Performing Community 3: 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:978-1-938027-75-8

February 2018 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 Frederic V. Malek, Chair

Public members: Elisabeth DeVos, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States; Carla D. Hayden, Librarian of Congress; Jon Parrish Peede, Acting Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities; David J. Skorton, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; Rex W. Tillerson, Secretary, U.S. Department of State; Eric D. Hargan, Acting Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Private Citizen Members: Peter J. Beshar, Vice President & General Counsel, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc.; Thelma Duggin, President, The AnBryce Foundation; Barry S. Jackson, Managing Director, The Lindsey Group and Strategic Advisor, Brownstein, Hyatt Farber Schreck; David C. Jacobson, Vice Chair, BMO Financial Group; Nathalie Rayes, Vice President of Public Affairs, Grupo Salinas; Earl W. Stafford, Chief Executive Officer, The Wentworth Group, LLC; Jane Watson Stetson, Philanthropist; Louis Susman, Manager, CBI Holdings, L.P.

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

Peter J. Beshar, Eddie & Sylvia Brown, Ambassador Sue & Ambassador Chuck Cobb, Thelma Duggin, Judi Flom, Sander R. Gerber, Harman Family Foundation, Frank F. Islam, Willem Kooyker, Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Mandell, Thomas R. Nides, Adam H. Offenhartz, Nathalie Rayes, Wayne Rogers, B. Francis Saul II, Diana Davis Spencer, Earl W. Stafford, Mr. and Mrs. Bobby Stein, Leo Zickler Artistic Visionaries and Community Creators

The power of the performing arts to nurture inclusive communities has been praised widely in recent years; so much so that “creative placemaking” is now seen as a powerful tool in community development. The supportive role of community in fostering artistic innovation is less acknowledged. This series highlights the work of visionaries for whom creating communities of students, protégés, audiences and donors has become a strategic element in transforming their arts. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l V l

CONTENTS

Chapter 1- Profiles of Artistic Visionaries and Community Creators:/ 1

Dmitry Bertman and Opera / 2 Paul Carr and Jazz / 6 Zeljko and Natasha Djukic and Dramatic Theater / 8 Lawrence Edelson and Opera / 10 Vanessa German and Spoken Word Opera / 13 Hernán Jacinto and Argentine Jazz / 16 Andrew Kingsley, Andrew Vaught and Social Impact Theater / 19 Nikolai Kolayda and Playwriting / 23 Larissa Koniuk and Bicycle Opera / 26 Brent Lindsay and Amy Pinto and Community-Specific Theater / 29 Hugo and Rebecca Medrano and Hispanic Theater / 33 David Alan Miller and Contemporary Classical Music / 37 Mansai Nomura and Kyōgen Theater / 41 Mark and Susan Marie Rhea and Irish Theater / 44 Ari Roth and Transformational Theater / 47 Albert Schultz and Civic Theatre / 51 Daniel Soulières and Performance Dance / 54 Grace Srinivasan and Paula Maust and Baroque Music / 57 Paata and Irina Tsikurishvili and Physical Theater / 59 C. Brian Williams and Stepping / 63

Chapter 2-Conclusion to Performing Communities 1, 2 & 3 / 66

Making Cities Work as Holistic Communities of Promise / 67 Contents to Performing Community 1 and 2 / 71

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INTRODUCTION

The Woodrow Wilson Center’s Urban now seen as a powerful tool in community Sustainability Laboratory began posting development. The supportive role of short essays in 2012 concerning the community in fostering artistic innovation is importance of the performing arts for less acknowledged. This series highlights inclusion in an era of urban diversity. The the work of visionaries for whom creating first collection of essays was published communities of students, protégés, in late 2015 and the second a year later. audiences and donors has become a These brief compilations feature essays strategic element in transforming their arts. by Urban Laboratory Director Blair A. The artistic visionaries profiled here are Ruble, with particular attention being paid community creators. In nearly every case to the role of diversity, inclusion and the they came from somewhere else--as performing arts in nurturing a sense of migrants within their own countries, as community. Information about the previous immigrants, as students from elsewhere- volumes are to be found at the end of this -seeking the opportunity to innovate report. artistically. They have created new This collection seeks to reverse the communities of performers, audiences causal arrows in the relationship between and supporters sharing a fresh artistic community and the arts by focusing on sensibility. These communities are artistic visionaries who are also community open, inviting, dynamic and fluid. They creators. The power of the performing constitute an alternative vision to notions arts to nurture inclusive communities has of community conceived as closed circles, been praised widely in recent years; so excluding all who are not among the much so that “creative placemaking” is embraced. Their artistic visions include an SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l VII l

innovative sense of community suitable for our times.

Now more than a quarter-century old, the Wilson Center’s Urban Sustainability Laboratory--which began as the Comparative Urban Studies Program--has long promoted holistic views of cities as places of promise. Whether sponsoring discussions about the expanding peri- component of the quest urban communities in Africa, innovative for such urban values. housing in Latin America, or new smart transit systems in Asia, the Center’s urban As in the first two programming has sought to embed the collections, the essays discussion of specific urban challenges presented here are by Blair Ruble. They in larger conversations about community, have benefited tremendously from the governance and transparency. Our support and contributions of Urban approach to the urban condition very Sustainability colleagues Allison Garland, much aligns with the intention of United Kathy Butterfield, and Savannah Boylan. Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 11 advocating for cities that are inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. As the essays in this collection reveal, the performing arts are an essential Profiles l 2 l

Dmitry Bertman and Opera

July 26, 2017

Moscow in 1990 was on a collision rationing. Many Muscovites viewed the course with history. Within a year or so, era’s reformers as inept and everyone the country of which it was capital would detested those still in power. Yet, for no longer exist, taking entrenched elites, those with resources, the Moscow real institutions and living standards with it. estate market offered munificent spaces This future was already present. The city’s at a pittance. Musicians were cheap too. streets appeared empty both because Among all the nightmares, dreams could there were few places to go and because be born. folks from elsewhere had stopped Dmitry Bertman was a dreamer, and a coming to Moscow to shop. Rather, fortunate one at that. As he writes on his Muscovites headed off to other cities personal web site: “I am a lucky guy, as so where nourishment was less expensive many of my dreams when a child, came and more plentiful. Food disappeared from true.” Those dreams were operatic. displays in most Moscow stores; though it was still possible to obtain minimum daily From childhood, Bertman wanted to be sustenance at work, private markets and part of opera. As the beloved director from rationed goods still available at state of the Odessa Operetta Theater Matvei stores. Prices were high, variety non- Osherovskii once exclaimed, “Bertman existent and any task took extraordinary came to the planet of Earth to devote time and effort. himself to Opera.... He knows opera, music, and languages since his childhood. The city literally was falling apart. People He is a great pianist and knows everything were exhausted, frustrated and had lost about singing…. In him musical and hope for improvement. Everyone seemed theatrical talents focus like rays of light in to have a horrid tale or two about two- to a lens.” three-hour lines for such staples as butter or salt even though lines had shrunk with Bertman graduated from the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts, where he now l 3 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

is a faculty member. At the age of twenty- Bertman has sought to bring psychological three, he established his own opera realism and outstanding acting to the company--the Helikon Opera--in far off opera stage without diminishing the Syktyvkar, forestry center and capital of musical quality of a performance; and to the Komi Republic eight hundred miles do so while presenting new interpretations northeast of Moscow. Bertman named of nineteenth century classics together his new company “Helikon” after the with lesser-known works from the Russian Ancient Greek mountain that was home to and European repertoire. His emphasis on the Muses and site of the pond in which acting necessitated a strong connection Narcissus became transfixed by his own between performer and audience. beauty. Accordingly, he favors performances on smaller stages and at non-traditional Months later he brought his show to venues. There is nothing “grand” about Moscow. He became music theater Bertman’s opera even when the operas director of the Elizabet Buhne Theatre in being performed and the actors who are Salzburg, Austria that same year, 1990, performing them might appear with regularity and has been presenting opera at major at the world’s grandest opera houses. In theaters across Europe ever since. The 2015, for example, Helikon joined with the Helikon, which became a state company Moscow State Philharmonic Orchestra in 1993, remains his paramount passion.

Boris Godunov, an opera by Modest Mussorgsky. Photo: Quincena Musical (Flickr) https://flic.kr/p/8wEAGz SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 4 l

to stage Anton Rubinstein’s 1871 opera As before, the now renovated elegant “Demon” with international stars Dmitry state-of-the art mansion facility retains Khvorostovsky, Asmik Grigorian, Alexander both a larger 250 seat hall and a smaller Tsymbalyuk and Evgeny Svetlanov. auditorium for chamber productions.

To realize his dream Bertman required a Bertman’s company benefited from the venue, performers and audiences. The depressed wages of the post-Soviet collapse of the Soviet Union facilitated his collapse. He was able to build a company quest. of world-class performers desperate for any paying job. Beginning with seven Taking advantage of Moscow’s colleagues, Bertman has grown the disintegrating economy, he secured company to over 350 artists, musicians control of a lovely eighteenth century and administrators today; including some nobleman’s house up the hill from the of Russia’s premier opera singers. Many Moscow Conservatory in the very heart of these performers have come from of Moscow. Dating from the 1730s, the Bertman’s studios and training programs Shakhovskoy-Glebov-Streshnev mansion and share his dedication to acting on Bolshaya Nikitskaya is among the few excellence on the opera stage. To sustain aristocratic homes remaining in Moscow. these efforts, Helikon performs frequently- Once the mansion was in his hands, he -over 200 times a year--and tours abroad was able to carve out two auditoria, one regularly where the company has won high seating just 250 and the other 70. praise and recognition. Eventually, the Helikon Opera rescued a Central to Bertman’s vision has been an neoclassical columned auditorium added audience that embraces his view of opera in the nineteenth century, redeeming it as combining psychological depth, high- from a Soviet-era tattered-yet-stately quality acting and superb singing. Realizing condition following decades of use by the that his company could fill the seats with USSR Union of Cultural Workers. Helikon opera aficionados for only a performance or created just the right room to host intimate two at a time, Bertman set out to expand opera performances. the company’s audience to include many The building would undergo major who never considered themselves to be renovations between 2007 and 2015 fans of opera. He did so through innovative during which time the opera was housed performances and enhanced accessibility, in one of the tawdry Khrushchev-era office both within his own theater and in public buildings along Novyi Arbat once thought spaces around the city. to have symbolized Soviet modernity. l 5 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

Bertman brought new energy to old beloved songs from children’s films; while standards. His staging of Bizet’s their production “Back in the USSR!,” “Carmen” is filled with sex and drugs as another concert program featuring popular the action is set in a burned-out carcass Soviet-era mass song, draws on the pull of an automobile; the costumed cast of nostalgia to attract new audiences of Johan Strauss’s “Die Fledermaus” who otherwise probably never would greets the audience in the theater’s have considered attending an opera grand staircase entrance as if welcoming performance. everyone to an enchanting masquerade- ball; Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” is Bertman has fulfilled his dream of performed in high 1920s costumes. a life in opera and much more. He has elevated acting standards and In other instances, Bertman focuses on expanded the psychological depth of little-known and rarely performed works opera performances without devaluing by famous composers, always doing so their musical quality. He has done so by with a special dollop of the unexpected. In leveraging the harsh realities of social the mid-1730s, as coffee was becoming collapse at the time of the fall of the Soviet all the rage in Germany, Johann Sebastian Union, converting them into assets for Bach wrote a cantata about the beverage extending the reach of his beloved opera. evidently as a way of paying lighthearted He has emboldened opera as an art by homage to the habitués of Zimmermann’s creatively engaging a wider public rarely Coffee-House. In the hands of Helikon, seen at its performances. In accomplishing Bach’s “Coffee Cantata” becomes a all of these achievements, he has one-act opera set in an appropriately unambiguously reinvigorated the art of delightful café as the cast compares opera. life’s various pleasures unfavorably to that of a good cup of coffee--all while preparing demitasse and espresso and serving the members of the audience. Bertman reaches into popular culture for inspiration working with the company to produce completely new works. In some instances--such as a celebration of George Gershwin--the performance draws on the more serious side of twentieth century popular culture. In others, such as “Cartoons-Opera,” the company presents a concert program featuring SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 6 l

Paul Carr and Jazz September 19, 2017

Saxophonist Paul Carr tells the story of Carr grew up in inner-city Houston where waiting with his saxophone at the baggage legendary teacher Conrad Johnson at claim belt in St. Petersburg, Russia, Kashmere High School took an interest when another passenger came up and in the young Carr. By the time he had said: “Paul Carr, Westminster Church in graduated, Carr was a member of the Washington.” Paul recounts this incident Kashmere High School Stage Band and as a way of testifying to the global reach had inculcated the large Texas style of of Friday Night Jazz at Westminster playing the tenor sax embraced by his Presbyterian Church in Southwest early mentors Arnett Cobb and Don Washington, D.C. Home to a hugely Wilkerson. In 1985, Carr packed up his successful concert series now nearly two big Texas tenor sound and headed off to decades old, Westminster has become a Howard University where he gained the touchstone of the D.C. jazz scene. training that has enabled him to establish his global presence on the saxophone Telling the story in this way downplays scene. Carr’s own international fame. Not only does Carr regularly tour the world and The Washington jazz scene doesn’t the country, he was a regular performer always receive the attention it deserves. at the White House during the Clinton The region’s strong musical institutions- administration; sharing then President Clinton’s love of the Saxophone.

Carr is more than a performer. He has emerged as a tireless promoter of jazz, a teacher as well as a performer, and the moving spirit of a re-vivified Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival that extends the music’s reach beyond well-trod territory. For Carr, sustaining innovative improvisational music requires sustaining the current and future players who will take the art form to new levels; and sustaining the audiences who appreciate the sound. His holistic vision of jazz emerges from his own experience Paul Carr in The Jazz Academy of Music Fall Concert. growing up in Houston. Photo: woodleywonderworks l 7 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

-ranging from the Duke Ellington School permanently enriched by music as they for the Performing Arts, through venerable move into various worlds far beyond the music programs at such local universities world of music. as Howard, Maryland, and UDC, to the In 2010, Carr assumed leadership of military bands and a plethora of non- the East Coast Jazz Festival, founded in profit venues such as Westminster-- 1992 by beloved vocalist and educator have enabled dozens of talented young Ronnie Wells. Following Wells’ passing, musicians to move into the mainstream. Carr joined with others within the DC These organized supports join with a score community to relaunch the festival as of musical village elders such as Carr the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival held every who share a passion for cultivating rising Presidents’ Day weekend in February musicians. Among recent D.C. products at a non-descript suburban Holiday Inn. performing around the world are rising Regularly attracting as many as 4,000 bassists Ben Williams and Baltimore-born jazz aficionados, the Festival showcases Kris Funn, sax players Lyle Link and Elijah national talents together with student Jamal Balbed and drummer Kush Abadey. groups, with every level of musical Carr was once such a rising star himself, professionalism in between. The Festival sitting in at Lawrence Wheatley’s creates new audiences for the music legendary 1980s jam sessions at One which adds new support to the local Step Down, and landing performance scene. opportunities alongside trumpeter Terell As important as his educational and Stafford at Takoma Station. Having organizational activities are, Carr’s experienced the power of mentorship musical vision remains foremost in his in his own development, Carr remains accomplishments. Inculcated from youth passionate about jazz education even as with the Texas tenor tradition of playing he has moved among stages on several large, Carr amplifies the influence of the continents. music’s Southern roots on contemporary In 2002, Carr founded the Jazz Academy jazz. Whether playing in the United States, of Music which sponsors summer camps South America, Russia or Asia--performing and school-year ensembles for young before presidents, kings or students--Carr players from around the region. The carries on the venerable tradition of jazz Academy’s reach, which has sent a half- as an art form brought from the pastoral dozen graduates on to the Julliard School South to the metropolitan city. of Music in New York, brings together As he takes this creative journey he inner-city musicians with suburban makes sure that others will follow. As he students from some of the wealthiest discovered in the baggage reclaim area in neighborhoods in the country. While St. Petersburg, his reach has no bounds. many go on to careers in music, many more of Carr’s students have their lives SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 8 l

Zeljko and Natasha Djukic and Dramatic Theater April 18, 2017

Zeljko and Natasha Djukic have shaped They moved the company to Chicago one of the most inventive theater in 2002 where they quickly caught the companies in one of the most creative attention of local theater devotees. For theater communities in the country: Zeljko and Natasha, Chicago offered a TUTA Theatre in Chicago. Named after gritty urban energy and authenticity they the Serbian word for bedpan, TUTA found missing in other American cities. promotes European-style psychological A storied theater town, Chicago already theater through the dramatic restaging was home to audiences and actors well- of modern and classical works with prepared to tackle their brand of theater. startling design and passionate acting. Beyond her work for TUTA, Natasha Their productions routinely receive rave crafted costumes and sets for several reviews from the city’s toughest critics in a other Chicago theaters including the highly competitive theatrical environment. legendary Steppenwolf Company and the Critics from the Chicago Tribune meant Light Opera. In moving from Washington as a compliment the observation that to Chicago, Zeljko and Natasha found a TUTA productions were unlike anything creative environment which embraced the else in the city. This is high praise in a contradictions of life that elude confident city of committed audiences who value certainties and proclamations. honest presentation of dramatic work over celebrity and gimmick. As they settled into their Chicago life, Zeljko and Natasha sought to energize Zeljko and Natasha arrived in Washington, American theater both by presenting new D.C. in 1990 from Serbia to pursue further training at the University of Maryland, College Park. A graduate of Belgrade’s Drama Arts School, Zeljko added additional degrees to his resume and subsequently taught at several institutions including the University of Maryland and James Madison University. Designer Natasha similarly advanced her skills and taught full-time at James Madison. Together in 1995 they established the TUTA to bring challenging theater with unique and exceptional ideas to American audiences. Gentle, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s story by Zeljko Djukic. Photo: Kurtis Boetcher. Courtesy of TUTA Theatre Chicago.

