These remarks were presented by Rip Rapson, president, The Kresge Foundation, to the closing plenary of the 2017 GIA Conference in Detroit, Michigan, on October 31, 2017.
Thank you, Eddie, for such a gracious introduction.
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These remarks were presented by Rip Rapson, president, The Kresge Foundation, to the closing plenary of the 2017 GIA Conference in Detroit, Michigan, on October 31, 2017.
Thank you, Eddie, for such a gracious introduction.
“Is the stadium we passed going up or coming down?” asked Kristen Calhoun, ArtChangeUS founding program director. Suddenly the previously strained community meeting we were attending came alive. Kristen and I were in Detroit in July 2016 to plan ArtChangeUS REMAP: Detroit, and we had repeatedly driven by the mass of steel girders, not knowing if it represented Detroit’s past or future. Artist and activist Invincible ill Weaver had organized a series of gatherings for us to meet with grassroots cultural change makers.
At the end of this year, Janet Brown will step down as president and CEO of Grantmakers in the Arts. She has led GIA for nine years, and under her leadership, membership in the organization has grown 34 percent, and its budget has nearly doubled. GIA’s influence has grown enormously in the field, and the organization has greatly expanded its programs, introducing webinars, research workshops, and forums on a wide variety of issues, including arts education, capitalization, cross-sector collaborations, racial equity, and support for individual artists.
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What can you do when times are uncertain, and yet a clear opportunity to advance a collective agenda presents itself? Take action.
The League of American Orchestras’ upcoming national conference in Detroit falls just days before the fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 Detroit uprising, the largest urban disruption in America since the Civil War. According to Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) president Anne Parsons, the 1967 riot was the context for the orchestra’s fellowship program for African American musicians.
Story matters, and we are at a pivotal moment in which there is a growing understanding that narratives that move hearts and minds are critical. Those of us who work at the intersection of the arts and social justice have known this for some time — in the words of Jeff Chang, “cultural change precedes political change” — but it has become apparent to many others that without compelling storytelling, policy platforms do not stick.
Glyn Northington, Special Initiatives director, Nonprofits Assistance Fund
Over the past five years, Theatre Communications Group (TCG) has taken an active and vocal position on the need for a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive theatre field. We have been approaching this challenge on multiple fronts, and our thinking has evolved dramatically over time as we learn more about equity, ourselves, our history, and the deeply embedded structures of racism and other forms of oppression in our theatre field and larger society.
“Black people did not come back from Georgia.”
“A man or woman that had learned that they might be taken south might do anything.”
“A man who had to see his son stand naked before buyers might do anything.”