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Celebrating America's Cultural Diversity

Projects Supported by

State and Regional Arts Agencies and the

National Endowment for the Arts

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Published by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Arts

The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) is the
membership organization of the nation's state and jurisdictional arts
agencies. The members, through NASAA, participate in the estab-
lishment of national arts policy and advocate the importance of the
diverse arts and cultures of the United States. NASAA serves as the
focus of communication and partnership between the state arts
agencies, the National Endowment for the Arts, and both arts and
government service organizations. NASAA provides its member
agencies with professional and leadership opportunities, as well as
information to assist them in decision making and management.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), an independent
agency of the federal government, was created in 1965 to encourage
and assist the nation's cultural resources. The NEA is advised by the
National Council on the Arts, a presidentially appointed body com-
posed of the chairman of the endowment and 26 distinguished pri-
vate citizens who are widely recognized for their expertise or interest
in the arts. The council advises the endowment on policies, pro-
grams and procedures, in addition to making recommendations on
grant applications.

This publication was produced under a cooperative agreement
between the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the
Nanonal Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA).

Editor:

Associate Editor:
Assistant Editor:

Cover Design:
Interior Design:

Laura Costello, NASAA

Andi Mathis, NEA

Jill Hauser-Field, NASAA

Kinetik Communication Graphics, Inc.
Laura Costello, in collaboration with Kinetik

Excerpt from "Junebug/Jack" \iscA with permission of Roadside
Theater. Copyright © 1991. All rights reserved.

Front cover: Photo by Cedric Chatterley

For further information about this publication contact the National
Assembly of State Arts Agencies, 1010 Vermont Avenue, Suite 920,
Washington, DC 20005, 202-347-6352.

Printed on recycled paper with soybean ink. ^& ^<> I©£wim'k1

Acknowledgements

In bringing this book to fruition, we benefitted
greatly fi-om the collective wisdom and experi-
ence of many individuals, to whom we would
like to extend our gratitude.

Edward Dickey, State and Regional Program
director at the NEA, offered an overall vision for this
book, in addition to imflagging encouragement and en-
thusiasm, for which we are appreciative. Our advisor)^
group provided insight and expertise beginning with the
initial selection of chapter themes and continuing
throughout the editorial process. From the NEA we
thank Patrice Powell, Expansion Arts Program acting di-
rector; Daniel Sheehy, Folk Arts Program director; Philip
Kopper, Publications direaor. We also thank Pamela
Holt, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities ex-
ecutive director.

State and regional arts agency staff around the
coimtry provided wise cotmsel and contributed gener-
otisly of their time and energy to help shape the various
chapters. In particular, we would like to recognize
Martha Dodson and Kathleen Mimdell of the Maine
Arts Commission and Regina Smith of the Indiana Arts
Commission for their contributions. From the many arts
and cultural organizations featured in these chapters, we

extend thanks to Theresa Hoffman of the Penobscot Na-
tion and Julia Olin, associate director of the National
Coimcil for the Traditional Arts, for their willingness to
read and respond.

Many thanks also to Jill Hatiser-Field for her
invaluable editorial assistance, especially in the creation of
chapter 10, to which Erika Seo, an intern in the State
and Regional Program, contributed preliminary research.

Laura L. Costello

Editor

National Assembly of

State Arts Agencies

AndiMathis
Program Analyst
National Etidowment
for the Arts

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

1 Diversity in the Desert 8

Nevada — surveying the unique and traditional arts of Las Vegas
by Andrea Graham

2 The Newcomers Project in New England 16

NEFA — preserving cultural traditions by helping refugee artists
develop and hone their presentation skills for new American audiences

by Michael Levine

3 The Down Home Doirylond Saga 24

Wisconsin — serving traditional and ethnic musicians of Wisconsin
and the upper Midwest through a state arts agency radio show

by Richard March

4 Creative Marriages:

Traditional Arts Apprenticeships 30

American Samoa/Washington, DC/Missouri — transmitting
cultural practices through the master/ apprentice relationship
by Bess Lomax Hawes and Barry Bergey

5 Culture and Science Join to Save

Maine Indian Basketry 38

Maine — working together to save the endangered brown ash
tree used by Maine's tribal basketmakers
by Wayne Curtis

6 Strengthening Organizations to Fulfill

Community Needs 46

Ohio/Pennsylvania/Indiana — helping arts organizations
develop their capabilities to meet their communities' needs

by John Rufus Caleb

7 The Age-Old Ritual of Storytelling 56

North Carolina/Mississippi — celebrating local culture as the
basis for community cultural planning and arts development

by Nayo Barbara Malcolm Watkins

8 Building Bridges in Education

Through Folk Arts 66

Idaho/Rhode Island — integrating folk arts education through
classroom arts programs
by Julie Fanselow

9 A Celebration of Life Through Words,

Music, Song and Dance 72

California — honoring traditional art forms from around the
world that are novi^ a part of California's cultural landscape

by Margarito Nieto and Mark Cianca

10 Additional State and Regional Arts Agency

Initiatives In Support of Cultural Diversity 80

The states and regions not highlighted in the previous
chapters describe their programs

edited by Jill Hamer-Field

Foreword

Over the past several years the cultural diversity
documented by census takers and demogra-
phers has resulted in an increasing public
awareness of the tremendous wealth to be found in
America's vast and growing number of culturally specific
communities. The music, dance, crafts, visual arts, the-
ater, literature and storytelling of culturally diverse
groups have the power to renew community spirit,
stimulate economic activity, create bridges of under-
standing between cultures, instill discipline and self-
worth and unite generations.

Celebrating America's Cultural Diversity fol-
lows A Rural Arts Sampler, which was published last year
to document some of the ways in which the fifty-six state
and jurisdictional arts agencies and their seven regional
organizations promote the arts in rural areas with support
from the Narional Endowment for the Arts (NEA). It
will be followed in turn by a publication — to be entitled
Part of the Solution — highlighting our joint efforts to in-
vest in arts projects that address pressing social needs.
This series of publications is intended to share successful
strategies and illustrate a few of the ways in which these
agencies work together to support projects that are mak-
ing a positive difference in people's lives throughout the
United States.

Support for this diversity of cultures is and
must be a fijndamental purpose of the public arts agen-
cies. Indeed the NEA's enabling legislation declares it "is
vital to a democracy to honor and preserve its multicul-
tural heritage" and links this support to "the fostering of
mutual respect for the diverse beliefs and values of all
persons and groups." The stories that follow document
some of the rewards we all realize by investing in Ameri-
can culture through public arts agencies.

Jonathan Katz
Executive Director
National Assembly of
State Arts Agencies

Edward Dickey

Director

State and Regional Program

National Endowment for the Arts

Introduction

For the next few years, one of the most
important agenda items that both the
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and
the state and territorial arts agencies share is support for
the creative spectrum of ctiltural diversit)^ as it relates to
the development of our country.

In less than 20 years approximately one-third
of the American population wiU be African American,
Native American, Hispanic American or Asian Ameri-
can. This faa signals either a tremendotis problem or an
extraordinary opportunity for the nation, depending on
what we as a country elect to do. Our failure to experi-
ence and understand that diversity — the variety of vi-
sions and traditions that shape our own and otir neigh-
bor's life — can frustrate our every collective attempt to
improve our society. In the face of American society we
must recognize our own cultural features and those of

our neighbors.

I am of the opinion that cultural policy, as
carried forth by the NEA and the state arts agencies, can
represent the best opportunity we have for the recogni-
tion and celebration of diversity. These agencies are posi-
tioned to play a pivotal role in the process of document-
ing and recording the enormotis creative energy that
exists within their various racial and ethnic groupings.

These agencies also have the power to enhance attempts
by various groups to interpret and reinterpret what this
new world means to each of them.

Programs such as the ones illtistrated in this
book represent some of the outstanding cultural experi-
ences that the NEA and the state arts agencies nurture
and stistain. These experiments can gtiide the nation on
new paths of imagination and social experimentation,
and in turn could be used by other nations as an example
of what can occur within a diverse population.

And, should anyone argue that the develop-
ment of such policies and programs would cost too
much or take too long, I would simply point out that
programs such as Expansion Arts and Folk Arts at the
federal level, and rural arts initiatives and culmral diver-
sity programming at the state level, have been working in
this field for many years and performing brilliantly.

Constructive participator)' programs that
share the wealth of our nation's cultural diversity will
gready reduce the likelihood of a repeat of the upheavals
we witnessed in Los Angeles and replace this scenario
with a thousand examples of hope and promise as illus-
trated here in Celebrating Amoica's Cultural Diversity.

William E. Strickland, Jr.

Member, National Council on the Arts

ijus Diversity in the Desert: The Las Vegas Folk Arts Project

The neon glow of downtown Las Vegas gives little hint of the cultural diversity to be
found within this sprawling, all-night city.
Photo by Blanton Owen

by Andrea Graham

Where else but Las Vegas would you find a
Jewish cantor who rides a unicycle in a ca-
sino show? It seems like an awkward com-
bination, but for Gary Golbart it hasn't been a problem
reconciling a life of traditional religious faith and leader-
ship with the life of an entertainer. In fact, there are some
commonalities, and he calls the Friday-night temple ser-
vices a show in their own right. For Jews in Europe years
ago, it was "the greatest entertainment they ever saw," he
says. "I see myself as that extension."

Golbart is currendy the full-time cantor for
Temple Beth Am in Las Vegas, but is still involved in a
local mtisical theater group after nearly twenty years as a
performer and producer with several of the Strip casino
extravaganzas. In his home town of St. Louis, he studied
gymnastics, theater and music, as well as apprenticed to a
cantor. On a vacation trip to Vegas Golbart chanced into
a job as an acrobat. Fie soon became the show's lead
singer and master of ceremonies, toured the world as part
of a imicycle act and eventually became entertainment
director at the Dunes and the Stardust. All the while he
was also deeply involved in a local Jewish congregation,
conducting services and leading the singing. One year
the two sides of Golbart's life came together when he
conduaed Fiigh Holiday services at the Dunes. "Only in
Las Vegas could I be head of the most famous topless
show in the world and still have my Friday nights and
daven (pray) and put on tefillin (leather boxes containing
scripture passages) . . . I'm comfortable in both worlds."

A History of Diversity

"Only in Las Vegas" is a familiar refrain in the city most
people associate with gambling and glamour. Usually
they are referring to the town's 24-hour life-style, where
you can get a hamburger at three in the morning with no
trouble; or the fact that there are erupting volcanoes and

talking statues and medieval jousting tournaments
around every corner; or the idea that you can do things in
Vegas you wouldn't dream of getting away with at home.
But there are other, subtler, "only in Vegas" scenes, like
Cubans making hand-rolled cigars at a shop on the Strip,
or a Paraguayan harpist playing in a Mexican restaurant,
or a Thai Buddhist temple in the middle of the desert.
Maybe these things stand out because they are signs of
real life in a city most people treat as a stage set, or a
Disneyland for adults.

Nevada has long had an undeserved reputa-
tion as a cultural wasteland. In the rural areas, the dry,
forbidding landscape has been equated with an equally
desiccated arts scene; in the cities of Reno and Las Vegas
the overpowering neon glow of the tourism and enter-
tainment industries has blinded outsiders to more sub-
stantial cidtural goings-on. Nevada has always been a
place people passed through on the way to somewhere
else; the few who did stop off were usually looking for
quick riches in the gold and silver fields and left again
with the inevitable bust. But there were some who
stopped and stayed, who "stuck," as Wallace Stegner says.

The travelers and those who stuck have always
been a diverse lot. In the late 1800s, for example, Nevada
had the highest percentage of foreign-born residents of
any state in the union. The state has also always been a
highly urban place, rather than agrarian, since its mining
camps and railroad towns were industrially based and
linked by transportation and communication networks to
the rest of the coimtry and the world. Etiropean immi-
grants from Germany, Italy, Greece, Ireland, France and
other countries quickly assimilated into the dominant
culture because they were part of small, close-knit com-
munities and they had to cooperate to survive. European
cidtural diversity soon metamorphosed into a unified
community. Other minority groups in early Nevada

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didn't fare as well, notably the Native Americans and
Chinese, who were kept in segregated communities and
given only menial jobs.

Today Nevada remains one of the most urban
states (although it is one of the smallest in total popula-
tion and one of the largest in area) with 83 percent of the
population living in the two large cities of Reno and Las
Vegas. The dramatic growth of Las Vegas in the last ten
years, during which the population doubled to 800,000,
has meant an even greater growth in diversity. The Afri-
can American, Latino and Asian/Pacific Island popula-
tions are exploding in a city and a state that were 90 per-
cent white for most of their history, and diversity is
becoming a major issue.

We Are All Pioneers
The Nevada State Council on the Arts (NSCA) has al-
ways tried to encourage and support diverse organiza-
tions and programs, but until recently they were few and
far between. In the cultural community, mainstream or-
ganizations are now scrambling to include a broader rep-
resentation of cultures in their performances, exhibits
and programs, and on their boards and staffs. Grass-roots
organizations based in diverse cultures are also starting to
come together to promote their own art forms.

In 1985 NSCA established a Folk Arts Pro-
gram to reach constituents not served by other arts coun-
cil programs and to address the needs of traditional and
culturally diverse communities. The Folk Arts Program is
often the arts council's first contact with non-main-
stream, minority and ethnic groups, and is seen as a way
to build relationships that can later broaden into other
areas of the arts as well. NSCA's first folk arts projects
were in rural areas because they were the least-served, had
the fewest resources and were the simplest to work with.
The field of folklore has also historically been biased to-

ward rural art forms, and the most obviously unique Ne-
vada cultures are cowboys and Indians, so that seemed
the logical place to start. Projects in the first five years of
the program included two rural county folk arts surveys,
with resulting festivals, exhibits and publications; a slide-
tape show on everyday traditions of ranch life; a series of
radio shows; and folk ans apprenticeships in Native
American and cowboy arts.

But you can't live in Nevada and ignore Las
Vegas, so the next logical project was a survey of tradi-
tional arts and artists there. The Las Vegas Folk Arts Sur-
vey was a two-year project begun in the summer of 1991
and fiinded with grants from the National Endowment
for the Arts Folk Arts Program. With NSCA's earlier
projects in rural areas there usually were no existing cul-
tural agencies to work with, and the projects were small
enough that the arts council could do them alone. In Las
Vegas, however, there were solid organizations that had
established track records of folk arts programming, an in-
terest in doing more and the vital community connec-
tions and resources that are necessary for a such a large
undertaking. Both the City of Las Vegas and Clark
County have active cultural aflFairs offices, and both were
very interested in learning about local traditional arts and
artists; the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society
was searching for ways to make community connections;
and KUNV Public Radio at the University of Nevada
Las Vegas was already providing diverse community pro-
gramming. All of these organizations committed time
and money to the project, and their knowledge of local
groups and individuals was invaluable to an out-of-town
folklorist.

The first year of the project was spent learning
as much as possible about Las Vegas in general, and con-
ducting fieldwork with the traditional communities and
the artists who have made the city their home. Although

Glass-bender Mark Willerr is one of the many artisans
discovered during the folk arts sun-ey conducted b}' the

Nevada State Council on the Arts.
Photo bv Russell Frank

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Statistically an urban area with urban amenities, Las Ve-
gas is actually a huge suburb. It is very new, growing rap-
idly, laid out in sprawling subdivisions and strip shop-
ping malls, and is generally a classic example of the new
American automobile-based city. Such places are not
known for nurturing a sense of community that would
support traditional art forms. Add to that the over-
whelming culture of tourism and gambling, and any sane
folklorist would run back to the sticks.

But the same elements that make Las Vegas
difficult for a cultural worker also make it a fascinating
challenge. Las Vegas is still in the process of becoming.
People are arriving from every state in the union and ev-
ery country in the world, and those who stay will deter-
mine what kind of place it becomes. What are they
bringing with them? What attitudes and cultural styles
and art forms are they mixing into the stew of Vegas?
How are they adapting to Las Vegas's unique environ-
ment? How are they making it home? In such a new
place, everyone has a chance to contribute. As Cantor
Golbart says, "We are all pioneers out here."

# Behind the Neon

Still, doing folklore fieldwork in Vegas is not easy, as
NSCA folklorist Andrea Graham and contract field-
workers Lesley Williams and Russell Frank found out.
Requests for information about folk artists were met with
blank stares, and dead ends and false leads abounded. Ex-
cept for the black community (which was segregated
from its beginnings in the 1940s), people have not
settled in old-fashioned ethnic neighborhoods, and the
city's newness and mobility mean that people don't
know each other yet, even within a cultural group. Resi-
dents are also busy getting settled and making a living,
often working night shifts in the 24-hour service-ori-
ented economy, and so they haven't had time to main-

tain elements of their traditional culture.

However, there are signs that members of eth-
nic and cultural groups are starting to find each other
and are expressing a desire to present and pass on their
arts, especially to their children. For example, no fewer
than three cultural organizations have formed in the
black community in the last few years, with overlapping
interests in researching the history of blacks in Vegas, or-
ganizing cultural classes for kids and presenting an Afri-
can American cultural festival. A Thailand Nevada Asso-
ciation was formed primarily to promote economic
development, but it also sponsors social events that in-
clude music and classical dance. The Nevada Association
of Latin Americans supports plans for a museum of
Latino culture and arts, as well as providing social ser-
vices for the Latino community. The Las Vegas Indian
Center provides job training and other services, and a
corner of its lobby houses a store where urban Indians
can sell beadwork, weaving and other crafts. The Japa-
nese American Citizens' League would like to sponsor
classes in Taiko drumming with a master artist who has
moved to town. Many of these groups get numerous re-
quests for programs from schools. They would like to do
more in the way of passing their culture to their own
young people, as well as to the wider public, but they
need money and assistance in organizing.

Individual artists are also struggling to main-
tain their culture, usually while holding ftill-time jobs.
The members of a South American musical group can't
find rehearsal space and have been practicing outdoors in
local parks; they can't practice in their apartments and
community center space is overbooked, though they
couldn't afford even the minimal fees anyway. A Navajo
silversmith travels to craft shows on weekends because he
can't sell his work for what it's worth in Las Vegas, and
dealers take too high a commission. A Navajo weaver has

similar problems and sells mostly by word of mouth,
which means she gets to keep all the money, but she has
less exposure. A Thai classical dancer performed in public
in Las Vegas for the first time in April, and was so good
people thought he had come fi-om Los Angeles; by Sep-
tember he had 20 students and was swamped with
requests to perform, but he had to fit in teaching and
performing between his two jobs. Two Paraguayan mtisi-
cians, a harpist and a guitarist/singer, perform in a Mexi-
can restaurant six nights a week, but have had to tailor
their music to popular taste and play coimdess renditions
of "La Bamba;" they at least can make a living with their
music, although not in the way they might prefer.

Many of these traditional an forms and simi-
lar difficult situations could occur in any large city, and
in many ways Las Vegas is "just like anywhere else," as
the locals are fond of explaining. Yet Vegas is also unde-
niably different because of the casino culture, which per-
vades the city's whole reason for being. Most jobs are tied
either direcdy or indirectly to gaming, totirism and enter-
tainment. Tourists don't come to town for the history or
culture, so it is difficult for ctilttiral organizations to rely
on them for an audience and for artists to make a living.

Only in Vegas

From a folklorist's point of view, the gaming and tour-
ism businesses provide an entire new constellation of oc-
cupational subctilttires with rich traditions of their own.
Craps dealers have a huge vocabulary of specialized terms
and expressions that are made up daily and played with
on the job, sometimes to refer to specific bets or situa-
tions, and sometimes to commimicate without players
knowing what is being said. For example, when the dice
bounce off the table and land on the wooden rim, invali-
dating the play, a stickman might say "Don't pay the
cash, it's in the ash," "Found a perch in the birch,"

"Can't call it fo' ya, it's in the sequoia," "No joke, it's in
the oak," or "No number, in the lumber." This tise of
language keeps a game lively, and forms a sense of com-
munity and creativity among the four dealers working a
game — it adds a human touch to the increasingly corpo-
rate structure of the casinos. And even in the fast-paced
casino world, dealers lament the passing of the good old
days and tell sentimental stories about how much better
it used to be.

Vegas entertainers also have a host of tradi-
tions: the good and bad luck beliefs of dancers and
showgirls, the trading of tricks and patter among magi-
cians. Las Vegas jokes made up and passed on by come-
dians. Even the neon signs that are Las Vegas's most vis-
ible identifying characteristic have traditions behind
them. The art of the "glass-benders" who make the signs
has many similarities to other craft traditions. The neces-
sary skills are usually learned through apprenticeship
with an experienced sign maker, and anyone in the busi-
ness will tell you that the process can never be mecha-
nized— it will always involve huinan skill and judge-
ment. What many glass-benders like most is that their
work is up in public for everyone to see; they enjoy driv-
ing by a huge casino, looking up and pointing out their
creations to their kids and out-of-town visitors. As glass-
bender Mark WiUett says, "One hundred years from
now I'll be gone, but my neon'll still be up there. If
you're going to put up some neon, it's nice to know it's
up in Vegas."

The traditions of the variety of workers who
make Las Vegas nm add to the cultural diversity of the
city just as much as ethnic arts do, and need to be recog-
nized, studied and shared in the same way. In fact, in
planning public presentations of local traditions, they
may be even more of an attraction for tourists than what
is usually thought of as folk an because they are unique

to Las Vegas, and can give a glimpse into the daily life of
the locals.

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Cultivating the Garden
As part of the first year of the Las Vegas Folk Arts Survey
there were two public presentations of traditional arts.
The Cultural Affairs Division of the Clark County De-
partment of Parks and Recreation sponsored a small ex-
hibit of local folk crafts, including Ukrainian Easter eggs,
Japanese embroidery, neon signs, Polish papercuts, Ha-
waiian feather leis and African American quilts. The ex-
hibit proved to be one of the most popular that the com-
munity center gallery had hosted; an opening with
Hawaiian dance and lei-making, and three weekend
demonstrations by featured crafi:speople also attracted
sizeable crowds. The Cultural and Community Affairs
Branch of the Las Vegas Department of Recreation and
Leisure Activities presented an evening performance of
music and dance from four Las Vegas communities —
African American, Native American, Hawaiian and
South American — ^which was also well-received.

The final product of the survey's first year was
a folk arts cultural plan, which contains an overview of
Las Vegas folk arts and recommendations for their con-
tinued support. The major cultural agencies in the
area — the city and county, the library system, the state
museum, the children's museum, the local arts council
and the school district — are all interested in presenting
local traditional artists in their facilities and programs,
but need assistance to locate and communicate with folk
artists and communities. The growing number of grass-
roots ethnic and cultural groups want a wider audience,
but need help in organizing and raising money. Both the
cultural agencies and the grass-roots groups are willing to
forge partnerships to get things done, and in fact several
such team efforts are already happening. For example, a

Hawaiian/Pacific Island festival co-sponsored by the city
and the Hawaiian Club has been very successful, with
the city contributing the use of a park and stage and the
club doing the programming.

The report's main recommendation was that
a full-time folklorist for Las Vegas/Clark County would
be the best way to guarantee continued support for the
traditional arts. There is still an enormous need for field-
work to locate and document artists and communities;
NSCA's survey has barely scratched the surface. There is
also demand for technical assistance by grass-roots orga-
nizations and artists, program guidance for mainstream
organizations wanting to include local traditional arts,
and communication among all groups to improve access
to resources and reduce duplication of efforts.

During the second year of the Las Vegas Folk
Arts Project, NSCA will work with the four co-sponsor-
ing organizations to present a two-day folklife festival in
May of 1 993 in a city park, organize a larger exhibit of
craft traditions at the Nevada State Museum and His-
torical Society and publish an illustrated book with essays
by the two NSCA field-workers on aspects of Las Vegas
folklore. With the inclusion of artists from all groups,
and the help of numerous ethnic and community clubs
in planning and carrying out the events, the festival has
the potential to become a real community celebration.
The arts council can't continue to organize it each year —
there are many unexplored areas of the state that beckon,
and the council has already gotten requests from groups
in Reno to do a similar project there — but with sufficient
interest and support the local groups may decide to carry
it on. Again, the presence of a folklorist in Las Vegas
would help an effort like this immeasurably.

Even now, after only a year and a half of in-
volvement in Las Vegas's folk communities, this project
has proved extremely beneficial. The arts council is aware

of numerous new groups and Individual artists in ethnic,
religious and occupational communities, and those
groups are in turn aware of the arts council and how it
can help them with organization, programming and
funding. Through continued cooperation and communi-
cation with the mainstream cultural agencies, we can pass
on information about folk artists, their needs and how
they can fit into the Las Vegas ctiltural scene. And there
are clearly needs crying out to be met, such as free re-
hearsal space and sales outlets provided by people who
understand and respect folk arts, funding for grass-roots
groups to present their own culture and non-commercial
venues for folk music and dance. The cultural and gov-
ernmental agencies in southern Nevada are just beginning
a major cultural planning process, into which this infor-
mation will be fed as a starting point for a more thorough
and inclusive assessment of needs and opportunities.

During the Las Vegas Folk Arts Survey, the
combination of federal funding from the National En-
dowment for the Arts, folk arts expertise from the Nevada
State Council on the Arts and local contacts and re-
sources fi-om the Las Vegas community has made for an
ideal partnership. Although the initial idea came fi-om the

state, not the local level, the interest was already there
and local groups were involved from the start. This
makes long-term commitment to folk arts programs
more likely.

For all its difficulties and fi'ustrations. Las Ve-
gas really does have a pioneering spirit, and individuals
and small groups can have a large impact because none of
this has been tried before. We have a wonderful opportu-
nity to fight cultural homogenization and neighborhood
firagmentation by helping build a true community — a
community of cultures that respect and honor them-
selves and each other. That is admittedly an uphill fight
when the competition is slot machines, showgirls and the
attitude that Nevada is a cultural desert. But it also
makes the small successes all the more sweet, and forces
us to be inclusive rather than exclusive in fostering and
supporting arts of all kinds. ■

Andrea Graham has been director of the Folk Ans Program at the Ne-
vada State Council on the Arts since 1990. She has worked for regional
and state folklore programs in Virginia, Tennessee and Florida, and as a
free-lance folklorist and writer in Nevada.

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The Newcomers Project in New England

The Newcomers Project provides professional development for
Cambodian music and dance troupes in New England. Chan Moly Sam
is shown here working with students on kbach (postures) of Cambodian
court dance during a workshop at Jacob's Pillow.

Photo by Cecily Cook

by Michael Levine

In 1989, the New England Foundation for the
Arts (NEFA) established the Newcomers Project
to help recently arrived traditional performing
arts groups reach audiences outside their own communi-
ties. Under the direction of Bets)' Peterson, NEFA's di-
rector of Traditional Arts, the project focused initially on
the Southeast Asian commtmit}^ and is now poised to
reach Caribbean and Latino performing groups as well.

Through this project NEFA is developing fo-
nims for presenting the traditional cultures of immigrant
populations, and forging new partnerships with both the
public and private sectors in the process. Though focused
specifically on New England, it has brought people to-
gether fi-om half a world apart.

