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The Well-Rounded Curriculum

Wed, 19 May 2010 11:57:16 -0600

Secretary Arne Duncan's Remarks at the Arts Education Partnership National Forum

If there is a message that I hope you will take away from today's conference it is this: The arts can no longer be treated as a frill. As First Lady Michelle Obama has said, "the arts are not just a nice thing to have or do if there is free time or if one can afford it... Paintings and poetry, music and design... they all define who we are as a people."

All of you know the history all too well. For decades, arts education has been treated as though it was the novice teacher at school, the last hired and first fired when times get tough. But President Obama, the First Lady, and I reject the notion that the arts, history, foreign languages, geography, and civics are ornamental offerings that can or should be cut from schools during a fiscal crunch. The truth is that, in the information age, a well-rounded curriculum is not a luxury but a necessity.

I am not going to sugarcoat the tough choices that many districts are facing this year. State and local school budgets are absolutely strained across the country. Many of you are fighting lonely battles to preserve funding for arts education. There is no getting around that fact--and I applaud your commitment to fully educating America's children by engaging them in the arts.

At the same time, in challenge lies opportunity. As Rahm Emanuel has said, "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Now-- as we move forward with reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--is the time to rethink and strengthen arts education.

And I ask you to help build the national case for the importance of a well-rounded curriculum--not just in the arts but in the humanities writ large.

The question of what constitutes an educated person has been taken up by the great thinkers in every society. Yet few of those leading lights have concluded that a well-educated person need only learn math, science, and read in their native tongue. As James Leach, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities recently put it, a society that fails to study history, refuses to learn from literature, and denies the lessons of philosophy "imprisons [its] thoughts in the here and now." A well-educated student, in other words, is exposed to a well-rounded curriculum. It is the making of connections, conveyed by a rich core curriculum, which ultimately empowers students to develop convictions and reach their full academic and social potential.

The study of history and civics helps provide that sense of time beyond the here and now. The study of geography and culture helps build a sense of space and place. And the study of drama, dance, music, and visual arts helps students explore realities and ideas that cannot be summarized simply or even expressed in words or numbers.

That complexity forces students to grapple with and resolve questions that will not have a single, correct, fill-in-the-bubble solution.

In America, education has long served a special role: It has been the great equalizer. From Thomas Jefferson on, America's leaders have recognized that public education and the study of the liberal arts were essential to creating an informed citizenry that could vote and participate in civil society. In 1784, years before the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia and only weeks after the war with the British had ended, George Washington sat down to write a letter to a bookseller.

But Washington did not recount the recent triumph over the British. He asked for books instead, because, he wrote, "to encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country."

In America, we do not reserve arts education for privileged students or the elite. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds, students who are English language learners, and students with disabilities often do not get the enrichment experiences of affluent students anywhere except at school. President Obama recalls that when he was a child "you always had an art teacher and a music teacher. Even in the poorest school districts, everyone had access to music and other arts."

Today, sadly, that is no longer the case. And that is one reason why I believe education is the civil rights issue of our generation--and why arts education remains so critical to leveling the playing field of opportunity. Robert Maynard Hutchins, the former president of the University of Chicago, put it well when he said that "the best education for the best is the best education for all."

I learned that lesson firsthand from my father, who was a psychology professor at the University of Chicago and a banjo player. He cared deeply about promoting student growth.

But he was even more committed to a dual mission for teachers--to not just educate students but to help prepare them for a lifetime of learning. You might say he was an amateur arts educator of sorts because he worked for many years as the faculty representative for the university's annual folk music festival.

Attending the folk festival every year growing up, my brother, sister, and I listened to the blues and bluegrass, African drummers and mariachi music, Chilean, Russian, and Ukrainian bands, Celtic music and gospel. We were exposed not just to music from across the globe, but, through music, the vastness and extraordinary diversity of the world itself.

I must confess that my father--at least in my case--failed to pass on his musical talents. Even so, I did flail away for several years on the drums in the middle school band. I learned some good lessons in the process--despite my forgettable performance.

The fact is that most students who take the arts are not going to be professional musicians, painters, dancers, or actors. Yet every student who plays in a band, acts in a play, dances in a company, or sings in the chorus can benefit from the experience in amazing ways.

Through the arts, students can learn teamwork and practice collaborative learning with their peers. They develop skills and judgment they didn't know they had--whether it is drumming in time or acquiring the knowledge to differentiate between Pavarotti and the tenor in the choir loft at the Sunday service.

No matter what the color of our skin or beliefs, "all of us can draw lessons from the works of history" says President Obama. "All of us can be moved by a symphony, all of us can be moved by a soprano's voice or a film's score." Art, that is, has a universal appeal because it speaks, as the President points out, to a shared yearning "for truth and for beauty, for connection and the simple pleasure of a good story."

