Exploring the intersections of health and the arts – Part 2

Yesterday we ran Part 1 of our interview with Margaret O’Bryon, President and CEO of the Consumer Health Foundation, on how and why CHF is integrating the arts and humanities into their work on public health. This is the second of a two-part series.

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Q: Are there other health-related arts projects that Consumer Health Foundation would like to share?

Margaret O’Bryon: CHF shared with the community through our Annual Meeting the PBS documentary Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? This film has helped to change people’s perceptions about what actually makes us sick and healthy by focusing on the social determinants of health. Locally, the Takoma Park-based organization CHEER (Community Health Empowerment through Education and Research) recently held a series of community viewings of Unnatural Causes in conjunction with a community health assessment of Takoma Park and Long Branch.

Last year Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, in partnership with the STICC (Sexually Transmitted Infection Community Coalition), held a series of meetings among adult and youth health advocates working on issues of reproductive health to help them analyze and understand risky behavior within the larger context of the ways in which socioeconomic inequity impacts community health. The youth then took pictures in their communities to highlight issues of poverty and housing, violence, alcohol and drug use, school conditions, teen pregnancy, and nutrition. The photos were used to raise awareness of the multiple negative conditions that affect their health and lives in hopes of changing the future. The photos were displayed last summer at the Sumner School and at the Wilson Building where youth testified in front of the DC City Council Committee on Health. A video capturing the Sumner School exhibit can be found here.

Sasha Bruce Youthwork’s Media Corps program allows young people to channel their creativity into developing advocacy campaigns. Through this program, youth have created and produced several videos that highlight critical social issues affecting them and the lives and health of their community. Topics have included unequal access to Advanced Placement classes for students living East of the River; the availability of safe and accessible green space in Anacostia; and sexual harassment in the schools.

Q: What advice would you have for other funders who are interested in incorporating the arts into their work?

M.O: I imagine there are ties between the arts and humanities and all of our work, both in and outside of our foundations, and across issue areas. We can all make those connections. For CHF and many of our partners, looking at the world and reality through the arts opens up new ways of thinking, new ways to approach our work. For example, in A Right to Care, [playwright and actor] Sarah Jones’ stark depiction of the multiple social and economic forces that affect health contributed greatly to the national and local conversation around health equity and more directly to the work of CHF.

Exploring the intersections of health and the arts – Part 1

We were excited to learn about the Consumer Health Foundation‘s recent efforts to integrate the arts and humanities into the foundation’s work in a variety of different ways. In this interview, Margaret O’Bryon, President and CEO of the Consumer Health Foundation, tells us more about how and why the foundation is engaging in this kind of work. This is the first of a two-part interview. Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow.

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Q: What do humanities and arts bring to heath and health care?

Margaret O’Bryon: The interdisciplinary field of arts and health brings together artists, health care professionals, community workers, and researchers. While there is more research to be done in this area, findings to date indicate that artistic engagement has significantly positive effects on health. This can take the form of the visual arts, music, dance, drama, writing, including poetry, storytelling, journaling, among others. Healing-oriented engagement in the arts, has a profound healing effect on the entire clinical team, including providers and caregivers. Patient health outcomes and attitudes are also improved.

Q: How has the Consumer Health Foundation (CHF) integrated the arts into its own work and why has it done so?

M.O: CHF has fully embraced the power of storytelling as an art that has the power to transport us into another person’s reality and to connect our work to those experiences and insights.

In January, the Foundation partnered with Arena Stage to underwrite 200 tickets for Anna Deavere Smith’s performance of Let Me Down Easy. The powerful performance provided the venue for our community to come together and experience the stories she portrayed on stage.

To celebrate the foundation’s 10th anniversary several years ago, we sponsored a one-woman performance at Woolly Mammoth Theatre by award winning playwright and actor, Sarah Jones. Ms. Jones performed her play, A Right to Care, which was commissioned by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The play laid bare the racial, social, economic, and political inequities that lie at the root of poor health for many Americans. Both pieces were constructed around individual stories of people who share their perspectives on and experiences with our healthcare system.

Part 2 of this interview will run in tomorrow’s Daily.

Sending the elevator back down: Advocating for the arts in the Washington region

Anupama Pattabiraman

Anupama Pattabiraman is the Princeton Project55 Fellow for the Regional Primary Care Coalition housed at the Consumer Health Foundation. She is also an alto in the Choral Arts Society of Washington, and participated in Americans for the Arts’ Arts Advocacy Day. We asked her to share some thoughts about the experience:

Why are you an advocate for the arts, and why is advocacy important?