The Newcomers Project is really about the
survival of a foreign culture's performing arts tradition in
the context of twenu'-first century American society.
Some of the world's finest dancers and musicians have
settled here, but they have lacked the skills to negotiate
our arts infi-astructure to reach the American public.
Faced with the everyday demands of adjusting to a new
life, they have litde time to rehearse or teach their skills to
a new generation. Even within their commtmities the de-
mand for performances is often limited to specific holi-
days, and there is litde in the way of local fiinding to sup-
port their efforts.

This has been painfully apparent in the refu-
gee Cambodian commtmity. From 1975 to 1979, when
the Khmer Rouge controlled Cambodia, almost 90 per-
cent of the dancers and musicians perished or fled the
cotmtr\^ In refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian
border, Cambodian folk and classical dance students re-
ceived training in traditions reaching back to the ninth
century. Many of these individuals have found their way
to the United States, sending in communities scattered
from coast to coast.

The Newcomers Project grew out of work be-
gun by the Refugee Arts Group in the mid-1980s. This
Boston-based group, which was a coalition of artists,
scholars, refugee support professionals and educators, was
formed to see that "the expressive arts and culture of the
homelands are not forgotten, and to celebrate ctiltural di-
versity through the arts." With fiinding from the Massa-
chusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities and the
NEA Folk Arts Program, the Refugee Arts Group sur-
veyed the Bay State to find Southeast Asian artists.

Soon after, NEFA received a $35,000 grant
from the Ford Foundation to laimch the Newcomers
Project. Phase One was specifically designed to assist
Southeast Asian groups by providing technical assistance
related to self-presentation and publicity, and by helping
arrange performances outside the immigrant commu-
nity. Though the initial work included a Laotian group,
the project concentrated on three groups of Cambodians:
the Angkor Dance Troupe in Lowell, Massachusetts; the
Cambodian Traditional Music Ensemble in Providence,
Rhode Island; and the Khmer Performing Arts Ensemble
of Niantic, Connecticut. The two dance troupes perform
both the traditional court dances and a repertory of folk
dances, which were developed at the University of Fine
Arts in Phnom Penh in the 1960s. The music ensemble
performs a variety of musical styles from the Cambodian
cotmtryside.

^ Building New Audiences
The Newcomers Project is based on the premise that
these groups need to build American audiences in order
to survive and grow. When performed for Cambodian
audiences, the dance and music of Cambodia need little
or no explanation. In the case of dance, many Cambodi-
ans know the Ramayana story on which much of the
court repertor}' is based. Both court and folk dances are

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accompanied by sung texts that narrate what is going on
in the dance. Since mainstream western audiences won't
know the Khmer or the Ramayana story, it is essential to
provide interpretive materials or a presenter to help them
understand and appreciate the art form.

These groups also need assistance in learning
to present themselves to potential sponsors, through
written materials and auditions. Through the Newcom-
er's Project, NEFA has offered ongoing consultation on
financial, business and management issues; assisted in
techniques of group presentation, staging and technical
production; provided fiinds that allowed each group to
produce detailed publicity packets; funded the purchase
of costumes and prop production; and offered fee subsi-
dies to potential sponsors around the region. In addition,
NEFA showcased several of the groups at a New En-
gland-wide "Presenting the Folk Arts" Conference.

# Partners with Jacob's Pillow

While the project has accomplished many of its original
goals, its most significant impact may result from a joint
venture between NEFA and the nationally renowned
Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival of Becket, Massachusetts.
Through this continuing partnership, Jacob's Pillow is
committed to working with the Cambodian community
for several years. In 1991 the Festival offered four con-
secutive weekends of Cambodian dance workshops.
These workshops brought together dozens of students
and master teachers for lectures, rehearsals and public
performances of classical and folk dances accompanied
by live music. The Jacob's Pillow component has been
funded by the Ford Foundation, the Mott Foundation,
an NEA Folk Arts grant and the Asian Cultural Council.

"I can pinpoint our turnaround to that first
summer at Jacob's Pillow," recalls George Chigas, man-
ager of the Angkor Dance Troupe. "We had a chance to

step out of our everyday existence and focus on the
dance. Our group had been floundering and it gave us a
chance to develop a professionalism, both artistically and
in managerial style.

"Equally important, the workshop showed a
recognition by the non-Cambodian community of the
legitimacy of our art form."

Thoeun Thou, a dancer and teacher with the
Angkor Dance Troupe, echoes that sentiment. "No one
ever thought of us before the Jacob's Pillow workshops.
Now we have many more chances to share our culture."

"The strength of this project," explains
Jacob's Pillow Executive Director Sam Miller, "is that we
did not want to impose any prior objectives. We simply
used our physical and human resources to create an envi-
ronment and a context where multilevel exchanges could
take place."

The first year brought together Cambodian
dance masters and community members from around
the country. For the summer of 1992, the program ex-
panded to include several professors from the University
of Phnom Penh.

"We came to realize that there is no place
where the complete repertoire of Cambodian dance re-
sides," Miller continued. "Keep in mind that these
dances have historically been taught by apprenticeships
and handed down through the generations. In some
cases, one individual would devote his or her entire life to
performing a particular role. Because of the tragic up-
heavals caused by the Khmer Rouge, some of the classic
characters in Cambodian dance have been endangered. It
became apparent that this was not simply a refugee
project, but one of cultural preservation."

As Cecily Cook, director of the Refugee Arts
Group explains, "Cambodian dance became democra-
tized in the refugee camps. The masters were there offer-

Cambodian musicians from throughout the United States were invited to Jacob's Pillow to
accompany Cambodian dancers during a week-long workshop held in conjunction with the
Newcomers Project.
Photo by Cecily Cook

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ing classes and anyone in the camps could study. But this
knowledge is not always passed on to the best artists.
That's why the exchange between refugees here and the
surviving artists in Cambodia is so important."

"This has proved to be a very successful
project," observes Ralph Samuelson, executive director of
the Asian Cultural Council (ACC), based in New York
City. "I give Jacob's Pillow a lot of credit for understand-
ing what it was dealing with. It's hard for general arts in-
stitutions to relate to traditional arts — understanding
their needs, creating an encouraging atmosphere and of-
fering help and respect for the culture. At the ACC, we
support cultural exchange in the visual and performing
arts. With this project we knew the key artists and the in-
stitution involved, and we could clearly see that it was re-
vitalizing ties with the people in Cambodia. This is an es-
sential ingredient in preserving Cambodian culture."

"We really took our cues from the partici-
pants," reflects Miller. "For instance, we offered some
lighting or string ideas and then worked with them to
see what best met their needs. Ultimately it was about
improving the quality of their presentation, and the col-
laboration worked."

# Balancing Art and Life

Tithtra Soch is a 2 5 -year-old dancer and musician who
was trained in the refiigee camps before his parents set-
tled in Rhode Island in 1985. He attended the Jacob's
Pillow workshops both years and is very enthusiastic
about the experience. His parents are both musicians,
and until their recent divorce the family performed to-
gether. Over the past few years, Tithtra- has been trying
to develop and manage the Cambodian Traditional Mu-
sic Ensemble. He knows how important it is to keep the
art forms alive, because "without the music and dance,
when people picture Cambodia they only think of war."

Yet, Tithtra has now given up playing music
and dancing. "My instruments decorate the wall," he
says. Like so many young Cambodians in this country,
he has realized how little opportunity there is to make a
living through his traditional arts. In pursuit of a fine arts
degree, he works at the local textile mill just long enough
to earn a semester's tuition. Tithtra wonders whether he
will even attend Jacob's Pillow next summer. "I have to
ask, 'Can I use this education towards my support?' If
not, then I can't take the time to do it."

Tithtra also faced constant frustration while
trying to organize the ensemble. Cambodian musicians
are in great demand for playing at weddings within the
Cambodian community. Traditional songs are played
during certain parts of the wedding ceremony in the
morning, while at night modern Cambodian rock music
is the choice for receptions. The problem Tithtra faced is
that many of the young people just want to play the
modern music because they get paid more for it and
don't need to rehearse as long. He found there was even
less interest in playing the traditional music for American
audiences since this meant leaving the community, earn-
ing very little money and getting hired to play at odd
times. Many of their bookings were for school assemblies
or midweek evening concerts.

"People can't keep begging time off from
their shift supervisor to play these jobs," Tithtra contin-
ued. "It became impossible to commit to bookings so far
in advance.

"In Cambodia, one person can work and earn
enough to support ten people," Tithtra reflected. "But
here, one person can barely support himself I don't
know anyone in my community who works just eight
hours [a day], usually it is ten- or twelve-hour shifts at
the factory all week. And on Saturday eight hours more.
No choice. You work overtime or they fire you. It leaves

no time for family, no time to relax and certainly no time
to enjoy making music."

"I think it's very hard to save our culture.
Maybe if I could teach kids in the schools to dance, show
them how to make traditional costumes, and teach them
Cambodian ways, like New Year's games, or history. If
there was some fiinding for it to happen four or five
times a month, then I could support my education with-
out the factory."

Restoring Pride in Cambodian Culture
As artistic director of the Khmer Performing Arts En-
semble, Sokhanarith Moeur is also very familiar with the
difficulty of keeping a troupe together. Moeur, who per-
forms both Cambodian classical and folk dances, emi-
grated from Thailand in 1987 and now lives in Con-
neaicut. Prior to the Pol Pot regime she was a professor
of dance at the University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh.
With the assistance of NEFA's Newcomers Project her
group has undergone remarkable professional develop-
ment, and recendy was added to the touring roster of the
Connecticut Commission on the Arts.

Moeur believes the Newcomers Project has
been extremely beneficial. "I want to accomplish two
goals through my art," she explains. "First, I want to re-
store a pride and imderstanding in Cambodian culture
for the Cambodian people in America, especially the kids
who have been born here. Second, I want to have Ameri-
cans understand what our culture looks like and what it
is about. Betsy [Peterson] and Cecily [Cook] have helped
us to perform for many new audiences."

Moeur believes the Jacob's Pillow experiences
have been crucial to achieving both goals. Because the
Cambodian artists around New England live in several
scattered communities, they cannot get together for regu-
lar rehearsals. "When we do have performances," she ad-

mits, "the music and dance are not consistent, and I
don't feel good about what we are showing people."

"But at Jacob's Pillow, there was plenty of
time to work together. It was great."

As it becomes more difficult to find the musi-
cians available who can play the traditional Cambodian
dance tunes, the dancers are relying increasingly on tapes.
As pan of the Newcomers Projea, the dancers now have
a professional music recording, which was made during
the 1992 Jacob's Pillow workshops.

"In the past, music has been a big concern,"
describes Chigas of the Angkor Dance Troupe. "We
needed live music and it was difficult and expensive to
use. Sometimes we would meet only an hour before the
performance and run through the program. Variations in
tempo would surface during the dances and it was a big
aggravation. Now that we have good tapes, we prefer to
use them. Besides, the logistics and cost are a lot easier
for the arts presenters if we don't bring ten musicians."

There is no doubt that the Angkor Dance
Troupe is the most successful group of artists in the
Newcomers Program to date. They have been added to
the NEFA Touring Roster, acquired a costimie inven-
tory, hold regidar practices, improved their record keep-
ing and financial management, and developed a reper-
toire that is well-suited to American audiences unfamiliar
with their traditions. Yet, until recently when the troupe
received its first grant of $20,000 fi-om the Parker Foun-
dation in Lowell, the group's artistic and administrative
management was a completely volunteer effort.

"Now," Chigas continued, "we will be able to
pay several instructors and our dance manager for things
like pre-planning rehearsals so the few hours a week we
have with our troupe can be more productive."

Ironically, even as the group is finally getting
on solid footing, they face new challenges. The free re-

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hearsal space they had been using at the National His-
toric Park in Lowell has been closed due to budget cuts,
and there is a constant problem with student turnover.

"We always have plenty of female dancers
available; however, after graduation from high school we
lose them. Some go off to college, others work at the fac-
tories and many get married and are forbidden by their
husbands to continue dancing. Teenage boys, on the
other hand, rarely show any interest."

Because the troupe relies on students, book-
ings are limited to weekends and must be within easy
driving distance of their Lowell community. Otherwise,
parents are not inclined to let their children participate.

"I feel strongly about showing our culture to
other nationalities," Angkor dancer Thoeun says. "But I
am worried about the ftiture of this dance. I know per-
formances are coming, but there is very little money. I
have no answers, and 1 worry."

Perhaps the next phase of the Jacob's Pillow
residency will provide some needed tools to the Cambo-
dian community. In the summer of 1993, intensive
weekend workshops will be offered in Lowell and a few
other selected communities around the region. The
internationally renowned faculty assembled at Jacob's
Pillow will be leading these sessions specifically for those
who can not afford the time to attend the week-long
offerings.

# First Night

"I saw the training at Jacob's Pillow and knew the perfor-
mances had a place on our program," exclaimed Zeren
Earls, who has served as both executive director and artis-
tic director of First Night Boston since 1980. "It's very
important to me to bring the rich traditions of many im-
migrant cultures to a mainstream audience such as we
have at First Night. I also feel it is essential to include

newcomers in our programs as a way of welcoming them
to our community."

In 1991 Earls presented the Khmer Perform-
ing Arts Ensemble in a special program at the largest the-
atre space in the city. As part of the Columbus Quincen-
tennial she brought together half a dozen dance troupes in
a tribute honoring America's diverse heritage. "As part of
that continuum, it was natural to have some of our new-
est Americans represented. We filled the hall twice," she
reported, "and this year the Khmer returned to our pro-
gram with a stage to themselves."

"Our average audience member has no knowl-
edge of the dance tradition in Cambodia, yet they are
clearly moved by the exquisite form of the dancers. I work
with a lot of communities around Boston, and the profes-
sionalism that the Cambodians have achieved as a result
of the Newcomers Project is remarkable. There is a defi-
nite role for the NEFAs of this world."

Breaking New Ground

Clearly, the Newcomers Project is breaking new ground.
According to Daniel Sheehy, director of the NEA's Folk
Arts Program, "Jacob's Pillow has provided a working
model of ways in which arts institutions or artists' colo-
nies can provide a setting for immigrant artists to work
with original masters. This really addresses a need identi-
fied at the World Classical Performing Arts Conference in
1991. The involvement in this project of a national leader
like Jacob's Pillow sends an important signal to producers
and presenters across the country and offers the Cambo-
dian community a visibility far beyond the region."

"In one year, I've seen a striking difference in
the Cambodian performances. This is evident both in
their props and stage sets, as well as in meeting the expec-
tations of an American audience in terms of timing, pac-
ing and packaging."

"In a very direct way," Sheehy continues,
"this NEFA project reinforces the Folk Arts Program's
goal of increasing access for all Americans to each other.
We can't hope to be fluent in the himdreds of cultures
that are part of our American society today. However,
experiences we gain as audience members give tis a
glimpse at the core values of a people as expressed
through their arts."

For the audience, Sheehy believes, each new
experience raises a question and challenges us to think
about what it means and why it is there. In this regard he
says, "there is a lot in common between avant garde and
folk art. They are both challenging and the audiences
need guidance."

Despite the problems faced by all the Cambodian
artists, everyone agrees the Newcomers Project has suc-
ceeded in providing a framework that allows them to
reach new audiences. It has also woven a wonderful pat-
tern of partnerships that can serve as models for pro-
grams nationwide.

As NEFA's Peterson describes it, "This is such
a nice example of how two organizations develop sepa-
rate programs that mutually strengthen and reinforce
each other. The Cambodian programs at Jacob's Pillow
could not have occurred without the prior grotmd-break-
ing work of NEFA's Newcomers Project. Conversely, the
Jacob's Pillow programs were a trtily inspiring opportu-
nity for the Cambodian students. All in all, it's one of
those 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts'
experiences." ■

Michael Levine is the public information officer at the Vermont Council
on the Arts. He is a former free-layice journalist and broadcast
professional.

About NEFA

The New England Foundation for the Arts
is a regional consortium of the six New
England state arts councils (Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire,
Rhode Island, Vermont) created over 15
years ago to support and de\^elop the arts in
New England. The foundation's mission is
to connect the people ofNew England with
the power of art to shape lives and impro\'e
communities. Public and private partner-
ships are developed by the foundation to
support the creation and presentation of art
by artists and diverse art organizations. Its
goals are pursued through a variety of pro-
grams and services, which include informa-
tion exchange, policy planning, research,
advocacv and direct financial assistance.

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The Down Home Dairylond Sago

•^ Arthur "Zeke" Renard, Belgian button accordion player from Duval, Wisconsin,
being recorded and interviewed for "Down Home Dairyland," a radio program
created by the Wisconsin Arts Board to serve the traditional and ethnic musicians in
the state.
Photo by Richard March

hy Richard March

The VFW Hall in Janesville, Wisconsin, sits on
top of a high hill on the south side of town. For
the famously flat Midwest, the hill commands a
spectacular view overlooking the sprawling linear build-
ings of the General Motors plant, the small city's largest
employer. The factory is surrounded by a web of high
voltage power lines, while in the distance the rolling
green countryside is dotted with the farmsteads of dairy
producers, their massive barns flanked by towering silos.

The VFW Hall is a friendly gathering place
for the farmers, autoworkers and others from the Janes-
ville area. Rock Cotmty and Green Cotmty residents of
German, Swiss, Norwegian, Polish and Irish descent use
the hall to ntirture their traditions, celebrate weddings
and anniversaries and put on lodge fiinctions and com-
munity benefit affairs. They are the kind of people whose
artistic interests and needs have seldom been addressed
by state arts agencies, even though they and millions of
others from the smaller cities and rural areas of the Up-
per Midwest have created their own expressive ctilttire.
Their culture and its expression through the music and
dance in this hall is at once unified and pluralistic, urban
and rural, rooted in tradition yet forward-looking.

In the fall of 1986 I drove wdth my colleague
Jim Leary 40 miles southeast from home in Madison to
take in a rare musical experience. We had noticed in the
Wisconsin Polka Boosters newsletter that the New Jolly
Swiss Boys — Syl Liebl, Jr.'s band from Coon Valley,
Wisconsin — ^would be in Janesville. Syl Liebl, Sr., the
legendary concertina player, wotild be sitting in. We
jumped at the chance to hear and meet this immensely
influential, but now mosdy reared, musician.

The dance was in fuU swing when we arrived.
The final flourish of a Dutchman-style polka tune was
jtist fading and the spinning dancers' skirts still settling as
we walked in. The two Syls and the Swiss Boys were on

stage taking a moment's pause and preparing to play a set
of three waltzes. Anxious to meet the elder Liebl, we
strode toward the stage. By the time we reached the
middle of the dance floor, 1 was recognized by Archie
Baron, a dairy farmer and the polka promoter who had
booked this dance.

"Hey Rick, it's great to see you here," he
beamed. "Would you like an introduction?" Assiuning
he was going to introduce me to Syl Liebl, St., 1 nodded
assent. Archie sprang to the stage, snatched a micro-
phone from its stand and annoimced, "Hey everybody,
look who's here — Rick March of 'Down Home Dairy-
land' radio!" I stood frozen in surprise as a hearty ripple
of applause filled the hall.

Discovering Listeners
For about two months the Wisconsin Arts Board
(WAB), where I am the traditional and ethnic arts coor-
dinator, had been producing "Down Home Dairyland,"
which at that time was a three-hour Monday morning
radio show on WORT, Madison's listener-supported
commimity radio. The show featured the traditional and
ethnic music of Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest, with
an emphasis on polkas. It had never occturred to me that
we might have listeners in Janesville!

The incident marked my in-person debut as a
radio personality in Wisconsin. It had been hard to ex-
plain to most people just what I did for WAB and how it
might relate to them. But everybody knew what a radio
deejay was! During the afternoon a few listeners ap-
proached me with comments such as, "I liked that fea-
ture you did on Romy Gosz. How can 1 get a tape of it?,"
"Will you play for me that 'Let's Have a Party' ttme by
Chuck Thiel and the Jolly Ramblers?"

Now 1 had some confirmation that my radio
idea was actually working. It was initially viewed by some

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of my arts administrator colleagues as totally oflF-the-wall
and a crazy departure from the normal functioning of a
state arts agency. But this incident and others over the
ensuing months convinced me there were indeed listen-
ers out there. Old-time and ethnic musicians pressed
copies of their recordings into my hand or sent them by
mail, all with the same request — "Please play it on your
radio show." Handwritten letters and cards trickled in,
saying: "I listen to you in the truck on my postal route.
Could you play a Greg Anderson yodel number?" and
"Please play 'Red Raven Polka' by Lawrence Duchow
and dedicate it to my parents Erwin and Mary Ann
Krause for their 40th wedding anniversary."

# Midwestern Old-Time Music

"Down Home Dairyland" was created in 1 986 when
WORT needed a volunteer folk music programmer for
the three-hour Monday morning slot. I had just com-
pleted my third year as traditional and ethnic arts coordi-
nator for the Wisconsin Arts Board. In that time the
Folk Arts Program was working within the normal
framework of a state arts agency. We had set up a Folk
Arts Apprenticeship program that focused upon the tra-
ditions of Wisconsin's Indian tribes, developed folk art-
ists in the schools activities and created a Folk Arts Orga-
nizational Projects grant category.

While the programs were going well, we were
disturbed that we were not serving some very important
segments of our constituency, notably traditional and
ethnic musicians and the communities that comprise
their audiences. The Upper Midwest has vibrant and di-
verse musical subcultures, based on an interplay of eth-
nic, regional and vernacular musical forms. Unlike the
better-known folk musics of Appalachia, the Southwest
or New England, Midwestern old-time music has few
advocates in cultural institutions or the media. However,

these musical traditions are too important to ignore. Just
as blues, jazz, country music and rock are a synthesis of
the traditional music of the South's predominant Anglo-
Celtic and African American populations, Upper Mid-
western folk music is a synthesis drawn from the many
groups who setded Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan,
the eastern Dakotas, northern Iowa, Indiana and Illinois.
The region's music, like its culture in general, offers some
distinct variations of an ethnic stew in which the indi-
vidual ingredients never lose their identifiable origin.

One example out of the dozens that could be
cited are the Walloon Belgians of Door County, Wis-
consin, who have retained their unique French Walloon
dialect through five generations in America. Singers per-
form today the traditional songs their forebears brought
over from Namur, Belgium, in the 1850s and 1860s.
But this devotion to Belgian traditions didn't stop
Walloon band leaders from adopting the unique style of
brass band music played by their Czech-American neigh-
bors. In this area of northeastern Wisconsin the Czech
(actually the locals usually call it "Bohemian") style was
adopted also by bandleaders with Polish, Dutch and
German ethnic backgrounds.

That particular Wisconsin Bohemian sound
had German-American trumpeter Roman Gosz as its
most seminal figure. His 78 rpm recordings, with the vo-
cals in Czech, still comprise the core repertoire of today's
numerous Bohemian, or "Gosz-style" bands. Currently
one of the finest professional singers of the old Czech
songs is Cletus Bellin, a radio station manager and polka
disc jockey from Kewaunee, Wisconsin. A proud pro-
moter of his Belgian heritage, Bellin, who speaks
Walloon fluently, also took the time to learn the correct
Czech pronunciation from friends in nearby Pilsen.

When Bellin plays piano and sings as a mem-
ber of the Jerry Voelker Orchestra of Green Bay, the

band may perform in addition to their core repertoire of
Czech and German tunes (plus country and western
numbers), a Norwegian schottische, a Finnish waltz, a
Polish oberek, a "modern" Glenn Miller swing tune or a
1960s rock oldie without ever departing from the under-
lying regional Bohemian band's style or playing reper-
toire that is considered unusual or intrusive.

Learning to Respond to Different Needs
During the 1 980s, the WAB grants mechanism had not
been effective in gaining wider recognition for the signifi-
cant art of Upper Midwestern traditional musicians.
They cotildn't apply for organizational grants, because
the bands are small businesses, as opposed to nonprofit
organizations. Individual musicians weren't interested in
apprenticeship grants since the yoimger musicians nor-
mally learn by listening to recordings, watching bands,
sitting in, jamming and getting hired as sidemen.

The few nonprofit organizations who actually
did apply for grants to present this type of music didn't
fare very well with the arts board's music panel of that
time. When WXPR, community radio from the little
town of Rhinelander in northern Wisconsin, applied to
present a live performance by the fine young Finnish-
American band, the Oulu Hotshots from Iron River, one
WAB panelist cast a disparaging remark regarding that
type of music. (The Oulu Hotshots went on to make
several recordings and gained national exposure through
multiple appearances on Garrison Keillor's radio show,
"A Prairie Home Companion.")

I spoke to the musicians and dance club
members who were stymied in the grants realm. What
did they need from WAB? It turned out that obtaining
grants was not their highest priority. They wanted more
recognition, respect and media exposure. They felt that
pop music and the Nashville sound had all but squeezed

them out of the media. They were right. In commercial
radio they were off the air, except for a polka hour here
and there on a few small town AM stations, perhaps
sharing the hour with the noon livestock prices report.

Based on the University of Wisconsin cam-
pus, Wisconsin Public Radio (call letters WHA) is cur-
rently celebrating its 75th year of serving the state by
broadcasting educational and cultural programming.
WHA programming emphasizes classical music. Na-
tional Public Radio and talk programs. The few hours
per week of folk programming was divided between con-
temporary singer-songwriters and traditional music from
the American South or the British Isles. Recordings of
Upper Midwestern traditional musicians, even those
from the Madison area (local to the main studios), were
rare as hen's teeth in the WHA record library.

These neglected musical traditions needed the
validation that would come with inclusion on public ra-
dio. Fortunately, an item in WAB's five-year plan called
for enhancing the arts board's presence in the media. To
his credit, the arts board director committed the agency
to trying the radio experiment. The agency took the
open time slot on the local station WORT, which is
heard in a 50-mile radius of Madison. I learned to oper-
ate the studio equipment, got my FCC license and
started broadcasting.

# Wisconsin Public Radio

After a year the arts board's WORT programs had been
noticed by WHA Folk Music Programmer Tom Mar-
tin-Erickson and he was interested in collaborating. It
was a great opportunity. The WHA network could be
heard statewide (even in areas of neighboring states), and
the association with Wisconsin Public Radio carried with
it the status and respect that could help validate Upper
Midwestern traditions.

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Everyone benefited fi-om the collaboration.
The arts board provided my time — officially 10 percent
of my 40-hour work week, though it was often more.
Wisconsin Public Radio provided studio facilities, an en-
gineer and the assistance of Tom Martin-Erickson. And
so WHA gained unique, locally-produced programming,
and the arts board gained media exposure and a chance
to do more for underserved constituents.

With a grant from the Folk Arts Program of
the National Endowment for the Arts, free-lance folklor-
ist Jim Leary was able to join me in producing a series of
13 half-hour programs. These programs, each devoted to
the music of a particular ethnic group, geographic area or
instrument, blended excerpts from field interviews of tra-
ditional musicians with their music.

The first series on WHA premiered in early
1989. In this series and those that followed, Jim and I
made a sincere eflFort to truly reflect the cultural diversity
of the Upper Midwest with programs that focused on an
African American gospel quartet, a Milwaukee Puerto
Rican jibaro ensemble, Hmong and Cambodian tradi-
tions in Wisconsin and the many forms of Wisconsin In-
dian music.