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works and by training a cohort of theater include important productions of Guy de professionals inculcated with southeastern Maupassant’s “The Jewels,” featuring European dramatic traditions. Their noted Chicago actor Kirk Anderson; company has nurtured rising talent Berlin-based Blue Man Group veteran through studios and various productions Martin Marion’s whimsical “The Anyway insuring a steady stream of actors capable Cabaret (an animal cabaret)” satirizing of performing the kind of theater they the events of the day; plus classics by valued from their years in Belgrade. Brecht, Chekov, and Dostoevsky. Known for presenting the works of Serbian Following several early successes-- playwrights--including the world premieres including a well-received adaptation of of Ugljesa Saijtinac’s “Huddersfeld” “Alice in Wonderland”--Zeljko and Natasha and Milena Markovic’s “Tracks”--TUTA secured their positions within the Chicago similarly has presented major works from community with a stunning staging of the contemporary Russian repertoire Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.” Critics called including the American premier of notable their production of the Russian classic the Yekaterinburg playwright Oleg Bogaev’s best work in Chicago theater for 2008. “Maria’s Fields.” Indeed, reviewers ran out of superlatives for the production, calling it compelling, The Djukics have experimented with extraordinary, lingeringly lovely infused with a variety of formats to engage new tenderness and humanity. They deemed audiences. TUTA has performed cabaret- Zeljko’s direction to be a masterpiece style, presented works responding of subtlety and simultaneously admired to contemporary events and has run Natasha’s costumes. One critic, Venus dramatic laboratories in such popular Zarris, writing for the “Steadstyle Chicago” venues as the Pritzker Pavilion stage in website concluded that the production Millennium Park. These settings cultivate proved to be “nothing short of the new audiences for the company far quintessential ‘Uncle Vanya,’ sure to beyond Chicagoans embracing the avant- delight the Chekhov devotee and novice garde. alike.” Russian-language theater critic Sergei Elkin considers this and other Among the several components of TUTA’s TUTA’s productions to be landmarks of success have been Zeljko and Natasha’s Chicago theatrical life. dedication to developing new talent and an appreciative audience; as well as their TUTA has brought contemporary belief in the importance of European European theater to the American dramatic theater--both classic and Midwest, having presented a half-dozen contemporary--for American viewers. In world premier productions as well as bringing southeastern European theatrical nearly as many American premiers. Almost traditions to the New World, they have all their plays were new to Chicago. These reinvigorated the Chicago stage in return. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 10 l

Lawrence Edelson and Opera May 18, 2017

Opera producer Lawrence Edelson and Boston ballet, Ballet West and BalletMet composer/librettist Mark Adamo had Columbus before moving to choreography been enjoying a pleasant enough summer for both opera and ballet companies. At in 2002 as they worked away on a the same time, he sang in opera, oratorio production of Adamo’s 1998 opera “Little and musical theater. Women” at Cooperstown, New York’s Glimmerglass Opera. The production Adamo grew up in suburban Philadelphia was going well and the weather in New before attending New York University, York’s Finger Lakes district had remained where he gained recognition for comfortable, if a bit wet at times. Still, undergraduate achievement in playwriting. breaks now and then were welcomed He graduated from The Catholic University so, in need of an interlude in the mission in Washington with honors in music of bringing an opera to the stage, they composition and was hired by New York set off for drinks. Sometime later in this City Opera to curate a contemporary century, that particular cocktail hour may opera workshop. Subsequently, he be remembered as recharting the course became the company’s composer-in- of American opera. residence.

As Edelson and Adamo settled in, Adamo’s first opera--“Little Women”-- they began to chat about how so enjoyed instant success. Within a few many programs existed to help the years of its premier by Houston Grand sorts of younger singers performing at Opera, the opera based on Louisa May Glimmerglass. Nevertheless, very little Alcott’s novel had been broadcast on systematic support existed for mentoring National Public Radio and the Public those who wanted to write operas as Broadcasting System; had been Adamo had been doing to critical and performed by opera companies across audience acclaim. the United States; and, had appeared on opera stages around the world. The opera Neither Edelson nor Adamo were quickly became a staple of American newcomers to the world of American summer festivals, which is how Adamo opera. A native of Ottawa, Edelson had found himself at Glimmerglass with studied voice and musicology at the Edelson. University of Ottawa before heading to New York to study dance at The Having learned their way around the Joffrey Ballet School. He performed with backstages of opera houses, they understood that hiring young singers was l 11 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

an asset for many companies as they cost to develop new works which spoke to the less than established singers. Taking a present day. He established the American risk on a new opera, on the other hand, Lyric Theater (ALT) based in New York carried very real costs; especially as few to collaborate with other companies to companies had the resources necessary produce new operas. to nurture writing talent. Edelson decided to do something about this particular The challenges of producing new opera lacuna in the American opera enterprise. were numerous and complex. Many American companies already were doing Both Edelson and Adamo were concerned so; yet they often achieved less than about the seeming decline in American hoped. Edelson realized that great operas audiences for their beloved performing do not just happen; they begin with great art. Edelson’s master’s thesis for the music and great librettos. Recognizing performing arts administration program at the need to nurture new composers and New York University was titled: “Opera: librettists, he mobilized ALT’s resources The Irrelevant Art: Uniting Marketing and to launch the “Composer Librettist Organizational Strategy to Combat the Development Program” (CLDP) in 2007. Depopularization of Opera in the United States.” He was concerned about the CLDP has become the country’s first and art’s ability to attract and sustain new only complete mentorship program for audiences with works that were removed operatic writers. The program is designed from contemporary life. American opera to attract and nurture accomplished faced numerous trials, including the need playwrights, poets, symphonic composers,

Lawrence Edelson mentoring Jeremy Howard Beck and Stephanie Fleischmann. Photo courtesy of American Lyric Theater.

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lyricists and musical theater as well as A little more than two centuries have opera professionals to become opera passed since Lorenzo Da Ponte--the composers and lyricists. Predicated on librettist for Mozart’s most famous Italian opera being a storytelling form, CLDP operas “The Marriage of Figaro,” “Don favors narrative works setting writing for Giovanni,” and “Così fan tutte”--fled a classically trained singers into pieces for swarm of European creditors for America the contemporary stage. along with his common law wife Nancy Grahl and their four children. Moving Working with prominent opera authorities, among several failed businesses--including program participants are given the grocery and book stores in New York and opportunity to learn opera dramaturgy, Pennsylvania--Da Ponte eventually gained to hone their creative craft, to collaborate an appointment as Columbia College’s with others in developing new works and (later University’s) first professor of Italian to learn how to move their ideas through Literature. Seemingly settled in the New the creative process to production. The World, Da Ponte produced the first full program’s first year favors collaborative performance of “Don Giovanni” in the partnerships among entering class United States in 1825, thus introducing members. Faculty commission works from New York and North America to opera. In the most promising contributors during the 1833, when he was 84, Da Ponte founded program’s second year. the short-lived New York Opera Company CLDP alumni are presenting their works which eventually became the precursor to to growing acclaim across the country’s the New York Academy of Music and the opera stages, including the Chicago New York Metropolitan Opera. Lyric Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera took hold in America and, by the Opera Philadelphia, Fort Worth Opera, time the bicentennial of Da Ponte’s initial and Opera Saratoga, where Edelson has production arrives in 2025, the country been Artistic and General Director since will have dozens of opera companies and 2014. As important, opera companies festivals. In no small measure because of around the country increasingly are the efforts of Edelson and his colleagues, investing in supporting librettists and the anniversary will be met as well with a composers through various initiatives robust repertoire of new American works including commissions, residencies and speaking to the experiences of new more limited mentorship programs. In just American opera fans. a decade, the U.S. opera enterprise has created a variety of initiatives supporting and promoting American-created opera.

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Vanessa German and Spoken Word Opera March 1, 2017

One afternoon in December 2016, well comfort to those who live lives of “ordinary over one-hundred denizens of official fear,” beginning in her adopted home of Washington crowded into an auditorium Homewood. in the Woodrow Wilson Center to celebrate “creative placemaking.” With Once the home to various Carnegies, then NEA Chair Jane Chu, New Orleans Mayor Irish, Italian, German and black residents, Mitch Landrieu, and Kresge Foundation Homewood, in eastern Pittsburgh, was at President Rip Rapson looking on, a young one time a place of middle-class life and African-American artist stepped to the easy diversity. City plans in the 1950s for stage and transported the entire room into a sports arena and other public facilities another dimension with her moving poem displaced 8,000 residents, touching off a about the children of the Homewood spiral of decline that accelerated following neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. disturbances after the assassination of Dr. German transformed the afternoon into a Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968. By spiritual awakening with what many were the turn of the twenty-first century, some calling the most inspiring performance they 2,400 residents, of whom 98.3% were had ever seen anywhere. African American, claimed Homewood as their home; and nearly all were poor. German is an accomplished self- Criminal violence accentuated the taught artist whose works have been neighborhood’s reputation as a place to incorporated into some of the country’s avoid. This was where Vanessa German leading museums. She has shared the came for inspiration, and to redefine the stage with luminaries such as former meaning of art for communities often President Bill Clinton. Closer to home, the bypassed by the creative class. Pittsburgh Center for the Arts named her as its 2012 Emerging Artist of the Year. German, the daughter of a well-known German’s deep exploration of indigenous fiber artist, was born in Wisconsin, raised urban art forms melds painting, sculpture, in Los Angeles as well as in suburban textiles, poetry and music into what Cincinnati before settling on Pittsburgh as Pittsburgh Magazine has called “a collage her home. She established her reputation of community activism and soul-searching as a sculptor producing what she came artistry” unlike anything that has come to call “contemporary power figures.” In before. As personal as her art may be, she the words of the curators at Baltimore’s is about more than individual expression. American Visionary Art Museum, her art German seeks to use art to give voice and transforms everyday objects “into an iconography of astonishing metaphors.” SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 14 l

Vanessa German. Photo: Wilson Center

Moving beyond the visual, German writes has devoted her life to nurturing a cohort and performs poetry that elevates the of children who add their own sparks, everyday to the mystical, as she did that moving Spoken Word Opera ahead. December afternoon in Washington. Drawing on any number of street traditions Her inspiration for the concept of from hip hop to meringue, she crafts what moving spoken word performance in she has called “Spoken Word Opera”--a new directions arose while growing up mixing of spoken word poetry, storytelling, in Los Angeles. She recalls attending a music and movement. In 2014, Pittsburgh performance of the Alvin Ailey Company Mayor Bill Peduto called on German to that included a piece set to the words perform at his inauguration, which led her of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The more to produce the dramatic poem “The City is she listened to King’s speeches the more Ours Today.” she heard a gathering up of creative understanding in which, she has said, German finds sustenance in Homewood, love unfurls its petals. The insights she where she sees life, motion, and music drew from King’s rhetoric convinced her even as others see only blight. She draws of a need to move beyond the limits of on that energy to create and then returns language. The result has been a theatrical it to her neighbors. Embracing community and passionate style of storytelling as a force that advances her art, German that combines various art forms into l 15 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

performance that does not fit in any single to a contemporary fusion of artistic forms genre. marks a qualitatively new artistic genre, Spoken Word Opera. She merges various From the outset of her time in Homewood, historic and contemporary strands of German noticed how interested African American culture into a unified neighborhood children were in her work production, expanding spoken word after painting and sculpting on her front poetry by infusing it with the theatricality of porch. When asked by local children, opera, African American storytelling, and “what is you doin’ in this neighborhood?” enhanced theatricality. she responds, because “you live in this neighborhood…. Because you are good At the close of her performance in and strong and you fly.” Washington that December afternoon German declared that “freedom is the She subsequently opened her front sound of the loud man drunk on the porch to all who wanted to join her in sun.” She exhorted those in that official artistic creation. Her porch--now known Washington, D.C. auditorium to “rise as if as Love’s Front Porch, an ARTHouse-- the sun, get up from whence you was” and became a refuge for children in a violent “tell your story and then restore us with the neighborhood as well as an incubator for story/ and rise.” In doing so she unlocked talent that otherwise might go unnoticed. the door on the room of infinite possibilities The children paint, sculpt, write music that she believes is energized by the power and poetry, and perform. They constantly of love. In her new spoken opera, everyone engage their community, as happened can go to places they never could imagine. when she printed signs reading, “Stop The magic and mystery of that journey is, shooting…Live Love Respect” and placed for her, the transformative and redemptive them with the help of the children all power of art; a power she enhances by around the neighborhood. linking art and community. German is as artistically ambitious as she is socially determined. Her commitment SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 16 l

Hernán Jacinto and Argentine Jazz October 11, 2017

Hernán Jacinto. Photo courtesy of Hernán Jacinto.

Tucked away a couple of blocks off the jazz fans worldwide. Large enough to prominent commercial avenue Santa Fe be comfortable and close enough to be in a distinctly middle class section of the convivial, the Thelonious is a perfect room well-groomed Buenos Aires neighborhood for attentive listening. of Palermo hides a small doorway with the tiniest of possible signs invisible to Musicians Lucas and Ezequiel Cutaia all who do not bother to look for it. Up opened the club in 2000 to provide just a treacherous winding marble staircase the sort of friendly venue their fellow hides the Buenos Aires’ venerable musicians needed as a shared home Thelonious Jazz Club. Stretched out over base in a teeming and chaotic metropolis the Toledo Bakery and Pastry Shop, the of seventeen million souls. They craved club’s main two-story room shifts mood to have a place that recalled the famous from a sofa living-room style seating area musician hangouts of New York and past a congenially cluttered and well- Chicago; and they have succeeded in stocked bar area on to the more traditional nurturing and realizing their vision. They tables and stage arrangement known to were doubly fortunate in founding their l 17 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

club just as a master jazz musician--pianist jazz and, increasingly, electronic musical Hernán Jacinto--was coming of age. modalities.