Now, I spent much of last year on a Listening and Learning Tour that took me to more than 35 states. And I heard quite a few stories. I spoke with thousands of students, parents, and teachers.

And almost everywhere I went, I heard people express concern that the curriculum has narrowed, especially in schools that serve disproportionate numbers of disadvantaged students.

There is no doubt that math, reading, writing, and science are vital core components of a good education in today's global economy. But so is the study of history, foreign languages, civics, and the arts. And it is precisely because a broad and deep grounding in the arts and humanities is so vital that we must be perpetually vigilant that public schools, from pre-K through twelfth grade, do not narrow the curriculum.

The case for a well-rounded curriculum begins with a disappointing reality: Many schools today are falling far short of providing an engaging, content-rich curriculum. Instead, students are often saddled with boring textbooks, dummied-down to the lowest common denominator. It is no wonder that much of today's curriculum fails to spark student curiosity or stimulate a love of learning. As Ernest Boyer pointed out years ago, "Many kids drop out of school because no one ever noticed that they dropped in."

Yet we know from research that access to a challenging high school curriculum has a greater impact on whether a student will earn a four-year college degree than his or her high school test scores, class rank, or grades. And we know that low-income students are less likely to have access to these accelerated learning opportunities and college-level coursework than their peers.

One impact of the content-lite curriculum is that many Americans are appallingly ignorant of our nation's origins.

You will perhaps not be surprised to hear that a recent public opinion survey by the American Revolution Center found that more than 80 percent of Americans know Michael Jackson sang "Beat It" and "Billie Jean." By contrast, a majority of Americans believe the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, or the War of 1812 occurred before the Declaration of Independence.

Less than half of Americans today know that Valley Forge, the iconic site of George Washington's winter encampment with the Continental Army, is in Pennsylvania.

In the coming debate over ESEA reauthorization, I believe that arts education can help build the case for the importance of a well-rounded, content-rich curriculum in at least three ways.

First, the arts significantly boost student achievement, reduce discipline problems, and increase the odds that students will go on to graduate from college. Second, arts education is essential to stimulating the creativity and innovation that will prove critical to young Americans competing in a global economy. And last, but not least, the arts are valuable for their own sake, and they empower students to create and appreciate aesthetic works.

As the First Lady sums up, she and the president both believe "strongly that arts education is essential for building innovative thinkers who will be our nation's leaders for tomorrow."

It is not surprising that visual arts instruction improves reading readiness, or that learning to play the piano or to master musical notation helps students to master math. Reading, math, and writing require students to understand and use symbols--and so does assembling shapes and colors in a portrait or using musical notes to learn fractions.

Is it any surprise then to learn of the large impact that arts education has on student achievement and attainment, especially among disadvantaged students?

Low-income students who play in the orchestra or band are more than twice as likely to perform at the highest levels in math as peers who do not play music. In James Catterall's well-known longitudinal study, Doing Well and Doing Good by Doing Art, low-income students at arts-rich high schools were more than twice as likely to earn a B.A. as low-income students at arts-poor high schools.

English language learners at arts-rich high schools were also far more likely than their peers at arts-poor high schools to go on to college.

In the annals of education research, these are big effects--and ones we would like to see more schools replicate.

Fortunately, numerous schools are beginning to take these lessons to scale. Last year, I had the privilege of visiting an early learning facility, the Educare Center in Oklahoma City, which is home to one of the 60 schools in Oklahoma's A+ Schools network.

Oklahoma's A+ school-network nurtures creativity in every student--and a recent evaluation shows not just that the program increases student achievement but boosts attendance and decreases discipline problems as well.

When I took over as CEO of the Chicago Public Schools in 2001, a survey by the Chicago Community Trust showed that one in seven elementary schools in the city did not provide a single class of arts instruction a week. Fifteen elementary schools, with 7,300 children, provided no arts instruction at all.

Through CAPE, the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education, we brought local artists and teachers into the schools to partner up on integrating arts curriculum with academic subjects. And follow-up studies showed that students at the CAPE schools performed better on standardized assessment than students who attended schools that did not integrate arts and academics.

I have been especially fortunate to witness the power of integrated curriculum firsthand with our son and daughter, who are now in kindergarten and second grade respectively in a Virginia public school. Their school has a science focus.

But it is an extraordinary music teacher, Joe Puzzo, who is the absolute rock star with the students. He writes and teaches songs to the kids about science. Mr. Puzzo has got third graders singing about gravity, sedimentation, rocks, and the planets. Students sing, clap, and dance about solids, liquids and gases. What a fun way to learn.

When Columbus Day or Martin Luther King Day come around, Mr. Puzzo sits down and writes songs for the students about Christopher Columbus and Martin Luther King. Years later, when students sit down to take their SATs, they report humming Mr. Puzzo's songs to recall historical and scientific content.