Wisconsin is a state where over 90 percent of
the population is Euro- American, and most of these
people are uncomfortable being lumped together in an
official, homogenized "white" identity. Thus, the specific
traditions of groups such as Slovenians, Welsh, Finns,
Norwegians, Germans and Poles, and the ways their eth-
nic traits interacted and recombined in the Midwest were
treated in many of the programs: "Echoes of Slovenia,"
"Finnish-American Music in Superiorland" and "The
Polish Fiddlers of Posen."

Though the topic is serious and the music is
good, by its inclusiveness "Down Home Dairyland"
challenges the fixed notions of many of our listeners and

radio cohorts. At WORT I had to buck the dominant
counter-cultural bias, and assert that, in addition to the
"granola eaters," older folks and farmers are indeed part
of the community WORT should serve. Some of these
farmers and older folks have had to stretch to appreciate
the unfamiliar music of relative newcomers like Puerto
Ricans and Hmong, and accept the newcomers' contri-
butions as a new part of Wisconsin's tradition.

But there was also a lot of positive reaction.
The Milwaukee Magazine touted "Down Home Dairy-
land" as die "Media Pick of the Month" in March 1989,
saying, "This is music to soothe the souls of even the
most harried postmoderns." Isthmus, a Madison news-
weekly strong on arts and entertainment, regularly lists
the programs in their "Radio Highlights" section, some-
times with humorous comments like, "We don't know
what a masopmt is, but we do know it's survived in Wis-
consin for more than a century." [Incidentally, Masopust
is the Czech pre-Lenten festivity.] More important were
the letters from appreciative listeners, with comments
like, "I loved the Women Polka Bandleaders show! Keep
up the good work." and "My father used to play his
fiddle in a band, the Uncle Louie Orchestra. Would you
be interested in them for 'Down Home Dairyland'?"

It is also gratifying to have a chance to get ac-
quainted with the musicians, and though they don't say a
lot about it, to know they are happy with the show. Over
a couple of beers in plastic cups, elbows on the plank that
served as a bar in the rear corner of a polka festival dance
tent, two musicians mentioned a WAB show on Ger-
man-American music in which they were featured.
"Rick, I owe you one," one of them said.

And the Saga Continues
Though WAB's initial intention was to make one series
comprising 13 programs, popular support spurred us to

make 27 more in the period from 1 989 to 1 992 for a to-
tal of 40 programs. Audio cassettes of these programs are
available and have been purchased at a steady rate by in-
dividuals, teachers and professors, public libraries, school
libraries and major archives like the Library of Congress,
the Center for Popular Music and the Country Music
Foundation. Through these cassettes, the artists and the
special music that "Down Home Dairyland" showcases
are heard beyond the limits of radio transmission.

Forthcoming from the University of Wiscon-
sin Division of University Outreach is another spin-off
product, Down Home Dairyland: A Listener's Guide, co-
authored by Jim Leary and myself The 1 00-page booklet
will provide short essays, photographs and bibliograph-
ical information for the musical traditions covered in the
40 programs (1989-1992). The guide enhances the use-
fulness of the programs as educational curriculum materi-
als, and Jim is devising continuing education correspon-
dence courses that will target teachers and make use of
the audiocassettes and the guide.

In early 1 992, to consolidate listenership, the
WHA program director asked WAB if "Down Home
Dairyland" could run 52 weeks per year as a part of their
Sunday evening "Old Time Radio Night." With some
trepidation we accepted the challenge. To make it pos-
sible to produce about 39 shows per year (the remaining
weeks will feature reruns), we adopted a magazine format
featuring a variety of traditions in each program. Though
we are not able to present excerpts from field-recorded in-
terviews each week, "Down Home Dairyland" now casts
a broader net by bringing in artists from farther afield in
the Midwest, and elsewhere in the country and Canada.
We can also be more timely in responding to listener re-
quests and inquiries, because the time between produc-
tion and broadcast is shorter.

The show is more established and continues
to receive plaudits. Nick Spitzer, producer of the Folk
Masters concerts and broadcasts from Carnegie Hall and
Wolf Trap, uses segments from "Down Home
Dairyland" as instructional examples in his radio produc-
tion workshops.

But it is of greater significance that "Down
Home Dairyland" has been one factor in a growing ap-
preciation of Upper Midwestern musical traditions. In
recent years the NEA has awarded National Heritage
Fellowships to some of the finest Upper Midwestern old-
time musicians: Wisconsin's Louie Bashell, Michigan's
An Moilanen and Minnesota's Christie Hengel. Other
Wisconsin polka bands have been well received recently
in the nation's capitol: Brian and the Mississippi Valley
Dutchmen had an enthusiastic reception at the
Smithsonian's Festival of American Folklife in 1991, and
the Jerry Schneider Orchestra appeared at the Kennedy
Center in 1992.

Through "Down Home Dairyland," the Wis-
consin Arts Board maintains a higher profile with a regu-
lar media product serving a specific artistic need. More-
over, both the program's inclusiveness and the traditional
musicians' eclectic intermingling of ethnic, regional and
vernacular content provide a concrete example of a re-
gional culture dealing positively with pluralism. ■

Richard March has been on the staff of the Wisconsin Arts Board since
1983. He has a Doctorate of Folklore from Indiana University and
plays such diverse instruments as the diatonic button accordion and the
tamburitza. For the past 18 years he has collaborated with the Smithso-
nian Institution on various folklife programs. He also assists the Library
of Congress in the preparation of the annualSelect List of Folk Music
Recordings, and is on the advisory board of the Fund for Folk Culture,
a national folk arts philanthropy.

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Creative Marriages: Traditional Arts Apprenticeships

In American Samoa, the state arts agency is working with the Samoans to set up
apprenticeships with master artists to ensure that endangered craft skills, such as canoe
building, do not vanish. Here two men work on a model canoe, demonstrating the
intricate skills of lashing a canoe.

Photo by Lynn Martin

by Bess Lomax Hawes and Barry Bergey

The development of an artist is by no means a
straightforward matter of the acquisition of infor-
mation and the mastery of technique. The novice
must also acquire that elusive component of all great
art — style. Style means not just what notes are played,
but how they are played; how the colors and textures in a
painting relate to one another; how a singer's vocal
chords widen or constrict; how and when a dancer's feet
step or point. Learning style isn't easy nor, as some
people think, automatic. No less a master than Leonard
Bernstein once observed that the only way classical musi-
cians can acquire the final burnishing essential to out-
standing performances is by being allowed direct associa-
tion with senior artists of stature; in other words, through
some kind of apprenticing, where the subde and con-
tinuous line of decisions artists must make can be joindy
confironted. The classical musician must learn that extra
essential dimension, which can't be written down on the
score; they, like other artists, must learn style. And nowa-
days not just one style, but the several varied styles ex-
pected of the well- trained concert musician.

By contrast the field of folk arts encompasses
not a few, but hundreds, even thousands, of direcdy rep-
licated styles of music, as well as dance, singing, story tell-
ing, pot-throwing, basket-weaving — artistic behaviors of
all types. For in the traditional folk arts, essence is re-
vealed by the particular — specificity is everything. What
is this basket made of* What is its use? Which tribe owns
this dance? Who sings this song? On what occasions?
Each traditional artistic item, each traditional artistic
event is the cherished production of a particular group
and it represents its values, its concerns, its actual being.
In very real ways the style itself contains, indeed is, the
message.

# Traditional Arts Apprenticing

The term apprenticinghas a long and complex history. In
the general field of the arts it is important to realize that
it has an informal, rather than legal, usage. It has nothing
to do with the nationally codified and union-approved
training of, for example, building tradesmen like plumb-
ers, bricklayers or carpenters through the general stages of
apprentice, journeyman and master. In folk arts the
terms master and apprentice represent a particular kind
of creative marriage, a joining together of the experienced
hand and the eager learner to ensure that the tradition is
maintained as accurately as can be and that the old ideas
get a respectfial hearing.

This can and does happen sometimes in a
school room. But where shifting groups of small cultures
continually jostle for their place in the sun, large-scale
training programs like classes and workshops tend to be
ineffective, except perhaps in an introductory capacity. In
the traditional arts, apprenticeships are ultimately much
more productive. This is why from its very beginning in
1977 the NEA Folk Arts Program included a modest
fiinding provision for the support of apprenticeships.

State Apprenticeship Programs

At first the Folk Arts Program handed individual appren-
ticeships directly, but eventually this approach was aban-
doned due to the general inefficiency of administering at
the federal level dozens of small, geographically-dis-
persed, individual grants. In 1984 the Folk Arts Program
initiated a pilot, state-based, apprenticeship funding cat-
egory intended to encourage the perpetuation of distinct
folk artistic traditions. This new program sought state
partners, most frequendy state arts agencies, that were
able to draw on the expertise and energies of state folk
arts coordinators, as well as locate matching moneys.
Twelve states participated in the initial year of this pilot

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effort. Thirty-six states now conduct active apprentice-
ship programs, assisting apprenticeships in art forms such
as Ukrainian weaving, Mississippi blues, cowboy poetry,
Cambodian dance, Sioux beadwork of the Northern
Plains and Hispanic santo carving of the Southwest.
Some state arts agencies have even developed spin-off ac-
tivities from their apprenticeship programs, including
both small local presentations of the work accomplished
and grander projects such as "Colorado Folk Arts and
Artists 1986-1990." This exhibit featured the work of
Hispanic, Native American and other Coloradan master/
apprentice teams and toured the state in 1992.

The Urban Apprenticeship

To see how apprenticing works in a large urban area we
can turn to the District of Columbia Commission on the
Arts and Humanities, which set up a pilot folk arts ap-
prenticeship program in 1989. The arts commission is
entering its fourth year of apprenticeships in such arts
traditions as Bengali tahla music, Caribbean steel-drum
making and tuning, the song repertoire of Guinea, Afro-
Cuban drumming, African American quilt design and
technique, the music of the Indian sitar znd various spe-
cialized aspects of African American religious music.

In the commission's current program, D.C.'s
last active jubilee-style, spiritual singing quartet, called
the Four Echoes, works with the Spiritual Kings of Har-
mony. The Spiritual Kings is comprised of ex-convicts
who formed their group in the local minimum-security
prison. Through apprenticing to the Four Echoes, who
have been together 47 years, the younger Spiritual Kings
of Harmony hope to learn more about their history and
cultural tradition, as well as broaden their chances for
picking up engagements by acquiring the venerable vocal
style that is still greatly appreciated by older D.C. audi-
ences. This apprenticeship with the Spiritual Kings oc-

curs directly after one with Prophecy: Cops for Christ, a
gospel quartet of the Washington Metropolitan Police
officers. Last year Prophecy worked for many weeks with
the Four Echoes to increase their repertoire of traditional
spirituals. Prophecy frequently ran through a song or two
in the precinct house to the applause of those waiting to
be charged. "We were locking them up and giving them
the Lord's word at the same time," said the bass-baritone.

In another apprenticeship, the experienced
quartet trainer and vocal coach Samuel Hubbard has
taken on a contemporary gospel foursome of young
black men to help them refine their pitch discrimination,
rhythmic precision and general presentation. "Every
word is pronounced, from the first to the last," one of the
apprentices recently declared in respectfiil amazement.

A third apprenticeship is being conducted by
Deacon Solomon Bouknight, an African American
church elder, who leads his congregation every Sunday in
the old-fashioned "lining-out" hymn style in which the
song leader sings a line that is repeated improvisationally
by all those present. The lining-out style dates back to
slavery and beyond. The drawn-out, surging phrases are
intensely emotional, and many older worshippers feel
that if they don't get to sing at least one such song they
haven't really been to church.

It is important to note that within the single
category of traditional African American religious music,
the jubilee, gospel and lining-out styles are three abso-
lutely distinctive stylistic inventions. None of these styles
could be learned in a music conservatory, and none of
the three masters could substitute for the other.

Fitting the Program to the Culture

Just as single apprenticeships historically have been cus-
tom-crafted to meet the needs of the master, the appren-
tice and the unique needs of the art form, se are state ap-

In Missouri, Mone Saenphimmachak shows apprentice
Sithasone Singarath how to count threads for the design of a
woven scarf or pakbiang.

Photo by Patrick Janson

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prenticeship programs notable for their variety in struc-
ture and flexibility of design. These jointly (federal and
state) funded programs are of necessity administered by
state-based cultural specialists because the apprentice-
ships require hands-on involvement with individual art-
ists, including contact with prospective applicants and
evaluation of ongoing pairings. In most cases apprentice-
ships are selected through formal application by a rotat-
ing, state arts agency-selected panel of cultural specialists,
arts administrators and artists. However, other patterns
may turn out to be culturally more appropriate. The evi-
dent popularity of the NEA Folk Arts Program may in
part be due to the flexibility of its rules, which allow wide
variation in methodology while simultaneously main-
taining clear and precise goals.

The territories of the Pacific provide some
striking case-studies of the complexities out of which a
working apprenticeship program can emerge. For ex-
ample, American Samoa is an unincorporated territory of
the United States comprising six inhabited islands with a
total population of under 40,000, as well as an uninhab-
ited bird sanctuary. Four to five times more Samoans
now live in Hawaii and on the West Coast of the main-
land than in 7\merican Samoa, so the total Samoan
population is around two million with a vast dispropor-
tion living outside Samoan lifeways and customs. John
Enright, the folk arts coordinator at the American Samoa
Arts Council, says that, while far from vanished, tradi-
tional craft: skills have become endangered by the arrival
of modern commercial allures. "Many masters today, age
40 and older, learned their traditional crafi;s at a time
when simple metal blades and implements were the sole
modern refinement upon their ancestors' methods of
handiwork. But as Samoa inexorably becomes a money
economy, interest in and time to devote to these tradi-
tional craft skills have all but disappeared in a single gen-

eration. The tufiiga (craftsmen) are respected but sparsely
emulated."

In designing an apprenticeship program
Enright realized that within his local landscape of widely-
dispersed villages headed and administered by chiefs, the
awarding of special apprenticeship grants could \esid to
intervillage antagonisms. Within the villages themselves,
each extended family woidd claim its own accomplished
craftspeople, so the selection of particular master artists
could well lead to perceived insults to entire families. In a
society that has traditionally encouraged and valued
group activity, the one-on-one learning situation of a Eu-
ropean-style apprenticeship is not only an obvious
anomaly, it's frequently regarded as just plain weird. And
finally, in terms of a local economy that is only partially
dependent on currency, the interjection of money into
the cultural equation could be ultimately destructive.

The start-up of the apprenticeship program
confirmed Enright's concerns. There was no response to
newspaper and radio ads in Samoan announcing the new
program. It was decided then that he should speak di-
recdy with leaders in the remote and dispersed villages
where it became necessary to follow the long and slow
process of chiefly deliberation, protocol and oratory.
Eventually this approach was abandoned also because it
became too politicized, and an even slower process of in-
formal consultation and consensus building emerged. Af-
ter 12 months of apparent inactivity, a time extension for
the pilot grant was requested and eventually approved. A
letter from Enright at the time referred to the project as
"lurching forward" with the situation discouraging and
often enervating.

Finally four pilot apprenticeships were begun,
with two of the apprenticeships focused on pandanus
mat weaving, another one focused on woodcarving and
the last one focusing on traditional house building. Mas-

ter carpenter Togiva Vai'au worked with several appren-
tices at diflFerent times in the construction ofa.fale tele, a
traditional round house, at the International Airport at
Pago Pago. Using traditional adzes, the apprentice team
decoratively incised structural timbers and painstakingly
bound the structure with 130 miles of hand-braided co-
conut fiber. In 1991 Hurricane Ofa struck American Sa-
moa, destroying many island buildings including the
modern hangars and warehouses of the Pago Pago air-
port. The traditional ^mZ? was the only airport building to
survive unscathed.

So too the Samoan apprenticeship program
has weathered the ever-shifting cultural winds of this Pa-
cific island, largely due to the investment ofa lot of time
and the development ofa cultural sensitivity through
lengthy discussions and consultations. Preparations are
currently underway for a third round of apprenticeship
grants. In an optimistic moment as he struggles with his
budding program, John Enright writes, "I always take
refuge in the people .... For them I'm not a program,
just a person."

Newcomers and Old Settlers
In Samoa, like Washington, D.C., we can see the impact
of the apprenticeship idea upon a long-established and
resident cultural poptdation. But apprenticeships are also
capable of addressing some of the needs of traditional art-
ists who are recent arrivals in this country. For recent im-
migrants, geographic dislocation is ofi:en no less severe
than the cultural disorientation that occurs in a new
country where there is a primary need to negotiate an
unfamiliar terrain of values. Choices are quickly made
about what to retain, what to discard and what to pass
along to fiature generations. Though most cultures reso-
nate through intensive face-to-face transmissions of artis-
tic knowledge, immigrant artists are often confi:onted

with a situation that pits cultural preservation against the
survival of health and home.

The Missouri Traditional Arts Apprenticeship
Program, funded through the Missouri Arts Council, has
supported a series of apprenticeships involving Mone
Saenphimmachak, a Lowland Lao embroiderer and
weaver. She and her family moved to St. Louis in 1 984
fi-om refugee camps in Thailand, having fled to Thailand
to escape the political troubles in Laos. Mone was born
in Mahazai, a village of 500 families in central Laos, and
she began to learn weaving and embroidery at her
mother's side at the age of 12. Mone says of these skills:
"No one wants to marry a girl who can't sew . . . Even
very wealthy girls who would never have to sew as adults
had to know some kind of handwork in order to be con-
sidered marriageable." While she was courting Vanxay,
her husband-to-be, his mother was inspecting her weav-
ing. As part of the process of betrothal, Mone had to
present Vanxay's mother with a sarong she had made.

Lest one think that these marriage pre-condi-
tions were a bit one-sided, Mone's father was concerned
that his future son-in-law did not know how to build a
loom. After their marriage Mone's father instructed
Vanxay in the making ofa loom, commenting, "Why
did you get married if you don't even know how to make
a loom?"

Since moving to St. Louis, Mone has taught
in the apprenticeship program for four of the past five
years, instructing seven apprentices on looms Vanxay has
constructed for her. This past year Vanxay taught a
young man, the husband of one of Mone's apprentices,
the art of building a traditional Lao loom, fiarther echo-
ing a cycle of tradition initiated in a far-away village in
Laos.

Weaving and traditional embroidery seem to
be pan and parcel of Mone Saenphimmachak's sense of

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herself and her bittersweet past. She told an interviewer,
"When I teach sewing I feel homesick because the pat-
terns I make on the material remind me of the time
when my mother taught me." It is important to keep
weaving, she says, so "we may recognize ourselves by
these patterns."

These woven and sewn patterns, a repertoire
of visual melodies, can only be passed on to a student by
means of a long and intimate process of demonstration
and instruction. Lao motifs are not graphed or charted;
they emerge on the loom from the weaver's internalized
storehouse of designs. A site visitor to Mone's apprentice-
ship notes: "In some ways, learning each pattern is much
like a fiddler working out a new tune — it is a taxing
memorization process that also requires physical dexterity
and precision."

In some ways Art Galbraith, a fiddler from
southwest Missouri, might seem the cultural antithesis of
Mone Saenphimmachak. Six generations of Galbraiths
have lived in the Ozark region. Andrew Galbraith, Art's
great-grandfather born in 1796 and a veteran of the War
of 1812, moved from Tennessee to the banks of
Missouri's James River in 1841 . A dancing master and
fiddler of Scottish ancestry, Andrew Galbraith passed his
tunes through generations of children and grandchildren
until many landed in the custody of Art Galbraith, who
recently died at the age of 83. Art, who knew hundreds
of tunes, bemoaned the fact that when some fiddlers play
for dances they tend to repeat the same tune all night.
He said that after twenty-five repeats "even a top-notch
tune can begin to wear on you."

When he selected Justin Bertoldie, a fourteen-
year-old fiddler, Art wanted to be sure that in addition to
learning technique, Justin acquired a repertoire of these
time-tested tunes and an appreciation for "the history
and heritage of those tunes." He also wanted to be cer-

tain that Justin be conversant with the fiill range of tune
types — hoedowns, waltzes, jigs, reels, rags, blues and
hornpipes.

One tune especially important to Art was
"The Flowers of Edinburgh," an old melody that came
from his great-grandfather Andrew. He worked especially
hard with Justin on this tune, because the Galbraith ver-
sion is unlike that performed by any other fiddler.
Galbraith's persistence was justly rewarded. At a National
Council on the Arts meeting held in St. Louis in 1988,
Art and Justin performed "The Flowers of Edinburgh" to
demonstrate the value of the apprenticeship program. Af-
ter they had played the complex tune several times in
union. Art gradually lightened his touch until he sat with
his fiddle in his lap, knowingly smiling at the realization
that neither the audience nor the young apprentice was
aware that the mentor had stopped playing.

Learning About Learning

In contrast to other activities in which endless definitions
and explanations are required, the aims and conditions of
an apprenticeship program are everywhere easily under-
standable and acceptable. The other striking characteris-
tic of an apprenticeship program is that it can fit in just
about any place, serving the needs and interests of all
kinds of groups — large and small, urban and rural, stable
and mobile, religious, occupational and ethnic. A few
other general observations have become evident as well
during the program's almost 16 years of tesdng and
experimentation:

• The powerfiil human desire to extend one's
own time on earth is often expressed by a longing to
share one's knowledge with juniors so that they can carry
it forward. Young people long for, but do not always re-
ceive, opportunities to earn adult attention and approval.
These contradictory but positive impulses are the basic

energizers of any apprenticeship program and should
never be overlooked.

• Every apprenticeship program and every
apprenticeship within it needs to be individually carved
out of a baseline set of principles that are sufficiendy flex-
ible to allow for cultural differences and sufficiently rigid
to encourage the production of art, which must repre-
sent, further and enhance the values of the particular cul-
ture in question. (Contrary to popular opinion, folk art is
rarely widely accessible and even more rarely is it simple
or easy.)

• Genuine apprenticeships are a bit like
genuine marriages: tricky to arrange and even trickier to
keep going. Individual creative impulses must be negoti-
ated at all stages of the procedure, and a great deal of
work devolves upon the "marriage counsellor," better
known as the arts administrator, who keeps trying to
bring hopejfiil couples together and acts as both referee
and consultant should any difficulties occur.

• It is therefore unwise to initiate an appren-
ticeship program without having available both cultural
expertise and an energetic support staff. This is a pro-
gram that requires hands-on administration; there is no
use putting it in place without a clear understanding that
extraordinary efforts may be necessary to implement it.
On the other hand, extraordinary art may result, and
that is not an everyday happening.

• Finally, apprenticeship programs seem to
succeed when they draw heavily on values and traditions
embodied in and reflective of very particular cultural
landscapes. As with forests and friendships, deeply-rooted
individual apprenticeships tend to stand the test of time.
This mysterious process succeeds when there is a timely
convergence of aptitude and attitude, grounded in a
sympathetic cultural terrain. Like so many good ideas,
the concept of apprenticeships came to us unannounced

from the past, a lesson of many masters from many
places. And like good apprentices, the NEA Folk Arts
Program and its state arts agency partners honor this
time-tested concept through imitation. ■

Bess Lomax Hawes directed the Folk Arts Program at the National En-
dowment for the Arts until her retirement in 1992. Prior to this, she
was assistant director for the Smithsonian Institution 's Festival for
American Folklife, and for more than 20 years she taught folklore, eth-
nomusicology and folk music in various California universities. She is
also a published author, and has directed several short documentary
films.

Barry Bergey is the founder of the Missouri Friends of the Folk Arts and
served as co-director of the Frontier Folklife Festival in St Louis. In his
former capacity as the Missouri State Folk Arts Coordinator, he initi-
ated the Missouri Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. He is cur-
rently the assistant director of the Folk Arts Program at the National
Endowment for the Arts.

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Culture and Science Join to Save
Maine Indian Basketry

The hands of Jane Zumbrunnen, Micmac basketmaker, weaving brown ash splints to
make a fancy basket. With the assistance of the Maine Arts Commission,
basketmakers from Maine's four Indian tribes have come together to work on the
problems facing brown ash basketry.

Photo by Cedric Chatterley

by Wayne Curtis

A chill wind blows in from the west on a squally
mid-November day in northern Maine, over-
turning roadside signs touting "Russets" and
"New Potatoes." The terrain offers little to obstruct the
wind; the broad, open sweep of the land is in sharp con-
trast to the state's image of rocky coast and forests thick
with spruce. In Aroostook County, a sprawling region
more northerly than Montreal, the landscape is domi-
nated by dark potato fields. The predominant image is of
an endless, overarching sky.

On this blustery day a group of twenty
basketmakers, representing two of the state's four Indian
tribes, gathers in a small room on the windswept campus
of the University of Maine at Presque Isle for the first of
a series of basketmakers' fonims. The basketmakers have
come together under the auspices of the Maine Arts
Commission to enjoy heaping bowls of moose stew; to
view a new photographic exhibit of basketmaking, "Bas-
ket Trees/Basket Makers;" and — for the first time ever —
to openly discuss the problems they face in keeping their
craft alive.

After the stew and a bit of banter about the
photos (several fonim participants appear prominendy in
them), the meeting is called to order. Donald Sanipass, a
former president of the Aroostook Micmac Cotmcil and
one of the state's most respected basketmakers, starts to
give a brief demonstration of the basketmaker's art. He
holds aloft a four-foot section of brown ash, about five
inches in diameter and split lengthwise. "You'll notice
there isn't much white in here," Sanipass says, indicating
the grain, the heart of which is lighdy streaked with
brown as if stained with coffee. "A healthy tree has a lot
of white," he says. "When it's dark inside, it's brittle."
And brittle wood is about as much use to a basketmaker
as hardened clay is to a potter.

Sanipass doesn't get much fiarther in his dem-

onstration. His comments trigger a flurry of responses
from the other basketmakers, many of whom report
similar difiuculties finding suitable wood for their craft.
"The problem is finding a good splint," says Yvonne
Nadeau, another Micmac basketmaker. "That's our
bread and butter," says another, clearly worried.

Eldon Hanning, a Micmac basketmaker from
Aroostook County, notes that the quality of the more
valuable white annual growth rings has been in decline
for at least a decade, and that dark and britde wood is
now the norm. But, he goes on to note, a bit of boastful-
ness creeping into his tone, prized trees haven't disap-
peared entirely. He tells of recently harvesting a 24-inch
diameter ash that was nearly aU white inside. A quiet,
wistfiil murmuring fills the room as the basketmakers re-
call the days when such trees were common. This is per-
haps the most eloquent testimony during the day of the
precariotis state of the brown ash and the fiiture of In-
dian basketry in Maine.

Baskets Fancy and Practical
BrowTi ash splint basketry has been a long-standing tradi-
tion among Native Americans in Maine and the Cana-
dian Maritimes. The art has been passed down from gen-
eration to generation in all four Indian tribes of Maine
— the Micmacs, the Penobscots, the Maliseets and the
Passamaquoddies. Several of the tribes' creation legends
center on the brown ash tree where the legendary hero
Gluskabe shot an arrow into a brown ash tree and out
sprang the Indian people. When recounting this story,
Penobscot Tribal Governor Jerry Pardilla adds, "Our
roots [like the ash tree roots] are deeply in the land."
The baskets take a variety of forms, from
fancy to fiinctional. Following contact with Europeans,
basketmakers often created with trade in mind, designing
baskets for setders in need of containers for harvest and

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Storage. In the later nineteenth century, the Victorian
penchant for embellishment found its way to the ash bas-
kets, and "fancy baskets" with dyed splints and intricate
twists came on the market. But by far, the most com-
monly produced were more prosaic, such as the tradi-
tional pack baskets used by tribal hunters and woods-
men, and potato baskets with handles sturdy enough to
serve as a makeshift field stool.