Born in 1981 in Buenos Aires, Jacinto Jacinto’s terrific talents make him a was a child prodigy who began as a noteworthy addition to global jazz. Yet, self-taught pianist at the age of seven. he is more. As his success has grown, He quickly demonstrated genuine talent Jacinto has become a focal point for the and studied classical piano with Claudio impressive yet disparate Buenos Aires Espector of the National Conservatory jazz scene. Appearing at Thelonious and jazz piano and harmony with Diego and other venues, he attracts the city’s Schissi, Guillermo Romero and Ernesto best musicians. His favored trio includes Jodos. These mentors prepared him well prodigious bassist Jerónimo Carmona enough to win a scholarship to study at and drummer Daniel Pipi Piazzolla (yes, the renowned Berklee College of Music in he is Astor’s grandson). His performances Boston. Berklee brought him into contact are punctuated by guest appearances by with leading musicians from around the local musicians of varying ages and skills world, hence he set off touring Europe who sit in on one number or another. By with Austrian saxophonist Karlheinz Miklin sharing his own presence with others, he and Latin America with compatriot bassist has created an increasingly vibrant jazz Javier Malosetti. Jacinto’s reputation scene that demands growing recognition quickly grew so that by 2009 he received abroad. He also nurtures new audiences the prestigious Clarín Prize as the Jazz who become introduced to jazz as they Revelation of the Year. seek Jacinto out; and cultivates musicians who, like he himself, emerge from Jacinto began to appear regularly at surprising corners of the great metropolis. leading jazz haunts in Buenos Aires, including the Thelonious Club and the Few cities are more musical than Buenos Bebop Club, with the city’s leading Aires, and fewer still have given the musicians such as internationally world as distinctive sound as tango. acclaimed Andres Boiarsky. He also Now ubiquitous, tango has evolved from appeared playing both classical and jazz a pariah brothel sound to an instantly repertoires in television broadcasts across recognizable global musical powerhouse. Latin America. His monstrous technique The city always offers opportunities for its and unique harmonic sense allows him musicians to find a gig playing what every to move effortlessly from the sadly sweet tourist wants to hear. Classical and jazz delicacy of his city’s tango sound to musicians--and, to some extent, traditional the fiercely abstract improvisations that Argentine folk artists--have to struggle dominate post-Bop modern jazz. He to make their way through the thicket of also moves seamlessly among classical, tangomania. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 18 l

Jazz musicians in particular need safe places to improvise and play off of one another; and they need listeners who appreciate what they achieve when they do. Clubs such as the Thelonious provide pleasing venues to attract audiences to the sound of jazz. Places alone are not enough to keep the music alive. Dedicated musicians who draw on their own popularity to redirect the gaze of appreciative audiences to other talents must fill those venues. Buenos Aires at this particular moment in its musical history is fortunate to have a native promoter of jazz living in it. Hernán Jacinto brings new verve to his music, and new ears to his performances. l 19 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

Andrew Kingsley, Andrew Vaught and Social Impact Theater October 18, 2017

New Orleans in the Spring 2006 was At the same time, something phenomenal a wounded city. Just months after the was happening. New Orleans and the Gulf devastation of Hurricane Katrina and Coast had become the location of perhaps its aftermath, the city hardly functioned. the largest private, voluntary charitable Less than half the pre-storm population project in American history. Hundreds if not had returned, and much of the city’s thousands of volunteers came to town to infrastructure still lay in ruin. As Gary Rivlin try to put what was broken back together noted in his book, Katrina: After the Flood: again. Students, church groups, medical professionals, educators, musicians and Broken stoplights still dangled artists came to town intent on saving the in parts of the central business city and its unique culture. There never district. Stores even in the center had been a civic charitable response of of town remained shuttered a year such magnitude to a disaster on United after Katrina. To reach the city’s States soil. economic-development office one entered through a side door, While many of the volunteers and as the revolving doors out front organizations came for specific purposes were still boarded up. Shell was and limited periods, some decided to stay back, but Chevron announced it and commit to the city’s uncertain future. was moving its offices to higher This was especially true of many young ground in the suburbs. Traffic at the artists, musicians, dancers and chefs for port was almost back to normal, whom New Orleans was too precious to but the city’s manufacturing base lose. post-Katrina was almost non- New Orleans long has nurtured existent. One survey found that a distinctive culture rooted in the twelve months after the storm, two improvisational blending of its various in every three businesses were human and natural ingredients. Tulane still closed. Shops catering to University historian Lawrence Powell tourists complained that they were captures its distinctive heritage in his city doing maybe half their pre-storm business. One local economist history, The Accidental City: predicted that 40 percent of the The kitchens may have been city’s businesses would end up a French, but the cooks were slaves, casualty of Katrina.1 SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 20 l

tossing in the same kettle culinary Kingsley and Andrew Vaught--were among ingredients plucked from three them. continents. They received direction Kingsley and Vaught came with a belief from the mistress of the house, but that the theatrical arts should engage they were the ones who occupied with society and with the issues of the the nexus of town and country. day. Post-Katrina New Orleans cried Not only did they cook the food out for discussions of the city’s endless but they purchased the groceries challenges which could transcend existing from petty tradesmen and footloose social, racial, economic and political trappers, themselves slaves, and divisions. They saw theater as a means for in the process, they skimmed off framing the most difficult problems facing something extra--‘lagniappe’, as the city while engaging its numerous later generations would describe contentious communities. Their Cripple it--in the form of income and Creek Theatre Company was born out victuals…. In other words, African of an engagement with a traumatized slaves not only stirred the pot; they city that seemingly was overwhelmed by filled it too.2 insolvable problems. What was true of the pots and pans Founded in 2006, the Cripple Creek that hung over the stoves of this swamp Theatre Company has grown from two metropolis proved equally true when New company members to more than ten Orleanians put down their spoons and currently with Co-Artistic Director Emilie knives and picked up musical instruments, Whelan, reflecting the animated diversity writing pens and paint brushes. Even that has always marked New Orleans and Edgar Degas reinvented himself as a its culture. The company has enjoyed painter while visiting relatives in the city. artistic success and acclaim while The result has been a distinctive blend producing nearly three dozen theatrical that has remained resistant to the forces works of social importance. From their shaping a broader American mass culture. first production, Tennessee Williams’ Two of New Orleans’ earliest suburbs- The Kingdom of Earth, to their most -the nineteenth century neighborhoods recent--such as a lively production of of Faubourg Marigny and Bywater just Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew- downriver from the foundational French -Kingsley and Vaught consciously used Quarter--that had been spared Katrina’s theater to explore the most difficult issues rising waters, quickly became favored confronting their city in order to provoke stomping grounds for idealistic and social action. creative new arrivals. Two theater majors Kingsley and Vaught held open auditions from Ohio’s Kenyon College--Andrew from the very beginning. At the outset, l 21 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

they needed flexibility to find the artistic promoting civic and social engagement, talent required for their ambitious they have positioned their productions to productions in a city slowly recovering include workshops, creative collaborations from catastrophe. Their productions, and post-show conversations which serve including such works as Lanford Wilson’s to enhance audiences’ understanding of Balm in Galead, Bruce Norris’s Clybourne the social issues addressed in the pieces Park, Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the they present. More strikingly, they tour to People, August Strinderg’s Erik the underserved audiences throughout the XIV and Jules Feiffer’s Little Murders, city and region. Their 2017 presentation presented artistically challenging plays of Taming of the Shew, for example, revolving around the most pressing social opened at the Dixon Correctional and political issues of the moment from Institute in Jackson, Louisiana before the perspective of other times and places. being performed on the New Orleans Open auditions showcased new talent Shakespeare Festival’s mainstage season. and reinforced connections between Previously, the company offered, a three- universally acclaimed works and their local course maritime-inspired dinner by Chef community. Jessie Wightkin served between acts and produced works at the Saturn Bar Kingsley and Vaught extended their before heading to the Bayou Playhouse in outreach beyond the stage, bringing their Lockport, Louisiana. work directly into communities rarely served by theater. They did so to discover Not surprisingly given its origins in a hurt talent, nurture audiences and sponsors, city and its mission of social engagement, and more. Building on their goal of the company has moved around quite a bit. In addition to temporary stages--including a residency at the Shadowbox Theatre housed in a former pharmacy along Marigny’s Saint Claude Avenue--the company most recently has found a home in the heart

Saint Claude Arts District in New Orleans, Louisiana. Photo: SL Snyder (Flickr) https://flic.kr/p/4x832B SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 22 l

of the Saint Claude Arts District at the and complex disunions. In doing so, AllWays Theatre. the community expands the company’s creative impulse, encouraging it to take on Settled into AllWays’ two-story nondescript fresh artistic challenges. Beyond audience New Orleans roadhouse brightly painted cultivation, the company’s Louisiana Stage in pastels, the company shares the stage Writers’ Workshop promotes inventive with bayou blues burlesque shows, expression among imaginative people cabaret and dance nights, perfect partners who, like Kingsley and Vaught, came to for the social impact theater Kingsley and find their muse in the ever provocative city Vaught seek to cultivate. Saint Claude of New Orleans. at this point is a bit too wide--and the buildings a bit too modest--to ever claim In 2013, the company presented Vaught’s the moniker “charming.” The area is too original work Possum Kingdom, which told industrial, the trees on the street’s neutral the story of an economic dystopia in which ground (median) too spindly and the forest dwellers who scrape trees to sell sidewalks too cracked to ever be called their covering are in constant competition “grand.” More importantly, the atmosphere with killer possums who aggressively bristles with creative energy, the sort scavenger from the forest dwellers in a of vitality produced by exciting artistic Darwinian competition for resources. The visionaries doing all they can to create a audience arrived at a backyard on St. community constantly responding to the Claude Avenue decked out in colored deepest and most painful challenges of lights. When conversations stopped at the moment. Be it bayou blues burlesque the surprise of the lights having gone out, or Shakespeare, dedicated artists such ushers with flashlights emerged to escort as Kingsley and Vaught are working in the audience members down a winding all variety of genres to insure that post- path covered with roots and leaves to a Katrina New Orleans remains a global cluster of seats facing some trees. There, creative hot spot. in the dark interior of an otherworldly city block, the play began. At that moment Vaught challenges the company and everyone knew they could be no place himself to remain mindful of whom they other than New Orleans--a city where the serve in a world full of distraction. His goal phantasmagorically improvisational rules a has been to stimulate communication and world beset by constant struggle. engagement across the city’s numerous

Endnotes

1 Gary Rivlin, Katrina: After the Flood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015), p. 292.

2 Lawrence N. Powell, The Accidental City. Improvising New Orleans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), pp. 97-98. l 23 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

Nikolai Kolyada and Playwriting May 3, 2017

The master dramatist Nikolai Kolyada reach, and close enough to the Siberian has made himself the center of gravity prisons to become a magnet for newly around which much of the new drama released prisoners. It stood astride world revolves in Yekaterinburg, Russia, major transportation routes connecting a city of 1.4 million residents just beyond narcotics-growing fields to the south the Urals tucked inside the edge of Asia. and east and drug markets to the west, Born in 1957 in the bleak and remote with a vast population of factory workers provincial settlement of Presnogor’kovka and their families who were beginning in the Kustanay Region, Kolyada trundled to feel the first indications of a national off to the theater school in Sverdlovsk- economic collapse that would shut down -as Yekaterinburg was known for much their factories. Everything about the of the Soviet period--at a young age. city promoted the emergence of vast, Graduating at twenty, he began a career disciplined, aggressive, and malevolent on stage with the Sverdlovsk Academic bands of armed criminals, hangers-on, Theatre of Drama. As an aspiring actor, and wannabes. he played the sorts of wide-ranging, As the Soviet industrial economy collapsed ever-more-prominent roles that are typical in the late 1980s and early 1990s, criminal of the Russian repertoire. But Kolyada cartels--known in Russia as “mafiyas”-- was drawn to writing, so he enrolled in moved in to lay claim to the region’s vast the prestigious Gorky Literary Institute mineral wealth; to seize and dismantle in Moscow. This move brought him to the enormous factories that could only be the Soviet capital at the height of the used as scrap; to sell off light and heavy excitement and ferment prompted by weaponry from military bases that were Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost’ (openness) no longer under any form of discernible and perestroika (restructuring) policies. control; to traffic in desperate human The Soviet-era Sverdlovsk he left behind beings trying to find some way to survive; earned a reputation as one of the most to push drugs and launder their profits; criminally violent in the entire Soviet Union. and to extort whenever possible. Indeed, the same factors that enriched its These gangs entered into turf battles economic and cultural life made it a natural following the collapse of the Soviet Union, center for vice. The city was sufficiently unleashing a brutal and massive gang far from Moscow to be beyond its direct war. Explosions, shootings, and murders control yet close enough to remain within became a daily occurrence from 1992 SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 24 l

until 1994, with Yekaterinburg earning a to direct and produce plays, to organize reputation as the most criminal-plagued theater festivals (e.g., the Eurasian Drama city in Russia. With turf divided up by late Competition Festival, which began in 1994, criminal cartels allegedly expanded 2003, as well as the Kolyada-Plays their horizons, reputedly laying claim Festival, which began in 2006), and to to various local, regional, and national serve as an intellectual leader in the Urals political positions. region (as confirmed by his decade-long editorship of the intellectual journal Ural). Post-Soviet Russia’s criminal gangs in These activities nurtured and sustained a Yekaterinburg and elsewhere thrived by thriving theater community in this Soviet drawing new recruits from those who felt rust-belt leviathan. they had lost out during the collapse of the Soviet Union. By the late 1990s, Russia had In December 2001, Kolyada founded his no shortage of those who had been slapped own company, the Kolyada Theatre, which in the face, pushed into the gutter, and initially performed at Pushkin House in abandoned during the post-Soviet collapse- a historic Yekaterinburg neighborhood. -and no shortage of writers and artists trying Though operating with almost no state to give form and meaning to their travails. funding, Kolyada kept his company together Which brings us back to Kolyada. at times by asking its members to bring in any items that they no longer needed at Once in Moscow, Kolyada became a home, and by drawing on the considerable cause célèbre after penning Slingshot international interest in his work to secure (1986), a play that offered a sympathetic support for his actors and protégés. view of a gay relationship. While shocking Moscow, Kolyada found an enthusiastic Kolyada attracted controversy yet reception in California where the play again. Unlike many among the was performed at the San Diego Russian intelligentsia, he publicly and Repertory Theater. He became an enthusiastically embraced the 2012 international sensation for the first time. candidacy of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin After graduating from the Gorky Institute for a return term as Russian president. The in 1989, he returned to Sverdlovsk move brought Kolyada a wave of outrage and, since 1994, has taught at the and approbation from many former Yekaterinburg Theatrical Institute, offering supporters, combined with charges that one of the few playwriting and dramaturge he had sold out to those in power in order curricula in Russia. to secure a new theater.

Once back in the Urals, Kolyada began While Kolyada thrived, many observers to write plays (more than one hundred, of were arguing that Russian theater was which more than half have been performed just one more victim of the post-Soviet in Russia and abroad), to teach others to transition. But just as some were sounding write and act (his students include some of the death knell for the Russian stage, a Russia’s most exciting young playwrights), New Russian Drama Movement coalesced l 25 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

around talented writers and directors who playwrights living in Russia as well as were liberated by the end of censorship abroad. The Kolyada-Plays Festival that accompanied the collapse of concentrates more directly on his own communism; actors who were increasingly work together with that of his students. exposed to a rich tapestry of competing Yekaterinburg theater seasons during styles now unencumbered by the legacy the 2000s have included new directors, of the Soviet stage’s ossified psychological new plays, new writers, and new stars, realism; and audience members who as the local opera company, ballet were trying to find their own lives amid company, academic dramatic theater, the wreckage of post-Soviet culture being children’s theater, and smaller chamber overrun by the most degraded and least theaters have attracted fresh talent. Local creative artifacts of increasingly globalized productions--whether they are tragedies pop culture. or dark comedies, multi-act or single-act As important as Kolyada has been productions, allegories or high realism-- for the theatrical and cultural scene in share a concern with the joys and pains Yekaterinburg, his ambitions extend far of everyday life in a turbulent society. They beyond its boundaries. He has sought to emerge from the individual keyboards of free Russian theater from its traditional writers who are embedded in the wider fixation on director-producers (rezhissery) community of writers and theatrical so that it can find a new focus on writers. institutions--writers who are engaged in This commitment to writing becomes a common search for meaning in a city, especially evident in the city’s Eurasian society, and country where every marker of Drama Competition, which has become stability and identity has vanished. Writers a showcase for Russian-language nurtured in large measure by Nikolai Kolyada and the community he has helped create.