As a side note, I will confess that our son and daughter have instructed us, in no uncertain terms, that we are to bid high in the auction this year to win an afternoon with Mr. Puzzo.

Now, you all have heard that advanced STEM courses will be essential to workers who want to compete in the global economy.

Those claims are true. STEM courses develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills in math and science, they spur innovation, and they enhance self-direction. But as Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, has pointed out, good arts education accomplishes many of the same ends.

The fact is that high-quality arts and humanities instruction are almost uniquely suited to stimulate imagination, creativity, and the ability to find adaptive solutions. Creativity, as Sandra Ruppert, AEP's Director notes, is a "precursor to innovation and the cornerstone of entrepreneurship."

Put another way, knowledge--without imagination--is not good enough for students in today's fluid job market. "Imagination is more important than knowledge," Albert Einstein once reminded us, because "knowledge is limited whereas imagination embraces the entire world."

It is no coincidence that Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist and author of The World is Flat, predicts that "the school, the state, the country that empowers, nurtures, [and] enables imagination among its students" is going to be the winner in the rapidly-evolving global economy of the twenty-first century.

Now, what can the federal government do to support high-quality arts education and a well-rounded curriculum? Let me answer that question by telling you first what we cannot do. We will not endorse or sanction any specific curricula--and the Department is in fact appropriately prohibited by law from endorsing or sanctioning curricula.

The department will, however, continue to fund research studies on the effectiveness of curricula as it has in the past. And it will continue to require districts to ensure that schools receiving federal funds through Title I or in school turnarounds are using evidence-based instructional programs aligned with academic standards.

We are currently in the midst of conducting the first large-scale survey of school principals, music teachers, and visual arts specialists in ten years.

I want to underscore that our proposal to reauthorize ESEA goes much further than existing law in supporting a well-balanced curriculum. Our ESEA proposal will allow states to incorporate assessments of subjects beyond English language arts and math in their accountability systems. And we plan to invest in the development of better assessments, so schools and teachers don't feel pressured to teach to low-quality, standardized tests.

I will be the first to tell you the department has not always been seen as a proponent of a well-balanced education.

The truth is that when I was CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, I did not welcome a call from the nice man or woman at the U.S. Department of Education. But that reluctance stemmed from the fact that the department has historically been a compliance machine, rather than an engine of innovation.

I want to flip that. And as many of you know, our budget and ESEA proposals would flip that historical relationship for arts educators.

We have proposed to take the $40 million for arts education that now goes to directed grants and a couple of small competitions with an array of applications and requirements, and replace it with a much bigger, competitive pool of $265 million to strengthen the teaching of arts, foreign languages, civics and government, and other subjects.

Existing arts education programs have worthy goals. But they have resulted in fragmented funding at the federal, state, and local level.

Under our new ESEA proposal, high-need districts, and states and non-profits in partnership with high-need districts, would be eligible to apply for the grants, which place a priority on cross-subject learning but don't mandate it. At the same time, we would increase access and funding for college-level, dual credit, and other accelerated courses in high-need schools to support not only a well-rounded, but a rigorous curriculum.

Two of our new and most innovative programs--Investing in Innovation or i3, and Promise Neighborhoods, loosely modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone's comprehensive community-based organization—have the potential to support effective arts education programs and partnerships as well.

I don't think arts education should ever be relegated to taking place only in after-school hours. But arts educators can provide high-quality instruction in after-school and extended day programs that is especially critical for low-income students.

In fact, we anticipate that place-based Promise Neighborhood programs in low-income communities may include high-quality arts instruction. Research suggests that arts education not only boosts academic outcomes, but that neighborhood-based arts and cultural activities can build stronger cities and communities.

I recognize that our plans to shift to competitive funding for arts education may make some arts providers nervous, even if they can potentially compete for significantly more funding than in the past. Change can be unsettling.

But I urge arts educators to have the confidence of their convictions to compete and demonstrate the value of their disciplines on student outcomes.

The operative phrases here are "outcomes" and "high-quality" arts instruction. Just as in every other core subject, some arts instruction is top-rate, some is mediocre.

I am pleased that the arts community, for more than 15 years, has pioneered the development of voluntary standards in dance, drama, music, and the visual arts.

Forty-nine states now have established content and/or performance standards outlining what students should know and be able to do in one or more art form. Many districts, including Chicago, now not only articulate arts standards, but also spell out a sequential series of courses aligned with state standards.

So, arts education is making real progress toward defining quality and demonstrating outcomes, but challenges remain. A number of states have taken steps to develop rigorous arts assessments. Unfortunately, those assessments have faced setbacks and funding cutbacks in recent years.

Too many schools still fail to offer a standards-based course of study in all four arts disciplines. We all know that unacceptable disparities in arts education between low-income and affluent districts continue to persist.