Basket styles may vary widely between the
tribes. Some of this variation is due to the fact that tradi-
tional access to certain materials is limited. For instance
basketmakers near the coast, such as those who are Pen-
obscot or Passamaquoddy, have greater access to sweet-
grass, a shoreline grass used for decorative trim.

Style of ash preparation may also vary.
Micmac basketmakers start out with a quarter section of
ash log, much like that displayed by Sanipass, to prepare
it for pounding, which splits the wood into long, pliant
strips (or splints) along its growth rings. With a mallet or
the blunt end of an axe, they pound the one- or two-inch
planks repeatedly to release the splints from the log sec-
tion. Penobscot, Passamaquoddy and Maliseet basket-
makers score the log in one- to two-inch segments and
pound the entire log intact. These basketmakers claim
that although more time and effort is involved, less waste
is incurred as the splints are piUled from the log.

The next step for all basketmakers is splitting
the ash splints lengthwise into various thickneslses, some
paper thin for certain fancy baskets. This technique is ac-
complished by using a splitting machine, a handmade
wooden, inverted V-shaped device. The machine is
placed between the knees and the splint is pulled up
through a slit in the top. Varying the tension between
the knees allows the strips to be evenly separated. Next,
the splints are scraped with a knife to thin them and re-
move rough outer edges. In general, wider, thicker splints

are used in work baskets and narrower, thinner splints
are used in fancy baskets. At this point, some basket-
makers may dye the ash to add colors.

# The Brown Ash

The tree that makes this all possible is the brown ash
(in scientific circles it's called black ash, Fraxinus nigra).
The brown ash isn't a particularly notable tree. Slender
and rarely exceeding 50 feet in height, the brown ash
prefers marshes and stream beds where it can absorb pro-
digious amounts of water. This saturated condition
makes the wood only marginally useful for most pur-
poses, including firewood, but highly valuable among
basketmakers for its extraordinary pliancy. Other woods
including the maple, cedar and other ashes may be riven
into splints, but Maine's basketmakers say that brown
ash has no rival.

In the eyes of basketmakers, not all brown
ashes are created equal. Ashes found on higher ground or
near stands of cedar tend to be naturally brittle and of
little use. "You have to know the ash from the outside
in," says Lawrence "Billy" Shay of the Penobscot tribe.
Many of the basketmakers say that the art of basketry be-
gins well before the first splint is cut, in being able to
identify a suitable tree in the forest.

By way of example. Marge Pelletier, a
Micmac basketmaker from Fort Kent, says she asked the
land manager for a local paper company if he had any
brown ash culled from his stands that she might use. He
did, and he arranged for a truckload to be delivered to
her house. After it was dumped in her yard she discov-
ered it was all knotty and dying. She asked Donald
Sanipass to poke through the pile for usable logs, but
there was nothing. "It was the worst wood I'd ever seen
in my life," Sanipass says with a chuckle.

Micmac basketmaker Richard Silliboy inspecting a
brown ash tree to see if it is healthv and thus usable
for basketr}-.
Photo by Cedric Chanerley

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Finding Good Ash
But as the shared comments at the first forum suggest,
even those well versed in selecting good ash trees are
finding it harder these days. Sanipass, who has been mak-
ing ash baskets for 35 years, says that even ash in the
swampy areas is becoming brittle, which all agree is an
unsettling trend. "I've walked into many areas and I
think, 'Oh boy! I've struck a gold mine'," he says. "But
then not one tree is any good."

Sanipass says that the brittleness sets in when
a tree starts to die. And this mortality is afflicting
younger and younger trees. A decade or two ago he could
regularly turn up large and healthy trees, like the one
Eldon recently found, but these days similarly fine speci-
mens are rare. Even trees of just four or five inches in di-
ameter show signs of early decline, such as splitting and
peeling bark and limbs slowly dying some 20 or 30 feet
above the ground. "A few limbs will tell you the whole
story," he says.

"Someone has to look at why they're dying,"
Sanipass says. "Right now we can just guess at it. I sus-
pect that pesticides or acid rain have something to do
with it. Something's the matter with the water."

The Sweetgrass Model

The declining health of the brown ash first came to the
attention of the Maine Arts Commission (MAC) in
1991 when Kathleen Mundell, a traditional arts associ-
ate, found that basketmakers throughout the state were
finding widespread shortages of ash. Even with fiinding
from the MAC Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Pro-
gram, basketmakers could not track down adequate ash
splints. "Several basketmakers said, 'This is great to try
and work on the passing on of the skills, but there's an-
other problem here as well'," Mundell recalls.

Mundell prepared two grant proposals for the
National Endowment for the Arts Folk Arts Program to
address the problem. The first was for an exhibit that
would help focus and draw attention to the brown ash
basketry and the concerns of the makers. The second was
to fiind a series of meetings to allow the basketmakers to
gather and discuss the issue both among themselves and
with natural resource professionals. Both proposals were
ftmded.

In casting around for possible avenues down
which to proceed, Mundell found an earlier precedent
where a traditional art form had been threatened by a de-
clining resource. As it turned out, in the late 1 980s Afri-
can American basketmakers in the low country of South
Carolina had faced a similar challenge.

In that case, the supplies of sweetgrass used in
traditional basketry were slowly dwindling, mostly due to
sunbelt development. Housing subdivisions, malls and
commercial expansion were reducing access to the reedy
grasses used in making coiled baskets, an art form that
had been carried to American shores from Africa during
the slave trade. Dale Rosengarten, a historian who served
as guest curator of the McKissick Museum's Low Coun-
try Basket Project, reported then that she heard the same
refrain from every basketmaker: "The supply of sweet-
grass is shrinking fast. We need help finding more."

To address this problem, a sweetgrass confer-
ence was convened in Charleston, South Carolina, to
bring together concerned individuals, including basket-
makers, folklorists, scientists and public officials. Con-
cerns were aired and a number of initiatives proposed.
These initiatives included the creation of a new commu-
nity organization to negotiate grass-harvesting rights on
privately owned islands, the involvement of the U.S. De-
partment of Agriculture in expanding propagation of the
grass and a coastal inventory of existing sweetgrass stands.

# Building a Bridge

Wanting to learn from the experience of others, the
Maine Arts Commission sought the advice of Rosen-
garten and basketmakers across the country, including
the California Indian Basketweavers Association. Rosen-
garten spent several days in Maine last year meeting with
basketmakers, and concurred with the arts commission
that a similar statewide conference would be beneficial in
sharing concerns and exploring possible solutions. Be-
cause Maine basketmakers were more widely scattered
and less cohesive than their South Carolina counterparts,
the arts commission planned smaller gatherings prior to
the statewide conference in order to identify a common-
ality of purpose.

The arts commission set about building a
bridge between itself and the basketmaking community
by hiring Theresa Hoffrnan as coordinator of the project.
A talented young Penobscot basketmaker and a natural
resources professional employed by the Penobscot Na-
tion, Hoffman was familiar with concerns about resource
management as well as the needs of the basketmaking
community. She also brought a well-grounded sense of
the challenges the project would face. "It's very hard to
organize basketmakers," she says, pointing to the geo-
graphic distances in northern Maine, the advanced age of
many basketmakers and their fierce independence.

Once the bridge was in place with Hoffman
as coordinator, the next step was to get the basketmakers
talking among themselves about the problems. The pho-
tographic exhibit, which was initially designed simply to
be an educational display, took on a more dynamic role.
The traveling exhibit, entitled "Basket Trees/Basket
Makers," documented the craft through a series of pho-
tographic portraits depicting the basketmakers at work.

The displays — ^which were mounted in unas-
suming ash frames — ^were accompanied with explanatory

text and quotes from the basketmakers themselves. A 16-
page booklet with color photographs was also produced
and incorporated photos and text from the exhibit. "Bas-
ket Trees/Basket Makers," which was first displayed at
the University of Maine library at Presque Isle, gradually
became a focal point for bringing together the 20 basket-
makers, many of whom were meeting for the first time.

Traditional moose stew, served up from a
bubbling crock pot, provided an extra incentive to attend
this first forum, particularly among the older basket-
makers. But the greatest incentive turned out to be the
opportunity to exchange information and express pent-
up concerns and grievances. By providing this outlet,
Mimdell was also able to gauge whether the basketmak-
ers truly were interested in working together to resolve
their greatest challenges. Without that resolve, Mundell
reasoned, a conference would serve little purpose.

Educating the Consumer

While the health of the ash was a central topic of discus-
sion, it was by no means the only one. The subject of
economic incentive — a common theme in the traditional
arts — came up frequently, rivaling the decline of the ash
as a subject of interest. Several program participants
noted that the prices for baskets had risen considerably in
recent decades, but more gains were needed to ensure ash
basketry's friture.

Madeline Shay, a 77-year-old Penobscot
basketmaker, noted that she had been making baskets
since she was a young girl. "When I first made them,
they went for fifty cents apiece," she recalls. "And even
then they said that was too much." Today, Shay sells her
"fancy baskets" for as much as $85. But others pointed
out that this is the wholesale price paid by a museum gift
shop, which then doubles the price before they reach col-
lectors. Several suggested that the makers should keep the

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mark-up rather than the museum. By the close of this
first forum the basketmakers agreed to work together as a
group to pursue these common issues and so formed the
Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance.

Participants in this first forum at the Univer-
sity of Maine also embraced the notion of expanding
public education eflForts. Serious collectors know well the
value of the baskets and ofiren remark at the reasonable
prices Maine's basketmakers charge, especially compared
to dealers in the larger cities. But the market remains lim-
ited to these select few. More typical are the casual shop-
pers who come across the baskets in a shop and loudly
comment that baskets are much cheaper at Pier One Im-
ports, a national retail chain. "People have to know that
this is a form of art, not just baskets by the dozen," says
Theresa Hoffman.

Several ideas about education were put forth,
among them developing a video showing the painstaking
and detailed crafi:smanship involved in producing an ash
basket. Shopkeepers could run this for their customers,
and teachers for their students. More detailed brochures
and hang-tags on the products themselves were also dis-
cussed. Gary Stanton shared his successfiil experience
with the South Carolina sweetgrass basketmakers. There,
the state helped underwrite a detailed brochure about
sweetgrass basketry to be distributed through shops and
state tourism offices, boosting interest and sales. "The
American public-is hungry for things that have roots, and
they're willing to pay for them," Stanton says. "But they
have to know about them."

Forum participants hope that through educa-
tion the market will expand and the economic incentive
to learn basketry will increase, making basketry competi-
tive with other jobs in the eyes of younger tribal mem-
bers. Today's basket prices, while healthier than in the
past, need fiarther gains to ensure that the next genera-

tion will carry on the art. Through a grant from the Of-
fice of Public Partnership at the National Endowment
for the Arts, the Maine Arts Commission, in conjunction
with the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance and the
Maine Office of Tourism, is investigating hiring a mar-
keting constiltant who will work with the alliance in de-
veloping a marketing strategy. Such a strategy would pro-
mote Maine Indian basketry outside the region and
result in better prices for the work.

And many agree that's imperative if brown
ash basketry is to survive. "At least a generation has al-
ready been dropped," Theresa Hoffman says, noting that
her great-grandmother was a basketmaker but not her
mother or her grandmother. "This is almost gone. It's
our last chance."

Through cooperation and better remunera-
tion, the image of basketry within the tribes themselves
may also begin a needed rehabilitation. For many, par-
ticularly among the older Indians, making baskets has
been viewed distastefijlly as a means of basic survival, not
as an art form. "I sold baskets when I was young, with
my parents, and we'd go from house to house," recalls
Marge Pelletier. "You'd bring in these baskets and no-
body wanted them. You almost had to give them away.
We sold them for five cents."

Pelletier's parents discouraged her from pur-
suing basketry because of its association with poverty.
They told her to go to school and not to worry about
baskets or she'd be poor all her life. "Now that I've gone
to school and I've done my thing, I think: Look at what
I've missed all this time," she says. "It's such a fine art."

# Culture and Science Meet

As this chapter was being written, a second forum took
place on the Passamaquoddy reservation, followed by a
statewide conference. The conference, sponsored by the

Maine Arts Commission, the Maine Indian Basketmak-
ers Alliance and the University of Maine's forestry
department, brought together basketmakers, tribal lead-
ers from the four main tribes, as well as folklorists and
state foresters to address two broad concerns: the declin-
ing health and availability of the brown ash tree and the
need to improve marketing of brown ash baskets to a
wider public.

A discussion about the trees themselves re-
vealed that a survey on the health of the brown ash trees
conducted by the Maine Forest Service corroborated an-
ecdotal evidence from basketmakers in the four tribes
who have known for the last 1 5 or 20 years that there are
problems with the brown ash trees. Although there has
been documentation that the brown ash trees have de-
clined since the 1930s in the Northeast, no research has
been done in northern Maine on these and other hard-
wood trees. According to the survey, the crown condi-
tion of most existing brown ash trees was "moribund."
The majority of the trees displayed crowns that were
more than 60 percent dead. Several theories about the
deterioration of the brown ash tree were mentioned, in-
cluding drought, disease caused by microorganisms and
insects, groundwater pollution resulting from overuse of
agricultural chemicals, indicriminate harvesting by forest-
ers and airborne pollutants, such as acid rain.

The conference featured a presentation by the
Brown Ash Task Force, a group of foresters, basket-
makers and community members created in 1990 to ad-
dress the concerns of the four tribes about the availability
of quality brown ash trees for baskets. What is unique
about the group is that it represents a blend of traditional
cultural values with a scientific approach. The task force
noted that tribal uses of natural resources have both cul-
tural and religious significance, which lends a different
perspective to the problem. The task force suggested a

three-stage process for addressing the problem: 1 . Iden-
tify and describe existing stands of brown ash with a goal
to develop a preservation plan for them. 2. Research and
develop with the University of Maine forestry depart-
ment test plots of brown ash trees to develop hybrids. 3.
Create ten-acre plantations on each of the four reserva-
tions to grow hybrid brown ash.

A Fabulous Start

Mundell admits that she didn't know what to expect at
the first forum. As it turned out, the two forums and the
conference reflected an urgent need for communication,
both within and outside the basketmaking community.
Preserve the resource. Educate the public. Instill a re-
newed sense of pride. Forum participants agreed that
these are foundations on which the brown ash project
must build. And channels of communication are already
becoming established outside of the usual channels.

The final chapter has yet to be written.
Whether the decline of the ash can be reversed and the
markets for ash baskets improved remains to be seen. But
the direction is true and the progress so far has been
swift:. And optimism prevails. Before leaving the first fo-
rum and heading out the door into November's early
winter, NEA observer Gary Stanton saw only encourage-
ment: "I think they're off to a fabulous start." ■

Wayne Curtis is editor of Casco Bay Weekly, an alternative newspaper
in Portland, Maine. He is a former free-lance writer and author of
Maine: Off the Beaten Path.

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Strengthening Organizations to Fulfill
Community Needs

^k Alexa Canady signs autographs following her speech at the Columbus Museum of Art.
Dr. Canady's appearance was in conjunction with the exhibition "I Dream a World:
Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America."
Photo by Eric Shinn

by John Rufus Caleb

The Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus,
Ohio, has never regretted its decision to change
its image. The African American Arts Alliance
has grown from one woman's dream to a regional orga-
nization in Pennsylvania. And the Asociacion de Miisicos
Latino-Americanos is keeping the music alive in Philadel-
phia. In rural Indiana, Perry County citizens answered
the call for a town meeting and are now busy celebrating
the arts through their new local arts council.

The directions these arts organizations have
taken have been encouraged and supported by their re-
spective state arts agencies. In each situation an agency
program created to increase the diversity of artists, arts
presenters and audiences made a significant contribution
to community life.

The three programs profiled in this chapter
exemplify ways state arts agencies support cultural diver-
sity: by strengthening the anistic and managerial abilities
of multicultural organizations, helping mainstream orga-
nizations connect with the cultural communities around
them and providing audiences with greater access to art-
ists and arts events in their communities. These programs
share the common philosophy of helping participants to
help themselves. By providing organizations with the
means to strengthen and develop, state arts agencies are
helping to ensure the continuation of artistic and cultural
traditions.

Ohio

^ Reaching Out in Columbus
A record 21,000 visitors attended the 1992 summer ex-
hibit "I Dream A World: Portraits Of Black Women
Who Changed America," at the Columbus Museum of
Art in Columbus, Ohio, and the overwhelming majority
of the visitors were 7\frican American. As perceptions of
the Columbus Museum of Art were changing in the

community, "I Dream A World" with its attendant pro-
gramming was having a profound influence on the mu-
seum internally. The exhibit had opened a door.

According to Columbus Museum of Art As-
sistant Director Denny Griffith, "Factors both outside
and inside the museum converged to make the exhibit
possible. From the outside, there was funding from the
Ohio Arts Council's Building Diverse Audiences Pro-
gram, while on the inside, Columbus Museum of Art
Director Merribell Parsons had just arrived with outreach
experience fi"om the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York City. Without the two, neither 'I Dream A
World' nor the smaller events surrounding the exhibit
would have occurred."

Building Diverse Audiences

Through the Building Diverse Audiences Program, the
Ohio Arts Council (OAC) provides substantial funding
(up to $25,000 per year) for institutions with a serious
commitment to making their programming more acces-
sible to minorities and special constituents. The pro-
gram's four-year process involves one year for planning
and two to three years for implementation, or a year of
planning for another targeted audience. As a result of a
1987 survey of major institutions, the OAC found that
many institutions wanted to reach out to new audiences,
but did not have the money, staff or time to mount an
outreach campaign. In this scenario the Columbus Mu-
seum was no different from other major Ohio institu-
tions, except perhaps in the depth of its commitment to
open the museum's doors.

The museum applied for a one-year planning
grant and plunged into its outreach initiative in January
of 1989. Griffith met with Phyllis Hairston, Building
Diverse Audiences coordinator of the Ohio Arts Council,
to explain the goals and objectives of the museum, in ad-

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dition to its plans for achieving them. "We had to con-
vince the museum that attracting people of color was
more complex than marketing via traditional means.
We're not talking about people who are in tune to visit-
ing art museums. This target audience had not been
made to feel welcome in the past. They are not going to
just receive a flier in the mail and decide to go. Better
marketing tools were word-of-mouth recommendations
and individual ticket sales." The OAC staff further sug-
gested that the museum convene an advisory committee
of African American artists, educators, civic leaders and
other professionals, who knew the channels for reaching
their community.

The individuals who consented to join the
Minority Outreach Committee were all sympathetic to
the museum's goals. As Griffith was aware, not everyone
in the minority community was prepared to endorse the
museum's three-year effort. The Columbus Museum was
the result of generations of patron families, all of Euro-
pean descent. Neither the museum's patrons nor its staff
had been exposed to African American art, and they had
experienced little interaction with the African American
community — only a stone's throw from the museum.

The initial meetings of the Minority Out-
reach Committee were frank, even confrontational, but
fortunately not antagonistic. The museum discovered
that it was perceived as both a resource to the commu-
nity, and yet still a club for the wealthy. The museum
was told pointedly that to be successfiil in its outreach it
would have to plaJi with the African American commu-
nity, not ^r the African American community. As the
meetings progressed, the museum had to come to terms
with how it truly felt about opening its doors. How com-
fortable would it feel with this new audience? Griffith
and his colleagues spent much of that winter reflecting
on how narrow the institution's focus had always been.

Catherine Willis was one of the initial mem-
bers of the advisory committee. A retired city school
teacher, Willis brought a decade of experience as a pre-
senter of arts programs within the African American
community. She had long felt the museum was not
'open' to the entire community. "We all support the mu-
seum with tax money," she repeatedly instructed the
board and the staff. "In return, people of color need to
have a sense of 'ownership' of the museum." The com-
ment was effective.

By August of 1989, the committee wa!s able
to identify the two major barriers to museum participa-
tion by African Americans: the lack of African Americans
on both staff and board, and the small number of Afri-
can American-related artworks in the collection, which
created the general perception of the museum as an all-
white institution.

Soon after, the museum's board adopted an
institutional policy and position statement describing its
outreach aspirations: "We believe that the fiiture of the
Columbus Museum of Art is tied to its relationship to a
community and society that is plural and culturally di-
verse in nature. Therefore, it is our belief and stated goal
to seek a level of inclusiveness at all institutional levels
that adequately and accurately reflects the diversity and
plurality of the world in which we live."

As a vehicle for implementing board policy, a
standing African American Cultural Committee was
formed. By year's end, the Cultural Committee intro-
duced the museum's staff and volunteers to African
American art and artists with two slide/lecture presenta-
tions. Unique African American films, like Losing
Groundhy feminist filmmaker Kathy Collins, and a
video festival were co-sponsored by the museum and the
National Black Programming Consortium, based in Co-
lumbus. Ohio State University's Black Studies Depart-

ment became a resource for material and expertise on Af-
rican American art and culture. By the second year of the
Building Diverse Audiences Program, the Columbus
Musetmi of Art began to exhibit African American artists
from the community in major solo exhibits featuring lo-
cal artists Aminah Robinson and William Hawkins. The
traveling exhibition "Wild Spirits/Strong Medicine: Afri-
can Art And The Wilderness," organized by the Center
for African Art, was also mounted, and collaborations
with other organizations deepened.

The curatorial staff surveyed its holdings of
African American art and came back both shamefaced
and delighted: the museum had more African American
art than they had realized. Evidendy the Columbus Mu-
setmi of Art had a history of going to the studios of Co-
lumbus-based African American artists and purchasing
their work. What remained was to catalogue the works
and then mount them. For Griffith the outreach effort
was becoming like destiny: the museum was truly frilfiU-
ing its mission as an educational institution.

Catherine Willis could see the museum was
changing and so accepted membership to the board.
"The success of the outreach effort was going to depend
ultimately on a board that's been sensitized to multicul-
tural concerns and issues. I could see that something was
beginning to happen with the board, but I wasn't certain
they were ready to extend themselves completely . . .
People don't jtimp from one set of values and attitudes
overnight. Change comes slowly, and only through edu-
cation, exposure and interaction."

"I Dream A Wodd: Portraits of Black
Women Who Changed America," a major exhibit, was
recommended by both the African American Ctiltural
Committee and the museum staff. The touring exhibit
of 75 large portrait photographs by Brian Lanker was a
roll call of artists and activists who overcame racism, pov-

erty and sexism through their strength and conviction.
With the exhibit's related activities, the entire museum
would be involved with African American subjects and
issues. Columbus would see and experience how far their
museum had come.

For everyone, the large turnout for "I Dream
A World" was the gratification and justification for their
work. For seven weeks the museum sponsored almost
daily activities: receptions and book signings were held
for some of the women photographed; documentaries on
Fannie Lou Hamer and Marian Anderson were shown
and discussed. Children were also involved through ac-
tivities designed for them, including exhibit-inspired
workshops on photography and "Celebrating Family
Legacies." The exhibit drew beyond the artists and pa-
trons that earlier shows had attracted, as teachers and
their students attended. The advertising concentrated on
African American social and religious groups had paid
off. Groups were booked two weeks in advance. And as
staff and board interacted with African American frater-
nities, sororities, churches and community leaders, the
museum's world changed. A whole other culture, as vi-
brant as the one that spawned the museum, became a
frill reality.

The museum has now passed through the
four-year cycle of the Building Diverse Audiences Pro-
gram, but the outreach effort continues. Fifteen new
members have been added to reinvigorate the African
American Cultural Committee. A new exhibit, "People,
Places And Things: An African American Perspective,"
opened in April 1992 and features twenty-four artists
whose lives and careers have been interconnected with
Columbus. The artworks were drawn principally from
the museum's permanent collection.

In 1989 the Columbus Museum of Art, as an
institution, looked into the mirror and set about chang-

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ing the image it faced. The few who began the process
became the many who struggle to continue the
museum's transformation. A visible African American
presence in the museum is now integral to the mu-
seiun — part of its fabric, consciousness and destiny.

Pennsylvania

# One Woman's Dream

Maya Angelou was electrifying in 1982 when she spoke
at Keystone Junior College near Scranton, Pennsylvania.
The strength of her presence and her insights into being
a woman and African American, delivered in the distinc-
tive roll and rhythm of her voice, were astounding to ex-
perience. When Angelou left the campus she left a void
in the life of Ada Belton, the Keystone English professor
who had invited Angelou to speak. Still, Belton went
about her business: chairing the college's cultural affairs
committee, serving on organization boards and teaching
African American culture from books.

Nine years later, Belton began to dream of
Angelou's anniversary return. Except that by 1991
Angelou's expected honorarium was $10,000 — four
times the amount paid in 1982, and one too large for
Keystone's cultural affairs budget. Area colleges and orga-
nizations were interested, but they were having their own
economic difficulties. Even a grant for that amount from
the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA) or a foun-
dation seemed impossible.

The situation had to be rethought. If not
Angelou, who or what would be the centerpiece of the
Black History Month celebration? If an event were out-
side the college's usual cultural programming, who
would funding come from? Who would provide the sup-
port services? And without a committee, who would even
help Belton plan?

By the time Belton telephoned PCA and

spoke with Charon Batdes, minority arts program direc-
tor, she had a goal. "I wanted a program of events, not
just funding for a single speaker. I was determined to fill
the eleven months surrounding February with symposia
and performances of African American art and culture. I
also wanted to create an African American archive as a
community resource." And, she wanted a host of other
projects to fill the void she felt was due to the lack of em-
phasis on African American culture in Scranton.

Strategies For Success

Ada Belton was a perfect match for the Pennsylvania
Council on the Arts' Strategies For Success program. The
program identifies the ethnic arts groups in the state and
assists them in both their organizational development
and their efforts to preserve and interpret their cultural
heritage. Program strategies include long-term consultan-
cies, individual development workshops and conferences.
However, as Belton had not yet formed an organization,
she would enter the program on the Basic Level, which
was established for groups seeking assistance to develop a
formal board structure, more consistent arts program-
ming and nonprofit status.

When her phone call to the council ended,
Belton was sorting through her mind for prospective
board members. Meanwhile at the council, Charon
Battles, the program director of Strategies For Success,
was estimating the driving time to Scranton from Harris-
burg. "As I worked with Ada, her ideas began to mature
and to encompass a community vision. Her growth was
an exciting and gratifying process to observe. I stress ob-
serve, because Strategies For Success tries to empower or-
ganizations by allowing them to develop their own ideas
and the means to implement them," says Batdes.

Through Battles, PCA established a relation-
ship with Belton's developing organization, which came

Through the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Strategies for Success program, the
Asociacion de Musicos Latino-Americanos (AMLA) has been able to expand and
grow strong in response to the demands of its community. Among AMLA's many
activities, students are offered music instruction for a nominal fee.
Photo courtesy of Asociacion de Musicos Latino-Americanos

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to be called the African American Arts Alliance. Strate-
gies steered the new organization to possible grants in
PCA programs and helped draft: grant requests.