I advocate for the arts because I believe that the arts teach life skills beyond just making art. Practicing instruments builds work ethic, participating in ensembles builds teamwork skills, auditions build confidence, and performances build presence. At the Congressional Arts Kickoff on Arts Advocacy Day, several congressmen were right on point when they spoke about supporting humanity’s innate yearning for beauty and expression, the influence of the arts on social change, the importance of arts in fostering the creative minds that employers seek, and the real value of the arts in boosting local economies.

How did the event impact you as an artist who participates in our region’s arts community?

Kevin Spacey spoke at the event and asked artists to remember the opportunities that inspired us as children. He encouraged us to “send the elevator back down” to ensure that America’s youth are offered the same opportunities to enrich their lives through the arts. I recalled my first opportunity to participate in the National Festival of the Arts Children’s Choir at age 9. Singing in a national choir at a major concert venue in Philadelphia gave me an overwhelming sense of pride, accomplishment, and promise as a child.

Opportunities to perform at such venues inspired me to practice to the level where I can now sing with the Choral Arts Society. Each year, the Choral Arts Society invites a high school choir to join its Annual Choral Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Arts Advocacy Day instilled in me a sense of responsibility to encourage aspiring choristers through such events, and to seek further opportunities to “send the elevator back down.”

What role do you think philanthropy can play in advocating for sustaining arts funding?

All artists know that when budgets are tight, arts funding is one of the first items to go. This is a crucial time for artists – and everyone who loves the arts – to unite at the local, state, and federal levels to advocate for the value of the arts. Philanthropic organizations can play a crucial role in helping artists articulate the case for the arts – both the “business” case and the “human” case. It is easy for artists to articulate why the arts are important to them, but harder for them to articulate why the arts should be important to elected officials and their constituents. Helping grantees and arts advocates enhance their messaging will help rally the artists who want to “send the elevator back down” so they can watch America’s children grow through the arts.

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The Regional Primary Care Coalition is supported by WRAG members the Consumer Health Foundation, Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, Healthcare Initiative Foundation, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States, Inc., Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, Northern Virginia Health Foundation, and Public Welfare Foundation.

Artistic Censorship in DC – by Michael Bigley

By Michael Bigley, Program Officer, The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; Chair, WG’s Arts and Humanities Working Group

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has received much press this week for its decision to remove a four-minute video created by the late artist, David Wojnarowicz. This 1987 video – A Fire in My Belly – depicts eleven seconds in which a crucifix has ants crawling around it, and was part of a larger exhibition entitled Hide and Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, which is centered on same-sex attraction. Mr. Wojnarowicz’s video is interpreted as a commentary on how the artist felt after the death of his partner from AIDS.

This video was removed from the exhibit after the National Portrait Gallery received pressure from the Catholic League and GOP leaders in Congress. The Washington Post has reported that Catholic League President William Donohue, Rep. John Boehner and Rep. Eric Cantor argued that the staging of the video was a misuse of taxpayer dollars and equated the content as “hate speech.” Kevin Smith, spokesman to incoming Speaker of the House Boehner, stated that “American families have a right to expect better from recipients of taxpayer funds in a tough economy.”

The Gallery receives about 70 percent of its annual budget from the federal government but it stated that those funds are not used for exhibitions and funding of Hide and Seek was underwritten by foundations that support gay and lesbian issues. Richard Kurin, a Smithsonian undersecretary, said, “We are sensitive to what the public thinks about our shows and programs. We stand behind the show. It has strong scholarship with great pieces by artists who are recognized by a whole panoply of experts. It represents a segment of America.”

Responses countering this censorship are arising. Transformer Gallery has initiated a screening of A Fire in My Belly to play on continuous loop in the storefront space at 1404 P Street, NW. The work currently on view is the four-minute excerpt of the originally 30-minute video piece. Transformer will soon be showing the full piece with permission by the artists’ estate. “As a response to the censorship by the Smithsonian of Wojnarowicz’s work, and in honor of World AIDS Day…we feel it is our job to champion all artists’ creative expression without constraints, and to continue the important dialogue Wojnarowicz’s work generates about aggression, hunger, community, love, loss, as well as religion,” stated Transformer’s executive and artistic director Victoria Reis in a recent email.

History seems to be repeating itself, with this censorship debate having similarities to the battles between the National Endowment for the Arts and Congress in the 1990s over outrage about controversial artistic works by Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano. As a result, the federal budget for the NEA was drastically cut and the funding of individual artists was a major casualty. More discussions are sure to follow as current GOP leaders have made comments on the record about their desire for more budget oversight at the Smithsonian.