Nikolai Kolyada’s ensemble. Photo courtesy of the Kolyada Theatre. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 26 l

Larissa Koniuk and Bicycle Opera October 4, 2017

Few places on the planet are more of the National Sawdust’s 200 seat hip than Brooklyn’s National Sawdust, space combined with the proximity of the which, according to its website, as “an singers’ live voices to forge an empathetic unparalleled, artist-led, non-profit venue, connection among the audience, is a place for exploration and discovery. performers and the nameless sweatshop A place where emerging and established workers around whom the story swirls in artists can share their music with serious The Bicycle Opera Company’s a cappella music fans and casual listeners alike.” chamber opera Sweat. Just as important for company founder and artistic director Housed in the shell of a former Larissa Koniuk would be the show’s sawdust factory in the “Hipster Central” subsequent 600 kilometer, two-week Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, there bicycle tour through the un-hip towns of is little that is traditional about the place. Southern Ontario. Thanks to the teamwork of leading architects with Bureau V and acoustic Contemporary Canadian opera has engineers at Arup Acoustics, National prospered in recent years as companies Sawdust has emerged as one of New large and small--such as Toronto’s York’s premier venues for contemporary Tapestry Opera and the Toronto Symphony music. The stately New Yorker magazine Orchestra’s New Creations program--have covers its season openings together with promoted contemporary opera and choral those of the august Metropolitan Opera a works. Toronto-based soprano Koniuk few miles and cultural lightyears away on has built a successful singing and acting Manhattan’s Upper West Side. career gaining particular notice for her interpretations of new vocal compositions. Despite all the trappings of planned She has become a “go-to” performer for spontaneity and crafted informality, works ranging from The Bells of Baddleck- National Sawdust is a most serious -a music-drama about Alexander Graham place for performers and inventors of and Mabel Bell performed at the Alexander contemporary music to launch a new Graham Bell National Historic Site in work. Critics notice when a small, Toronto- Baddeck, Nova Scotia--to engagements in based contemporary opera company Toronto, Montreal and Los Angeles. that gets to its performances by bicycle premiers a new work at the Sawdust. The company’s mission has been to bring the vibrant music being written The Village Voice did in October 2016, for in Canada to audiences for whom it is example, when it declared the immediacy l 27 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

unknown. An enthusiastic environmentalist Had the move from the countryside and cycler, Koniuk joined with singer/ improved their lives? ethnomusicologist Nadia Channa in 2012 to launch summertime operatic Prompted by the ethical dilemmas poised bicycle expeditions across Ontario. As by their own shopping expeditions in the Bicycle Opera Company grew, the search of discount clothing, Chatterton circuits extended to Nova Scotia; as the and Palmer recreate the sonic world of newly commissioned works became more the factory floor with an a cappella chorus ambitious, the company began extended and no instrumentation. They set out the stays in Toronto and, in 2016, in Brooklyn. lives of the workers toiling under dingy conditions as they battle with one another The company of a dozen or so performers and the larger world over forming a union. and support staff typically arrive in town The factory owner and overseer want to before sunset, perform the next day, and lock the factory doors in response until all move on. Some productions require that the orders for dresses have been fulfilled. costumes, props and larger instruments such as cellos are transported in carriages To reflect the global reach of the attached to cycles. Their cycle caravan sweatshop economy, Chatterton wrote the catches the attention of audiences and words sung by the four leading characters resident media alike. Minor on-the-road in English, Cantonese, Tamil and mishaps (such as busted tubes and Hungarian. In doing so, the creative team broken spokes) frequently lead to chance underscored the work’s immediate social encounters with locals along the road who commentary as they used the languages invariably become fans. spoken in contemporary international media reports of worker abuse. This exoticism captures attention of many who have never given much thought to Sweat is but one of Bicycle Opera’s works contemporary music. The company’s high which seeks to break down barriers quality performances and promotion of between audiences and performers by important innovative new work lures in highlighting the power of storytelling serious aficionados, as their performances through the expressiveness of the human of the new opera Sweat demonstrated. voice in intimate spaces. Cycling into town is another part of the package. The bike Librettist Anna Chatterton and composer grease breaks down any lingering notions Juliet Palmer set their opera in a generic that opera must be an elitist enterprise. contemporary sweatshop of indeterminate location to lure the audience into Toronto in recent years has emerged considering the workers themselves. Why as a global hotspot for contemporary were they doing such underpaid and music with many companies--such as difficult labor? What were their dreams? Esprit Orchestra, New Music Concerts, Continuum, Contact and Music Gallery- -focusing on a 21st century repertoire. audience that appreciates them. Since its The city is home to more than a half- founding in 1979, for example, Tapestry dozen opera companies offering a variety Opera has premiered 160 opera shorts, of opera ranging from the large-scale twenty chamber operas or experimental classical productions of the Canadian operatic works and seventeen full length Opera Company to small studio Canadian works. companies. Two opera companies- -Tapestry and Bicycle--focus on Conventional wisdom suggests that contemporary work. Brooklyn is about as hip as hip can get at the moment. Yet, even Brooklyn did This ecosystem supports composers, not nurture serious opera brought to new musicians, singers, librettists and audiences on the wheels of cycles. backstage workers alike, nurturing a steady flow of new works and the

Bicycle Opera. Photo: Gary Lloyd-Rees (Flickr) https://flic.kr/p/opb6Fs l 29 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

Brent Lindsay and Amy Pinto and Community- Specific Theater April 10, 2017

A garage door dominates the cinderblock consisting of non-Hispanic whites; more industrial storefront tucked onto Santa than a quarter being Hispanic or Latino Rosa, California’s Sebastopol Avenue next of any race, with the balance drawn from door to the Criminal Baking Company and African Americans, Native Americans and uncomfortably close to a major highway a dozen or more immigrant communities. cloverleaf. Only a splash of purple paint “Scrappy” rings true for the city and and a seemingly handmade red sign its internationally renowned theater suggest what lurks inside--an exciting company as much as the local Chamber scrappy theater company--The Imaginists, of Commerce’s claim that their city is dedicated to art, activism and community, “California’s Cornucopia.” bringing theater to the disenfranchised Lindsay and Pinto launched the company and the disenfranchised to contemporary with the goal of creating unintimidating American theater. The word “scrappy” has theater, completely re-thinking theater been applied so often to the company by who participates, where it happens and reviewers that the label amplifies how far what it is. They create works that reflect contemporary theater has moved from the variety of voices all around them and daily life. For founders Brent Lindsay and to do so in a way that break down existing Amy Pinto and their ensemble-driven hierarchies within the theater and within company, using theater to reach out the community. Ensemble, audiences to day laborers, undocumented youth, and community blend together as The immigrant rights groups, and English- Imaginists regularly collaborate with local Spanish bilingual audiences is not so partners traditionally excluded from the much “scrappy” as “normal.” stage. In doing so, they make no sacrifice Santa Rosa, the county seat for the famed in theatrical excellence. Sonoma Valley wine district, is itself at Not only do their superbly innovative the “scrappy” intersection of upscale and productions prompt Bay Area residents hardscrabble. Long an agricultural center, from San Francisco and Berkeley to travel Sonoma remained just far enough away an hour or more out of their comfort to be outside of the stresses and strains zones; they also take their shows on the of big city life in San Francisco, an hour or road. Their productions regularly tour so away. Presently home to approximately nationally and internationally, earning 175,000 residents, Santa Rosa has kudos as far away as Moscow. As become ever more diverse in recent important, their productions travel to local years with over half of the population SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 30 l

middle and high schools in low-income As the company notes in its website: districts. Such works focus on real-life Often the lives of the collected challenges for their audiences, such as ensemble bleed into the fabric the tale of a young undocumented person of the made-up world of the navigating the system to become a “real” performances we are making. We boy. Beyond touring, Lindsay, Pinto and play with the layers of who we are their associates participate in international and who we are pretending to be. exchanges with such leading companies We make theater of place and we as Hungarian Árpád Schilling’s cutting include people from that place in edge Kretakor. Such connections reach our productions. Our process has out within the United States and California grown out of many years of making as well, including an exchange with the theater with varied groups, from our Los Angeles-based Teatro Jornalero sin actor-driven beginnings to young Fronteras. people, community members, The Imaginists were preceded by the emerging artists, artists across Knights of Indulgence Theatre United discipline, and hybrids of all of States (KITUS), founded in 1993 by Pinto, these—always impelled to include Lindsay, and five other artist colleagues those who had never thought with the goal of moving theater beyond themselves performers. established bounds, conceived as a space In trying to describe how the company in which individual voices would contribute works, a member told an interviewer for to a shared understanding of community. The Oak Leaf News, “If other theaters By 2001, KITUS had grown into The are like farmers using the rich soil left by Imaginists under the leadership of Pinto volcanic lava, this theater is a volcano.” and Lindsay. Under the hand of director Lindsay, a In keeping with their non-traditional recent adaptation of Euripides’ The Trojan inclusionary mission, Pinto and Lindsay Women reimagined the surviving women encourage members to draw on their of war-torn Troy as a tired band of veteran own stories and imaginations to write and circus performers. Moving from shabby produce performances that are unique. dressing room to worn-out circus ring, the This goal has become embedded into women reenacted their tragic life stories the very production of plays, which begin and continuing battles to become the by gathering the ensemble for each twenty-first century WarCircus. As Helen new work to contribute ideas, stories, emerges from a giant steaming egg, images, writing, movement choreography Euripides becomes as contemporary as and/or research as part of their unique the iPhones carried by audience members. collaborative process. l 31 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

In SitCalm!, the Company deconstructs There, they set up an ever-evolving The the American television sitcom with Art is Medicine Show/El show el arte es Pinto and Lindsay playing mom and medicina. dad. Described by KQED’s Senior Arts Editor Chloe Veltman as “a totally warped Moving easily between English and take on sitcom tropes,” the play draws Spanish, the performers might draw from on stereotypical teenagers from all the a classical text--such as Federico Garcia ethnicities, backgrounds and personalities Lorca’s poetic drama The Butterfly’s Evil found in Santa Rosa to deliver a sprawling Spell/El Maleficio de la Maripoisa--or from dystopia about American family life and some new inspiration drawn from the television culture. actors’ imaginations, such as a recent take on Prometheus Bound: Calderon’s Every summer, Company members Life is a Dream. They invite audience take their show on the road with a “free, members on stage, or ask them to create bilingual, bicycle-powered” tour on Santa an end to the story. Some performances Rosa’s public parks, day laborer centers include community potluck meals, while and community centers. Beginning in others are a brief interruption in a summer 2001, they put their props, costumes evening’s merriment. and sets on their bikes and peddle off at sunset to nearby public settings. While “scrappy” is often employed by critics to describe the production,

The Imaginists. Photo courtesy of the Imaginists. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 32 l

audience members writing on Facebook art, activism and community and taking may have gotten closer to the truth by it to the disenfranchised. By doing so describing the company as: “Inventive;” Lindsay and Pinto are creating new “Creative, Angry, Itchy, Under-the-skin audiences for contemporary theater and irritating;” and, as “Brave. Fearless, transforming contemporary theater in the Inclusive. Honest. Uplifting.” These process. characteristics led KQED Theater Critic Once a visit to a park or a community John Wilkins to note that “Santa Rosa’s center is over, the actors load up the The Imaginists is the type of theater assorted tools of their trade, climb back company you wish every city had, deeply on their bicycles and peddle away. As they committed to community where they do so, they leave behind new connections reside, yet full of a cosmopolitan dash and between community and theater that are daring.” transforming both everyday life and art. Such comments underscore the company’s success at bringing together l 33 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

Hugo and Rebecca Medrano and Hispanic Theater October 25, 2017

In some ways Argentine actor and director culture in the city, the Washington Hugo Medrano began a career in theater metropolitan region was about to become at a most unpropitious time. He graduated an immigrant gateway. At first, large-scale from university with a degree in theater immigration came from countries torn studies just as his homeland was about by civil strife, followed soon thereafter to descend into a dark political era now by economic migration. If less than five known as the “Dirty War.” He set off for percent of Washington’s population was Spain to hone his craft, spending five foreign born when Medrano arrived in years working in theater there at the end the city in the early 1970s, almost fifteen of the Franco dictatorship. As with many percent would be in the early years of the South American intellectuals of the period, twenty-first century. he found refuge in the United States, Large immigrant communities spread settling into Washington, D.C. He initially across the Washington metropolitan worked in the city’s only Spanish-language region. During the 1990s alone, a quarter- theater at the time, a bilingual children’s million immigrants from 193 countries theater company Teatro Doble. and territories settled in the Washington Washington has rarely been considered metropolitan area as the region became a major outpost of Spanish-language the fifth most common destination for legal culture; though perhaps it should immigrants in the country, behind New be. The city’s long-established Latin York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. diplomatic community draws heavily on Unlike the patterns in more customary well-educated intellectuals steeped in receiving cities, no single immigrant group traditional Spanish language letters. As dominated; though a third travelled from the political, ideological and philosophical Latin America and the Caribbean, and conflicts unleashed by the geopolitics of Salvadorans constituted the region’s the Cold War ebbed and flowed, cultural largest single immigrant group. creators--including several future giants This was a moment when English from across South America--came translations of Latin American literature and left Washington, depending on the were moving to the top of best sellers ascendency of left or right political regimes lists. Growing interest in Latin American back home. magical realism lured more than a few Less visible, though no less significant for non-Spanish-reading intellectuals further the development of Spanish-language SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 34 l

and further into Spanish literary traditions. ungentrified multicultural bohemian Adams This was especially true in Washington, a Morgan neighborhood. city that was home to a well-educated and In 1976, operating out of a typical worldly professional middle class. Victorian-era brick D.C. townhouse, By the 1970s, demand in Washington Medrano and Read--who married was exploding for both high and low one another--joined with their friends brow Spanish language based culture. to establish the Grupo de Artistas Medrano arrived just at this seminal LatinoAmericanos (GALA). The consortium moment. Making his way around the embraced visual artists, writers, dancers, city’s Spanish-speaking communities singers, musicians and actors who wanted Medrano encountered Rebecca Read, to nurture Latino culture in Washington. a former dancer who was working at GALA’s productions presented Latin the Organization of American States. American works performed in Spanish Medrano and Read settled into the as-yet- as well as in English. From the very