After a year in the program, the African
American Arts Alliance created its mission statement,
wrote bylaws and formed a board drawn from the Afri-
can American community and three area colleges (Key-
stone, Marywood College and the University of
Scran ton). Development of the board represented the
transformation of Belton's personal mission into a com-
munity-wide effort. "Strategies For Success has been in-
strumental in the formation of the African American Arts
Alliance as a whole — getting the right people, the right
constituencies, onto the board. In the process, we ex-
panded from the three colleges into the community.
We're now a com wz^^zzVy organization."

The alliance's 1992 Black History Month cel-
ebration, "Succeeding Despite The Struggle: From the
Perspective of African American Writers" was the first of
a series of conferences that will appraise and celebrate the
contemporary African American arts and cultural experi-
ence. The conference brought together national and local
writers in a panel discussion. In 1993 the conference fo-
cused on the performing arts, highlighted by a perfor-
mance of the musical Our Young Black Men Are Dying,
And Nobody Seems To Care, and a lecture by African
American film historian Donald Bogle.

While Maya Angelou may not return to
Scranton for some time, when she does she will have
been called by a community invigorated by the work of
this new coalition.

# Keeping the Music Alive in Philadelphia

\Que triste seria un pueblo sin musical Indeed, how sad
would be a people without music. Especially when the
people must survive the battering that urban living ad-

ministers to those who are poor and different — to be sin
musica is to be in despair. Latino American musicians liv-
ing in Philadelphia know this, and more. Their music is
the heartbeat of their community. With Latin American
music transplanted to America and in competition with
empty commercial tunes, the only way to guarantee its
preservation is to make sure there are people to play the
music and others to listen and understand.

A decade ago thirteen salsa band leaders in
Philadelphia came together as the Asociacion de Musicos
Latino-Americanos (AMLA) to promote the develop-
ment and dissemination of Latin music. They would be-
come musician-teachers and ambassadors for the music.

Today AMLA encompasses Philadelphia's
School of Latin Music; a performance series of local, na-
tional and international musicians; a musician and band
referral service; an Artist in Education program; and is
the publisher of Pulso Latino, a Latin arts publication and
calendar.

AMLA is about to leave the Intermediate
Level of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts' Strategies
For Success program and move to the Advanced Level
where it will focus on fiind-raising, long-range planning
and board development. In the Intermediate Level, Strat-
egies helped AMLA remain stable despite the organiza-
tional pressures brought on by its rapid growth, rising
visibility and the increased demands of the community.

Jesse Bermudez, president of AMLA, had
good reason to join Strategies in 1990. The organization
seemed to be growing arms, and it was becoming hard
for Bermudez to manage it alone. AMLA musicians had
reached a combined audience of 40,000 in 1989, and
were providing 170 students with nearly 800 hours of
music instruction at nominal cost. The quarterly newslet-
ter had 10,000 subscribers. The need for assistance be-
came imperative when AMLA moved into its own office

space, and found that funding for ongoing administrative
support was still elusive.

The Intermediate Level of Strategies For Suc-
cess gave AMLA what it needed: the means to free
Bermudez to concentrate on program development. Us-
ing technical assistance grants, AMLA hired additional
office staff^and a part-time bookkeeper, who later became
comptroller. The arts council's two-day workshops on
organizational development, in addition to the advice
given by the PCA staff on basic office management,
proved to be as important as the council's ftinding.

Through Strategies, AMLA hired a consultant
to expand the organization's funding base beyond the
arts council. One immediate restilt has been funding sup-
port from the Rockefeller Foundation to commission
and premiere six new works by mid-career Latino com-
posers from around the United States. Collaborations
with organizations like the New York Shakespeare Festi-
val and Yoimg Audiences of New Jersey have spread
word of the music and given artists both exposure and
new income. "AMLA's mission is to guarantee that the
rich heritage of the Latin musical traditions is learned,
played, imderstood and enjoyed. To make that possible
we have to chase the dollar. At times we had to change
program ideas to fit a frmding proposal. But Strategies
asks, 'What are your needs right now? How can we help
to make it possible for you to move to another level?',"
says Bermudez.

Despite its growing national profile, AMLA
remains firmly planted in the Latino community, as it
must. Latinos form one of the most underserved com-
munities in Philadelphia — in hotising, health care and
education. More Latino children drop out of school than
stay in. While the Asociacion de Miisicos Latino-
Americanos cannot meet all of these varied and complex
needs, the band of musicians does what it can.

Indiana

# A New Local Arts Council

Prior to 1990, the citizens of Perry County had only
vaguely heard of the Indiana Arts Commission (lAC).
Perry County was one of a dozen areas in Indiana that
had not submitted a single grant application to the lAC
in the previous five years. The lAC staff knew that zero
applications did not mean zero cultural activities. It did,
however, mean that public arts support was not reaching
all of Indiana's citizens.

Fortunately at a Tell City town meeting in
August 1 990, Perry County artists and arts patrons were
introduced to the Indiana Arts Commission through a
special program called Arts: Rural and Multicultural
(ARM). The town meeting is a key element of the ARM
program. During the meeting, the community residents
surveyed the county by assessing its arts needs and identi-
fying potential arts programs, spaces and presenters. A
broad cross-section of the county's citizens was present
and eager, including artists eligible for grants and busi-
ness persons amenable to supporting the arts. Under the
guidance of lAC Executive Director Tom Schorgl and
Assistant Director Greg Charleston, the group discussed
the facilities available to house or present the arts, existing
arts programs, potential human resources and possibili-
ties for financial support.

The Perry Coimty citizens decided they
needed an arts council. When they adjourned late that
night, the Perry County Arts Council had a steering
committee that was charged with creating a board, draft-
ing bylaws and developing programs. Perry County was
moving faster than the Indiana Arts Commission ex-
pected. The next step would be to provide the emerging
group with both technical assistance to help it develop
and guidance on grant writing.

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# Arts: Rural and Multicultural
The ARM program represents the lAC's long-term com-
mitment to support new, emerging and community-
based organizations and artists by helping to make their
activities accessible to new, expanded and underserved
audiences. The lAC initially chose 12 pilot sites; 10 of
which were rural, because the rural counties had not ap-
plied for, or received, state funding in at least five years.
The remaining two pilot sites were culturally diverse,
with the state's largest African American and Hispanic
American populations, and were drastically underserved.

Perry County, one of the 10 rural sites, dis-
plays the diversity of both the ARM program and the
state of Indiana and serves as a model for the program.
The efforts of the Perry County Arts Council (PCAC)
and the community exemplify the goals and opportuni-
ties available to all ARM program participants. Accord-
ing to Regina Smith, ARM program manager, "Arts or-
ganizations, per se, don't exist in most of our counties,
which is why Perry County is such a model. It's amazing
that an emerging arts organization, over a three-year pe-
riod, has been able to develop bylaws, a schedule of pro-
grams, a newsletter and even begun to market itself out-
side the county. When it comes to the programs that
we've worked with so far, PCAC is unique and by itself
at one end of the spectrum."

One Tell City artist, Pat Jarboe, was not at
the town meeting, but he happened to read about it in
the newspaper. Jarboe had left a good California job in
technical theater to return home to Perry County. He
could raise a family in Perry County, but his theater skills
were beginning to atrophy. He was eager to be a part of
anything arts-related. "In 1982 a group of us tried to be-
gin an arts council, but the thing failed miserably. We
didn't know what we were doing. This time we're suc-
ceeding, because ARM has been with us from the begin-

ning. They've fiinded consultants and technical seminars,
like the one we just had for board development. We're
now ready to enter the next phase where we apply for
large operating and programming grants, rather than a
grant for each project."

Within months of joining the Perry County
Arts Council steering committee, Jarboe was elected
president. Jarboe had ambitions for the young council,
but without even a tax-exempt number, the committee
had to work slowly. Their first project was arranging the
annual Tell City Madrigal Dinner. The effort involved
applying for an ARM grant, coordinating more than
sixty people and seeking the support of a dozen county
organizations. The volunteers pitched in to prepare the
food and rehearse the concert. The performance was sold
out within a week. It was clear to the PCAC that people
were willing to support arts programs. To the members
of the steering committee and the residents of Perry
County, an arts council began to make sense.

Following their first success, the PCAC
elected board members and developed bylaws and a cal-
endar of activities for the year. The Perry County Arts
Council began offering assistance to other arts presenters.
Through successful grant applications, tax dollars began
to return to the county and local businesses ceased to be
the sole source of funding for events. The spring 1992
Dogwood Festival allowed the council to mount its own
project, an art show and craft: sale. Soon after when Tell
City honored its local historian, the PCAC sponsored a
competition to choose a painter for the portrait.

After these early successes the arts council was
primed for a big project, and chose to have a mural
painted on the Tell City flood wall. The total project
cost over three years would be $30,000, and though the
Indiana Arts Commission offered some grant assistance,
the county arts council supported the bulk of the project.

The possible benefits of the Flood Wall Mural went be-
yond the aesthetic, as it would contribute to saving the
flood wall from graflPiti and reclaiming the park adjacent
to it for family use. In May 1992, a local design artist
outlined the first three of seven panels: re-creations of
historic buildings in the city. Through the summer a sec-
ond local artist oversaw the volunteers who painted. The
activity of the volunteers attracted the curiosity of their
neighbors, who wanted to know if the new council was
still accepting volunteer painters.

Even as the arts council collects small dona-
tions from VFW and American Legion auxiliaries to ad-
vance the Flood Wall Mural, the PCAC is planning am-
bitious future projects to fill the numerous areas of need
in the county. The county schools have no arts program-
ming. The many church choirs, musicians and music
theater groups need to be brought together in a salute to
local talent. Fledgling painters need art classes. And the
local chamber of commerce must be encouraged to apply
to the LAC for support when it sponsors the upcoming
riverboat orchestra concert. Ultimately the PCAC must
convince the county's nonprofit arts groups that their
programs can compete with those of other arts organiza-
tions in the state and that they should apply for support.

The Perry County Arts Council is becoming
credible afi:er a two-and-a-half years of effort. With no
real past experience in organizing, the council is learning
as it goes along. And the principal engine for its efforts
has been the Arts: Rural And Multicultural program.

Through the Arts: Rural and Multicultural
program the Indiana Arts Commission will increase its
programs and services to 25 targeted areas in 1993. The
commission also proposes to increase the maximum
funding available, place greater emphasis on technical as-
sistance, and through the ARM Forum provide opportu-
nities for rural and multicultural presenters, artists and

schools to share information and participate in problem-
solving sessions.

A Commitment to Encourage
And Support

The vibrancy of American culture is formed from an as-
tounding variety of ethnic and geographic cultures. Sub-
tract even one and America loses its diversity and vitality.
Responding to this issue is a dilemma that confronts
many facets of American society.

Clearly the response of the state arts agencies
in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana has been to encourage
and support diversity. Their staffs have gone out into the
overlooked farms, barrios and urban communities to
form working and mentoring relationships that help
dedicated organizations fulfill their missions to their com-
munities. The programs for these outreach efforts are
models for other state arts agencies, not solely for how to
include and fund multicultural organizations, but also for
how to cultivate and strengthen all arts organizations. ■

John Rufus Caleb is a playwright, whose award-winning play, Benny's
Place, was produced in 1981 by the O'Neill Playwrights Conference
and in 1982 by ABC television. He also teaches writing at the Commu-
nity College of Philadelphia.

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The Age-Old Ritual of Storytelling

Seeking to increase access to the arts in underserved communities, the North CaroHna
Arts Council created a project to bring two innovative theater groups to the rural,
northeastern section of the state. Students here vie to participate in a Roadside story at
the C.S. Brown Cultural Center in Winton, North Carolina.
Photo by Cedric Chatterley

by Nayo Barbara Malcolm Watkins

I doubt there's a community in America, or in the
world for that matter, where given just the right
company, the right time of day or night and an
appropriate amount of nudging, commentary couldn't
turn rather quickly into hill-fledged storytelling. People
have stories — their own, other people's and those of su-
per beings and critters — and they tell them. They tell
them to preserve history, legend and lore; to teach values;
to reaffirm who they are; to find humor in life and living;
to put children to sleep; to make mockery of adversaries;
or simply to compete for attention. When people have
litde else, they have their stories.

Rural Southern Stories

Storytelling in the rural South is special. It's a part of the
ritual of defining and aligning people, place, culture and
claim. Perhaps the specialness is related to the fact that
more than enough rural Southerners have known more
than enough times when there seemed to be litde more
than the stories. During those patient times a yarn could
get worked back aqd forth between tellers 'til it's honed
to a tee.

Today, people in the rural South aren't in-
clined to think much of the traditions of storytelling that
they've inherited. Storytelling is something the old folks
do, and it seems that they do it less and less. But separate
projects that brought Junebug Productions of New Or-
leans and Roadside Theater of Whitesburg, Kentucky, to
rural communities in North Carolina and Mississippi
may have made a difference in the way people in those
places think about and honor their own and their neigh-
bors' stories. These projects have also provided a way for
arts agencies, fiinders and organizers to explore new
methods of engaging new audiences and underserved
populations.

Roadside and Junebug are professional theater

companies from very different southern communities.
Roadside's home is the Appalachian coalfield region of
eastern Kentucky and southwest Virginia where popula-
tions are predominantly white. Junebug is a product of
the black community in the Deep South and the Free
Southern Theater, an artistic offspring of the Civil Rights
Movement. Both companies draw upon the storytelling
and music traditions of their communities as the basis of
theatrical creation and production. Both also use their art
as weaponry against prejudice and stereotypes, and to en-
courage awareness of cultural differences.

# Junebug/Jack

In the early 1980s, John O'Neal and Dudley Cocke, the
artistic directors of the two companies, observed the rise
of Ku Klux Klan activity in the country and discussed
the impact of touring each other's communities.

From those discussions and a decade of col-
laboration has come Junebug/Jack, a coproduced theater
piece based on the stories and music of poor whites and
blacks in the South. Junebug is an African American folk
character invented 30 years ago by the Student Nonvio-
lent Coordinating Committee to represent the collective
wisdom of black people. Jack is the hero of the Appala-
chian "Jack tales" (including their most famous ancestor,
"Jack and the Beanstalk").

The play makes the point that the stories of
people whom history has set apart are really rather simi-
lar, and in fact may have been traded back and forth and
added to along the way. In a review published by the
New Orleans Times-Picayune, Richard Dodds, a theater
critic, echoed this sentiment when he said the play "dem-
onstrates a sensitivity to black-white differences while
also highlighting some of those areas where traditions,
legends, experiences, interests and even music overlap."
He went on to comment: "Our roots have all become

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tangled together, the piece is saying, and there is more to
be gained in nurturing these cross-pollinated heritages
than in antagonistically yanking them apart."

The theme is set forth in the early moments
oi Junebug/Jack "See, everybody has a story, their own
story, but it seems like it's come to the place where
people don't think their stories are worth anything any-
more," one actor begins. "Trouble is," says another,
"seems like some people are always wanting to tell our
story for us." A third adds, "But, we got to tell it our-
selves! Otherwise how we gonna know it's us?" And fi-
nally, "If we don't listen to the stories of others, how will
we know who they are?"

# Community-Based Art
O'Neal's and Cocke's early 1980s discussions are now
part of a national dialogue with other touring artists, pre-
senters and hinders. New ways of thinking, which may
be old ways revived, have emerged about artists working
in more meaningfiil ways in communities. Among the
new ideas is that community-based residencies de-em-
phasize the staged performance as the event and place
greater emphasis on participation and interaction in
shared processes. The role of the artist goes beyond per-
forming to assisting people in discovering, honoring and
sharing their creative resources and their potential for cre-
ative community-building.

"It's like forming a circle with the community
people," says Dudley Cocke of Roadside Theater, "put-
ting out, receiving and putting back out. If the circle is
broken, somebody is cut off from the full experience, and
this happens when the artist hogs the event." Storytelling
works especially well because teller and listener are active
partners in an event of the moment. Of the staged per-
formances, Cocke says, "Audiences often talk back and
talking back is not impolite."

North Carolina

# In the Field and On the Front Line

In 1988 die Nordi Carolina Arts Council (NCAC) held
a series of meetings in preparation for developing a state-
wide plan for the 1 990s. As they listened to the concerns
of the arts community, the council heard anew the chal-
lenge of supporting the arts in rural, culturally isolated
and economically depressed communities. "What we
heard and what struck us were the real barriers to rural
accessibility," says NCAC Assistant Director Nancy
Trovillion. "With so few resources, the matching dollars
just weren't there, and often there wasn't an organization
to do the work." The four-year plan that evolved from
this study of the field carried a strong commitment to ac-
cess for underserved populations and community cul-
tural planning. An initiative of the plan eventually
brought Roadside and Junebug to communities in
northeastern North Carolina.

The l6-county area lying south of Virginia's
Hampton Roads to the Pamlico Sound and west of the
Atlantic Ocean splashing the Outer Banks to Lake
Gaston is the state's most economically depressed region.
Waterways and wetlands have historically shaped the
economic, social and cultural patterns that provide op-
portunities, as well as limitations and isolation. Preserva-
tion efforts draw inspiration from an illustrious history of
explorers, colonists and pirates beginning in the 1600s.
The names of about half the region's towns and counties
are reminders of the heritage of Native American tribes
still living there today. The northeast is also home to the
state's largest concentration of African Americans, refer-
ence to still another historical presence. In recent years
the separate histories of Native American, white and
black communities, along with the more recent presence
of small Asian and Hispanic communities, have been
dominated by economic and social concerns. The stories

Audience members joining Meherrins in a tribal dance at the Gallery Theater in
Ahoskie, North Carolina.
Photo by Cedric Chatterley

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of these communities reflect the common themes of sur-
vival and coexistence.

NCAC staff realized that many northeast
communities would not be able to take advantage of
the council's new initiatives. Arts councils exist in only 9
of the 16 counties and most are volunteer-run. The dis-
tribution of state arts funds to the northeast region have
been well below the state average. The decision was made
to initiate a project with goals for cultural exchange and
celebration of local culture in the hope that such a model
would inspire broader cultural planning. Says Trovillion,
"In the early days of the council the staff was more in-
volved in developmental work. Then, as organizations
developed on their own, we took a more responsive and
less activist role. The northeastern project put us back in
the field and on the front line."

With this project NCAC had three goals. Ac-
cording to Trovillion, "One was to use cultural ex-
change— between segments of communities and be-
tween communities and guest artists — to celebrate local
cultural life and build bridges of understanding between
cultures. Another was to help northeastern communities
become more reliant on their own cultural gifts as
sources of pleasure and enrichment. And another was to
figure out what combination of people and money
would be needed to keep public cultural activities going
in the region."

NCAC staff first presented the idea of a re-
gional residency project to the Northeastern Cultural Al-
liance, an organization struggling to serve as a regional
network in the state. Alliance members viewed video-
tapes of Roadside's and Junebug's work, discussed how
the project might aid long-range planning and agreed to
become the sponsoring body. A project coordinator from
the area was hired and the region was divided into hubs
of three or four counties. In the hubs, committees com-

piled community surveys and assessments to assist with
local residency planning. There were lots of meetings —
in the hubs, with the project coordinator, with NCAC
staff and with members of Roadside and Junebug.
NCAC supported the project with the assistance of a
grant from the State and Regional Program of the Na-
tional Endowment for the Arts.

Permission to Be Ourselves
Finally it was time for Roadside and Junebug to do what
they do best. The residency began with an eight-day pre-
tour designed to demonstrate how community-based
residencies might work. On the first night, in the tiny
town of Moyock in Currituck County, the comely
bunch of six actors in blue jeans, gingham skirts and
fancy boots met with local folks at the elementary school.
They performed Junebug/Jack stories and shared a lively
evening with local exhibitors and performers. There was
a doUhouse maker, taxidermist, woodworker, photogra-
pher, quilter, pianist, gymnast and dogger. There were
traditional musicians who played well into the night.

In each hub local artists were invited to meet
and perform with the "outside professionals." Each site
was different. In Hertford, meeting at the sight of the
oldest house in the state, the artists shared the stage with
local theater artists who performed a reader's theater of
older stories written by a North Carolina playwright. On
the stage of the Gallery Theater in Ahoskie, they were
joined by Meherrin tribal dancers, gospel singers and
doggers. The C.S. Brown Cultural Center, site of a his-
toric African American school, was the setting for an in-
tergenerational session that went from story swapping to
ham bone slapping to singing "Amazing Grace." In
Roanoke Rapids, where Haliwa Saponi dancers per-
formed with the visiting artists, discussions about social
and economic conditions led to talk about collecting oral

histories and community stories as the basis for creating a
play. By the end of the pre-tour, people were getting the
idea that it wasn't about being entertained by outside
professionals, but about people sharing and exchanging.
Said one woman, "The way they were, they gave us per-
mission to be ourselves."

Drawing Stories from the Well of Living

On the second and longer visit the artists spent time in
schools, many of which have been consolidated by bus-
ing students from opposite ends of a coimty. At the
Hertford County High School, a three-day workshop fo-
cused on connections between formal studies, traditional
lore and awareness of one's own history and that of oth-
ers. The song "Get On Board Children" served as intro-
duction for discussions on slavery and the imderground
railroad. The banjo, slide guitar and harmonica helped
trace the historical paths and cultural mergers of different
Americans. The stories of John, an African American
trickster character, and Jack, an Appalachian folk hero,
helped point to parallels between the everyman stories of
different cultures and similar characters in classroom lit-
erature. The students were asked to think of how oral
traditions pass from generation to generation and to re-
call stories they'd heard in their commtmities. One quiet
yoimg man told of his western North Carolina Cherokee
roots and how he and his father tell the stories of their
history through the music they play together.

There was also more time for story and music
swaps, meals and casual talk. With NCAC staff the art-
ists joined a gospel group for a Thursday evening re-
hearsal. Around a home piano in Winton they sang
rotmd after round of church and civil rights songs. At a
Meherrin tribal center the artists and participants
watched a man applying beads and feathers to his regalia,
talked about concerns of the times and shared stories.

The Meherrin Chief closed the evening with a personal
story about a ratdesnake as a way to talk about honoring
difference and coexistence.

Personal stories were central in informal ses-
sions throughout the region, partictilarly where seniors
were present. There was the story of the car that wotild
never go to a fiineral; boyhood memories of hiding eggs
in an outhouse and playing in a sawmill; stories of volun-
teer fire fighters, moonshine and ice-covered rivers; and
hard-times tales about making a living. At some sites lo-
cal crafis were showcased — ^wool spinning, wood carv-
ings, musical instniments, quilts, afghans — and often
these too represented stories to be told.

The Roadside and Junebug artists told stories
too, and talked with people about the rich reservoir of
living from which stories can be drawn and the value of
passing them on. Some people wanted to know more
about collecting oral histories and scripting the stories
into plays.

Staged Performances

Each residency culminated in a community performance
with local artists, community members and children
sharing the stage with Jtmebug and Roadside. These
were held in schools and centers, like the one at the Lake-
land Arts Center for the people in Northampton and
Halifax Cotmties. Haliwa Saponi dancers and drummers
performed an opening ceremony, followed by a gospel
quartet, a yoimg man reading a story he'd written, a skit
improvised by three students, a Langston Hughes read-
ing, and stories and songs by Junebug and Roadside.

Finally, people from all over the region were
invited to a frill performance o^ Junebug/Jack at Elizabeth
City State University, the region's only four-year institu-
tion. The University Choir, with rich voices and robed
attire, set the tone for the evening with classical

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and gospel selections. The songs and stories ofjunebug/
Jack come from people, like those gathered, who reach
deep into their memory and experience. The results are
spirited songs, humorous stories, allegories and ironies
and hard stories all too familiar: about farming; about
the ones who migrated north, those who watched them
go, and the ones who went and met the disillusions of ur-
ban life. There was a story about a white boy and a black
boy meeting in a foreign land fighting for their country
and how they grooved with Muddy Waters and each
other, only to return after the war and "It never was the
same after that."

The end of the residency project was for ex-
ploring the possibilities raised and what these possibilities
could mean in this northeast section of North Carolina. I
listened to people describe the residency with terms like
participatory, openness, bonding a.nd magic. At a meeting of
the Northeastern Cultural Alliance participants talked of
wanting to maintain the broad interest and participation
that had been created. The dilemmas of the northeast
have not gone away, but the people now have new ways
of making art, and through the art an aid for making
community.

Mississippi

# The American Festival Project

The Mississippi American Festival Project was quite simi-
lar to the North Carolina project — the format, the shar-
ing, people coming together and telling their stories. The
Mississippi project, however, was initiated by the Ameri-
can Festival Project (AFP), based at Appalshop in Ken-
tucky. The American Festival Project is a coalition of the-
ater, dance and music companies from different parts of
the country and of different cultures. Funding from the
National Endowment for the Arts and the Ford, Nathan
Cummings and Rockefeller Foundations has allowed AFP

to subsidize a series of community-based residencies
around the country.

Caron Adas, executive director of the AFP na-
tional project says, "The project can serve as a creative
catalyst in communities. But it can't have impact in a
vacuum; the artists work in support of both the goals and
visions of the presenters and the needs of their communi-
ties." A goal of the Mississippi American Festival Project
was to help small and rural organizations improve their
skills in presenting and fund-raising, skills that are crucial
to developing access. "We've learned that access means
first listening and not assuming you know," says Jane
Hiatt, Mississippi Arts Commission (MAC) executive di-
rector. In addition to developing detailed residency plan-
ning, they raised part of the ftinds.

The Mississippi presenters included a child
and family services organization, a community center, a
cultural arts center, a community theater with a cultural
museum, two small private colleges and a rural-based
state university. I had the great pleasure of serving as state
coordinator for this loosely-knit network. As we visited
the events of other American Festival Projects, "Stories
into Art" emerged as the theme around which each
group was organizing its local activities. The presenters
invited six American Festival companies; some invited
more than one company and built their year of program-
ming around them. Roadside Theater and Junebug Pro-
ductions were invited by both Brickfire Project of
Starkville, Mississippi, and Mississippi Cultural Cross-
roads of Port Gibson, Mississippi.

Brickfire and Crossroads were able to tap a
grants program that matches MAC funds with Southern
Arts Federation funding. Hiatt says, "We're finding ways
to break the boxes that have been barriers to ftinding
many projects, and ways to encourage projects like the
ones in Port Gibson and Starkville." With technical assis-

Through the collaboration of state arts agencies, funders and presenters, many people
in North Carolina and Mississippi were able to watch and participate in the unique
experiences surrounding presentations oi Junebug/Jack.
Photo by Cedric Chatterley

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tance from the Mississippi American Festival Project, the
presenters also singly and collectively applied to new
funding sources. Grants were secured from the National
Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Di-
gest Fund, the Ruth Mott Fund, the Mississippi Hu-
manities Council and Alternate ROOTS.

nity. Months later when Liz Lerman & the Dance Ex-
change, an intergenerational, biracial American Festival
company, came, Brickfire tried their plan again and ex-
panded it to target a larger senior audience.

Bringing Communities Together
Brickfire Project gets its name from the red bricks of
housing projects that are home to many of the children
in its child development centers and from its goal to nur-
ture the "burning desires" of those and other low-income
children. In addition to a range of family services,
Brickfire is an active arts presenter in "the Golden Tri-
angle," which includes the rural loamy-hill counties of
Oktibbeha, Chotaw and Winston. Starkville is best de-
scribed as Mississippi State University and a small town.
As in many university towns there is the division of
"gown and town," which translates into an elite, mostly
white community and a poor, mostly black community.