Despite these challenges, and the tough budgetary climate, arts education must not just survive but thrive. A well-balanced curriculum is simply too vital to our students and our national character to let the teaching of the arts and humanities erode.

In 1963, shortly before he was assassinated, President Kennedy spoke about the importance of poetry at the groundbreaking for the Robert Frost Library at Amherst College where Frost had taught. And here is what Kennedy said: "Our national strength matters," he declared, "but the spirit which informs and controls our strength matters just as much."

Robert Frost's poetry, in Kennedy's eyes, reminded us of the limitations of power. Power might lead man toward arrogance, but "poetry reminds him of his limitations." When power narrows the areas of man's concern, Kennedy said, "poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses."

It was art, Kennedy concluded, that "establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment."

I thank all of you for your tireless commitment to supporting arts education. And I urge you to continue the fight to provide all of our children with a well-rounded and rigorous education. Let the arts, as President Kennedy said, establish the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.

Broomfield Rocks on!

Thu, 13 May 2010 12:45:07 -0600

Contact: Karen Gerrity
Cultural Affairs Manager
Tel: 303.464.5835 / 5829
City and County of Broomfield Broomfield, CO 80020 kgerrity@broomfield.org
www.broomfield.org/cultural

The City and County of Broomfield, in partnership with Broomfield Council on the Arts and Humanities and Broomfield Crossing Rotary, invites teens and their families to attend the 11th Annual Broomstock event. Broomstock will take place from 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 27, 2010, at the Broomfield Community Commons Park. This event features live music, food, and activities.
Broomstock is a hybrid of Broomfield and Woodstock and was the brainchild of area high school students looking for a fun and safe way to celebrate the last day of school.
Local bands are always eager to participate in Broomstock and several years ago, The Fray performed at this community event. This year’s line up includes In Audika, Lacuna Drive, and Portrait of a Friend. Musical genres include alternative, pop, hip hop, rock, and hardcore.
Broomstock is funded in part by grants from the Broomfield Community Foundation Youth Advisory Committee and Broomfield County Tier III SCFD funds.
This year, Broomstock is partnering with the 1STBANK Center. OneRepublic will be performing May 27 at the 1STBANK Center at 8pm. General admission tickets are $30. Discount tickets of $25 will be available for Broomfield residents and are on sale at the Broomfield Community Center (303-464-5501) until May 24 at 5 pm. The tickets will also be available at the Broomfield Auditorium (720-887-2371) during box office hours which are Thursdays and Fridays 2-6pm.
The bassist for OneRepublic, Drew Brown, grew up in Broomfield and he and his brother performed at Broomstock when they were in high school.
In conjunction with Broomstock, local teen artists will display samples of their visual art work in the Broomfield Auditorium beginning May 7.
For more information about the art show, please call 303-464-5835/5829. For information about the Broomstock event at Commons Park, call 303-464-5530.

governor ritter to sign several bills to strengthen colorado’s creative industries

Thu, 13 May 2010 10:27:37 -0600

On Tuesday, May 18, 2010, Governor Bill Ritter will sign legislation intended to strengthen creative industries in Colorado. He will be joined by lawmakers and members of Colorado’s creative industries.

The signing will take place at 2 p.m. at the Art Institute of Colorado, 1200 Lincoln Street in Denver, Colorado. Prior, from 1 p.m. until 2 p.m., attendees will enjoy light refreshments as well as the Industrial Design students' gallery show and interactive student artwork in the fields of design, culinary arts, media arts and fashion.

UNC PROFESSOR EARNS REGIONAL ART EDUCATOR OF THE YEAR AWARD

Thu, 13 May 2010 10:09:59 -0600

University of Northern Colorado (UNC) Assistant Professor Connie Stewart has been selected by the National Art Education Association (NAEA) to receive the 2010 Pacific Region Higher Education Art Educator of the Year Award. She was presented with the award at the NAEA National Convention in April in Baltimore. The annual award recognizes the exemplary contributions, service and achievements of an outstanding NAEA member at the regional level. Stewart teaches art history and art education classes and is executive director the Center for Integrated Arts Education at UNC. She also supervises a practicum in the public schools. NAEA is the professional association for art educators. Members include elementary and secondary teachers, college and university professors, education directors in fine art museums, school district and art council representatives, and artists throughout the world.

Grants Nurture Arts Spaces and Housing

Wed, 7 Apr 2010 15:19:59 -0600

By STEPHANIE STROM
The New York Times

As part of an effort to increase the impact of its giving, the Ford Foundation is to announce a plan on Monday to dedicate $100 million to the development of arts spaces nationwide over the next decade. The plan is by far the largest commitment the foundation has ever made to the construction, maintenance and enhancement of arts facilities.