GALA Hispanic Theatre. Photo courtesy of Shalev ‘Stan’ Weinstein. l 35 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

beginning, the Medranos and their As the century came to an end, the colleagues sought to integrate their Latin D.C. government requested proposals American artistic traditions and sensibilities for redevelopment of the historic Tivoli into the larger Washington cultural Theater in the increasingly multicultural community. Columbia Heights community to support the area’s revitalization. Designed by Early GALA productions often showcased noteworthy theater architect Thomas the political themes of the era. Many W. Lamb, the Tivoli was a city landmark immigrants in Washington at the time had when it opened in 1924. A few years fled their homelands for political reasons, later ownership passed to Warner as including intellectuals who were escaping part of a consolidation of the company’s dictatorships. Joined by large numbers of Washington operations. Central American migrants escaping civil war, politics naturally were at the top of The Tivoli survived as a cinema until the everyone’s mind. GALA quickly developed April 1968 civil disturbances following the an additional educational mission, assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. presenting children’s plays and working when the neighborhood suffered severe with community leaders to transfer Latino damage and was slow to recover. The cultures to the next generation. Such building was boarded up in 1976 and sat outreach and children’s theater efforts have vacant for the next quarter century. remained central to GALA’s operations The Medranos had long been interested ever since. in the building and joined in a proposal By the turn of the twenty-first century submitted by the Horning Brothers GALA had become a widely-respected developers to convert the building into and much-praised presence on the a mix of offices and retail with a theater. D.C. cultural scene. During its first three City officials were taken with the idea of decades, the company produced nearly returning the Tivoli to its original theatrical 150 plays in Spanish and English while purpose as well as recognizing GALA’s supporting poetry, music and dance contributions to the neighborhood over the programming. The company established a previous decades. In 2005 the Medranos network of actors who came from across moved their company into its now the Americas to perform in Washington, permanent home. and became a leading institutional Over the course of the two decades of touchstone for the city’s growing Hispanic the company’s residence at the Tivoli, community. Nonetheless, they still did not GALA has consolidated its presence have a permanent home. in an ever-growing Washington theater SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 36 l

scene. Recognition has followed with The at times difficult-to-please Washington the company winning several Helen Post critic Peter Marks could hardly Hayes awards and the Medranos being contain his enthusiasm. “So there is a named 2010 Washingtonians of the sense of linguistic homecoming for this Year by Washingtonian Magazine. The kaleidoscopic story of contemporary life company’s outreach programs have among the Americans of Puerto Rican, become a mainstay of child-oriented Dominican, Cuban, and Mexican descent cultural programming in the city; its highly in Manhattan’s Washington Heights to professional and innovative productions be sung,” he wrote in April 2017, “in regularly attract wide and diverse the language of its rollicking, struggling audiences, all just two miles uphill from the characters. And how grand for GALA White House. Hispanic Theatre, the tenacious company tacking Spanish and Latin American plays In 2017, the GALA premiered the first in Columbia Heights, to be the one to Spanish-language production of Lin- produce it.” Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights” to rave reviews. The show was a triumph for the Hugo and Rebecca Medrano are leaving values expressed by the founders of the an indelible mark on Washington, D.C. Grupo de Artistas LatinoAmericanos four and on American theater by embedding decades previously; all the more so as Latin American drama in the heart of it appeared in one of the nation’s most the Washington theater community. vibrant multicultural urban neighborhoods, GALA Theater demonstrates the power Columbia Heights, in a treasure of a of multiculturalism with each new theater originally designed by one of this performance. country’s most distinguished theater architects. l 37 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

David Alan Miller and Contemporary Classical Music September 11, 2017

High water, thunderstorms, flash Section, “As the Albany musicians tuned floods and tornadoes were forecast in up Amsterdam’s mayor, Michael Villa, upstate New York throughout the week surveyed the audience members who had leading up to July 4, 2017; perhaps opened lawn chairs on every available perfect weather for the imagination of a patch of grass and were lined up at Romantic Era composer, but hardly ideal trucks offering ice cream, fried Twinkies, for contemporary musicians planning barbecue and wraps.” on playing on a barge. The always entrepreneurial David Alan Miller, music The scene would be repeated that week director of the Albany Symphony, plans at Albany, Schenectady, Little Falls, for celebrating the bicentennial of the Erie Baldwinsville, Brockport and Lockport; all Canal seemed as if they might become towns that boomed with the canal in the unraveled even before they could begin. early nineteenth century and languished approaching despair at the end of The barge, musicians and enthusiastic the twentieth as New York’s industrial audience all arrived at a riverside park in economy entered an agonizing death Amsterdam, New York as the distressed spiral. Each of these once proud small skies cleared. Miller once again had industrial cities seemed a more than achieved something remarkable. Over the appropriate setting for Miller’s quarter- preceding months, he had commissioned century of programming as the Albany new works from young composers who Symphony’s music director in which he had been sent into the seven canal towns has shaped innovative programs blending that were to host celebratory concerts the old and the new, the traditional and the stretching 360 miles or so from Albany to modern. Miller’s musical accomplishment Lockport. The Grammy award-winning stands as a successful example of what Miller reconfirmed his reputation as a each of these communities is trying to leading champion for new American achieve by retooling their economies. classical music. The Erie Canal secured New York’s Of even greater importance, Miller was position as the continent’s leading harbor bringing new sounds and new composers for at least half a century, until the railroads to new audiences once again. New York came to dominate continental shipping Times critic Michael Cooper noted in (which New York also would dominate). the lead article of the July 8, 2017 Arts On November 4, 1825-- a short eight SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 38 l

Albany Symphony Orchestra at the Hudson River’s Amphitheatre in Albany, New York. Photo: Judy Baxter (Flickr) https://flic.kr/p/gBptd

years after the first shovel had been put Albany is one of the continent’s oldest to earth--New York governor DeWitt European settlements north of Mexico. Clinton poured two casks of Lake Erie Founded by Dutch settlers as Fort Orange water into New York Harbor from the first in 1614, the town continued to grow flat barge to make the trip from Buffalo throughout the Dutch and British colonial east through the canal and south on the eras. The city became New York State Hudson, touching off a wild celebration. capital in 1797, a status it has retained Within a year, shipping costs plummeted since. Albany hit its economic stride in from $100 a ton to under $9. No other city the nineteenth century when it was one of could compete with New York; not even the first cities in the world to install public New Orleans, where the entire Midwestern water mains, sewer lines, natural gas lines river system emptied into the sea. As the and electricity. canal’s eastern terminus where barges Like many Northeastern industrial cities, moved into the Hudson River, Albany was Albany began to fall on hard times during the lynchpin for the entire system. the second half of the twentieth century l 39 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

when its traditional urban cityscape was Berkeley before heading East. Earning mangled by megalomaniacal New York a Master’s from The Julliard School, Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Tearing out Miller began his conducting career with the city’s historic heart for ultra-modern the New York Youth Symphony before megastructures tied to highways luring heading back West to hold various residents into sprawling suburbs, Albany conducting positions with the Los lost population from an historic high of Angeles Philharmonic. Miller’s eclectic 134,995 in 1950 to a low of 97,856 in musical tastes stretching from Classical 2000. The city has fared better in the to Funk and numerous other genres of twenty-first century becoming home to contemporary music has made him a a technology boom and gentrification. champion of American modern classical Situated at the center of the Capital music. District, Albany joins with several nearby communities to form a metropolitan The Albany Symphony has provided an region of some one million residents. The ideal platform to seek out and promote city nonetheless continues to suffer from young composers and new music. Over above average poverty and violence for a his tenure at Albany he has helped the community of its size. company support numerous young composers who have gained national and As this topsy-turvy history implies, Albany international reputations. Miller also has is home to a combination of impressive served as guest conductor with nearly legacy institutions and innovative start- all of the country’s major orchestras. In ups. The Albany Symphony Orchestra, 1994, Miller invited eighteen members established as the People’s Orchestra of of the Albany Symphony to form the Albany in 1930, stands among the city’s contemporary rock-classical music most prominent cultural establishments. ensemble Dogs of Desire, which has Much more than a modest regional commissioned over 100 new works orchestra, the Albany Symphony and has toured widely promoting embraces a singular mission of performing contemporary classical music. new works by modern composers thereby expanding its own audience while Miller has returned frequently to Los advancing American classical music. David Angeles, and has performed widely Alan Miller’s tenure as Music Director-- in Europe, Australia and the Far East which began in 1992--has secured the offering plentiful opportunity to promote ensemble’s reputation as one of the a new American classical sound. These country’s major supporters of young accomplishments have earned Miller a composers and artists. bookcase full of awards, including a 2014 Grammy Award for his Naxos recording Miller grew up in Los Angeles and with the Albany Symphony of John graduated from the University of California, Corigliano’s “Conjurer.” His 2017 Erie SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 40 l

Canal tour is but a small component of an implementing a variety of ticket packages enormously ambitious strategy to energize and playing in an expanding array of American music. venues, the orchestra has managed to secure its subscription base in a virtuous For Miller, his engagement with living circle which reinforces its recording and composers and their music is an touring opportunities while encouraging opportunity to continue learning. Once new sponsorships and donors. This known as a rising young talent himself, business success rests on the exciting he has used his platform in Albany to creative verve that Miller has sustained for constantly refresh his own creative spark; over a quarter-century. Miller has been able often challenging his musicians and his to expand the horizons of classical music audiences in the process. His programs by bringing new resources to the table: purposefully combine the familiar with the creative; financial; and, social. This new unfamiliar to provoke new ways of listening capital in all of its forms has energized the and playing. This style has earned him Albany Symphony and American classical such monikers as “Space Captain Dave” music. and “Cowboy Dave” even as his long tenure has made him a well-respected In June 2017, Geraldine Freedman, the community icon. music critic for the Schenectady Daily Gazette, reviewed the Albany Symphony Miller’s constant reinvention of orchestral Orchestra’s concert at the American music and style is a creative response to Music Festival in neighboring Troy. many forces which have swept over the The festival extended over two days, American classical music community in attracting large audiences to hear the recent decades. By keeping the music world premiere of five works by newly fresh, he has continued to attract new, arising composers. The music ranged from often younger, audiences. He reminds his miniature musical comedy and clarinet musicians, composers, audiences and concerto to a percussion quartet featuring critics that orchestras and the music they tuned water glasses and compressed air play are organic, constantly changing in containers besides snare drums, cymbals response to new environments. and xylophones. Through every piece, The Albany Symphony--which has Freedman reported, “the ASO performed become a thriving, vital community brilliantly with a real sensibility for what institution under Miller’s leadership-- these composers, most of them under 35, nonetheless confronts all of the challenges were trying to say. It was a comfortable faced by regional classical ensembles reminder that the future of classical music across the country. Despite Miller’s efforts, is in capable, inventive hands.” She might classical music attracts a shrinking have added, that those are the hands of audience base even as fixed costs rise. By visionary conductor David Alan Miller. l 41 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

Mansai Nomura and Kyōgen Theater June 26, 2017

No role can possibly be larger than Mansaku’s father Manzo, in turn, was also Godzilla, even if the actor portrays the declared to be a Living National Treasure world’s most famous lizard through motion as he came to personify the traditions of capture. Kyōgen idol Mansai Nomura must the distinctive Izumi School of kyōgen (in have experienced special pride in playing contrast to those of the Sagi and Ōkura the rampaging giant in the 2016 film traditions). Godzilla: Resurgence, the 29th installment of perhaps the world’s longest cinematic Despite his prestigious dramaturgical series. Then again, Nomura had already pedigree, Mansai Nomura did not decide done it all since first appearing on stage to become an actor until he was in his in Quiver of the Monkey at the age of late teens. His talents simply could not three. For nearly a half-century, Nomura be contained by any single tradition. has garnered every conceivable Japanese In addition to his impeccable kyōgen award for stage and screen following his credentials, he studied at the Royal masterful appearance at the age of 17 in a Shakespeare Company in London, has supporting role for Akira Kurosawa’s epic lectured in aesthetics at the prestigious Ran (1985). Furthermore, he has collected Tokyo University, and has won the hearts kudos worldwide for his adaptations of of tens of thousands of television and film Shakespeare to Japanese stage traditions. fans. Yet, it is to kyōgen that he always His kyōgen production of Macbeth has returns. enjoyed rave reviews in nearly every Often compared to Italian Commedia major theater city on the planet; and his dell’arte, kyōgen is among one of the transformation of Richard III into A Country oldest of all theatrical traditions. Originating Thief won munificent praise at home. as a comedic counterpart to Noh drama Mansai Nomura is but the latest at the dawn of the 14th century, kyōgen noteworthy in a family line of prominent began as an improvisational art drawing actors reaching back more than two humor from the everyday. Centuries centuries. His father Mansaku--a Living later, kyōgen still is known for its straight- National Treasure of Japan--has been forward storytelling and expressive, clear praised for proselytizing Japanese speech. These characteristics made its theatrical traditions around the world ever repertoire of around two-hundred or so since his rousing initial appearance at the plays readily adaptable to television and Paris International Theater Festival in 1957. film so that kyōgen remains hugely popular in contemporary Japan. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 42 l

Despite its age, kyōgen remains very the existing repertoire with new works. much a living art form. Older performers Nomura similarly has trained and mentored pass the drama’s spirit as well as its young performers; and, he has expanded technique to younger performers while audiences using his own star power to its improvisational origins encourage multiply the community of kyōgen fans. contemporary performers to hold up Nomura’s celebrated father and their classical mirror to modern life. By grandfather are unlikely to have played doing so, they sustain tradition through Godzilla (and probably never would have distinct costumes, delivery and especially been invited to do so). Mansai, however, language which ties a performance’s has cultivated an enthusiastic fan base in slapstick and satire back to century- contemporary theater, as well as in film old traditions. The result is a fusion that and on television. His popularity reaches constantly reinvigorates the classical with across generations as he has used the modern. appearances on the popular children’s Nomura’s time in London expanded his television show Let’s Play in Japanese to vision for this dramatic practice of kyōgen. introduce ever younger viewers to kyōgen. More specifically, he has acknowledged, He has staged the centuries-old kyōgen he found that British actors trained in play Sanbaso to the backdrop of Maurice Shakespearean conventions learned Ravel’s Boléro, emphasizing similarities in how to use their body and physicality the underlying structures of both works. to express emotions relating to the At the same time, he has argued that contemporary world, thereby opening greater accessibility should not be allowed the door to radical reinterpretations of to deplete aesthetic standards. Rather, he old works. Understanding kyōgen as the seeks to reinvigorate Japanese culture by most emotionally accessible of all historic bringing traditions into the present. Japanese art forms, Nomura imagined a pathway to align a centuries-old art form with modern life. Similarly, he fixed on the centrality of gender relations to the kyōgen storytelling as an entry point into emphasizing universality across time and space.