Brickfire decided to use a performance of
Junebug/Jack to bring the two communities together. Of
the small, biracial audience that came on the first night
and grew on the second, Leslie Leech, Brickfire's cultural
coordinator commented, "We did better than any town
meeting could have in bringing people together. The dia-
logue onstage was a catalyst, a point of interest, for dia-
logue offstage." The visiting artists' presence in the com-
munity was central to the plan. They held workshops
with university students, visited public school classrooms,
swapped stories with senior citizens and later told these
stories to children in day care centers. It was important
that all these people could feel comfortable in the place
where the play was performed. The cross-cultural appeal
of the play, coupled with the use of a building in com-
mon territory, helped spark dialogue within the commu-

Hearing Local Stories for the First Time
Port Gibson is in Claiborne County, north on the Mis-
sissippi River from Natchez and New Orleans. Once a
busy slave trading center, today the county is 82 percent
African American. The high school averages 99 to 100
percent African American, and 95 percent of public
school students qualify for the federal free-lunch pro-
gram. On the side of town where antebellum mansions
mingle with comfortable modern homes is a private
school that is 99 to 1 00 percent white.

In this context Mississippi Cultural Cross-
roads (MCC) offers a space and programs for local
people to come together to create, preserve and share a
sense of community and, as MCC Director Patty Crosby
is quick to point out, "a sense of who they are." This
sense of community is reflected in the award-winning
works that adults, seniors and youth produce and display
in the storefront MCC art center on Main Street. It's
also reflected in the noisy rehearsal chatter of Peanut But-
ter & Jelly, a youth theater program that has succeeded
in bringing together students from the public and private
schools. While most of MCC's constituency is African
American, attraction to the theater spread in 1989 when
Cornerstone Theater of New York City visited and pro-
duced an integrated "Romeo and Juliet," which made
the cover o^ American Theater Magazine.

Imagining that an inclusive community the-
ater might be possible, MCC planned the Junebug/
Roadside residency around sessions for writing, telling
and performing stories. The artists worked in classrooms
during the day and at the center in the evenings. On the

evening of the story swap, professional and professed sto-
rytellers, black and white, young and not so young gath-
ered in a big circle. Infectious as storytelling is, even those
who claimed not to know a story were inspired to share
at least one tale. Local people heard local stories they had
not heard before. One man who had never been known
for talking much, "broke loose" with some of the most
amazing, well-crafted and funny stories of the evening.
The ritual was repeated during the later residency of Car-
petbag Theater, based in Knoxville, Tennessee, another
American Festival company with a storytelling repertoire.
"In fact," says Crosby, as she continues to promote the
possibility of a community theater, "by popular demand,
story swaps are becoming a regular happening in Port
Gibson these days."

Nayo Barbara Malcolm Watkins is an independent arts consultant who
works with state arts agencies and nonprofit arts organizations in North
Carolina and the South on organization and program development. She
has served as executive director of a dance ensemble, a theater troupe
and an arts organization, and is a published playwright.

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A Creative Cycle

Meanwhile back home, Junebug and Roadside build
upon these and other touring experiences in projects in
their own communities. What they learn they take back
on the road and the cycle of experience continues. "It's
about process over product," says Junebug's John
O'Neal. "It has to be seen as a lens for examining pro-
cess. And ultimately, it's about empowering people by af-
firming their own strengths."

So once upon a time some storytellers passed
through, and they helped revitalize, revalidate, connect
and reconnect age-old rituals . . . and things happened in
rural North Carolina and Mississippi. The prospect of
community theaters developed, new arts participants ap-
peared, lots of new plays were created and all kinds of
people started telling and listening to each other's
stories. ■

Building Bridges in Education Through Folk Arts

Corona-makei Eva Castellanoz teaches students how to make the delicate crowns of
paper flowers that hold special significance in Mexican culture. Through the Idaho
Commission on the Arts Communit}^ Cultures program, Eva and other artisans were
able to share their artistry and culture with school children.
Photo courtesy of Eva Castellanoz

by Julie Fansebw

The United States is a nation of widely contrast-
ing cultures, but few states could be as geographi-
cally and historically different as Idaho and
Rhode Island.

Idaho is one of the last vestiges of the true
American West, its vast inland landscape marked by tow-
ering mountains, scenic rivers and windswept plains of
molten lava rock and sagebrush. The state has more
roadless area than any other in the continental United
States, and many of its towns didn't exist 100 years ago.

Rhode Island, by contrast, was settled more
than three centuries ago as a haven from religious perse-
cution. The state's character reflects its New England
heritage and its coastal location. Although small in size,
Rhode Island is one of the nation's most densely settled
states, with about 960 people per square mile (compared
to about 12 people per square mile in Idaho).

Despite these differences, Idaho and Rhode
Island have characteristics in common. Each is among
the nation's smallest states in terms of overall population,
which means that state and local agencies lack national
political and economic clout and must often do for
themselves. Each state is home to myriad people from
varied ethnic backgrounds. And each has found a way to
mine its human resources to create truly innovative ap-
proaches to folk arts education.

Idaho

# Getting Parents Involved

Idaho is a state of immigrants. Except for the state's Na-
tive Americans, few Idahoans have roots going back
more than a century. Many of the state's Mexican-
American people are among the most recent arrivals still
struggling to find acceptance and purpose in their new
communities.

Many Mexican-Americans live in Nampa, a

town of about 28,000 located in southwest Idaho's
"Treasure Valley" near Boise. Of 8,100 students attend-
ing the schools in the Nampa School District, eight per-
cent are classified as migrant students. Some of these mi-
grant children's families have settled into year-round life
in Nampa, but others must travel from town to town as
they follow the crops and work the fields. The Nampa
School District's Community Cultures Program grew
out of teachers' and administrators' desires to help mi-
grant parents participate in their children's education.
They decided to do this by integrating folk arts lessons
into the fourth-grade social studies curriculum, which
emphasizes Idaho's history and its diverse population.
"We want parents to become more involved in the
schooling of children ... so they can see that the schools
belong to them," says Raphael Ortiz, one of several
fourth-grade teachers at Nampa's Lakeview Elementary
School. Lakeview became the program's pilot school be-
cause of the faculty's willingness to take on the task.

Community Cultures Program
In pursuing this idea, the Lakeview teachers began by
contacting the Idaho Commission on the Arts (ICA) and
asking if a school/community folk arts fair might qualify
for assistance. Anna Marie Boles, then arts in education
director for the ICA, told the teachers the fair didn't
meet the commission's guidelines but that educational
artists' residencies could qualify. Boles then told the
teachers about ideas for a Folk Arts in the Schools pro-
gram that the commission was considering developing.

Everyone who took part in the resulting
Community Cultures Program emphasized the impor-
tance of teamwork in making it start strongly and run
smoothly. At Lakeview Elementary, the Community
Cultures team included teachers, the school principal,
district administrators, parents and other interested

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members of the community, all of whom worked with
staff people from the ICA. Twilo Scofield, an Oregon
folklorist and teacher, served as project consultant. In ad-
dition to support from the ICA, the Idaho State Depart-
ment of Education and its Migrant Education Program,
the program was funded in part by a NEA Arts in Edu-
cation grant to the Idaho Commission on the Arts.

The Community Cultures team started by
seeking out traditional artists from a variety of back-
grounds. They found people like Filemon Ballesteros, a
Mexican-American agricultural crew leader who also
weaves intricate, macrame-style bags, and Eva
Castellanoz, a woman widely recognized for her skill in
creating Mexican coronas (crowns made of waxed paper
flowers). And although the program started with a Mexi-
can-American focus, coordinators quickly learned about
talented artists from many other ethnic groups, including
a Shoshone-Paiute bead artisan from the nearby Duck
Valley Indian Reservation, a Vietnamese couple who cre-
ate traditional lanterns and a Pakistani storyteller. Most
of these people are themselves parents or grandparents of
school-age children and have a lifetime of informal teach-
ing experience.

In the meantime, the fourth-grade teachers at
Lakeview Elementary School prepared their students
with lessons from Scofield's booklet Out On a Limb. The
booklet helps children trace their own family trees, ask
questions about their cultural heritage and bring evi-
dence of that background into the classroom through a
kind of international "show-and-tell." One boy whose
family hailed from the southwest Pacific islands of Tonga
taught his class how to dance the hula. A girl whose
background is Laotian offered a 20-minute program
showcasing, among other things, a tape of her brothers'
traditional Laotian musical group and her mother's
native dress.

Enthusiasm in the Classroom
The teachers also took time to tell the students about the
artists' home countries before the visitors arrived, provid-
ing a solid context for the classroom appearances. By the
time the presenters arrived, the children were bursting
with questions. "I was struck by the preparation the
teachers had done with the students," Boles says. "They
knew the questions to ask, and they didn't have to be
prompted." When Loc and Huyen Kim Nguyen, the
Vietnamese couple, demonstrated how to make tradi-
tional lanterns used in an annual Children's Day parade,
the students asked so many questions that the actual lan-
tern-making had to wait until after lunch.

Eva Castellanoz, who lives just over the Idaho
border in Nyssa, Oregon, makes coronas in part to keep
alive the ideals behind the delicate crowns made of paper
flowers, which traditionally are worn by Mexican girls on
special occasions. It used to be that only virgins could
don the corona on their wedding day, she says, but with
the increase in teen sexual activity the flowers no longer
hold the same meaning in Mexican ctilture.

With a classroom of fourth-graders,
Castellanoz takes a different tack. The children watch
with rapt attention as she shapes paper petals, dips them
into hot wax, then molds the flowers. The flowers come
in different colors — red, yellow, pink — "just like
people," Castellanoz says, "and each one is beautifiil in its
own way." "We're all unique and the flowers we make
are going to be different from everyone else's flowers,"
she adds. "But they are all going to be beautifiil."

Castellanoz's skills are known all over the
West, and she is a past recipient of a National Heritage
Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. She
enjoys visiting classrooms because it gives her a chance to
nourish the cultural roots of young Mexican- American
children and help keep their heritage alive in a very tan-

gible way. "If we help our children to be proud of who
they are and what they know, they'll do well anywhere,"
she says.

The Lakeview teachers say they noticed defi-
nite improvements in their students' levels of self-esteem
and ctiltural awareness following their involvement in the
Community Cultures Program. ICA staff member Jil
Sevy recalls that young Ricardo Ballesteros was never par-
ticularly interested in learning about his father's bag
weaving until the day his dad actually showed up in his
classroom. "It made him come out of his shell. He was
like a different kid," Sevy says. "It was great."

Ricardo Cedillo, former principal of Lakeview
Elementary, says parent participation was key to the pro-
gram's success. "We had a lot of parental involvement,
and when you get the parents involved, it makes the kids
feel better," he notes. "The kids felt proud of their par-
ents, and I hope they will continue to feel that way."

Asked what advice they would give other
groups trying to start a similar program, the Community
Ctiltures organizers had several suggestions.

Robert McCarl, former ICA folk arts director,
says state and local departments of education need to
make sure their multictiltural education efforts are
ongoing, integrated programs that make full use of each
community's human resources. Only then, he says, will
cross-cultural education move away from many schools'
practice of offering one week's instruction on a culture
"and figuring they've done it."

Everyone involved stressed the need for early
organization and cooperation among all parties partici-
pating, from administrators and teachers to parents and
other community members.

"Be sure of your team," says Howard. "Be
sure everybody is well-informed and really wants to do
the program."

"To make it work, the teacher involvement
has to be there," says Sevy. "It's quite labor intensive.
The teachers at Lakeview were very enthusiastic and
wanted to see it happen."

Sevy adds that it's important to have the
teachers trained by an experienced folklorist. "If you
don't have that, you have a fluffy little program without
any substance," she says.

"Take the time to plan it and don't try to
rush into it," advises Boles. "Figure it will take several
years to really get it into place. We just scratched the sur-
face of the potential of what's there, just identifying that
everyone carries with them certain perspectives and
knowledge."

Rhode Island

# Kits Unearth Cultural Treasure
The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA)
has also discovered a creative way to present the art and
culture of its diverse ethnic groups to the children of
Rhode Island. During the mid-1970s, the nation's small-
est state became a haven for many Hmong people who
had fled the mountains of Laos and Burma in war-torn
southeast Asia. "Southeast Asians, including the Hmong,
were the most recent immigrant group in the state and
the one that people knew the least about," says Winnie
Lambrecht, director of the council's Folk Arts Program.

Lambrecht and her assistant, Carolyn
Shapiro, thought the best way to introduce Hmong cul-
ture might be through a kit that could be loaned out to
interested schools. Drawing on descriptions and artifacts
from Hmong life overseas and in Rhode Island, the
council created a veritable treasure chest for all who
would use the kit. Among the items included were beau-
tifully woven floral cloth, photographs, translated copies
of Hmong folktales, a small musical instrument similar

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to a Jew's harp and cassette tapes of Hmong music and
conversation.

RISCA also produced a kit focusing on the
basket-making of three cultures represented in the state:
the Hmong, the Yankees (or descendants of early New-
England settlers, mostly from England and Scotland)
and the Narragansetts. The kit included finished baskets
along with photos of the artists and introductions to bas-
ket-making techniques.

RISCA produced these kits in 1985-86
through a general support grant from the NEA Folk Arts
Program. Recently, Lambrecht co-produced a third kit
focusing on sub-Saharan African cultures for the Rhode
Island School of Design (RISD) Museum, which funded
the project through a foundation grant. Lambrecht says
each kit costs between $2,000 and $4,000 to develop
and produce, depending on how much research is
needed. The two RISCA kits have remained in continual
use since the mid 1 980s, and the RISD kit is available on
a subscription basis.

"The kits give kids a switchboard they can
plug into," says Dan Kahn, RISCA folk arts program as-
sistant. Some children may want to ask questions about a
group's history, while others may be more interested in
the art forms or language. The kits offer plenty of differ-
ent stimtili and many avenues of introduction to the cul-
ture, Kahn notes. They are used only in conjunction
with a classroom visit by a traditional anist, or as the ba-
sis for a school exhibition.

Through the kits, RISCA strives to provide
enough background so users can gain an understanding
of the entire culture, not just the arts. For example, the
basket-making kit showed how different factors ulti-
mately disrupted the traditional craft. In the case of the
Yankees, change came about through industrialization;
for the Hmong, it was geographical dislocation; and for

Native Americans, environmental conditions including
paved roads and construction eliminated the natural ma-
terials used for the baskets. "The kits go beyond artistic
appreciation," Lambrecht says, "they indicate the tradi-
tional arts are part of a context."

One teacher who has used the kits is Susan
McGreevy-Nichols, who works at Roger Williams
Middle School in Providence, a school where the student
body is more than 90 percent minority, blending Mexi-
can-American, African-American and Asian cultures in
its classrooms. McGreevy-Nichols tries to incorporate
her students' varied cultural backgrounds into her classes.
The kits offer an easy way to accomplish both objectives,
she says. "It's really hands-on, things they can touch," she
notes. McGreevy-Nichols also appreciates the wealth of
information each self-contained kit offers. "It does a lot
of the research that I don't have time to do," she says.
"I'd like to see a kit for every culture."

Looking to the Future

Both the Idaho and Rhode Island programs got off to
strong starts in the mid-to-late 1 980s, fueled by the vi-
sion and hard work of their founders. Now, however,
each program is struggling. But no one in either state is
ready to give up.

RISCA hopes to compile additional kits rep-
resenting other cultures, including the state's varied His-
panic populations, French-Americans and emigrants
from the Cape Verde Islands. But the council's staff has
been pared from 1 3 to 7 people, and there is neither time
nor money for new projects. Meanwhile, the kits are still
available for loan to schools, and libraries have expressed
interest, too.

Idaho's program attracted funding from the
National Endowment for the Arts as well as the state arts
commission and education department. Activities started

at Lakeview Elementary in 1 989 and continued for two
school years. Following this pilot period, the state mi-
grant education program expressed an interest in expand-
ing cross-cultural education to other towns throughout
the state. Two bilingual videotapes were produced to
help other communities understand and implement the
Community Cultures Program, and these remain avail-
able to interested schools and community groups. But
before Community Ctiltures could be formally expanded
to these schools and communities, the program was tem-
porarily put on hold.

Idaho Commission on the Arts Executive Di-
rector Margot Knight says ICA's five-year plan calls for
expansion of the project into three schools in the next
year. Voicing her support for the program and her hopes
it will continue. Knight adds, "This program is a great re-
minder to kids and their parents that art is not some-
thing the 'other' people do. Art is in every Idahoan's his-
torical backyard."

In the meantime, Lakeview's teachers are do-
ing their best to keep the program going on their own.
Lakeview teacher Ellen Howard, for example, remembers
how to make the three-dimensional, star-shaped Viet-
namese lanterns and so has passed that skill on to new
classes of fourth-graders since the Nguyens' visit.

The two videotapes describing the Commu-
nity Cultures Program, for which the state migrant edu-
cation department provided production support, con-
tinue to carry the message. One tape provides an
overview of the Community Cultures Program; the other
focuses on "Senor Ballesteros," the Mexican-American
bag weaver. Each tape is available in both English and
Spanish.

Warren Taylor, state migrant education di-
rector, says the tapes have been shown all over the state
and he understands several districts are using the Com-

munity Cultures model to develop programs of their
own. "We don't even know the full effect the videotapes
have had," Taylor says. But he was present in Nampa's
neighboring district, Caldwell, when the videos were
shown to a group of local Mexican-American leaders. "By
the end, they all had tears in their eyes," he recalls. "And
they said, 'If Nampa can do that, Caldwell can too.' "

"I think there's always a pride in what one
can produce and create," Taylor adds. "To think that
other people wotild be interested in that and wotild want
to learn it too just makes you feel good. It makes you
want to share what you know, and it makes you feel like
what you know is worthwhile." ■

Julie Fanselow is an Idaho-based free-lance editor, writer and publicist.
She has written about the arts for numerous regional and national
publications, and she serves on the board of directors for the Ma^c
Valley Arts Council in Twin Falls, Idaho.

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With California Generations, presenters and the state arts agency collaborated to
present performers from around the world, all of whom now call California home.
Chatuye is shown performing the drumming, song and dance of the Garifuna people
of Belize.

Photo courtesy of the National Council for the Traditional Arts

l?y Margarita Nieto and Mark Cianca

They traveled up and down die length and breadth
of the Golden State, this eclectic group of singers,
dancers, musicians and poets. In each place they
enchanted audiences with their dazzling costumes,
haunting music and lively songs and dances. This perfor-
mance tour was California Generations, an extraordinary
endeavor that presented a California often overshadowed
by the stereotypical glittery, plastic image of life in the
land of sun and surf It presented songs and chants in
Karuk and Yurok, the languages of California's Klamath
River people; dances celebrating Hmong and Tibetan
rituals and myths; ancient Hawaiian chants; and pulsat-
ing rhythmic Gariftma music. California Generations
was a tribute to cultural traditions in contemporary Cali-
fornia and a manifestation of how culture binds families.

The group, which also included a cowboy
poet, an Afghani dutar master and a group of Mexican
jarocho musicians originally from the state of Veracruz,
also bears witness to California's diverse population. This
phenomenon not only reflects the changing demograph-
ics across the United States, it is also indicative of the
■ state's imique geographical site. California is truly the last
frontier, the jumping-oflF place that opens up to the
world. Its western border consists of 1,000 miles of Pa-
cific coasdine, and its ports, San Francisco, Los Angeles-
San Pedro and San Diego are important North Ameri-
can gateways to the South Pacific and Asia. To the south,
it borders Mexico, to which it once belonged, and La
Lima is the major port of entry for immigrants coming
from Mexico and Central and South America. As a con-
sequence California boasts a spectrtmi of world cultures
living within its borders. There are approximately 240
ethnic, occupational, religious, linguistic and regional
groups in California as well as 1 24 rural tribal reserva-
tions and rancherias for some 40,000 native Californians.
California Generations proposed to emphasize the pride

that these immigrants maintain in the cultural traditions
they have brought with them into this new land and the
continuing strength of centuries-old native values, cus-
toms and performance traditions.

How It Came to Be

California Generations was conceived by Mark Cianca,
the booking director of California Presenters, and Joe
Wilson, director of the National Council for the Tradi-
tional Arts (NCTA), in November 1989. The idea was
developed in response to the needs of California's diverse
presenting community and the unique cultural mix of
the state. California Presenters, a booking consortium of
the state's presenters whose membership consists of both
large, university-based presenters and small, community-
based organizations, had never before commissioned new
work. The breadth of its members and the distances be-
tween them seemed to preclude engaging in a commis-
sioning project that would serve a majority of the mem-
bers and help move the organization forward.

According to Mark Cianca, "California Gen-
erations worked in reverse." The usual method is to com-
mission a new ballet or a new musical piece from an art-
ist, choreographer or composer. "California Presenters
asked the NCTA to work with us on the development of
a tour, not of a brand new piece of art, but of art that was
based in community and passed along through time. We
would work with the NCTA to discover a part of Cali-
fornia that few among us knew or understood: the folk
arts traditions of the state's immigrant and indigenous
communities." A program such as this, a global view of
California's folk tradition, had never been done before.

California Presenters already had a long-
standing relationship with NCTA. California Presenters'
members had presented many of the highly successful
tours that Joe Wilson had produced in the past, includ-

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ing Ratces Musicales, which featured the regional musics
of Mexico and the Hispanic Southwest, and Masters of
the Folk Violin. According to Wilson, California was a
particularly rich source for this kind of event. "In the last
thirty years," he says, "California has been enriched by a
disproportionate number of immigrants, many of them
artists, who have chosen to remain there."

California Presenters provided an organiza-
tional backbone for the experiment. The organization
not only drew on audiences already developed in a par-
ticular community for this kind of event, they also uti-
lized each member as a hub for the performance itself
and for activities to be held in conjunction with it. Cali-
fornia Presenters also sought the funding for the tour,
which was diflPicult to obtain despite potential funders'
expressions of admiration for the project. Funders were
reluctant to support a project that defied the traditional
commissioning model. As Cianca describes it, "We were
working counter to funding conventions: we asked for
the money in advance so we could find the artists we
wotild present in the program."

to the State and Regional Program of the National En-
dowment for the Arts. The Lila Wallace-Readers Digest
Fund also provided project support.

An Extraordinary Effort
Fortunately the California Arts Council (CAC) was en-
thusiastic about California Generations and met the
challenge of Rinding the unusual project. By being cre-
ative and flexible, CAC was able to accommodate the
project's financial breadth by distributing it over three
programs: California Challenge Program, Multicultural
Arts Development Program and Performing Arts Tour-
ing and Presenting Program. Since the project was being
funded through three programs and therefore could not
go through the normal panel review process, council
members reviewed and approved the expenditure of
funds for California Generations. The arts council also
submitted a successfiil proposal on behalf of the project

Selecting the Artists
The major objectives of California Generations included
identifying and honoring California's folk artists and
community-based presenters, and cultivating and serving
an expanding audience base. A less tangible objective was
that by showcasing the state's cultural diversity everyone
involved — audience, performers and organizers — ^would
have the opportunity to see themselves in a new light.
There was also hope that this project would give impetus
to similar projects nationwide and even worldwide.

But how to select the representative perform-
ers for such a tour in the most populous state in the na-
tion? For that, Cianca and Wilson met with the Genera-
tions Committee to discuss the development of field
work and to identify the cadre of field workers needed to
accomplish it. The Generations Committee was com-
posed of arts specialists from the National Council for
the Traditional Arts, California Arts Council and Cali-
fornia Presenters, including: Joe Wilson and Julia Olin
from the NCTA; staff from the California Arts Council,
including Philip Horn, then manager of the CAC Per-
forming Arts Touring and Presenting Program, and Bar-
bara Rahm, then coordinator of the CAC Folk Arts Pro-
gram; and Mark Cianca and others from California
Presenters.

The National Council for the Traditional
Arts was charged with the task of producing the tour. Joe
Wilson contacted a network of community leaders who
began identifying different groups and along with those
leaders, a field group, consisting of field- workers and
consultants, scholars and specialists who served as "eyes
and

ears.

Chaksam-Pa draws from the folk songs and dances, operas and rituals of Tibet in its
performances.

Photo courtesy of the National Council for the Traditional Arts

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, The results of the fieldwork were presented at
a ten-hour meeting of the Generations Committee, dur-
ing which they viewed videotapes, listened to recordings
and discussed the blend and aesthetic mix of the artists
they were considering. "We saw cultural treasures, in raw
and unedited format, and the toughest part of the project
became the culling of a lengthy list into a briefer set of
preferences and priorities," says Cianca. They finished
the meeting with a "short list" and a directive for Joe
Wilson: To talk with each of the artists and ensembles
on the list to determine if they were capable and inter-
ested in touring for up to three weeks, and to verify their
artistic merit and the value they would bring to a fiill-
length production.

Wilson and staff then spent a month inter-
viewing artists and shortening the list. When the dust
settled, the artists they had engaged for the California
Generanons tour included: Native Californian singer-
poets, Jimmie James and Julian Lang; jarocho musicians
Los Pregoneros del Puerto; cowboy poet Jesse Smith;
Hawaiian chanters and dancers Sissy Kaio and family;
the Garifuna group Chatuye; Hmong master Ge Xiong
and his students; Afghani dutar master Aziz Herawi and
son; and Tibetan folk musicians Chaksam-Pa.

Once the selections were final, Wilson spent
three weeks traveling through California and visiting
each group. He remembers the evening spent with
Jimmie James and Julian Lang at home on the banks of
the Klamath River. "Someone in the community had
caught a huge sturgeon and everyone was busily butcher-
ing it so that it could be shared with family and friends.
There was all this coming and going and then they bar-
becued the sturgeon. We spent the evening eating and
talking with Jimmie James, watching the moon rise over
the river and the forest. Time just ceased to exist. I was to
have stayed an hour; I left at midnight six hours later."

The California Generations Tour
The performers themselves didn't meet until the rehears-
als during a four-day period set aside in Visalia before the
tour began. Julia Olin, the director for the tour, recalls
the feeling that developed among the performers when
they came together in Visalia: "There was initially a feel-
ing of apprehension. What kind of a commitment had
they made to live, sleep, eat and travel together with
these strangers for an entire month? But the apprehen-
sion dissolved when they actually began rehearsing." And
what surfaced immediately was a feeling of mutual re-
spect for the art, for the artist and for the culture. Olin
also remembers a poignant moment when Jimmie James,
Yurok Elder and a great spiritual leader, asked the group
to stand together, hold hands and pray for the unity and
success of the tour.

A spirit of community and unity developed
and grew as the tour began. According to Hawaiian per-
former Sissy Kaio, the group began interacting almost
immediately, and by the second week they were like an
extended family. On the bus they exchanged stories to
pass the time. Once they arrived at their lodgings, Kaio
quickly became the main cook and everyone came by to
share the meals. They began to learn words and phrases
in each other's language, and they quickly began to real-
ize that their similarities far outweighed their differences.
Kaio's six-year-old son, Pele, may have profited the most,
however, as he learned to dance with the Hmong, play
the harp with the jarocho musicians, play drums with
Chatuye and twirled dizzily with the Tibetan dancers.
Sissie Kaio is certain that the experience of that one
month will remain with Pele for the rest of his life.