The plan, called the Supporting Diverse Art Spaces Initiative, is one of several large financing projects that have resulted from a strategic overhaul of the foundation’s operations since its president, Luis A. Ubiñas, took over in 2008. He has moved the foundation in the direction of bundling its hundreds of millions of dollars in grants — which have traditionally varied widely in their focus — into large programs oriented toward specific issues. Other recent commitments include $80 million to bolster public programs for the unemployed and underpaid, $100 million for secondary education in seven cities and $50 million to help cities buy foreclosed properties.

In addition to helping arts groups build new spaces and renovate and expand old ones, the latest initiative aims to encourage the construction of affordable housing for artists in or around some of these spaces and to spur economic development in their surrounding areas. Mr. Ubiñas said that during his travels around the country he had been astonished when he would visit an arts organization and find that “all around it have developed whole neighborhoods — of artists and their families, of businesses that cater to them, of diverse people who want to live in a thriving community.”

He offered the example of the Boston Center for the Arts, organized in 1970 to provide artists with affordable studios while injecting life into the run-down South End neighborhood. “Then the Boston Ballet was added,” Mr. Ubiñas, “and performance space for other kinds of arts organizations, and what was a struggling neighborhood characterized by housing projects is a bustling community.”

This notion of the economic benefits of the arts has become increasingly popular lately among arts financers and administrators, who are keenly aware that in times of economic paucity spending on the arts is sometimes seen as frivolous. Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, has been on the road frequently in recent months for a project that involves collecting information and anecdotes to help make the case to Congress and the public that the arts pay. (“Art Works” is the official slogan of the endowment’s project.)

“From the foot traffic of people coming to studios and rehearsals to the influx of people looking for a place to eat or drink after an art opening or before a show,” Mr. Landesman said in an e-mail message, “these buildings attract new people and often expendable income to neighborhoods.”

Even before its announcement the Ford Foundation had awarded a first grant under the initiative to a Minneapolis nonprofit group that builds mixed-use developments centered on moderately priced housing for artists. That group, Artspace Projects, has received more than $1 million toward, among other things, transforming an abandoned public school in East Harlem into such a development, in partnership with El Barrio’s Operation Fightback, a New York community organization.

The project is to include 72 units of housing for artists and their families and a large space that can be used for art exhibitions, cultural events, conferences and gatherings of community groups.

The initiative is also intended to help arts organizations improve or develop the management skills needed to maintain their spaces and, ideally, to turn them into revenue generators. Some of the money has been allocated for a series of seminars on marketing, planning, fund-raising and other topics related to sustaining arts centers. The seminars will be presented over two years by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

“Physical structure is not sufficient to keep an arts organization alive,” said Michael M. Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center and an expert on turning around troubled arts institutions. Mr. Kaiser has been on a 50-state tour of the United States, offering free seminars on financial management to arts groups coping with the economic crisis.

“Many organizations put up buildings without thinking about how they will pay for all those not-very-glamorous costs like lighting and air-conditioning,” he said.

Grant applications seeking money to explore and plan for construction and development will be solicited in a request-for-proposal process to be managed by Leveraging Investments in Creativity, known as LINC, an organization that works to find living and work spaces for artists, among other things, and that keeps a database of arts centers. Members of the Ford Foundation’s staff will vet proposals along with a panel of experts in economic development and urban design and planning, and award grants of up to $100,000.

Judilee Reed, executive director of LINC, said the foundation’s initiative is particularly well timed.

“I think people are beginning to understand that spaces for artists and art are more than just buildings, structures,” she said. “The way these spaces animate their communities and the relationships they have to their communities is ripe for development.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/arts/design/05ford.html?emc=eta1

Leadership Development Institute 2010

Wed, 7 Apr 2010 15:18:53 -0600

Program Background
The Association of Performing Arts Presenters (Arts Presenters) and the Research Center for Leadership in Action (RCLA) at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University are jointly launching a Leadership Development Institute (LDI) in June 2010 with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Express Foundation. The LDI’s initial design is based on prior research conducted by Arts Presenters and RCLA that included a co-design working session in May 2009 where Arts Presenters and RCLA convened 15 mid-career leaders in the performing arts presenting field.

The overarching goal of the LDI is to develop the leadership, knowledge and capacity required to advance the performing arts presenting field. Specifically, the LDI will:

Consolidate a leadership competency framework for the performing arts presenting field;
Advance the leadership capacity among arts presenting professionals in at least one competency area each; and
Produce a presenting leadership development white paper, online tools and other resources that embody a framework for the leadership demands and challenges in the performing arts presenting field today.

Target Audience
The LDI targets diverse mid-career professionals (i.e at least 5 years of significant management/decision-making experience, including responsibility for leading people, projects and/or budgets) in the performing arts presenting field. These individuals have proven their commitment to the arts, have been tested in terms of their ability to handle responsibility and authority, have contributed new thinking to the field, and are poised for senior leadership roles that will positively shape their organizations and the arts in the future (see further eligibility requirements below).