Nomura was not alone in his desire to connect kyōgen to contemporary theater. Kazuhiro Morisaka, for example, has encouraged young performers to embrace a variety of performance styles while simultaneously striving to expand Sanbaso, an ancient divine dance, performed by Mansai Nomura. Photo: Ars Electronica l 43 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

Most recently these various efforts staff and producers create a play based have converged at the Setagaya Public on the stories told by local residents. Theatre where Nomura has been artistic director since 2002. The theater opened Nomura has insured that, at some point its doors in 1997 in a non-descript during their school career, each of the commercial complex in one of Tokyo’s ward’s 6,000 schoolchildren attends one outer boroughs. Setagaya is one among of the theater’s kyōgen performances. two-dozen administrative wards that Somewhere around a third of ward make up the city and would not seem very residents have attended a performance of “suburban” to most Americans. Home to some kind at the theater, while the theater around 900,000 residents, it is the largest estimates that between 80 and 90 percent among Tokyo’s wards in population and of its audience arrives from outside the second largest in the amount of territory it ward, including from abroad. occupies. Setagaya’s population density is Mansai Nomura is custodian of a about twice that of New York City. centuries-old theatrical tradition that has Founded at the initiative of the ward been associated with his own family for administration, Setagaya Public Theatre’s too many generations to recall. He has mission has been to keep a living culture dedicated his career to reinvigorating that central to local life. The theatre has tradition, linking it to the contemporary provided a welcomed home to large world without weakening its own numbers of visual artists and writers; distinctiveness. To do so, he has enlisted the ward in turn created an autonomous thousands of fans in a community of literary museum to celebrate its own shared intention, including Japan’s most cultural successes. The theater’s artistic well-known radioactive lizard behemoth. team promotes jazz, modern dance and Indeed, he has made the path from contemporary theater to local audiences. medieval Zen monk to Godzilla, from Outreach programs extend to the disabled television idol to Macbeth, appear and infirmed, to children and the elderly, remarkably effortless. and the merely interested. Each year, the SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 44 l

Mark and Susan Marie Rhea and Irish Theater November 1, 2017

Nearly two decades have passed since American classics as well as lively musical two young actors appeared opposite productions. one another in a small foundling theater Mark and Susan Marie similarly were company’s second production of ambitious in their artistic goals. They have Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin shaped their company around a belief Roof as Brick and Maggie. Texan Mark that theater succeeds only in so far as it Rhea had just combined his love for Irish presents an honest, pure exploration of and American theater within a newly the human condition. Moreover, they have formed Keegan Theatre in Washington, been committed to allowing actors to draw D.C., and New York-trained Susan Marie on their own experiences to explore their (now) Rhea won the play’s lead. Both had characters and the play’s text. They have worked together in an earlier production of sought out directors equally committed to The Taming of the Shrew yet the emotional open, participatory artistic leadership. demands of Williams’s sparring characters deepened their connection with one Throughout the company’s history Keegan another and with the fledgling company. has sought to create opportunities for Much to the delight of Washington theater young talent to enjoy theatrical excellence audiences, the Rheas and their Keegan in their work. Their intern program has Theatre have thrived ever since. encouraged dozens of young theater professionals to pursue their passions Mark founded Keegan to share his while their work with young artists similarly passion for the Irish theater that had has nurtured budding talent. developed as he explored his own heritage. His unique vision was to bridge Beyond what happens on stage, the two theatrical traditions by forming a Rheas are on a mission to bring classic company that would take American and modern plays and musicals to the classics to Ireland and perform Irish community at affordable, neighborhood masterpieces in the United States. The prices. They have consistently promoted company garnered enthusiastic audiences an artistic vision which links sophisticated and enjoyed immediate critical success drama to the experiences of real people on its first tour to Galway in 1999 and has and have done so by bringing real people returned to Ireland on tour almost every into their productions. year since. The company similarly has won praise and a passionate following in The results of their efforts have been Washington presenting a blend of Irish and stunning. Their Irish productions of l 45 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

American classics continue to reap at the historic Church Street Theatre in enthusiastic kudos from audiences and Dupont Circle. critics alike; their Washington shows earn critical acclaim as evident in enthusiastic The Church Street Theatre was a reviews, fervent audiences, dedicated diminutive century-plus old gymnasium supporters and armfuls of the Washington that had once been attached to a long Helen Hayes theatrical awards. dispatched private school. Independent companies had found its intimate Throughout the company’s first decade, dimensions and low overhead congenial they performed wherever that could with various productions passing through find a stage. The wandered around the over the years. Synetic and its earlier Washington area performing in Arlington incarnation, the Stanislavsky Theatre and elsewhere in Northern Virginia, in Company, settled in at the end of the churches and schools. Despite this twentieth century and, in 2009, Keegan drifter existence, they retained a growing moved in to take its place. audience which managed to find their productions no matter how inconvenient Charming deterioration threatened to the venue may have been. In 2009 they decline into degrading decay by the time took advantage of Synetic Theatre’s move Keegan arrived. The Rheas and their to Arlington to find a permanent home supporters secured a generous gift from

Mark and Susan Marie Rhea. Photo courtesy of Keegan Theatre. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 46 l

an anonymous donor who purchased charm washes over audiences as they the building and underwrote a $2 million step out of the theater after a performance renovation. When it opened in 2015 with a onto historic sidewalks surrounded fitting production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, by three-story Victorian townhouses the company enjoyed a theatrical gem. The exuding a quiet domesticity that remains addition of a glass enclosed entranceway, compatible with the company’s artistic a more spacious lobby, functioning values. restrooms and improved stage and The Rheas have dedicated their backstage facilities left the theater’s intimate professional lives to promoting bold, performance space largely untouched. honest classical theater that brings life’s Rechristened The Andrew Keegan Theatre, serious conundrums to life on stage. there are few stages in Washington better Blending lively musicals and children- suited for transporting audiences into the oriented productions with works by some world playing out on stage. of Ireland’s and America’s most thoughtful The connection between theater and dramatists, they have forged a deep bond community could not be stronger. Nestled between two communities, and between on a bucolic one block-long stretch of the theater and community. Church Street between Seventeenth Long time African American and Eighteenth Streets just off of Dupont Washingtonians speak of the souls of Circle, the theater and its neighbors have their city’s earlier residents who manifest largely avoided the intrusion of the area’s themselves to all who embrace their hyper-gentrification. ideals. Many of this country’s leading Trendy is to be found nearby, and writers have lived within a five minute development is transforming into walk of the Church Street Theater during overbuilding in the surrounding area. Indeed, some of their most productive years. a park nestled in the ruins of the burned Langston Hughes, for example, as well as out church that gave the street its name Duke Ellington, Sinclair Lewis, John Dos is being replaced by an overscaled condo Passos, and Frances Parkinson Keyes. development just a few hundred feet away. They all undoubtedly walked past the old A row of popular taverns and restaurants gymnasium many times over; probably can be found a couple of hundred feet in the not paying it much mind. The Rheas--with opposite direction on Seventeenth Street. their dedication to forceful, honest and sophisticated artistic expression--honor Keegan is very much embedded in one such spirits by insuring that they continue of the city’s most dynamic and energetic to enrich the city even as redevelopment corners. Nonetheless, a sense of serene runs at fast pace. l 47 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

Ari Roth and Transformational Theater July 12, 2017

Playwright, producer, director, educator story of genocide with complexity, depth and provocateur, Ari Roth has added fresh and texture while weaving together verve to an already lively Washington, several compelling layered plots into a D.C. theater scene by heading outside vividly horrifying appraisal of violence. its well-worn flightpaths. In launching his “Unexplored Interior” proved to be an latest project--Mosaic Theater Company ambitious yet risky launch for a new of DC--Roth has set the goal of producing company trying to attract new audiences. theater that is simultaneously entertaining As DCTheatreScene website reviewer and engaged in issues of social justice. Jessica Pearson recorded at the time, the As important, Roth has made expansion Mosaic production was “a beautiful and of the Mosaic content and audience a moving piece of theatre and, most of all, primary artistic goal. His emphasis on it is important because it confronts issues post-performance programming--including that American theatre audiences would panel discussions, Peace Cafes, race and rather ignore and ‘Unexplored Interior’ identity workshops and open microphone cannot be ignored.” artistic response forums--regularly incorporates the diversity of his audiences Mosaic’s second season began with into what transpires on stage. A show at a poignant, moving and humorous Roth’s theater pulls back a corner of the production of Terry Teachout’s one actor curtain on what the U.S. Census Bureau play “Satchmo at the Waldorf” featuring already tells us about our country: more a bravura performance by veteran than ever, we are and will always be a Washington actor Craig Wallace. Set in colorful medley. the jazz master Louis Armstrong’s Waldorf Astoria dressing room at the end of his The company’s fall 2015 inaugural show- career, Armstrong’s monologue takes the -the world premiere of Jay O. Sanders’ audience through the racism, tawdriness “Unexplored Interior”--captured these and criminal thuggery that constantly foundational qualities. Sanders’ play forces reigned in the career and life of one of the the audience and actors to bear witness twentieth century’s seminal musicians. to Rwanda’s genocidal civil war pitting Reminiscences of towering conflicts neighbor against neighbor in a violent between an African-American musician and spiral of death and destruction. Beautifully a Jewish manager define the ever-present staged by Derek Goldman and powerfully limits for an American career of genius performed by a stellar fourteen-member constrained by racism, criminality and cast, Roth’s new company told the horrific endless greed. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 48 l

Ari Roth. Photo courtesy of Mosaic Theater Company of DC.

The second season recently closed with simultaneously tells a story of Israelis and an exploration of social justice through Palestinians and of insider and outsider voices directly from the Middle East. lovers at home. Palestinian-American actor-writer Hanna Roth and Mosaic have found an ideal Eady and U.S. writer Edward Mast’s home for the company’s signature two-character play “The Return” takes commitment to “transformational, socially- the audience on a voyage of discovery relevant art” in the Atlas Performing Arts as an Israeli woman returns from the Center, a renovated former cinema in the U.S. to find an Arab-Palestinian auto increasingly trendy H Street NE Corridor mechanic who has paid a terrible price for just beyond the shadow of the United a brief rooftop dalliance with her thirteen States Capitol Building. Once a major years earlier. Powerfully performed, “The shopping street for the city’s African Return” confronts audiences for their own Americans, H Street fell on bad times assumed sense of privilege which asserts following the civil unrest in response to the itself in relationships among society’s 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther betters and those who serve them. King, Jr. Lying fallow for more than three For an audience comprised of Middle decades, H Street began to revive as a Easterners, Americans Jews and Muslims, Hipster haven anchored since 2006 by African American and white Americans, a renovated Atlas movie theater that has the agonizing interplay on stage l 49 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

come to serve as a pioneering performing Previously, his theatrical experience had arts center. As Roth understands been limited to playing in the band of a more than most, the recent wave of high school production of “Godspell.” gentrification has added but a patina of Hipsterdom to the already rich and Subsequently teaching at Michigan, textured community that predated it. Brandeis and New York Universities as well as at Carnegie Mellon and George When moving to the Atlas, Roth Washington University, Roth not only wrote purposefully set out to diversify his board about theater, he wrote theater. While still by inviting long-time Washingtonians and at Michigan, he won two Avery Hopwood African Americans to join in. From Mosaic’s Awards for Drama given by Arthur Miller. first season, plays focusing on the Middle East alternated with those about American In 1989, Washington’s Arena Stage race relations. Interestingly, before its commissioned Roth to write “Born premier season’s end, Roth discerned not Guilty,” a work based on Peter only an overall growth in the company’s Sichrovsky’s interviews with the children audiences, but its diversification as well. and grandchildren of Nazis “Schuldig African Americans began appearing for Gleboren.” The play moved from Middle East-oriented productions; while Washington to Off-Broadway in New previous supporters of his work as director York in 1993, earning rave reviews-- of the D.C. Jewish Community Center’s The New York Times labeled the play Theater J started buying tickets to plays “searing drama”--before it continued about the Black experience. Similarly, he on to Chicago and beyond. That work’s has brought the neighborhood’s young 2002 sequel “The Wolf in Peter” enjoyed vibe into the house with productions of critical success while a somewhat new plays focusing on what it means to autobiographical 2013 prequel--“Andy and come of age in today’s America such as The Shadows”--further extended Roth’s “Milk Like Sugar” and the enormously creative reach. popular “Hooded: or Being Black for Ari and his wife, NGO executive Kate Dummies.” Schecter, moved to Washington at the Mosaic’s success builds on Roth’s end of the 1990s when Kate landed a job earlier accomplishments which have at the World Bank; and Ari secured an long garnered a multitude of admirers appointment as Artistic Director of Theater within the Washington theater community J. Over 18 seasons at Theater J beginning and beyond. The son of Holocaust in 1997, Roth produced 129 productions refugees, Roth grew up in Chicago before including 44 world premieres and new attending the University of Michigan, productions from the Middle East. where he discovered the power of theater. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 50 l

Roth’s term at Theater J came to indispensable platform for discussions an end in 2014 as some vociferous which must--but too often do not--take stakeholders in the Greater Washington place about the nature of Washington as Jewish Community (including a group an urban community. Roth and Mosaic, self-identified as Citizens Opposed to however, present more than a listening Propaganda Masquerading as Art, or post. The company presents high quality COPMA) expressed their concerns over dramatic art. what they saw as an anti-Israeli bent in the In reviewing “The Return” for The company’s repertoire. As COPMA exerted Washington Post, critic Nelson Pressley pressure on both the boards of trustees began: “It took Mosaic Theater Company of the DCJCC along with the Jewish no time to forge a social justice identity Federation of Greater Washington, Roth’s beyond the Jewish lens of Theater J where departure became a public spectacle, Mosaic Artistic Director Ari Roth had capturing the attention of the Washington worked for nearly two decades until his and national press and theater firing at the end of 2014. But the Voices communities. At one point, over 100 from a Changing Middle East Festival, artistic directors of U.S. theater companies begun in 2000 under Roth at Theater J, published an open letter in Roth’s support. continues at the impressive young Mosaic Roth quickly moved on to his new venture, as one of the most valuable streams in Mosaic, which has established itself as Washington theater.” an important fixture on the Washington That stream, in turn, contains company scene. The company’s engagement with members, supporters, audiences and various local communities over painful communities who collectively carry Roth’s issues swirling around race and class artistic vision to new levels. in contemporary America provide an l 51 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

Albert Schultz and Civic Theatre June 1, 2017

Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, Canada. Photo: jofo2005 (Flickr) https://flic.kr/p/KRb4u3

Albert Schultz came of age with Canadian create civic theater, give the classics a theater. Born in 1963 in Port Hope, Canadian accent, and take the voice of Ontario, Schultz grew up in Okotoks, Canadian theater to the world. Toronto’s Alberta before heading to Toronto and two-decade-old Soulpepper theatre London to study at York University and the company has proven to be a powerful London Academy of Music and Dramatic collaborator in bringing his dream to reality. Art. His career has moved among stage, television and film; from acting to directing; Schultz arrived on the Canadian stage from performance to fundraising. Schultz just as French and English Canadian connected with leading innovators in late theater were coming into their own after twentieth-century theater ranging from a long history. Various chroniclers date Robin Phillips at the Stratford Festival to a the arrival of European theater in today’s long creative interaction with distinguished Canada to 1583; others to 1606, and Hungarian theatrical professionals. Always 1640. Whatever the precise date, English ambitious, Schultz is on a mission to and French language classics by such authors as Molière, Corneille, Racine SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 52 l

and Shakespeare enjoyed wide following end, just as Schultz became a theater among Canada’s early French and professional. English colonists. Given Canada’s sparse Schultz joined with a dozen other rising population--plus the hostility of Protestant Toronto artists in 1998 to form Soulpepper and Catholic clerics--theater primarily as a company that would present classical remained an amateur entertainment well works by such noted playwrights as Harold into the nineteenth century. Even then, Pinter, Thornton Wilder, Tom Stoppard, Canadian performing arts largely remained Samuel Becket and Anton Chekhov, all connected to distant metropolitan capitals from a distinctively Canadian perspective. in Europe (and later in New York and Seven seasons later the company moved eventually California). into the Distillery District, an artfully The state of Canadian theater changed renovated industrial site next to the following World War II. Regional theaters Gardiner Expressway east of downtown, came into being across the country where whiskey was once produced. while nascent English and French Within a decade, Soulpepper had become television networks encouraged writers, Toronto’s most popular theater attracting actors, directors and producers as as many as 100,000 viewers each season. they scrambled to fill the airways with The company expanded its repertoire to distinctive Canadian content. By the newer works including a widely acclaimed 1960s, smaller experimental theaters production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in emerged across English Canada while a America. Not everyone was pleased by distinctive French theater took shape in this turn of events. In 2013, University Quebec at times drawing on the Quebec of Toronto Professor Holger Syme idiom joual. complained in an email to Toronto’s major Grants supporting Canadian playwriting newspaper The Globe and Mail that, “If the in anticipation of Canada’s Centennial in company started out 15 years ago hungry 1967 spurred further development. One for a challenge and committed to making major project, Toronto’s St. Lawrence old texts newly exciting and engaging, Centre for the Arts, emerged as an they have now transformed themselves important focal point for English Canadian into a commercial enterprise offering an theater which encouraged the continuing utterly conventional, very safe repertory development of Toronto’s vibrant theater of not-very-old plays staged with slick community. Many associated with the production values in polished and largely Centre anticipated that it would secure unchallenging performances.” a solid foundation for a new form of Schultz, the company’s Artistic Director, Canadian civic theater. Toronto grew into indeed set his sights on a different agenda a theatrical powerhouse by the century’s as he returned to the Centenary-era goal l 53 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

of creating a “National Civic Theatre.” The development of new works; to the stage, company actively seeks engagement with including plays, presentations and other communities across the city and nation events; to the road with touring; and, running ambitious training programs; to the air through digital and broadcast commissioning new works by Canadian media. Their charge is clear: everyone authors; regularly touring throughout belongs at Soulpepper. Ontario, Canada and internationally; expanding its reach through social media In his message to the audiences of his and other digital platforms; engaging new 2015 season, Schultz observed: Canadians as they discover their country Our profoundly gifted company through theater; all while maintaining of artists are, like you, citizens of active seasons at its home base in the this community and represent the Distillery District. To celebrate Canada’s cultural, generational, and artistic Sesquicentennial and its own twentieth diversity of your city. The work on anniversary, Soulpepper presented a well- our stages looks out to the world received repertoire of six Canadian plays in while simultaneously focusing on June 2017 at New York’s Pershing Square our national voices. Our offerings Signature Centre on 42nd Street, just west are multi-disciplinary and expansive of Times Square. in their scope; they acknowledge Soulpepper’s artistic and popular success the gifts of our collective cultural undergirds its activist civic mission of past while imagining our creative becoming “a place of belonging for future as a nation. artists and audiences of all ages and Schultz has led Soulpepper through backgrounds.” The company realizes a transition from a stage dedicated to its mission through six sets of activities the classics to a civic powerhouse. which look to the community through civic In doing so, the company has not so engagement of various forms including much abandoned its original mission programming in schools; to the future as expanded it. The transformation to a through The Soulpepper Academy training community asset has created a support up-and-coming generations of theatre system that sustains and replenishes the artists; to the “pipeline” through the company’s original vision. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 54 l