The California Generations tour began on
Saturday, October 24, at Stanford University's Memorial
Auditorium and ended on November 1 5 at the Univer-
sity Theatre at the University of California, Riverside.

During those three weeks the artists performed 1 5 full-
length programs, 7 one-hour programs for K-12 students
and 1 8 other outreach activities in locations ranging as
far north as Yreka and Areata and as far south as La JoUa.
In one outreach effort the presenter, Humboldt State
Center Arts, partnered with local Klamath River
Indian organizations to bring the artists to reservation
schools and to make free tickets available to those
communides.

The Performances
The tour was two-thirds over when California Genera-
tions played UCLA's Wadsworth Theatre. The evening
began with a pre-performance lecture by David Roche,
the fieldwork supervisor for the project. Roche explained
the objectives behind the concept and also shared some
of the excitement of discovery that those involved with
the performance had experienced. By the time the lecture
was over, the auditorium was almost entirely full. The
audience was typically Californian: every possible race
and ethnic culture was represented, as well as every age
group.

As the lights dimmed, Master of Ceremonies
Jtilian Lang, a member of the Karuk tribe, stepped out
against a background of moon and sky. Addressing the
audience, he too spoke about the way in which this
group of performers had come together. Lang then intro-
duced Yurok Elder Jimmie James, who brought the audi-
ence together in shared prayer (facing east), then pro-
ceeded to tell a Yurok prophecy of the coming of the
people of four colors to the world and sang the powerRil
Bush Dance song.

Then out they danced, masked and bearded,
Chaksam-Pa (Tashi Dhondup, Sonan Pelmo and Karma
Gyaltsen), the only resident Tibetan performing arts en-
semble in the Americas. As they stamped and twirled.

they took us back, far beyond the illusory moon to the
"roof of the world," to Tibet. They transported us there
through their dances and music. Now residents of San
Francisco, these artists came here to live as a result of the
political turmoil in their ancestral land and represent a
crucial element in preserving the threatened culture of an
exiled people.

No sooner had they exited when the lights
came up on a group of seated musicians, Afghani dutar
master Aziz Herawi, his son Omar and Glulam Abbas
Khan, playing and singing music as timeless as the world
itself A famous musician in his native Herwat, Aziz
Herawi left Afganistan in 1 983 and escaped with his
family into Pakistan. He has lived in Concord since 1985
where he has taught his sons to play the ancient instru-
ments and to sing the music reminiscent of the ancient
"Silk Route" to China.

As Jesse Smith, cowboy poet, strolled out, the
audience was transported back to the tradition of the
Old West. A fifdi-generation Californian and working
cowboy. Smith was born and raised in Porterville, and he
regaled the audience with salty narratives and tall tales.

The final aa before intermission, Los
Pregoneros del Puerto (Jose Gutierrez, Valente Reyes and
Gonzalo Mata), came out sinxraxnin^ jaranci, requinto
and harp. The group of professional musicians and na-
tive veracruzanos was formed in Veracruz in 1 964 and re-
united in the United States in 1 982. It was a rousing fi-
nale to the first half of the program as the group played
the original "La Bamba" and other famous tunes from
the Mexican gulf coast. A group of enthusiastic fans ex-
pressed their approval by clapping thunderously and call-
ing out to them as they left the stage.

The audience had scarcely been seated after
the intermission when Hmong master Ge Xiong and his
students, Choua Her, Pao Yang and Tong Lee, appeared

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in their traditional robes playing instruments and per-
forming intricate dances.

Ge Xiong is master of the geej school, which
was founded by Hmong elders in Fresno three years ago
to teach the young the ancient rituals of talking through
instruments and of conjuring power and spirits through
dance and song. Threatened by extinction because of the
recent political upheavals in Southeast Asia, some 30,000
Hmong live in Fresno today, making it the largest com-
munity of Hmong in the world.

Again the stage darkened. With the song and
strains of hula kahiko, the ancient hula dance and music
of Hawaii, Sissie Kaio and her family (Annette, Kawena,
Kimo, Lincoln, Jr. and Pele), appeared onstage. Swaying
to chants dedicated to the Hawaiian gods, their hands
poetically narrated myths and stories. A highlight of the
Kaio performance was the hula that explained through
song and movement why boys are boys and girls are girls.
Sissie Kaio directs a halau (hula school) in Carson, which
is also home to a large community from the South Pa-
cific. There she instructs many young people in the old
arts, which are a key to Hawaiian history, folklore and
culture.

No sooner had the Kaio family left to the ap-
preciative cheers of the audience than the Gariftma
Chatuye, led by Sidney Mejia, filled the stage and the au-
ditorium with pulsating drimis and song, combining Af-
rican rhythms with a beat reminiscent of Puerto Rican
and Cuban music. The Garifiana, also known as Black
Carib Indians and Garinagus, are originally from Belize
and Honduras. Chatuye is from Los Angeles where ap-
proximately 5,000 Gariftina live.

As the beat of Chatuye's drums faded away,
the performance was suddenly over. The artists all came
out, joined hands and passed in two lines in front and
through each other: Native Californians, Tibetans, cow-

boy poets, Afghani dutar musicians, jarochos, Hmong,
Hawaiians, Garifiana — Californians all.

Ehele kapoina 'ole

E hull 'eke alo i hope nei

"Go, without forgetting to turn your gaze
back here." Suddenly the lyrics of the ancient Hawaiian
song took on new meaning. In viewing the marvelous
traditions and culture that these people had managed to
preserve, it became evident that art and culture are in the
end the best possession. Most of these people had arrived
in California seemingly dispossessed — stripped of their
lands, separated from family and friends. And yet they
brought with them riches beyond measure because they
carried their culture and their past with them in music,
song, dance and verse.

Looking Back and Looking Ahead

In retrospect, Joe Wilson and Mark Cianca both agree
that all the years of planning and the hours spent orga-
nizing California Generations were well worth the effort.
Audio tapes of the performances will be transformed into
a compact disc. An hour-long television documentary of
California Generations will be completed by June 1993
and will be aired by all 13 California public television
stations. The program may also be distributed to the en-
tire national network of PBS affiliates for later rebroad-
cast. And the news has gone forth. Other states and re-
gions are interested in organizing similar performances.
In California, people are inquiring about a sequel to
California Generations.

The project has been a seed for the develop-
ment of the artists who participated. Three of the eight
ensembles now have professional recording contracts
with important internationally-distributed labels. Sissy
Kaio and family have been asked to speak at schools and
colleges throughout southern California. Five of the

groups have been booked in new venues in distant places
as a result of this work.

The greatest gain for all those who partici- Q

pated in California Generations, in its organization, pro- g^

duction, performance and audience, is the understanding ~

that multiculturalism and cultural diversity are not mere O

buzzwords. Rather, they are real concepts embodied in 5

the vitality and energy that is California. ■ °

Margarita Nieto is an art historian and art writer from Los Angeles. A
professor at California State University where she directs the Humani-
ties Interdisciplinary Program, she is also a native Califomian.

Mark Cianca, president of California Presenters, is also director of Arts
& Lectures at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Originally from
Montana, he has been an active performing arts presenter in Alaska and
California.

Additional State and Regional Arts Agency
Initiatives in Support of Cultural Diversity

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The following is an overview of the many initiatives taking
place in the states and regions that further cultural diversity.
The text was submitted by the 46 state and regional arts
agencies not highlighted in the preceding chapters. Like the
stories in those chapters, this compilation illustrates that the
ways in which cultural diversity is addressed are as varied as
the populations being served. This chapter provides a sense of
both the similarities and differences in state and regional ap-
proaches toward a national priority.

The State Arts Agencies

# Alabama State Council on the Arts
The Alabama State Council on the Arts has initiated a
multifaceted outreach project to identify and assist artists
and organizations active in Alabama's diverse rural and
multicultural communities. Realizing that traditional in-
formation and delivery systems were not applicable in a
state with a majority of its population living in nonurban
and isolated areas, the council has adopted policy and
guideline changes that focus attention on multicultural
issues as well as cultural diversity.

New initiatives developed with the assistance
of the NEA include the establishment of a Center for
Traditional Culture and a matching grant program for
the development of rural arts centers in the state's tradi-
tional Black Belt region. Additionally, the council is
working on an initiative started by the state's African
American artist community. The initiative seeks to iden-
tify black artists and arts organizations as well as commu-
nity service organizations involved in arts programming
and link them to an information sharing network.

# Alaska State Council on the Arts

The Alaska State Council on the Arts has a fiill-time Folk
Arts Coordinator on staff who is primarily responsible
for various projects and programs involving Alaska Na-
tive art and cultural activities. This position is supported
in part by a grant from the NEA Folk Arts Program. The
council has a Master Artist and Apprentice Program spe-
cifically for traditional Native arts. The purpose of this
program, which is also supported in part by the NEA, is
to encourage traditional Native artists to pass on their
knowledge and skill to younger members of their
community.

This year two staff members will be traveling
to four rural communities in Nome, Kotzebue, Barrow
and Bethel to offer on-site technical assistance to emerg-
ing arts councils and to organizations that are interested
in pursuing grants for folk or Native arts programs. This
activity is funded by a grant from the NEA Arts Projects
in Underserved Communities category.

Arizona Commission on the Arts
Issues of cultural preservation, repatriation legislation and
community empowerment have caused Native American
communities to take a proactive stance in the planning
and the formation of cultural committees and museums
throughout Arizona. In 1988 Atlatl, a national Native
American arts service organization, and the Arizona
Commission on the Arts began the first in a series of
tribal museum meetings to discuss the lack of accessibil-
ity to information and training in museum development.
In 1989 funding from the NEA State and Regional

Program enabled the Tribal Museum Assessment pro-
gram to provide technical assistance to tribal museums
through on-site consultations and quarterly meetings.
Success of this program is due to Atlatl's significant role
in program development and community participation.
Ongoing support for the program is provided by the arts
commission.

Empowerment through professional staff de-
velopment of community members in the creation of
their ow^n museums is a primary issue. Funding for full-
time museum directors at tribal museums is available
through the commission. In 1992 additional funding
was granted through the Rural Arts Initiative of the NEA
Expansion Arts Program for staff support and technical
assistance.

^ Arkansas Arts Council
The Arkansas Arts Coimcil is preserving indigenous art
traditions and providing cultural access to some of the
most economically depressed counties in the state. The
Delta Cultural Center, which serves surrounding coun-
ties in the Delta region, is the focal point of program-
ming involving youth in hands-on art projects. Weekly
art exchanges and instruction on traditional and nontra-
ditional art forms involve approximately 150 elderly resi-
dents. This initiative is fiinded by a grant from the NEA
Arts Projects in Underserved Communities category.

The equity ofBcer for the Arkansas Depart-
ment of Education's Multi-Equity OjEfice, Dr. Andre
Guerriaro, serves as the statewide advisor on cultural ac-
cessibility, as well as an ans in education residency grant
panelist. He is also cohosting a four-day statewide 1993
Multicultural Education and Art Institute. The council's
Arts in Education Program and artist residencies ensure
reform in multicultural education by providing diverse
artistic and cultural experiences and training workshops

that bring together people of different cultural back-
grounds.

Connecticut Commission on the Arts

The Inner City Cultural Development Program, funded
by the NEA Arts Projects in Underserved Communities
category, provides community-based artists and organiza-
tions that present arts events with training, mentors and
grant funding. Fieldwork identifies culturally representa-
tive artists and organizations to participate in the pro-
gram. Artists and organizational representatives partici-
pate in a fifteen-week training seminar in career
development and arts administration. Organizations are
provided with modest grants to initiate projects devel-
oped during the training. Individual artists are awarded
small grants for projects that advance their careers. Men-
tors are assigned to organizations and small discipline-
based groups of artists.

The Master Teaching Artist Program, funded
in part by the NEA Arts in Education Program, trains 1 0
culturally diverse artists to work in the classroom on a bi-
ennial basis. Artists participate in an intense, four-day
workshop which covers areas such as curriculum devel-
opment, pedagogy and working in the school environ-
ment. An outgrov^ of this program is the Traditional
Artists in Schools Program pilot project, which trains tra-
ditional artists to work in the classroom and provides fol-
low-up residency experiences. It is funded by the NEA
Folk Arts Program.

^ Delaware Division of the Arts
The Delaware Division of the Arts received a grant in
1992 from the NEA Arts Projects in Underserved Com-
munities category to fiind the Celebration of Cultures
initiative, which supports arts activities in annual cultural
festivals and celebrations throughout the state. The pur-

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pose of Celebration of Cultures is to assist in developing,
restoring or enhancing a cultural component of neigh-
borhood festivals or celebrations. It is intended that these
funds will serve to reinforce the celebration of a people's
ethnicity by supporting arts activity that reflects the
community's culture. Arts activity can include, but is not
limited to, performance, arts workshops, and traditional
crafts demonstrations by professional artists. Celebration
of Cultures grants will range from $1,000 to $5,000.

# Florida Division of Cultural Affairs
Florida has a rich multicultural population. Forty-nine
percent of Dade County's population is Hispanic, 27
percent is white non-Hispanic, 18 percent is black non-
Hispanic, and 6 percent is Native American or Asian
American. One of the strongest examples of a collabora-
tive project relating to cultural diversity was Interrogating
Identity, a multisite project that took place in July 1992
in Miami. It was sponsored by the Center for Fine Arts,
the Wolfson Campus of Miami-Dade Community Col-
lege and the Alliance for Media Arts, which are grantees
of the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs.

The project integrated activities in various dis-
ciplines to explore the true nature of multiculturalism.
It's goal was to be "part of an ongoing collaborative
project breaking down cultural separatism in Miami and
celebrating cultural diversity." The program provided a
forum for artists with diflPering notions of black identity
working in Great Britain, Canada and the United States.
There was a visual arts exhibition as well as presentations
by seven performing arts companies from various cul-
tures. A film series explored the representation of per-
sonal and cultural identity, and included the works of
Vietnamese, Indian and African American filmmakers. A
speakers program included Latino artists and academics.

# Georgia Council for tfie Arts

One of the best examples of initiatives in support of cul-
tural diversity in Georgia is the Athol Fugard Festival
held in October and November 1 992. The noted South
African playwright attended the festival and worked di-
recdy with the theatres involved. Two of the three the-
atres receive general operating support from the Georgia
Council for the Arts. The council was also instrumental
in getting Georgia Governor Zell Miller to recognize
Fugard as a champion of civil and human rights for all
people. The Fugard works challenged audiences to con-
front issues of racism and change.

The success of the Fugard Festival provides a
model for the state of how quality arts experiences can be
used effectively to achieve the goals of cultural diversity
within the framework of overall programming objectives.
As part of its long-range plan for 1 992-96, the council
developed a goal to "respond to and support the artistic
goals and needs of the state's ethnic and culturally diverse
populations." A first step has been to develop and distrib-
ute an extensive survey/self-audit of culturally diverse re-
sources and accessibility. Next steps include a statewide
conference on multiculturalism and increased efforts to
include miJticultural artists and organizations in the
council's funding/programming pipelines.

^ Guam Council on the Arts and

Humanities Agency
The Guam Micronesia Island Fair, mandated and
funded by the Guam legislature, began in 1988 for the
purpose of promoting economic and cultural exchange
among the islands of Micronesia and Guam. Various
government of Guam agencies are charged with running
this four-day festival, with the Department of Commerce
as the lead agency and the Guam Council on the Arts
and Humanities providing cultural presentations. The

council has used this vehicle to promote, encourage and
showcase the cultural diversit)^ in Guam and surrounding
Micronesia. Guam hosts off-island delegations of per-
formers and craftspeople while also seeking out and
showcasing the various local ethnic communities of the
island. During the five years of the fair's history, artists
have participated fi-om the local Chamorro community
in increasing numbers, as well as off-island representa-
tives of Palau, Yap, Pohnpei, Chuuk, Kosrae, Marshall
Islands, Northern Marianas, Hawaii, American Samoa
and New Zealand.

State Foundation on Culture and the Arts
(Hawaii)

The State Foundation on Culture and the Arts provides
support to its culturally diverse constituency through
fimding and initiatives that affect the broad spectrum of
people living in Hawai'i. In virtually every program area,
including arts in education, community arts, ethnic heri-
tage and folk arts, history and humanities, literary arts,
media arts, performing arts and visual arts, projects have
been conducted that interpret, preserve and perpetuate
culture. These cultures represent people of Hawaiian,
Japanese, Samoan, Filipino, Balkan, Portuguese, Laotian,
Javanese and Chinese heritage.

Initiatives that have particularly affected
Hawaii's culturally diverse population include Folklife
Hawai'i: A Festival in Celebration of the 25th Anniver-
sary of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts; the
Statewide Cultural Extension Program; and the Folk
Arts Apprenticeship Program. Approximately 120,210
people have participated in these activities, which were
made possible through fiinding from the state of Hawai'i
and the NEA.

Illinois Arts Council
In 1986 the Illinois Arts Council established an agency-
wide Access Program. Through this program, the council
seeks panners to administer new strategies to enrich the
artistic pluralism of the state. One specific goal of this
program is to support artistic projects that are deeply
rooted in and reflective of the cultures of people of color.
Organizations supported must have a fijndamental rela-
tionship to their communities, and provision of arts to
their commtmities must be the primary programmatic
activity. Very Special Arts Illinois received a grant to pro-
vide training workshops for teachers, caregivers and com-
munity leaders who are involved in arts activities for
people with disabilities. The program also provides sup-
port for underserved artists in rural areas and/or artists of
color for professional development.

Iowa Arts Council

The Iowa Arts Council encourages cultural diversity in a
number of ways. In 1992 the council sponsored mem-
berships for nine presenting organizations to The Asso-
ciation of American Cultures (TAAC), in an effort to as-
sist these organizations in encouraging the preservation
and advancement of culturally diverse art. The council
hopes that the information shared through TAAC with
Iowa presenters will increase public awareness of the need
to promote pluralism. All of the agency's granting pro-
grams emphasize inclusion of special poptilations in the
planning, implementation and evaluation of arts projects.
The council maintains rosters of artists who are eligible
to work through its Artists in Schools/Communities and
Arts to Go Touring programs, and in the past year the
cultural diversity of the roster increased by 14 percent.
The council is currently working in partnership with the
Iowa- Yucatan Partners of the Americas in developing
cultural exchanges with its sister state of Yucatan.

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Kansas Arts Commission

The Kansas Arts Commission recently received a three-
year $88,000 grant from the Arts Projects in Under-
served Communities category of the NEA State and Re-
gional Program to support arts-related multicultural
activities in underserved communities. The new Grass-
roots Cultural Development Program provides three-year
grants for cultural development as well as activity and
consultant requests for multicultural and rural organiza-
tions. Five multicultural organizations were first-year re-
cipients of cultural development grants for coordinators,
constiltants, artist fees, training and marketing. These or-
ganizations represent African American, Latino, Asian
7\merican and Native American populations in four areas
of Kansas. They provide community intergenerational
arts programs that preserve and teach traditional art
forms, as well as promote cross-cultural understanding.
All Kansas Arts Commission organizational
grant applicants are asked to address the needs of under-
served populations and the cultural diversity of their con-
stituencies, memberships, boards and staffs.

Kentucky Arts Council
At the Kentucky Arts Council, the issue of cultural diver-
sity is not separate from that of accessibility in terms of
inclusion. The council's Civil Rights Advisory Commit-
tee is charged with advising the council on civil rights
and accessibility issues. The council has the responsibility
of educating its constituents on compliance with national
and state legislation that requires all arts organizations to
be accessible to all people regardless of race, color, creed,
religion, national origin, sex or disability. Arts organiza-
tions in Kentucky must determine whether they are tak-
ing all necessary steps to ensure that their arts programs
address the needs of the entire community; whether their
boards, staffs, and artistic policies provide for the partici-

pation and inclusion of people of all backgrounds; that
the facilities where their programs are presented are ac-
cessible to people with disabilities; and that at least some
of their performances and events offer opportunities for
those with disabilities to participate fully.

Louisiana Division of the Arts
The Louisiana Division of the Arts received $94,000
from the Arts Projects in Underserved Communities cat-
egory of the NEA State and Regional Program to sup-
port the first year of a three-year program. Outreach to
the Underserved Initiative. The division has developed
this initiative in collaboration with a broad representa-
tion of the cultural community and persons to be served.
The initiative will match strong, well-grounded arts orga-
nizations and institutions with emerging arts groups in
rural, inner-city, underserved and minority communities.
The first year of the initiative will focus on the perform-
ing arts. The project will be administered through a coa-
lition of the division and six local arts agencies. Estab-
lished arts organizations, under the direction of a local
arts agency, will provide performances and outgoing
mentor services to like groups, and in one circumstance,
a number of the emerging organizations will be housed
in the local arts agency.

Maryland State Arts Council
Recognizing that artists of color and minority-run arts
organizations are integral to the culture and artistry of
Maryland, the Maryland State Arts Council convened
the Multicultural Task Force in fall of 1992 to review the
policies and practices of the council and to make recom-
mendations for increasing outreach. The task force, upon
completing its work, is intended to evolve into a perma-
nent advisory committee for the council.

The council supports the location of the Alvin

Alley Dance Theatre Foundation In Maryland. In addi-
tion, the council has made a commitment to Increasing
minority arts programming through Special Project
Grants to arts organizations for new projects which pro-
duce or present arts activities that encourage participa-
tion by artists and/or audiences not usually served by the
organization.

Massachusetts Cultural Council

In Its efforts to further cultural diversity, the Massachu-
setts Cultural Council has used NEA Basic State Grant
funds to help support several Initiatives. The council
convened a task force and compiled the recommenda-
tions Into a cultural access brochure. The brochure In-
cludes recommendations for staff, board and audience
development, model programs, and resources for Inclu-
sion of underserved audiences. The council also spon-
sored four technical assistance workshops across the state
on surveying physical access, assessing programs and ser-
vices, advocacy approaches, and discussing problems and
success strategies.

The council has created a partnership with
another state agency, the Massachusetts Commission
Against Discrimination, as part of Its cultural access plan.
All grant applicants must submit cultural access plans
that Include a self-assessment, objectives and strategies to
ensure access for staffs, boards and audiences. The coun-
cil also added a budget line Item to each grant applica-
tion called Ensuring Access. This has encouraged cultural
organizations to do advance planning and use state funds
to provide accessible programs and services.

^ Michigan Council for Arts and

Cultural Affairs
The Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs has
a three-pronged approach to addressing cultural diversity:

Indirect and direct funding, technical assistance, and
equal opportunity standards compliance. Direct grants to
Michigan-based nonprofit African American, Asian
American, Hispanic, and Native American arts and cul-
tural organizations help them maintain core operations
and undertake a broad range of new Initiatives to better
serve their constituents. The Michigan Arts League, for
example, puts a unique twist on the standard business In-
cubator concept by enabling small, exemplary, commu-
nity-based arts producing organizations to draw on the
resources of consultants and a major university In a pre-
scribed manner over a sustained period of time, while
maintaining organizational Integrity.

Technical assistance Is delivered In three ways:
directly to organizations by council staff, through a Pub-
lic/Private Partnership Program, and through special cli-
ent Initiatives. The council ensures grant recipient com-
pliance with existing state and federal policies and
legislation with regard to equal opportunity standards
and affirmative action. The council also ensures that or-
ganizations provide access In the areas of employment,
activities and services.

Minnesota State Arts Board

Cultural pluralism Is an Important part of the mission of
the Minnesota State Arts Board. This year the arts
board's planning document Includes 26 new strategies
addressing cultural pluralism Initiatives. Some of the
ways In which the arts board has demonstrated Its com-
mitment to this Issue Include representation of diverse
aesthetics on review panels and advisory committees;
technical assistance workshops for artists In cooperation
with community-based cultural organizations; Percent
for Art projects that focus on multicultural themes; and a
folk arts program that seeks out and presents Minnesota's
folk arts heritage.

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In March 1990 the arts board established a
Cultural Pluralism Advisory Committee that was
charged with determining the status of cultural diversity
programming in Minnesota and providing practical rec-
ommendations for improvement. With the committee's
guidance, the arts board recently applied for and received
a grant from the NEA Arts Projects in Underserved
Communities category for a two-year project proposal.
Among the project's goals are holding a statewide confer-
ence on cultural pluralism and fostering the touring of
multicultural artists within the state.

^ Montana Arts Council

Culturally diverse communities comprise nine percent of
Montana's total population. Indians are the largest group
and represent six percent of the citizenry. In order to
serve this community, the Montana Arts Council estab-
lished an Indian Arts Steering Committee to advise the
council; had Indian arts as a featured track at the Cul-
tural Congress; held a statewide Montana Indian Arts
Conference covering current Indian arts issues; have In-
dians on peer panels; developed an Indian Traditional
Arts Apprenticeship Program (with NEA Folk Arts Pro-
gram hinds) and an Indian Arts Education/Tribal Col-
lege Program (with NEA State and Regional Program
funds); and worked with tribal culture groups and indi-
viduals on project development and grant writing.

In 1991 the council instituted a new grant
category, Folklife and Traditional Arts. Since then, the
percentage of culturally diverse projects fiinded has risen
from 7 percent to 20 percent.

All staff are attuned to the importance of eq-
uity in working with the state's diverse cultural groups.

# Nebraska Arts Council

The Nebraska Arts Council formed its People of Color
Arts Advisory Committee 10 years ago. This led to the
hiring of the council's first multicultural arts coordinator
in March 1992. This coordinator directs the council's
Multicultural Initiative, which includes a mentoring pro-
gram for artists and administrators; a technical assistance
program; and an awareness program to include works of
people of color in arts programming. The council also in-
terviews and docimients multicultural artists through its
Folk Arts program and funds statewide collaborations
through its Leadership Initiatives program. The Lied
Center for Performing Arts in Lincoln used this program
to work with the Omaha Tribe and Omaha Symphony
on a performance called "West Meets West" for the
state's quasquincentennial celebration.

Projects and programs which demonstrate
cultural diversity are a Rinding priority for the council.
Guidelines allow multicultural organizations to use up to
100 percent in-kind contributions to match council
funding. In addition, all applicants are asked to explain
how multiciiltural audiences and artists will be included
in programs.

New Hampshire State Council
on the Arts

In New Hampshire only two percent of the population
falls into federally defined minority groups. Of that two
percent, one percent identifies with Latino cultures. The
New Hampshire State Council on the Arts has provided
funding for two Latino organizations for about five years.
Project funds have enabled one of these organizations to
present traditional and professional artists representing
art forms characteristic of such countries as Guatemala,
Bolivia and Argentina. The other organization was
funded to form a Hispanic Youth Theater.

One-third of the state's population federally
defined as white traces its ancestry to French-speaking
Canadians. Sharing a border with Quebec, New Hamp-
shire has signed a Cultural Exchange Agreement to facili-
tate the exchange of bilingual artists working in both tra-
ditional and contemporary art forms.