Program Structure
Arts Presenters and RCLA have designed the LDI as a pilot program that will launch in June 2010 and end in January 2012. During its pilot phase, the LDI will include:

two series of collaborative inquiry sessions
virtual webinars
online resources
one-day action-learning seminars

A series of collaborative inquiry sessions will be the first offering delivered through the LDI. Please read the “Collaborative Inquiry Guidelines” to learn more about how to participate. Details about the remaining offerings will be disseminated in Fall 2010.

For more information, visit http://www.artspresenters.org/services/ldi.cfm

Karen Gerrity: Job growth in creative industries

Wed, 7 Apr 2010 14:44:11 -0600

Boulder Daily Camera: Letter to the Editor

2010 is turning out to be a great year for the creative industries. In January, Governor Bill Ritter and state lawmakers announced new job-creation and economic-growth strategies for Colorado’s creative industries sector which includes three bills being introduced this session.

In 2007, 186,251 jobs in Colorado were associated with creative enterprises and creative occupations ranking it as the 5th largest employment cluster of the state’s economy.

Providing jobs in a tough economy is just one more great reason to support the arts. It is fortunate that the governor and legislators recognize the potential for this industry’s continual growth.

If you agree that the creative industries are important and you want your voice to be heard by our legislators, please consider joining Arts for Colorado, an advocacy group that focuses on preserving and expanding state support for arts. For an annual membership fee of just $35, you will add your voice to the many people who want to preserve the cultural benefits of the arts and contribute to the economic health of our state. You will also be kept up-to-date regarding important trends, issues and initiatives.

For more information, become a member or donate to Arts for Colorado, check out their website at www.artsforcolorado.org.

Thank you.

Karen Gerrity
Louisville

Retrieved from: http://camera-letterstotheeditor.pmpblogs.com/2010/03/16/karen-gerrity-job-growth-in-creative-industries/

Creative opportunities should be embraced by lawmakers

Wed, 7 Apr 2010 14:42:12 -0600

In January, Gov. Bill Ritter and Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien, along with state lawmakers, announced new job-creation and economic-growth strategies for Colorado's creative industries sector, including three bills that will be introduced this session.

These bills are designed to capitalize on the potential the arts industry already has to grow, and to bring about more jobs for the industry to ultimately bolster the state's economy.

Colorado's creative enterprises alone employ more than 122,000 individuals in about 8,000 establishments, accounting for 3.9 percent of the state's estimated 3.2 million jobs.

The arts industry almost is as large as biotechnology/biomedical and information technology and telecommunications, and larger than defense and security and agribusiness, food processing and technology.

This makes the arts Colorado's fifth largest employment sector.

Another 64,000 individuals work in creative occupations in noncreative enterprises, demonstrating that we have a community that is dedicated to ingenuity and innovation.

We have a lot of good economic reasons to continue supporting the arts, and we are fortunate in that our legislators recognize the potential for this industry's continual growth.

The introduction of this legislation is just the beginning. To really utilize the arts industry to its full potential, we need to make sure that our legislators know just how important we feel this issue is to our economy.

This is the goal of the state-wide advocacy organization Arts for Colorado. With a focus on preserving and expanding state supports for the arts, Arts for Colorado serves as the community's eyes, ears, and voices at the capital and with leaders across the state.

With this group's critical involvement the Colorado Council of the Arts was able to renew $2 million in funding in 2006, a major step in the process of building the arts industry to its current size. Through an organization like Arts for Colorado, you can voice your opinion directly to legislators statewide. That voice, however, can only be as loud as the organization's support, so individual memberships are crucial to the operation of this advocacy group.

Joining Arts for Colorado, or even simply making a donation, not only helps preserve the cultural benefits of the arts on our community but contributes to the building of our state's economy.

When looking to relocate, other businesses will see a flourishing community full of arts, culture and an educated work force.

Building our reputation in this way makes our state attractive to new enterprises. Thus, this industry has the power to create more economic opportunity both within its own boundaries and throughout other industries in Colorado. What begins as a $35 membership fee turns into major economic profit for our state.

We already know the great personal benefits to having arts and culture in our community. We can feel it when we see a local theater performance or attend a new art gallery opening.

This feeling is further enhanced with the knowledge that while we enjoy and benefit from art, art can also make an incredible contribution to Colorado’s economy.

With your support, the arts and creative industries can help ensure the cultural and financial success our great state.

For more information visit www.artsforcolorado.org/Arts_for_Colorado/Home.html.