Daniel Soulières and Performance Dance August 25, 2017

Montreal and Quebec had come out of accompanied by secularization, World War II stuck in a time warp that the creation of a welfare state, and placed La Belle Province at odds with incompatible federalist and sovereigntist much of North America. For more than factions. Identities and values radically a century, the province languished under loosened as Quebec went, according to a brokered allocation of power which numerous surveys, from being the most stymied entrance into the contemporary religious to the most secularized society in world. An Anglophone Protestant elite North America. controlled the commanding heights of Nothing escaped this makeover including commerce from their granite citadels in performance dance. Beginning almost Montreal. French-speaking Catholic clergy immediately following the World War controlled the rest of the province, keeping II, those Montrealers connected to their flock tied to the countryside for continental trends in the arts began to farming or, in many instances, the messier push back against repressive policies task of resource extraction. A nationalistic of Duplessis and the Roman Catholic right-wing populist government under Church. New Montrealers debarking Premier Maurice Duplessis and his from war-torn Europe brought their thuggish Union Nationale Party--together cultural tastes and expectations with with corrupt police and officialdom-- them. Before 1945, the only serious used its gerrymandered majority in the dance reaching Montreal stages was Assemblée nationale to insure that nothing performed by visiting companies made up would change. of Americans, Europeans and displaced Transformation came as the rest of Russians (including Ruth St. Denis, Isadora the continent increasingly became incorporated into what would grow in a few years into the most dynamically mobile continental economy in world history. Eventually, following Duplessis’s death, the previous system snapped during the “Quiet Revolution” begun in 1960 by a new Liberal Government under Jean Lesage. Modernity arrived in Quebec with a vengeance, unleashing intense socio- political and socio-cultural adjustments Par le chas de l’aiguille (Through the eye of the needle), a choreography by Audrey Bergeron. Photo courtesy of Danse-Cité. l 55 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

Duncan, Anna Pavlova and various legacy dancers in Montreal, performing an companies from Les Ballets Russe). By average of thirty-seven shows each the 1960s Montreal had its own classical year between 1977 and 1996. These company--Les Grands Ballets Canadiens- productions included roles created for -and the first of what would become a him by choreographers James Kudelka, panoply of modern dance troupes. Françoise Sullivan, Jeanne Renaud and Paul-André Fortier among many. The theater community constituted a He himself choreographed and co- radicalizing vanguard pushing forward choreographed dozens of works. exciting fresh voices who were striving to decipher the meaning of everyday Soulièrs established Danse-Cité to experiences on stage. Les Grands Ballets promote contemporary dance. He began Canadiens established dance at the by presenting new works over a two forefront of the city’s cultural life during week period--his Treize chorégraphes the late 1950s through its performances, pour deux danseurs ran a month--and its school and studios and its community actively sought out young performers outreach programs. Contemporary dance and choreographers to bring their work companies appeared as an increasingly to the stage. His reliance on new talent vibrant community formed with more made for an easy transition to new troupe and more performers arriving, audiences leadership in 1986. growing and donors opening their coffers. Beyond Danse-Cité, Soulières worked Danse-Cité was the inspiration of as artistic advisor to the legendary Daniel Soulières who founded the Montreal dance company Le Groupe company in 1983 before turning it over de la Place Royale and founded several to choreographer Jean-Pierre Perreault. production groups including Qui Danse, He remained a major player within the Les Événements de la Pliene Lune and company in numerous capacities ever Most Modern. These efforts supported since, serving as Artistic Director in recent the development of emerging artists years. throughout the 1980s and 1990s into the current century. Such programs expanded Soulières embraced dance after having over time to embrace exchanges with completed his degree in psychology at European companies. l’Université de Montréal. Initially studying classical ballet, he turned to contemporary Soulières insisted from the very dance working with leading teachers such beginning that Danse-Cité have no single as Peggy Baker, Peter Boneham Linda choreographer or artistic team, featuring Rabin and Tassy Teekman. Soulières instead a variety of ground-breaking works quickly became one of the most popular by numerous innovative artists. At least three generations of youthful dancers and SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 56 l

choreographers got their start though The twentieth-first century began with various Soulièrs-organized programs Montreal well established as a significant including, among many: Irèni Stamou, international center for performance Isabelle Van Grimde, Jane Mappin, Roger dance, and a global leader in the two Sinha, Holy Body Tatoo, Estelle Clareton dance-related genres of physical theater and Laurence Lemieus. and circus arts. One might have thought this always was so. However, just a half- Soulières similarly sought to cultivate century before, clerical arbiters of public new audiences for contemporary taste throughout Quebec frowned on dance. He took his artists into the physical artistic expression in almost any community, often appearing at nearly a form. dozen cultural centers scattered around the city. He attracted new audiences The emergence of first classical, then with multidisciplinary approaches to modern and contemporary dance in performance dance combining dance, Montreal is inexorably linked to broader, theatre and poetry. He expanded the profound changes in society that drove relationship between artist and public in political conflict and deep cultural wars. every way that he could imagine. Most The Quebec transformation to modernity recently, Danse-Cité has promoted the use is no less dramatic for being swift of dance to mediate across the cultures of and largely peaceful. Accompanying Montreal’s varied local communities. dislocations drove the preeminence of the arts--including literature, theatre, cinema, Thirty-five years after its founding, Danse- television, circus, music or dance--as a Cité bills itself as a “Montreal-based form of bringing together high culture with research, creation, production and street performance. distribution company dedicated to the advancement of contemporary dance” Dance became embedded in Montreal by being at the “forefront of Montreal’s life--a space in which it had largely been cutting-edge dance scene.” The company absent--because the dance community produces four works and presents three constructed a broad base of supporting dozen shows during the course of most institutions ranging from studios to years as it seeks to meld works by schools. Dance has thrived in Montreal younger new artists with works drawing on because it became rooted in local society their collaboration with more established by interacting with it. Artistic visionary practitioners. Daniel Soulières helped make this happen while creating community. l 57 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

Grace Srinivasan and Paula Maust and Baroque Music March 29, 2017

On almost any given Sunday nine blocks favorite pew at the back of the sanctuary west of the White House on Washington’s is memorialized by a bronze plaque. Pennsylvania Avenue, the parishioners of Saint Stephen Martyr Catholic Church are Srinivasan has retained her connection transported to thoughts of Heaven by the with Saint Stephen Martyr from her college golden soprano voice of Cantor Grace days even as her career has taken flight. In Srinivasan. Srinivasan, who grew up in the addition to recitals and stage appearances Washington area, graduated with degrees around the world, she played the lead role in music from nearby George Washington in the 2014 PBS docudrama Enemy of University, and studied ballet, the cello, the Reich recounting the heroic story of and, later, voice at Baltimore’s Peabody Noor Inayat Khan, who aided the French Conservatory. Resistance during World War II and was killed in Dachau. Saint Stephen Martyr has a long and distinguished history. Founded in 1867, the Srinivasan met Paula Maust while parish’s sturdy brick sanctuary and school studying at Peabody Conservatory. An stood proudly over the city’s tumbledown accomplished harpsichordist and organist, Foggy Bottom neighborhood for nearly a Maust has earned a multitude of degrees century. Prominent local architect Adolf in early music and organ performance Cluss--who had been the Best Man at from Peabody, the Cleveland Institute of Frederick Engels’ wedding prior to leaving Music, and Valparaiso University. She has Germany--designed the church in a earned praise for her performances and signature carnivalesque red-brick style has served as music director and organist that came to define much of Washington’s at several churches around the country. cityscape (among his surviving buildings Srinivasan and Maust’s shared passion are The Smithsonian’s Arts & Industry for early and Baroque music drew them Building, Eastern Market, and the Franklin together. They perform regularly around School). When structural damage proved Baltimore and Washington and beyond too severe, the old church was replaced with numerous groups and colleagues, in 1959 by an elegantly Modernist and they promote their music through sanctuary defined by a progression of teaching and by encouraging new liquefied parabolic vaults. The new Saint audiences to discover the music. Maust, Stephen Matyr became the home church for example, teaches at the University of for President John F. Kennedy, whose Maryland Baltimore County and Towson SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 58 l

University as well as taking on private Together and with other musicians in a students. Yet, they wanted to do more. variety of venues and events ranging from pop up concerts in public spaces to formal Last year, Srinivasan and Maust joined recitals at esteemed institutions, Srinivasan together to form Musica Spira (Music and Maust enjoy diverse and elevating Breathes) dedicated to promoting careers as performers and teachers. Their Baroque music that captures “the successes extend beyond promoting their essence of life’s stories” thereby making own considerable talents to redefining the music relevant to contemporary the masterful music of the European society. Together, they curate and Enlightenment for new audiences. In doing perform programs touching on the trials so, they are building new communities of of life in the twenty-first century through followers who, in turn, revivify the legacy of the music of the seventeenth and the past. eighteenth centuries.

One such program featuring the music of women composers is entitled “Shattering the Glass Ceiling: Women Who Defied the Odds.” Another, entitled “In Pursuit of Fidelity,” explores the meaning of trust through the music of Henry Purcell, Peter Philips, Thomas-Louis Bourgeois, Joseph- Nicolas-Pancrace Royer and Domenico Scarlatti. Concluding with Scarlatti’s rage aria, “Fille, gia piu non parlo,” their performances humanize a music that might otherwise seem distant from contemporary society and life.

When collaborating as Musica Spira, Srinivasan and Maust draw musical traditions of the past and present into renewed conversations about the importance of life and values. Working in partnership to develop uncommon programs, they highlight shared themes Grace Srinivasan and Paula Maust. which reach across centuries of Photo courtesy of Musica Spira. seeming difference. l 59 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

Paata and Irina Tsikurishvili and Physical Theater February 3, 2017

Paata and Irina Tsikurishvili arrived in the The Tsikurishvilis were already highly- United States with their own immigrant trained professionals when they left home dream: to integrate their distinctive brand in search of fresh opportunities following of physical theater into American theatrical the collapse of the Soviet Union and an life. As The New York Times has noted, on-going vicious civil war close to home their vision produces an “elegant fusion in Georgia. During her final courses at of dance and experimental theater.” Their Georgia’s national ballet school, Irina approach draws on the long-standing discovered the power of pantomime to theatrical traditions of their homeland, tell stories through gesture, music, and the country of Georgia, which merges movement. She was won over, tossing off physicality and mime into an exceptional a promised place in Georgia’s celebrated brand of performance. Now widely national folk-dance company upon known for their striking productions of graduation to pursue pantomime theater. Shakespeare plays without dialogue, the Tsikurishvilis and their Synetic Theater in Paata, meanwhile, came to physical Arlington, Virginia, create an aural and theater from a different direction. A visual indulgence resembling dance and promising film student, Paata had theater while being not quiet either. completed a bachelor’s degree in acting and a master’s in film directing at local Paata and Irina are products of a universities. He was performing in a home- distinctive late-Soviet theater culture grown pantomime company waiting for a which merged Soviet (and Russian) film project to come along when a group theatrical practices with earlier Georgian of aspiring ballerinas visited to learn more traditions celebrating distinctive national about incorporating gestures into their polyphonic a cappella singing, regionally performances. Irina was among the group. specific dance from both the mountains and lowlands, and pantomime theater. Tbilisi at the time was no place to launch They grew up as artists surrounded by acting careers. Confronting a collapsing masters of visual storytelling through economy brought on by a punishing war acting, movement, and music. Georgian among competing political factions, Paata theatricality came with them, packed away and Irina decided to take their theatrical in their suitcases, as they travelled to their dreams and growing family (including new homeland in the United States. their newborn son Vato) on the road. They made their way to Germany, where they established the Mimodrama Theater. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 60 l

Immigrant and theatrical life in Europe theater to form a company housed in proved to have its own challenges and Washington’s diminutive Church Street before long the Tsikurishvilis were looking Theater near Dupont Circle. Dedicated further afield. to performing European classics, the company relied heavily on physicality Meanwhile, Irina’s father, an Olympic to overcome at times suspect English gymnastics coach, had made his way language skills. Irina and Paata established with Irina’s mother to the United States, their presence in Washington theater with where he eventually would join the Ohio stunning performances as Ophelia and State coaching crew. Her parents helped Hamlet in the wordless “Hamlet… the Rest Irina, Paata and Vato to follow their path is Silence.” across the Atlantic. After a rough patch of performing before school assemblies Members of the original Church Street and the diners at a Russian restaurant company soon set off in different in Baltimore, the Tsikurishvilis sought directions. Irina, Paata, and fellow entrance into the American theater scene. Georgian, film star Irakli Kavsadze, took their Synetic Theatre (from SYNthesis In 2001--now joined by newly born for “the coming together of distinct daughter Anna--Irina and Paata united elements to form a whole;” and KenETIC, with other actors trained in Soviet for “pertaining to or imparting motion,

Master and Margarita, a Roland Reed’s adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel. Photo: Graeme B. Shaw, courtesy of Synetic Theater. l 61 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

active, dynamic,” to produce “a dynamic focal point for a growing community of synthesis of the arts”) across the Potomac artists and their admirers who continuously to Arlington, Virginia. From there, they expanded the reach of a new concept of set about to redefine American theatre theatrical art. “by blending innovative techniques and movement, investing in artists’ growth, and With the support and encouragement of creating unforgettable visceral experiences Arlington County’s vibrant arts programs, for every audience.” Synetic secured increasingly capable facilities for both performance and a Thinking about how to infuse their visionary robust educational program in Rosslyn, approach of physical performance into then Springfield, and now Crystal City American theater, Paata looked to the as well as at the Kennedy Center and career of an earlier Georgian artistic Shakespeare Theatre Company in immigrant, George Balanchine. Noting Washington. These mainstage productions how Balanchine took on all opportunities- have been supported by the creation of -including working with fellow immigrant a band of performers and other artists Igor Stravinski on a “pachyderm ballet” embracing Synetic’s vivid staging, striking for circus elephants--Paata came to costume design, haunting music, and appreciate that every performance offered other-earthly movement set free from the insight into American audiences. To move laws of gravity. forward, Paata, like Balanchine, needed audiences and donors. Synetic’s fresh As their company grew, Irina and Paata artistic vision needed performers trained in expanded educational outreach to include a new way. studio training for all ages from seven through adult, summer camp, children’s In short, personalistic artistic visions theater, and teenage performance. require their own idiosyncratic In recent years, they have taken their communities to sustain their creativity. The company on the road, performing on vision would thrive as students headed out numerous U.S. college campuses as well into the world, as audiences spread the as in Mexico and in their native Georgia. word and as checkbooks were dispatched These activities have extended the in patronage. Balanchine, Paata realized, company’s reach to over 40,000 patrons created his own like-minded community annually. More important, a small company which eventually transformed American of formerly Soviet performers matured dance. Irina and Paata, through Synetic, into a self-replenishing network of young would do the same; building a company American players who bring fresh vitality to which not only performed, but trained and the mainstage productions and are moving cultivated as well. Synetic would be more out onto stages across Washington and than a mainstage; it would become the the nation. SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 62 l