This begs the questions: Who gets to decide what the American people can see at a museum and experience on stage? How do individuals interact with the arts? Is the freedom of expression only the freedom to express some things? Wojnarowicz’s censored video is available for viewing on the Internet, so regardless of the decisions made for the public, access to that which has been forbidden is still enabled.

For Southwest DC, renovated Arena is the start of something new

By Christian Clansky, Program Associate

As the anchor for the revitalization of the Southwest Waterfront, the newly-opened Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater presents an appropriately literal vision of growth.

Funders explore the renovated interior of the Fichandler Stage.

Rather than demolishing the old and starting over from scratch, Arena simply built around what was already there. The theater’s original space, the 683-seat Fichandler Stage, stands an unusual site with its original four exterior walls and roof perfectly intact. A few paces away, the thirty-year old, 514-seat Kreeger Theater remains similarly preserved. And adjacent to these is the brand-new, 200-seat Kogod Cradle.

All three – and an event space, costume shop, set workshop, rehearsal halls, education spaces, and a new gourmet café by Jose Andres – are unified by an encompassing 35,000 square-foot glass “curtain wall” underneath a roof supported by massive wood columns shipped from Vancouver. The theater holds the distinction of being the recipient of the largest single gift ever to an American theater – $35 million from local philanthropist Jaylee Mead and her late husband Gilbert.

During a private tour of the Arena Stage a week after its grand opening in October, members of WG’s Arts and Humanities Working Group learned how the theater’s commitment to both the preservation of history and a vibrant future reflect the larger trend of the Southwest Waterfront.

Beginning with Arena’s completion and progressing in phases until 2018, the Southwest Waterfront will be the latest example of DC’s continuing revitalization. The next phase will include a refurbishment of the iconic Maine Ave. fish market accompanied by the installation of a municipal wharf that will serve water taxis from Georgetown. Hotels, a “green market,” mixed-use commercial space, a residential tower, restaurants, a four-thousand seat music venue, an ice skating rink, and a waterfront park will follow in the coming years.

But for now, while these grand plans are finalized and the transformation begins, the region’s residents have the Arena Stage as a bridge. As it begins its inaugural season with a critically-acclaimed revival of Oklahoma!, Arena offers nostalgia and a sense of history for those familiar with its past and a vision of progress and excitement for those experiencing the venue for the first time.

In Southwest, DC, the arts are leading the charge forward.

Interview with Pulitzer Prize winner Sarah Kaufman

By Amy Harbison
Director of Communications, Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation
Member of the Arts and Humanities Working Group

I was fortunate to have been able to talk with Sarah Kaufman, The Washington Post’s dance critic since 1996.

Ms. Kaufman has written extensively on all forms of dance (including football!). She was recently awarded the Pulitzer Prize “for her refreshingly imaginative approach to dance criticism, illuminating a range of issues and topics with provocative comments and original insights.”

Born in Austin, Texas and raised in Washington, DC, she holds a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Maryland. She lives with her husband and three children in Takoma Park, Maryland.

Amy Harbison: Why is this an important time for funders to consider investment in contemporary dance?

Sarah Kaufman: Contemporary dance is a fragile art form; it draws a small audience relative to other performing arts, perhaps in part because it is still a relatively young art form and it is not taught in schools nor does it have many “household name” artists attached to it. In the recent economic downturn, many of its support systems have been hurt. Presenters are putting fewer dance programs on their calendars, and many of them are booking mainstream, sure-sell events instead. There is less money to commission new work, which is the lifeblood of any art form, and commissioning funds are what so many contemporary companies depend on for their survival.

But funders who choose to support contemporary dance can make an important mark in the career of an artist and in the future of this art form. Dance audiences may be relatively small, but my sense is they are also deeply loyal. Also, contemporary dance by its nature tends to attract a widely diverse audience. If funders are interested in an art form that promotes excellence, diversity, unity, discipline, self-respect and healthy living, that represents risk-taking, innovation and youthfulness, that serves to educate on a profound level about issues and experiences that are part of the universal human condition, there is no better exemplar than contemporary dance.

A.H: Many people seem to feel intimidated by modern dance. Why do you think that’s the case and what can help democratize dance so that enough people understand and embrace it?