Retrieved from: http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20103110328

Starz FilmCenter Celebrates Japanese Cinema and Culture

Wed, 7 Apr 2010 14:39:18 -0600

Contact: Britta Erickson, 303-994-1227 or britta@denverfilm.org

Starz FilmCenter Celebrates Japanese Cinema and Culture
Presented by Denver Film Society & University of Colorado Denver - College of Arts & Media

March 23, 2010, Denver - Give your passport a stamp to Japan in this four-day celebration of Japanese film, art, and culture at the Starz FilmCenter - Thursday, April 8 - Sunday, April 11. Experience a cultural journey through the great moments in Japanese cinema, featuring twelve films from acclaimed Japanese directors with discussions following the screenings.

A special focus on the films of master filmmaker Mikio Naruse (1905-1969), a director whose work has been virtually unscreened in Denver, anchors this event. Four Naruse films will be screened alongside a new 35 mm print of Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa, a one-time assistant to Naruse.

Tickets on sale beginning Wednesday, March 24. For more information - www.denverfilm.org.

Festival Highlights
Japanese Cinema 101
Wednesday April 7, 11:30 AM - 12:45 PM - Free to public
An overview of the film series, placing the work in context to historical and contemporary Japanese film makers, narrative styles and themes, by Howie Movshovitz, Director of Film Education at the UC-Denver College of Arts & Media and Colorado Public Radio Film Critic.

Opening Night Film and Reception
When a Women Ascends the Stairs, Mikio Naruse
Thursday April 8, 7 PM
$15 General Admission / $12 DFS members
Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse's finest hour - a delicate, devastating study of a woman, Keiko (played heartbreakingly by Hideko Takamine), who works as a bar hostess in Tokyo's very modern postwar Ginza district, who entertains businessmen after work. Sly, resourceful, but trapped, Keiko comes to embody the conflicts and struggles of a woman trying to establish her independence in a male-dominated society.

Japanese film author and historian David Desser and Howie Movshovitz will introduce the film and moderate a discussion following the screening. A Japanese-themed menu and cocktails will be served afterwards.

Visual Artist Kota Ezawa - Public Lecture
Friday, April 9, 5 - 6 PM
Reception immediately following
Free to public
World famous artist Kota Esawa's animations deal with abstraction and mediated perceptions of reality through reconstructions of existing films and videos. In this lecture, Ezawa will present his work in the context of 20th century avant-garde animation.

The Watching Hour presents: Hausu (House), Nobuhiko Obayahshi
Friday, April 9 and Saturday, April 10, 10:00pm
Nobuhiko Obayahshi's 1977 hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt's creaky country home, only to come face to face with evil spirits, bloodthirsty pianos, and a demonic housecat.

Seven Samurai - New 35mm Presentation, Akira Kurosawa
Sunday April 11, 12 PM - $12 public/ $10 DFS members
One of the great masterpieces of the cinema, villagers in 16th century Japan hire seven unemployed samurai to defend them against bandits. Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) is as riveting today as it was when it was released, an annihilating melodrama that works equally well on the epic and intimate scale.

A complete schedule of events is available at http://bit.ly/focusjapan

Sponsored by the Japan Foundation
In partnership with Consulate-General of Japan at Denver, UC Denver Live!, Japan America Society, and Asian American Student Services at UC Denver

Focus on Japanese Cinema full schedule
Wednesday, April 7
11:30-12:45 CAMLive@Starz Japanese Cinema 101 Speaker- Howie Movshovitz
Event Description: Howie Movshovitz, Director of Film Education at the College of Arts & Media, will show clips from upcoming film screenings while placing the work in context to historical and contemporary Japanese film makers, narrative styles and themes.

Thursday, April 8
7:00pm Mikio Naruse, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs with an introduction by Howie Movshovitz
9:00pm OPENING NIGHT RECEPTION

Friday, April 9
4:00pm - Lecture - David Bondelevitch "The Music of Seven Samurai"
5:00pm - Lecture - Visual Artist Kota Ezawa
7:00pm Yasujiro Ozu, Late Spring
9:30pm Mikio Naruse, Yearning
10:00pm Nobuhiko Obayashi, Hausu (part of The Watching Hour)

Saturday, April 10
2:00pm Mikio Naruse, Lightning
4:00pm Kiyoshi Kurasowa, Cure
7:00pm Hirokazu Kore-eda, After Life
7:30pm Satoshi Kon, Millennium Actress
10:00pm Nobuhiko Obayashi, Hausu (part of The Watching Hour)

Sunday, April 11
12:00pm Akira Kurosawa, Seven Samurai
4:00pm Juzo Itami, Tampopo
7:00pm Takeshi Kitano, Zatoichi
7:30pm Mikio Naruse, Flowing

Dallas Museum Announces Results of Groundbreaking Visitor Study

Wed, 7 Apr 2010 14:35:09 -0600

The study and its findings have catalyzed fundamental changes in all aspects of the DMA's practices and programs

DALLAS, TX.- A groundbreaking, seven-year study that provides unprecedented understanding of the preferences and behaviors of museum visitors has been released by the Dallas Museum of Art. The study and its findings have catalyzed fundamental changes in all aspects of the DMA’s practices and programs—from exhibition and programming development to new marketing strategies and interpretation tools—leading to a 100% increase in attendance and motivating more than 50% of the museum’s visitors to participate in its educational and public programs.

