“Before we sang, we spoke. Before we danced, we walked. Before we wrote, we told stories. Before we told stories, we lived.
Those songs, dances, writings allow us to speak to one another across generations. They gave us an understanding of our commonality long before the DNA told us we are all part of one glorious procession.
At any point on the timeline of human history, there are tales to be told, of love and loss, glory and shame, profundity, and even profound stupidity– tales that deserve retelling, embellishing, and, if need be, inventing from whole cloth. This is our story. This is our song. If well sung, it tells us WHO we are and where we belong.”
These words come from the opening lines of Wynton Marsalis’s lecture “The Ballad of American Arts,” delivered on March 30th, 2009 at the 22nd Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy. Speaking to a sold-out audience gathered in the Concert Hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Mr. Marsalis’s lecture focused on the importance of arts and culture to the American identity. It was the most powerful speech on the arts in America that I have ever witnessed. (View the entire speech here).
The lecture, held each year on the eve of Arts Advocacy Day in Washington DC, is named after the second Chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts, Nancy Hanks. During her eight-year tenure (1969–1977), Ms. Hanks was able to grow the budget for the NEA from $8 million to $114 million—an unbelievable feat considering she was able to do so at time when members of Congress disputed any funding of the NEA at all.
Ms. Hanks believed strongly in the value of the Arts, dedicating her professional life to ensuring that the arts were a vital part of the American dialogue. It is fitting that the lecture is targeted to an audience of arts advocates from across the country the night before they meet with their elected officials to reinforce the value of the arts in their districts back home.
Arts Advocacy Day is the only annual event that brings together a broad cross section of America’s cultural and civic organizations, along with hundreds of grassroots advocates from across the country. Each year the event is instrumental in the advancement of key legislative initiatives, maintaining levels of funding for the federal cultural agencies, and influencing tax, international, and educational policies. (learn more about Arts Advocacy Day 2012 here)
We must ensure that every American has the same opportunities that we at Theatre East had growing up. Not to turn everyone into an artist, but to give everyone an understanding of what the arts make possible, and to capture the imaginations of those who will find it their calling.
Before we produced, we learned.
Each of us can share stories of teachers who saw something in us that no one else saw, or community theatres that gave us our chance to play and explore. People who encouraged us to major in drama, and continue to hone our crafts in graduate school. Without that support system, how would any of us have had the courage to move away from home to put it all on the line in New York City?
Today we must remember that we were afforded those opportunities because someone before us fought to make the arts part of the American dialogue. This year as I represent Theatre East in DC, I would like to take with me your stories of how the arts have impacted your life. What about the arts has changed you? How would it have been different without the arts and why is it important to you? Please share your stories in the comments below, or email me directly at Todd@TheatreEast.org.
There is power in numbers, and together we will ask that the arts and arts education be a national priority.
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