S.K: I think educational efforts such as question-and-answer sessions before and after performances can help. Brief talks before the curtain goes up, perhaps even drawing out a few dancers to give demonstrations of what the audience can look for, are also helpful. Promoting a wide variety of performances, and especially helping (with funding, for example) to get contemporary dancers into schools to educate children about the art form–these are also tools that can help. It might help to approach dance as if it were a science, and think about how best to break down complex principles and interactions for an audience that is curious but not well-versed in those things. I think company directors or marketing directors or funders or whoever is asking this question might rephrase it as such: How do I best tell the story of this work? How do I tell the story of how it was made, what the artist was inspired by, what the composer was going for, what the rehearsal process involved? How do I tell these stories in a way to grab attention, to make a point, to keep people interested?

A.H: You said in a recent online chat that you found it so striking that all of the “name” choreographers most people know today all got significant support as they were developing and that the process of creating a body of work must involve a lot of “misses” as well as hits. And that support is needed to get the chance to create a body of work – hits AND misses! Can you say more about that?

S.K. To that I would say, modern dance relies on experimentation and research, and that needs to be funded just as it is in any industry. That is a crucial part of the art form’s development and its progress into the future, and a place where funding can play a critical role.

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This is a part of a monthly series sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Working Group. Read past installments here.

“A new look at older people” – by Susan Perlstein

By Susan Perlstein
Founder
National Center for Creative Aging

America is graying. In just two years, the United States will have as many people over the age of 65 years as there are under 20. Challenge and opportunity abound in the demographic sea-change.

A new paradigm speaks to the idea of seeing older people for their potential rather than their problems. This same paradigm defines the emerging field of creative aging. Creativity strengthens morale in later life, enhances physical health, and enriches relationships. It also constitutes the greatest legacy people can leave to their children, grandchildren, and society as a whole since, historically, elders have functioned as keepers of the culture, who pass on the history and values of a community to the next generation. Arts and creativity programs are fast becoming accepted not only for the benefits they provide to older Americans’ health, morale, but also for the consequent social contributions made by this cohort.

Significant findings are available from the first landmark national evidence-based research, Creativity and Aging Study: The Impact of Professionally Conducted Cultural Programs on the Physical Health, Mental Health, and Social Functioning of Older Adults.* Dr. Gene Cohen, Director of the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities, at George Washington University, measured the impact of professionally conducted, community-based cultural programs on the physical health, mental health, and social activities of individuals aged 65 and older.

The study’s key findings are that older adults participating in such programs live longer, visit doctors less frequently, and are less depressed and more socially engaged than those in the control group. Three study groups included programs from the Levine School of Music in Washington D.C., Elders Share the Arts in Brooklyn and Center for Youth and Elders in the Arts in San Francisco.

Arts are an essential component of the well being of older people and their communities. New partnerships among healthcare, aging and arts services have the potential to dramatically shift and expand resource development for a new paradigm for aging. Funder support will yield greater engagement by older Americans and add to the vibrancy of the nation’s communities.

The National Center for Creative Aging (NCCA), is dedicated to fostering an understanding of the vital relationship between creative expression and healthy aging and to developing programs that build on this understanding. For more information on arts and aging visit:  www.creativeaging.org

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* The study was sponsored by National Endowment for the Arts (lead sponsor), the Center for Mental Health Services of the Dept. of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health, AARP and the National Retired Teachers Association, the Stella & Charles Guttman Foundation and the International Foundation for Music Research (NAMM).

Case study on cultural organizations provides universal lessons for funders

By Michelle Grove
Events and Grants Manager
Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County
Member of the Arts and Humanities Working Group

As we make the case that the arts and humanities are integral, intrinsic, and essential, we should note that they also can be indicative of wider philanthropic issues.

In February of last year, Helicon Collaborative published a report on the impact of the recession on cultural organizations in the Puget Sound (Seattle, Wash.) metropolitan area. It explores how 28 cultural organizations are responding and adapting to a bad economy. Interestingly, the organizations that entered the recession with strong management and a willingness to adapt and change as needed were those that are weathering the storm well.

So what can funders do to help strong organizations that are willing to adapt? The Puget Sound report lists several recommendations.

First, the study finds that organizations, quite reasonably, want to remain informed about funders’ grantmaking policies; if changes are expected, they should be communicated to grantees in a timely fashion to allow for planning. Second, organizations are looking for flexibility and adaptability in their funders as well; as funders, can we reduce paperwork, eliminate an interim report to free up staff time for core work, or allow greater flexibility in reallocating grant funds? Finally, the report notes that organizations are looking for the resources to make big changes and think differently about their business models.

As we continue to encourage arts and humanities organizations to be nimble, adapt to the times and look at new models, it’s important that we as funders remember to practice what we preach.

> For a copy of The Economic Recession’s Impact on Cultural Organizations in the Puget Sound, published by the Helicon Collaborative, click here.