An ongoing effort of the council is to bring
more diversity to its roster of artists eligible for fee sup-
port for school and community performances and resi-
dencies. To do that it has had to import artists from
other New England states. These visiting anists represent
African American and Latino cultures. New Hampshire
also has several in-state artists who are Native Americans.
The council hopes that with the NEA-frinded initiation
of a Traditional Arts Program and hiring of a coordina-
tor in 1993, more artists representing diverse cultural
heritages will be identified in the state.

New Jersey State Council on the Arts
The New Jersey State Council on the Arts' Cultural Di-
versity Initiative has several objectives and is composed of
several key activities. Principal among them is the multi-
year investment of fiinding (above and beyond regular
council grants) in emerging, culturally diverse arts orga-
nizations to accelerate their growth, development and
outreach. Grants under this component (which include
NEA and council frinds in each grant) typically support
such things as salary assistance, long-range planning,
marketing, audience development and professional devel-
opment. The council recendy added a component
through which county arts agencies provide technical as-
sistance to local culturally diverse arts organizations. An-
other major component is an annual round table. The
most recent featured presentations on board develop-
ment, frind-raising and audience development. This is
part of the initiative's communication outreach, which is

augmented by a highly active council committee that
maintains direct dialogue with participants.

An example of an organization that is using
Initiative frinds successfully is Powhatan Renape Nation,
which was awarded a grant for a marketing initiative that
resulted in an expanded program outreach for its Native
American festivals and an audience increase of 17 percent
in Central-South New Jersey. It also increased outreach
into previously underserved and unserved areas.

New Mexico Arts Division
The New Mexico Arts Commission, which is the advi-
sory board of the New Mexico Arts Division, has recog-
nized the value and importance of cultural diversity in
New Mexico and has designated culturally diverse arts as
a priority. The arts division has established the Culturally
Diverse Arts Program, which focuses on arts projects and
organizational development by and for culturally specific
artists and/or ethnic groups, indigenous groups such as
tribal communities, and multiethnic entities.

Examples of two projects funded by the Divi-
sion include a Hispanic weaving cooperative in rural Los
Ojos, which involves community members in all aspects
of a successfril weaving operation, from raising the sheep
to designing and marketing the weaving. The Oo-Oo-
Nah-Art Center in Taos is working to preserve the native
Tiwa culture by providing arts services, classes and work-
shops to pueblo children and artists.

The New Mexico Arts Division encourages
culturally diverse arts applicants through a one-to-one in-
kind match for the first two years of project activity.

New York State Council on the Arts
The Folk Arts Program of the New York State Council
on the Arts supports activities that reinforce traditions
within communities as well as programs that enable gen-

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eral audiences to experience the traditional arts of diverse
cultures. "The Arts of Black Folk" Conference organized
in 1988 was directed at African American community-
based organizations interested in documenting and pre-
senting the folk arts of their communities. A 1990 con-
ference, "Presenting Folk Arts," and programming at the
1991 and 1992 Association of Performing Arts Present-
ers annual meetings have enabled performing arts pre-
senting organizations to develop skills in presenting folk
artists from ethnically diverse communities. The Folk
Arts Program has provided support for family programs,
apprenticeships and programming involving children
and older folk artists, and new immigrants.

The Special Arts Services Program, which has
as its mission the furthering of cultural diversity, has sup-
ported such internationally known companies as Dance
Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Alley American Dance
Theatre. The program has also supported theatres such
as the Negro Ensemble Company, National Black The-
atre and New Federal Theatre, which are models in the
field. The Technical Assistance Program Pilot was
launched in 1989 to improve emerging and developing
multicultural arts organizations and create a database of
experienced arts management consultants.

North Dakota Council on the Arts
During FY93 the North Dakota Council on the Arts has
supported culturally diverse programming through its
ACCESS Grant Program and through its Traditional
Arts Apprenticeship Program. While the ACCESS pro-
gram is intended primarily for arts in rural communities
with populations of less than 6,000 people, it also en-
courages applications in support of arts projects for un-
derserved populations and minority groups. The pro-
gram is supported with the help of a three-year grant
from the NEA State and Regional Program Arts Projects

in Underserved Communities category. Past ACCESS
grants have included support of Native American arts
and crafi:s exhibitions through the North Dakota Indian
Arts Association and cultural programming sponsored by
one of the state's tribal radio stations.

The Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program
was restored with assistance from the Folk Arts Program
of the NEA. The program has sponsored master/appren-
tice teams in support of such diverse art forms as Ojibwa
storytelling, Vietnamese embroidery, and Ukrainian cos-
tume construction. A second NEA grant will expand the
program fiirther in FY94.

# Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana
Islands Council for Arts and Culture

The vast majority (98 percent) of the population of the
Northern Mariana Islands is comprised of ethnic minori-
ties representing many different Micronesian, Southern
Pacific Island and Asian groups. The Commonwealth of
the Northern Mariana Islands Council for Arts and Cul-
ture sponsors several annual events that are designed to
highlight and celebrate this unique cultural diversity. The
annual two-day Flame Tree Festival (on Saipan) hosts
over 1 00 performers, artists and craftmakers from twenty
different ethnic groups. The Island Artists Exhibition is a
one-month show that focuses on the ethnic roots of the
Marianas. Smaller festivals held throughout the year on
the islands of Rota and Tinian also promote and enhance
cultural diversity.

The council works closely with the Filipino
Artists Association, the Korean Arts School and the Chi-
nese Association for the Arts, as well as the Northern
Marianas Music Society to develop collaborative projects.
The arts council sponsors activities through its extensive
collaboration with the public schools to increase arts ex-
periences for students and communities. The arts council

also has a strong commitment to the indigenous
Chamorro and CaroUnian peoples, demonstrated by
constant outreach efforts.

State Arts Council of Oklahoma
The State Arts Council of Oklahoma was recendy in-
volved in a unique collaboration to celebrate the state's
Native American heritage. As part of the "Year of the In-
dian" celebration, the arts council, the Oklahoma Tour-
ism and Recreation Department, and the City of Okla-
homa City worked together to sponsor a special
performance by the Great American Indian Dancers.
This event, supported in part by NEA Basic State Grant
funds, served as the inaugural event for the "Year of the
Indian" and the new state tourism marketing theme,
"Oklahoma: Native America."

The council was a founding sponsor in 1987
of the Red Earth Native American Cultural Festival,
which is America's largest Native American festival. The
NEA provides direct funding for the festival, which this
year drew people from more than 1 00 Native American
tribes of North America to share the richness and diver-
sity of their cultures. The council works with Red Earth
by offering both staff time and technical assistance. The
mission of Red Earth, the festival's parent organization, is
to promote the continued development of Native Ameri-
can culture by showcasing a variety of art forms.

Oregon Arts Commission
The Oregon Arts Commission has two initiatives that
are particularly important to its support of cultural diver-
sity. The first is a three-site project, which received NEA
funding, that the Oregon Folk Arts Program is in the
process of completing. A particular ethnic group is the
focus of study and assistance at each site. Secondly, the
commission funds a minority arts administrator to ad-

dress minority arts needs directly. This person works
with minority artists and organizations to help them gain
assistance from resources already available. In doing so,
the administrator also develops listings of culmrally di-
verse artists and potential board members. The most
challenging aspect of the work is finding the time and
means to help minority arts initiatives outside of the met-
ropolitan Pordand area. This new position was made
possible by a joint initiative of the Oregon Arts Commis-
sion and the Metropolitan Arts Commission (in Port-
land), and the work in Pordand has led to grants through
the NEA Expansion Arts Program.

Institute of Puerto Rican Culture
For over 30 years, the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture
administered services and arts events from centrally lo-
cated San Juan out to the rest of the island and its off-
shore municipalities. The main tool for this outreach was
an ever-growing network of affiliated, volunteer-staffed
community centers. Agency decentralization began in
1987, at the same time a grant from the NEA Locals
Program provided funding to upgrade five local arts
agencies. Matching funds for this successful three-year
project to reach culturally diverse communities came
fi-om the institute and from host municipalities.

In 1989 the institute's Cultural Promotion
Program received a grant to enhance the grow^fi of cul-
turally diverse organizations through arts and humanities
workshops, in collaboration with its network of local arts
agencies. As a result of its success, the program received a
special allocation by the legislature for FY90-9 1 . These
funds are now part of the institute's yearly budget alloca-
tion. In 1 992 decentralization was fully realized. This ac-
complishment, along with fifth centennial commemora-
tion activities, demonstrates the institute's leadership in
providing funding and direction to all its communities.

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South Carolina Arts Commission

The South Carolina Arts Commission's Multicultural
Arts Program (MAP), established in 1988, has provided
grants to more than 100 culturally specific arts and com-
munity organizations, tribal communities and individual
artists of color. The program has also assisted mainstream
arts organizations to serve their communities better by
involving members of imderserved communities in dia-
logue and planning. MAP has provided technical assis-
tance to organizations and individuals and has been vital
to the development of a statewide organization known as
VVrtists of Color. In addition, MAP and Arts in Educa-
tion Program directors have worked to increase the cul-
tural diversity of the agency's Approved Artist Roster.

The commission has made long-term invest-
ments in a number of organizations rooted in rural eth-
nic communities, and has supported the activities of such
organizations in both rural and urban areas. The com-
mission has provided continuing assistance to the Folk
7\rts Program at the University of South Carolina's
McKissick Museum, whose outstanding work in cultural
preservation is highlighted in Chapter 5.

In 1991 the commission mounted a major art
exhibition, entided "Statements of Heritage: Variant
American Visions," devoted to the works of 20 South
Carolina contemporary artists of color. The show gready
increased the visibility of participating artists and served
as a focus for discussion and recognition of the signifi-
cant quality and diversity of work by artists of color from
South Carolina.

South Dakota Arts Council

More than seven percent of South Dakota's population is
Native American — Lakota and Dakota Tribes of the
Great Sioux Nation — and is concentrated on nine rural
reservations and in the cities of Rapid City, Sioux Falls

and Aberdeen. A grant fi"om the Technical Assistance
category of the NEA Locals Program, matched by tribal
and foundation fiands, started the Native Arts Planning
Effort. A Native American project coordinator has
started working on a needs assessment. The basic premise
is that traditional models of local arts agencies have not
worked on reservations. The assessment will show why
and develop local arts agency models that will work on
rural South Dakota reservations.

In cooperation with the state Division of
Education and the National Science Foundation's Sys-
temic Change Initiative, South Dakota is integrating an
arts curriculum in elementary and secondary schools.
Cultural diversity is a cornerstone of this pilot project,
which is fiinded by the NEA's Arts in Schools Basic
Education Grant. Two of the six pilot sites are schools on
reservations.

The success of the South Dakota Arts
Coimcil's efforts to reach culturally diverse and under-
served communities is based on a philosophy of personal,
one-to-one contact and encouragement maintained over
several years.

Tennessee Arts Commission
The Tennessee Arts Commission has a new grant cat-
egory. Arts: Advancement and Expansion, that is sup-
ported in part with fiinds from the NEA. It provides
technical assistance and/or direct support for arts projects
to minority-run arts organizations, organizations serving
youths with disabilities, and organizations serving the ag-
ing. Among the nine grants awarded for FY93 was one
to the Native American Indian Association in Nashville
for long-term work with a consultant to establish a mar-
keting network for Native American artists and artisans.
Two other organizations that received grants are Knox-
ville's African American Carpetbag Theater, which will

work with a team of specialists to transform a newly ac-
quired facility into a self-sustaining and revenue-generat-
ing entity; and the Edgehill Center of Nashville, which
will work with at-risk children in an inner city area to
create a series of murals.

Other applicants receiving partial funding in-
clude the Blues City Cultural Center of Memphis, for
productions of plays about Martin Luther King and
Malcolm X, and an annual black cultural festival.

surable funding for minority artists, audiences and orga-
nizational development.

Texas Commission on the Arts
The Texas Commission on the Arts is working to ensure
that excellent arts opportunities are available to all Tex-
ans and that these opportunities reflea the state's diverse
heritages and populations. The commission is creating
and administering programs that stistain and improve
services and accessibility to geographically isolated and
rural communities, culturally diverse populations, indi-
viduals with disabilities and economically disadvantaged
communities. Since 1988, grant applications from mi-
nority-operated organizations have increased by 28.4
percent. The number of grants awarded to minority-op-
erated organizations has increased by 142 percent.
Grants to organizations providing service for or in mi-
nority communities increased by 65 percent from FY88
to FY92.

A provision in the appropriations bill man-
dates that the commission establish a policy of "equitable
distribution of grant funds to organizations with a pre-
dominandy minority audience, or which serve predomi-
nandy minority areas." The commission has adopted an
Equity Plan, which requires approval by the legislature.
Among the goals of the plan are to make equity a priority
in the agency mission; to place equity riders in all com-
mission contracts with arts organizations; and to include
in the Pf 93-94 Legislative Appropriation Request mea-

Utah Arts Council
With a 94 percent Anglo-American population, Utah is
among the country's most homogeneous states. But mi-
nority populations here are rapidly growing. In response
to changing demographics, the Utah Arts Council has de-
veloped two initiatives to reach minority audiences and to
provide culturally diverse programming for all Utahns.
The Living Traditions Festival, cosponsored
by the Salt Lake City Arts Coimcil, is a three-day event
featuring music, dance, craft and food of Salt Lake's folk
and ethnic communities. Over 500 artists from 45 ethnic
groups participate and estimated attendance is 20,000.
For the first three years of the festival, grants from the
NEA Folk Arts Program supplemented state and city
monies. Local funds from both public and private sources
have kept admission free the last three years. Hispanics
are Utah's largest minority, at 5 percent. The Hecho en
Utah project, supported by the NEA Folk Arts Program,
has included an exhibit featuring 1 0 traditional artists and
a concert series featuring 14 bands and eight dance
troupes, as well as production of cassettes featuring 20
Hispanic ensembles. Response from the Hispanic com-
munity has been very positive and has generated record
requests for grants and assistance.

Vermont Council on the Arts
The Vermont Council on the Arts is committed to in-
volving people of all cultures, ages, genders and abilities in
decision making and policy setting, and increasing Ver-
monters' understanding and appreciation of world cul-
tures. A new component of the Touring and Arts in Edu-
cation Programs, called Options, helps support the fees of
performing and visual artists from within or outside the

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United States whose art reflects the traditions of specific
cultures.

A partnership is being developed with the
Eastern Townships of Quebec through meetings of each
region's cultural communities, supported by NEA fiinds.
Ideas are being generated about how to exchange cultural
resources and collaborate on new projects.

With NEA funds designated for underserved
communities, the council is supporting two Abenaki
projects: the carving and installation of two totem poles
carved with animals and birds important to Abenaki be-
liefs, and dance classes that are rebuilding traditional
dance skills. These programs are assisting the Abenaki
people in strengthening pride and heritage, and increas-
ing awareness and understanding of Abenaki culture
among non-Native Americans.

Virginia Commission for the Arts

Cultural diversity is one of six major emphases of the
Virginia Commission for the Arts, and it is pursued
within every program. For example, all grantees of gen-
eral operating support are required to actively seek in-
volvement of people of color as staff and board members,
artists and audiences. Many of these grantees specifically
promote African American culture. One is the Harrison
Museum of African- American Culture in Roanoke,
which maintains a collection of paintings by black artists
and memorabilia and library materials on the history of
the city's black community.

The commission's performing arts touring
roster includes African American and Chinese American
performers, as well as artists representing the cultures of
India and Ghana. The Virginia Folklife Program, a part-
nership of the commission and the state humanities
foundation, is currently sponsoring a tour of guitarists
who perform traditional pre-blues, blues and religious

music in a distinctive style. All of these activities are sup-
ported with both state and NEA funds.

# Virgin Islands Council on the Arts

All of the Virgin Islands Council on the Arts' activities
address the issue of cultural and ethnic diversity. Over
the last year the council has provided support for an
Afro-Cuban Dance Ensemble to teach dance throughout
the territory; a folklife festival, held in Washington, DC,
in celebration of cultural diversity and heritage with par-
ticipants from the Virgin Islands; and the 5th Caribbean
Festival of the Arts held in Trinidad and Tobago, which
brought together traditional dancers and musicians, folk-
lorists, historians and visual and performing artists of the
Caribbean. The council also provided support for a
worldwide travelling art exhibit, sponsored by
UNESCO, that featured the works of Dutch-, English-,
French- and Spanish-speaking artists from 35 countries
in the Caribbean region. Additionally, to mark the Co-
lumbus Quin-centennial, the council participated in the
exhibit "First Biennial of Central American and Carib-
bean Paintings," sponsored by the Dominican Republic.

# Washington State Arts Commission

The Washington State Arts Commission has since 1989
administered the Governor's Heritage Award to celebrate
the strength and diversity of this state's ethnic, cultural,
occupational, religious and regional communities by
honoring individuals who have made significant contri-
butions in these areas. Currently, the arts commission is
taking advantage of support from the NEA to bring the
arts to and help enable artistic work by the state's differ-
endy abled populations; preserve endangered skills
through a Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program; produce
The Spirit of the First People, a project to present, record
and publish a book documenting Native 7\merican mu-

sic and dance; begin projects to document Hispanic mu-
sic traditions; and document and honor tlie traditions of
Washington's Grange Halls. Commission programs en-
courage diversity through grants, technical assistance and
commissioning of artwork.

^ Arts and Humanities Section of the West

Virginia Division of Culture and History
A folk arts staff person at the Arts and Humanities Sec-
tion of the West Virginia Division of Culture and His-
tory documented the life and work of Appalachian folk
artists through taped interviews and articles in West
Virginia's statewide cultural magazine, Goldenseal. A
grant from the NEA Arts Projects in Underserved Com-
munities category assisted West Virginia's deeply rural
communities with ctiltural development and a more
thorough identification of the diversity of their anists.

Augusta Heritage Center matches West
Virginia's master craftspeople with developing crafts-
people. By supporting this program financially, the Arts
and Humanities Section has encouraged the continuance
of these art forms and the traditional ways in which they
are translated from one generation to the next.

In November 1 992, the Arts and Humanities
Section cohosted the Native American Coalition's first
annual American Indian Conference. This conference fo-
cused on Native American issues and how various cul-
tural agencies can help this community meet its goals.
The section has also worked with the NAACP in West
Virginia's Eastern Panhandle area to develop programs
there and statewide.

Wyoming Arts Council
The mission of the Wyoming Arts Council is to enhance
Wyoming's quality of life and thus its long-term cultural
and economic strength by encouraging and supporting

diversity, access, vitality and excellence in the arts. This
recently revised mission statement reflects Wyoming's
commitment to promoting cultural diversity in the
state's arts programming. Annual grant training sessions
include information and discussions on the inclusion of
all cultures in arts programming, and the staff^ seeks out
new groups presenting culturally diverse arts activities to
inform them of fiinding opportunities and programs.
Recently funded programs include a multicultural story-
telling conference; the Mountain Man Music Festival; a
Festival of International Theatre and Dance; and Wyo-
ming Somos: Celebration of Our Hispanic Pride.

The Regional Arts Organizations

# Arts Midwest

Arts Midwest is committed to making the Midwest's
diverse cultural life more vibrant, accessible and under-
standable. Its Minority Arts Administration Fellowships
program began in 1989 with support from the NEA and
several private foundations, making it possible for arts
administrators from African American, Asian American,
Latino and Native American communities to enhance
their management and development skills through resi-
dencies at cultural institutions throughout the United
States.

Arts Midwest's Cultural Development pro-
gram began in 1991 with NEA State and Regional Pro-
gram support. Developed to address the needs of arts
presenters and organizations in African American, Asian
American, Latino and Native American communities,
the first component included the formation of the Mid-
west Ctiltural Network. This group of 1 2 culturally
grounded arts presenters from the target communities
share expertise and serve as project advisors to Arts Mid-
west. The second component, the Cultural Development
Fund, invests in projects to strengthen the artistic and

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managerial capabilities of organizations rooted in these
communities.

In April 1993 Arts Midwest convened the
Cultural Dialogue Conference in Milwaukee, bringing
together more than 200 arts and cultural workers from
the participating communities to address issues such as
advocacy, equity in funding, and the responsibilities of
artists and organizations to their communities. Publica-
tion of a Midwest Cultural Agenda will document the
conference. NEA funds were used to leverage additional
support from private foundations for this event.

Arts Midwest, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a consortium of the
state arts agencies of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota,
North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

# Consortium for Pacific Arts and Cultures
(CPAC)

CPAC's long-term mission emphasizes promoting the
traditional cultures of the Pacific, and promoting and en-
couraging the exchange of traditional and contemporary
art forms. Programming priority is given to the native
and ethnic cultures of each region. The populations in
the islands of the CPAC region are Polynesian and
Micronesian (predominantly Samoan, Chamorro and
Carolinian). Interesting and culturally diverse projects
have resulted from introducing Western genres to the is-
lands (a different twist on cultural diversity).

As such, CPAC brought a bluegrass band to
all three of its member territories, including the tiny is-
lands of Rota and Tinian in the Northern Marianas.
This was the islands' first exposure to bluegrass. In addi-
tion CPAC has co-sponsored the Missoula Children's
Theatre for projects in Guam, the Marianas and Ameri-
can Samoa. CPAC is also launching an arts in education
exhibit for grades K-6. The theme is "Myself, My Island,
My Home," and it is for children of the islands to com-

pare their thoughts and motifs with those of their coun-
terparts on other islands.

A workshop on Hawaiian quilting has just
completed its third year of residence in American Samoa,
with a fourth being planned for next year. While Samoa
once had a quilting tradition of its own (from missionary
days) it has been lost over time. The introduction of Ha-
waiian quilting, which was also learned from the mis-
sionaries in the early nineteenth century and adapted by
the Hawaiians, has spawned a "new" art form. The Sa-
moan men and women have already adapted the style in
unique Samoan ways.

The Consortium for Pacific Arts and Cultures, based in Honolulu, Ha-
waii, is a re^onal organization of the state arts agencies of American
Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

# Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA)

Mid-America Arts Alliance has committed its leadership
and program funds to embracing cultural diversity as an
integral part of its mission and its fliture development.
NEA support in 1984 helped launch M-AAA's special
initiatives for the presentation of culturally diverse work
throughout the region. In 1989 an NEA Challenge
Grant enabled M-AAA to continue expanding and ad-
justing the focus of its initiatives devoted to cultural di-
versity. ExhibitsUSA, a national division of Mid- America
Arts Alliance, has developed traveling visual arts exhibi-
tions featuring work of contemporary artists of color.

M-AAA's current program in the performing
arts. New POP (New Presenting Opportunities), is a
consolidation of the organization's past decade of work
and experience. New POP projects include the commis-
sioning of a music, dance and video piece that addressed
the decline and rebuilding of an inner-city Houston
neighborhood; marketing assistance for touring by St.
Louis Black Repertory Theatre; and commissioning and

marketing assistance to emerging artists of color, such as
Teatro Hispano de Dallas (Teatro Dallas).

Mid-America 7\rts Alliance cultivates new re-
lationships and fosters risk taking with a proactive ap-
proach to issues of cultural diversity in its region. With
an emphasis on providing access to culturally relevant
arts programming through educational activities, work-
shops and artists' residencies, M-AAA performing and vi-
sual arts programs provide contextual frameworks that
encourage all viewers to experience the arts.

Mid-America Arts Alliance, based in Kansas City, Missouri, is a re-
gional consortium of the state arts agencies of Arkansas, Karuas, Mis-
souri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.

# Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (MAAF)

The mission of the Mid Adantic Arts Foundation is to
promote the sharing of the region's arts resources, par-
ticularly in underserved rural and culturally diverse com-
munities. The Mid Adantic Arts Foundation's Jazz Pro-
gram was created in 1991 to strengthen jazz in all of its
forms, from the traditional to the experimental, and to
help bring jazz to the region's audiences. With initial
frinding from the NEA State and Regional Program, the
program supports a network of jazz presenters, selected
for their ability to work cooperatively with other present-
ers and to reach their own communities through out-
reach activities. Network participants receive project sup-
port and attend meetings where they can exchange
information on techniques for building new audiences,
marketing the work of emerging artists, organizing
block-booked tours and creating successful residency and
educational activities.

Through the Jazz Program, travel subsidies
are also made available to organizations to defray the cost
of attending professional development activities such as
conferences, workshops, showcases and festivals. Addi-

tionally, a computerized directory of jazz organizations
was developed and information regarding jazz activities
in the region is sent to presenters through tour update
mailings and articles in Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation's
newsletter ARTS 7;^^.

The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, based in Baltimore, Maryland, is a
regional consortium of the state arts agencies of the District of Columbia,
Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia,
the Virgin Islands and West Virginia.

# Southern Arts Federation (SAF)

Cultural diversity is integral to the mission and goals of
the Southern Arts Federation, and is fiindamental to all
its programs and projects. Multiculturalism is included as
one of four board-endorsed agency priorities and is inte-
grated into the agency's goals and objectives. These ob-
jectives provide the parameters for the development of
each program's long-range plans. Furthermore, SAF staff,
board, advisory committees and grant panels are all struc-
tured to reflect the breadth of cultural perspectives that
comprise the South.

A representative sample of SAF program ini-
tiatives includes: the development of a technical assis-
tance project focusing on underserved presenters in con-
junction with the 1993 Southern Arts Exchange booking
conference, which will include culturally diverse present-
ers from across the region; the development of a series of
"musical roots" tours, the most recent titled "Bluegrass,
Blues and Bembe," designed to provide presenters and
audiences with artistically excellent samples of the diverse
musical heritage of the South; and SAP's quarterly jazz
radio show, "JazzSouth," now carried on more than 90
radio stations across the region, providing a unique op-
portunity for the expansion and education of jazz audi-
ences and the celebration of an important component of
the African American cultural heritage of the South.

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The Southern Arts Federation, based in Atlanta, Georgia, is a regional
consortium of the state arts agencies of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Ken-
tucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and
Tennessee.

Western States Arts Federation
(WESTAF)

The Western States Arts Federation has historically de-
termined that one of its greatest opportunities is to assist
developing arts among diverse ethnic groups and one of
its greatest challenges is to ensure wider representation of
the varied cultural and ethnic populations and artists. A
recent report issued by the Western Office of the Coun-
cil of State Governments acknowledges that the region
served by WESTAF is "the most racially and ethnically
diverse and is likely to become more so."

WESTAF's planning has recently begun with
the reconfiguration of its governance structure, which en-
courages cultural diversity on its Board of Trustees. Dur-
ing the past year, WESTAF has initiated a Regional Folk
Arts program; developed a component for presenting lit-
^ erature in underserved communities in the West (initially

(T funded by the NEA); increased its jazz programming

B throughout the region; and rewritten guidelines in its

m core (performing arts) programs favoring rural, under-

served and culturally diverse artists and works funded
through the NEA Presenting and Commissioning Pro-
gram. Additionally, new programs enhancing profes-
P sional development and technical assistance ensure access

% to emerging and diverse arts groups and constituents.

C7 The Western States Arts Federation, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is

® a regional consortium of the state arts agencies of Alaska, Arizona, Cali-

^ fomia, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon,

Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

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National Assembly of State Arts Agencies

1 01 0 Vermont Avenue, NW, Suite 920, Washington, DC 20005

202-347-6352 FAX 202-737-0526

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Full text of "Celebrating America's cultural diversity : projects supported by state and regional arts agencies and the National Endowment for the Arts"

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