway is a part of a larger live entertainment industry, Disch and many others, however, are with outposts in cities such as Austin, Las more concerned about artistic worth than Vegas, and Nashville. financial profits. From this perspective, shows that are dependent on high-tech Enduring art forms continually prompt cries of despair over their impending death. For instance, just as some began New York City street art Photo courtesy of Nick Normal/flickr l 65 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 2

to write off Broadway as nothing more Off-Broadway, and then to a Broadway than light diversion for tourists, Lin-Manuel production in 2008, winning four Tony Miranda came along. Awards and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. Miranda—like the Berlins, Kerns, Miranda is a product of the exciting Hammersteins, Rodgers, Harts, and blend of Hispanic and Black cultures Sondheims before—was setting Broadway celebrated by the authors who contributed on fire by bringing new energy from the to the Dissent issue. Miranda was born ever-evolving life of the city around them. in Manhattan of Puerto Rican heritage, and he grew up in Inwood, a blue-collar But In the Heights was just the beginning. neighborhood near the island’s northern In 2015, Miranda’s hip-hop interpretation tip cut off by subway switching yards from of Ron Chernow’s authoritative biography downtown. The area evolved from being of Alexander Hamilton broke every mold the home of Jewish and Irish immigrants to on Broadway, starting out with its two- the home of Hispanic—often Dominican— month run at the Public Theater. Hamilton newcomers. The basketball legend tells the story of one of the country’s most Kareem Abdul-Jabar grew up a generation overlooked founding parents through the before in the same neighborhood; and lens of the generations infused with the another generation earlier, a boyish Henry sounds of what the city has become. Kissinger scampered around the streets of nearby Washington Heights. This end New York and Broadway—like all human of Manhattan has long been reserved for creations and the people who make the latest arrivals to find their way in a new them—die a bit every day. Simultaneously, homeland, often tossing off new cultural they are reborn. No matter how much permutations in the process. New York is tamed; the city still bursts forth with elemental human energy. And Miranda graduated from Hunter College Broadway theater—like the city that gave High School and went off to idyllic it life—continues to confront and define Wesleyan University—a small Connecticut the American experience by enabling school best known for educating the newcomers to engage with traditions that gentry’s offspring—where he combined have long been in place. the hip-hop of his home turf with a solid September 12, 2016 grounding in Wesleyan’s more traditional student theater company. While a sophomore at Wesleyan, he began working on a musical based on a book by Quiara Alegría Hudes that told the story of the lives of his generation in the largely Dominican-American neighborhood of Washington Heights. The show, In the Heights, moved from Connecticut to Endnotes

1 Commission on the Year 2000, New York Ascendant: The Report of the Commission on the Year 2000, (New York, NY, 1987). 2 Jim Sleeper, Dissent: In Search of New York (Special Issue), (1987).

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