Measuring the health of arts and culture

By Glen S. Howard
President, Strategic Philanthropy Advisors
Member of the Arts and Humanities Working Group

Last month, Americans for the Arts released the first National Arts Index – a quantitative measure of the health and vitality of arts and culture in the United States. Covering an 11-year period (1998-2008), the Index is a unique annual scorecard of the arts’ impact on our society and economy. It includes valuable insights for arts organizations, government, and funders – including those who don’t regularly fund the arts per se.

Each of the 76 national-level indicators of arts activity – including finances, capacity, participation and competitiveness – has its own story to tell. But, by combining (and equally weighting) all of the indicators, the Index provides a single number that can be used to compare how the arts are doing from year to year. By that measure, the “state of the arts” reached its high point in 1999 and dropped to its lowest point in 2008 – with the greatest single decline between 2007 and 2008.

For example, the number of arts groups grew from 7,000 to 104,000 during the past 50 years. But one out of three failed to achieve a balanced budget even during the strongest economic years of this decade – suggesting that sustaining this capacity is a growing challenge. At the same time, overall audience demand/participation in the arts has also grown but at a pace that has lagged behind that at which the supply of arts has increased.

Of special significance to the funding community are the Index’s findings: (1) that an arts-based nonprofit was founded every three hours between 2003 and 2008, while (2) the nonprofit arts sector is losing its “market share” of philanthropy to other charitable areas. This phenomenon is quite evident in the our own region as more and more nonprofits are competing for audiences (and ticket revenues), affordable venues for their programs, and philanthropic revenues. While grantmakers have been seeing a large influx of applications in virtually all funding areas, the arts and humanities sectors are especially familiar with such funder responses as “no unsolicited proposals,” “only past grantees” and “changing funding priorities.”

Why is the National Arts Index important? The Index exists to measure the arts and humanities and to show that there is value to this sector. While numerous studies aim to demonstrate the societal (including economic and community-building) benefits of the arts and humanities, the National Arts Index is the first rigorous national resource to help satisfy private and public funders’ demands for further evidence of the arts’ positive and wide-ranging impact.

The Index also validates certain presumptions that funders may currently have about the arts sector – including its struggling “subsidy model” – that may stimulate the formulation of much-needed new strategies and models for increased public advocacy and support.

Americans for the Arts has committed to update the Index each year to maintain its relevancy, and it also plans to develop region-specific scorecards to provide better snapshots for nonprofits and grantmakers.

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National Arts Index

• Full Report
• Executive Summary
• One Page Summary

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This is a part of a monthly series sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Working Group. Read past installments here.

Arts & Humanities: Essential. Integral. Intrinsic.

By Michael Bigley
The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation
Chair, Arts and Humanities Working Group

Michael Bigley, speaking about the importance of the Arts and Humanities at WG's 2009 Annual Meeting

Hit hard by the economic recession, the entire nonprofit community has suffered greatly in the past year. Understandably, most attention has been paid to the challenges in providing emergency services; many have tended to dismiss other needs as less worthy of support. The Arts and Humanities Working Group of Washington Grantmakers views some of those “other needs” — music, theater, dance, literature, visual arts and other cultural and humanities-based disciplines — as no less important to a healthy community. When it comes to competition with other essential services for funding, the arts and humanities must be viewed not as an “either/or,” but as an “and.”

The arts and humanities are key tools for building the kind of community in which we want to live and the kind of community where businesses want to be. They are proven engines for economic and community development, promoting healthy individuals and neighborhoods, and are powerful vehicles for educational achievement and youth development. And these practical, instrumental values of the arts and humanities are all in addition to their intrinsic, aesthetic value.

Just try to imagine our region without the Smithsonian, the 9:30 Club, or the Atlas Theater. What would our sense of history be like without the Lincoln Memorial or the Washington Monument? Indeed, what would our region be like without the musical, theatrical, and cultural opportunities that help us to better understand and deal with our world and one another? In addition to meeting needs for food, shelter, and medical care, people need opportunities to achieve a rich, expressive life. The economy is still a major factor in funding decisions, and many arts and humanities organizations face the threat of shutting their doors forever. And with their closure would come the deterioration of our community as a place for individuals, families, and businesses to thrive.

Over the next six months, the Arts and Humanities Working Group will publish a monthly post (under the same header as above) that aims to help educate the funding community about the value of this sector. As funding becomes more and more difficult to come by, we hope that you will join us in recognizing the essential value that the arts and humanities bring to our communities.

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This is a part of a monthly series sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Working Group. Read past installments here.