Synetic protégé Ben Cunis has moved on night on the town, Washingtonians pulled to Los Angeles where he is performing on across the Potomac by the promise of a stage and screen (including The House of memorable night at the theater, members Cards); John Milosich appeared in the first of the international diplomatic corps U.S. National Tour of War Horse. Joseph looking for a more “European” experience, Carlson similarly has been in numerous and many more drawn from a rich tapestry roles beyond the Synetic stage (including of local groups. The Synetic audience appearing in the film Lincoln); Rebecca is among the youngest of all theater Hausman may be seen in The Coming audiences in Washington, and one of the Storm; and Courtney Pauroso appeared most devoted. in If Women Ruled the World. Brittaney Irina and Paata have enjoyed recognition O’Grady has enjoyed perhaps the most and honors of various kinds, including visible success in the role of Simone Davis a collection of Washington theater in Fox Television’s series Star. Actor by community’s Helen Hayes Awards and a actor, designer by designer, Irina and grant for innovating emerging theatre from Paata are bringing their distinctive artistic the New York theater wing, the founders of vision to American audiences; and they the TONY awards. They were recognized have done so by nurturing a community by Washingtonian Magazine in 2013 of appreciating artists, audiences, and as among a handful of Washingtonians supporters. of the Year. Most important, they have At any given Synetic performance in created a theater unlike any other in the Crystal City, Arlington the audience nation’s capital; and they have done so by includes hopeful young performers who investing in nurturing a community around have benefitted from the company’s their effort. They are living their dream of various studio workshops, Russian and bringing a new style of physical theater Georgian emigres who grew up watching to America. And American theater is one of the world’s great theater traditions beginning to change in response. unfold on stage, suburbanites out for a l 63 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

C. Brian Williams and Stepping October 2, 2017

Having just completed business training Gumboot dancing emerged in the early at Howard University as South Africa twentieth century in the migrant worker was moving towards electing Nelson clubs around Durban and other South Mandela as its first post-apartheid African cities where rural migrants were President, C. Brian Williams set out to segregated into barracks as they worked teach small-business skills in Lesotho in South Africa’s gold, coal, platinum and and to encounter the emerging South diamond mines. Dancing in the Wellington Africa surrounding it. A member of Alpha boots often used in the mines, performers Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Beta Chapter sometimes added bells to the boots which at Howard, Williams had learned the rang as they stomped the ground. complex rhythmic stomping and chanting art form popular among African American The dances are drawn from a variety college students known as Stepping. He of sources including indigenous steps was caught off guard by Southern African brought by the migrants from their Gumboot Dancing, which immediately home communities; steps from various reminded him of the dances he had missionaries; the dances of sailors who performed with his fraternity brothers back visited the port city of Durban including at Howard. This unexpected moment Russian folk dance; the popular social changed his life. dances of the 1930s and 1940s such as

C. Brian Williams. Photo: The Napoleon Complex Project, courtesy of Step Afrika! SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 64 l

the jitterbug; and American tap dance concept back to the United States two brought by visiting minstrel groups of years later, establishing Step Afrika! as the nineteenth century and popularized a Washington based dance company through the Hollywood extravaganzas dedicated to promoting Stepping which of the mid-twentieth century. Oft’ times the company describes on its website the pattern of the steps and rhythms as blending “percussive dance styles communicate messages of protest to practiced by historically African American those in the know. fraternities and sororities, African traditional dance and influences from a variety of Like the African American Stepping other dance and art forms” so as to tradition, Gumboot dancing is highly “integrate songs, storytelling, humor, and competitive with performance judged audience participation.” by precision. Individual dance groups mesh together a variety of styles--such Williams performed, lectured and taught as the stamping of feet in traditional around the United States as well as in Zulu dance, the enthusiasm of minstrel Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, the show performers, and the intricacies of Middle East, and the Caribbean. The Hollywood routines--to make personal and company established itself as a significant collective statements. Dancers mimic their force on the Washington cultural scene workplace relationship to an authoritarian with deep ties into area schools and “boss boy,” who determines what each universities as well as residency programs dancer does. for elementary, middle- and high school students. In addition, they developed Gumboot dancing thus emerged as Summer Steps with Step Afrika!, a popular a cherished expression by migrants one-week program that teaches stepping desperately trying to claim a corner of and concepts of teamwork, discipline and an alien environment as their own. The commitment to students from across the association with African American cultural country. forms felt by Williams was immediate and obvious. Step Afrika! became ever more ambitious artistically, performing longer works and Williams began reaching out to South taking stages in some at the country’s African partners, eager to demonstrate leading universities and art centers, and the traditions he had shared back at eventually at the White House for the Howard. He eventually met with the Obamas. Williams and his company Soweto Dance Theater and they formed developed a performance style which an alliance. By 1994, Williams and his lures their audiences into the spirit of their Soweto partners had organized the first show. They encourage audience members Step Afrika! International Cultural Festival to break traditional theatre rules, luring in Johannesburg. Williams brought the l 65 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

everyone to a shared cultural experience Victory Theater. These performances were similar to the communal spirit Williams greeted by wildly enthusiastic audiences enjoyed watching South African Gumboot as they captured the spirit of Lawrence’s dancers. Their shows frequently begin work. with the cast singing the song “Calling All Brothers and Calling All Sisters,” thereby In 1937 or 1938, future Nobel Peace letting everyone present understand Prize winner and Howard University that there are no boundaries between political science professor Ralph Bunche performance and audience. visited the Witwatersrand Native Labor Association’s workers’ club where, Williams’ most ambitious work according to his field notes, he witnessed unambiguously brought the Stepping competing choirs singing Zulu songs tradition into mainstream American accompanied by dancing with “weird and performance dance. In 2011 in close shuffling steps.” Like Williams more than a cooperation with The Phillips Collection, half-century later, Bunche was fascinated the company mounted a full-length piece by music and dance traditions which were responding to Jacob Lawrence’s iconic strangely familiar and alien at the same Migration Series (1940-41). Their work time. Embracing a physical statement became a cornerstone of celebrating of presence, Zulu migrant workers used the 2016 centenary of Lawrence’s dance and song to claim their humanity monumental series of 60 images tracing in the most inhumane of circumstances. the experience of the Great Migration of Bunche and Williams were nurtured by this African Americans from the rural south spirit, bringing it back to the United States to the industrial north. That year, the in different ways. For Williams, it has Washington Performing Arts, the Meany animated a life dedicated to establishing Center for the Arts and several other the Stepping tradition of his college years major performing arts center helped to as a significant American art form. In doing remount the work and launch a national so, he has incorporated those who feel tour that continued this season with Step alienated from many aspects of American Afrika!’s New York debut at the New culture onto its main stage. Conclusion l 67 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

Making Cities Work as Holistic Communities of Promise May 16, 2017

Shortly after the completion of the Empire climate change by 2030. Among the State Building, the novelist F. Scott Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Fitzgerald was shattered by a visit to its is an “urban” goal, “SDG Number 11” observation deck. “Full of vaunting pride,” calling on the international community he wrote, “the New Yorker had climbed to make cities “inclusive, safe, resilient here, and seen with dismay what he had and sustainable.” A few months later, never suspected. That the city was not the in October 2016, the United Nations’ endless succession of canyons that he had HABITAT III conference--an international supposed, but that it had limits, fading out gathering convened every twenty years-- into the country on all sides into an expanse adopted the “New Urban Agenda” which of green and blue. That alone was limitless. would further align domestic policies and And with the awful realization that New York international cooperation across the globe was a city after all and not a universe, the with the objectives of SDG11. whole shining edifice that he had reared in his mind came crashing down.” These United Nations declarations emerged from the concerted efforts The present is a moment when we view of urban thinkers and practitioners cities from even further away than the top around the world to place cities on the of the Empire State Building. The central international agenda. Their hard work image of our age has become the bright gained traction following recognition of necklace of electrical lights revealed an historic demographic shift sometime in nighttime photographs of the earth during the last decade when, for the first taken from the cosmos. This new reality time in history, a majority of humans live in transforms every aspect of life, replacing urban settlements. Further, it is expected the city as Fitzgerald knew it by a flowing that by the year 2050, 70 percent of the global urban system. Cities have become world population will be urban. Humankind limitless once again; and they have is now an urban species; cities themselves become our collective home. The world is have changed as traditional urban now urban. settlements have grown into sprawling, urbanized regions. These unprecedented Present-day recognition of the importance circumstances require a reorientation of of cities in the global agenda for how we collectively think about the world. inclusive and sustainable development is unprecedented. In September 2015, U.N. Proclamation is laudable; action is member states agreed on 17 global goals essential (and considerably more elusive). to end poverty, fight inequality and tackle SHORT ESSAYS ON COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND THE PERFORMING ARTS l 68 l

Cities are the largest and arguably most for delineating a helpful view might be to complex product of human enterprise. consider whether or not mothers would As cities are made by humans, they want their children to grow up in a given necessarily are imperfect. As cities are community. Meeting that standard depends complex, humans invariably struggle to on gaining grounds for opportunity and bring the totality of urban reality into a security. Recalibrating our ultimate goal-- single vision. We tend to isolate those shifting from a view of cities as centers of aspects of urban life which give us pause, efficient economic growth or as home to approaching with singular solutions and especially creative innovators to holistic agendas intended to “fix” a particular places of promise--empowers us to urban condition. This piecemeal approach reconsider the city as our primary habitat. tends to distract us from the larger Unidimensional approaches to urban life objective of nurturing cities as holistic drive us towards conventional hierarchies places of promise. of smart technologies and innovations in Unlike a decade or so ago, the challenge governance, which, while laudable, are is no longer that cities are being ignored. insufficient. As almost 180,000 people Notions of creative classes, triumphant are added to the urban population each cities, and winner-take-all urbanism day, we need to plan for cities which do abound. Political opponents of current not yet exist. As ubiquitous proponents of national policies are looking to cities to new urban lifestyles fall into the fallacies right the ship of state with sanctuary of winner-take-all mentalities, we need to cities, green cities and charitable cities. expand policy goals beyond favoring any Urbanites and suburbanites struggle to particular group no matter how creative it define and redefine political institutions may be. in an era when both have become co- As we gather more and more information dependently metropolitan. Some ask what about cities we must remember that they the world would be like if it were ruled by are homes to millions and not merely data mayors instead of by presidents; others laboratories. As poverty spreads to the are convinced that our salvation is to be urban periphery, we need to embrace a found in making cities smart. vision of the city that extends well beyond Each perspective has value intellectually fixed boundaries. As urban complexity and operationally; all somehow come abounds, we need to accept that no up short when engaging our new urban particular policy offers a cookie-cutter condition. In thinking about the goal of approach that will prove successful promoting inclusive, safe, resilient and everywhere. sustainable cities, perhaps we must ponder Philosophical reflection and debate on more meaningful criteria. The simplest test the nature of public purpose and public l 69 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

virtue is as pressing today as it has been across centuries. Today’s cities remain as rooted in time, place and culture as cities always have been. Even so, today’s urban challenge is universal. In trying to blend the universal and the particular, we need more humility. We must begin by recognizing that success in terms of making the city desirable requires dexterity, flexibility and pragmatism.

Now that we have become urban, humans must embrace a more fulsome vision of the city. Not so long ago, we came to think of cities as places with limits--if not natural at least political and administrative- -which faded into the green and blue of the countryside. Once we bound the city within ever tight definitions, urban life came to be viewed as somehow abnormal. The now ubiquitous view from outer space at night erases all such boundaries. Today, our concepts and policies must follow.

l 71 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3 Performing Community 1: Short Essays on Community, Diversity, Inclusion, and the Performing Arts

By Blair Ruble l 72 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3

CONTENTS

Chapter 1- Performing Community Engagement

The Sound of Music Is The Sound of Community Resilience Making Community Work: the Importance of the Performing Arts The View from the Bus: Rethinking Cities through Performance Dancing towards Revolution in Kyiv Theater and the Heart of a City: Moscow’s Teatr.doc’s Confrontation with Authority Porgy & Bess at 80: Rethinking Russian Influence on American Culture Performance and Power from Kabuki to Go Go Acting Out Gentrification: Theater as Community Engagement “Beauty and the Beast:” A Tale of Entrepreneurship and Community

Misty Copeland to Dance Swan Lake at DC’s Kennedy Center

Chapter 2- Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Building

The Devil is a Local Call Away: Cities, the Arts, and Misunderstanding “Decay” As Urbanization Accelerates, Policymakers Face Integration Hurdles After Baltimore, we must see community as a process Fight not Flight: Lessons from Detroit Odessa: Ukrainian port that inspired big dreams

How Cities Can Foster Tolerance and Acceptance

Chapter 3- Planning for Inclusion and Creating Community

Rethinking Engagement in Cities: Ending the Professional vs. Citizen Divide Innovation through Inclusion: Lessons from Medellín and Barcelona Detroit: Planning for a City of the Future

Diversity by Design Discovering the Power of Community in Unexpected Places

Available at: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/performing-community l 73 l PERFORMING COMMUNITY 3 Performing Community 2 : Short Essays on Community, Diversity, Inclusion, and the Performing Arts

By Blair Ruble CONTENTS

Chapter 1- Communities and Change

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

10 Steps to a More Genuine D.C. Experience

Chapter 2- Mobility, Community, and Equality

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

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

Chapter 3- The Arts and Community Making

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

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

Available at: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/performing-communi- ty-2-short-essays-community-diversity-inclusion-and-the-performing ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Blair A. Ruble is currently a Distinguished century: Leningrad. Shaping a Soviet Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson City (1990); Money Sings! The Changing International Center for Scholars. He Politics of Urban Space in Post-Soviet previously served as the Center’s Vice Yaroslavl (1995); and, Second Metropolis: President for Programs and Director of the Pragmatic Pluralism in Gilded Age Center’s Urban Policy Laboratory (2014- Chicago, Silver Age Moscow, and Meiji 2017). Osaka (2001). Second Metropolis has been published in Russian (2004) and Prior to becoming Vice President for Ukrainian (2010) translation. In addition Programs Dr. Ruble was the Director of Dr. Ruble authored Creating Diversity the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Capital (2005) examining the changes in Studies (1989-2012) as well as of the such cities as Montreal, Washington, D.C., Center’s Comparative Urban Studies and Kyiv brought about by the arrival of Program (1992-2014), and was Director transnational communities. This work has of the its Program on Global Sustainability appeared in Ukrainian translation (2007). and Resilience (2012-2014). Dr. Ruble’s more than twenty edited Dr. Ruble’s The Muse of Urban Delirium works with several partners include: Jazz appeared in early 2017. This work in Washington (2014), Urban Diversity examines how new forms of performing (2010); Cities after the Fall of Communism arts emerge at moments of uncertain (2009); Composing Urban History and social identity in cities undergoing rapid the Constitution of Civic Identities (2003); transformation. Dr. Ruble’s most recent Urban Governance around the World previous book,Washington’s U Street: A (2001); Preparing for the Urban Future Biography (2010), explored the tentative (1996), and Russian Housing in the mixing of classes and in one of the Nation Modern Age (1993). Capital’s most important neighborhoods. This volume was reissued in paperback Dr. Ruble received his MA and PhD (2012) and in a Russian language edition degrees in Political Science from the (2012). University of Toronto (1973, 1977), and an AB degree with Highest Honors in Political His other book-length works include Science from the University of North a trilogy examining the fate of Russian Carolina at Chapel Hill (1971). provincial cities during the twentieth

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