Spearheaded by Bonnie Pitman, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art, A Framework for Engaging with Art offers new insights that can be applied readily to art museums throughout the U.S. seeking to engage their audiences more deeply and to increase their attendance. Drawn from nearly 3,400 surveys conducted between 2003 and 2009, the research probes beyond traditional demographic studies, which museums have historically relied upon to better market their offerings, to ask how visitors prefer to engage with art in the museum setting. The research provides a qualitative analysis of these differing preferences—thereby enabling museums to better shape their offerings and to address varying visitor interests.

“Our findings from the Framework for Engaging with Art study answer significant questions about the role of art museums in our communities, and how we can deepen the engagement of our visitors,” said Pitman. “The research has helped us determine who visits our museum—but more importantly, it reveals how these visitors experience our collections and programs. By applying these findings, the DMA has attracted a broader audience of diverse ages and backgrounds, a goal many museums are currently working toward. The results will continue to have a profound and positive impact on the DMA for years to come, and it will be a touchstone within the museum community at large.”

Developed in conjunction with noted museum researcher Randi Korn, Founding Director of Randi Korn & Associates, the Framework for Engaging with Art study reflects Pitman’s career-long commitment to audience development and engagement. Her watershed report Excellence and Equity: Education and the Public Dimension of Museums (published in 1992) radically reframed how museums interact with their communities and set industry standards for best practices in the field. The new research will be published by the Dallas Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press this summer under the title Ignite the Power of Art: Advancing Visitor Engagement in Museum Experiences.

About the Study
First conceived in 2002, the Framework for Engaging with Art study was driven by a primary goal of deepening visitors’ connections and experiences with art at the Museum. The study posed a series of qualitative questions about the participant’s experiences, including a visitor’s comfort with looking at and talking about art, emotional reaction to art, familiarity with art historical terms, and interest in learning about the materials and techniques used or the story portrayed in an artwork. By providing a deeper understanding of the museum visitor, the research has encouraged the DMA to work collaboratively across departments to develop new innovative programs with each type of visitor in mind.

“While more traditional demographic studies may be useful for marketing purposes, we found that economic and social categories are not necessarily relevant to the needs and preferences of museum visitors, which was what we were most interested in pinpointing,” said Randi Korn. “The Framework study helped us understand different visitor groups, distinguished by their interests and comfort levels with art, and thus has allowed the Museum to develop programming that better serves its community.”

Between 2003 and 2009, the DMA administered and collected 3,394 questionnaires from visitors to the Museum and its website, and from local teachers with previous contact with the Museum. Thirty-nine indepth interviews were conducted on-site during all days and hours when the DMA is open to the public, including special late-night hours. The cumulative findings for our general visitors identified four related “visitor clusters.” These clusters, which are grouped according to individual preference for interpretation types and comfort levels with art, are:

• Observers
Of the four clusters, these visitors are only somewhat comfortable looking at art, as they have the most limited backgrounds in art and art history, and are least comfortable talking about art. They tend to prefer a guided experience at the museum—seeking straightforward explanations to help them understand what the work of art means—rather than viewing works independently. They may be new to art viewing and just beginning to experience it.

• Participants
Individuals in this cluster have stronger knowledge of and interest in art. They enjoy learning and the social aspects of their experiences. Participants have the strongest interest in connecting with works of art in a variety of ways, including through music, dance, dramatic performances, and readings. Participants enjoy the social experience of being in the galleries.

• Independents
Individuals in this group like to view a work of art independently, without explanations or interpretation. These visitors are confident about their knowledge and seek intense interactions with art. Independents are often practicing artists. The group is comfortable with art terminology and with both looking at and talking about art, and is less likely to use interpretative resources during their visit.

• Enthusiasts
This cluster is comprised of individuals who are confident, enthusiastic, knowledgeable and comfortable looking at all types of art. These visitors actively participate in a wide variety of museum programming, including discussions about art, and enjoy interpretive resources in the galleries. Of the four visitor clusters, members of this group are most emotionally affected by art, and are most interested in the artist materials and techniques, and in explaining the meaning of a work to a friend. Enthusiasts frequently use the museum and are the most likely to be members.

Study Applications at the DMA
A Framework for Engaging with Art has catalyzed innovative programming strategies and operational changes throughout the Museum. By establishing common objectives to broaden and more effectively serve its community, the research encouraged the Museum to develop a new comprehensive operational strategy that unites and integrates all departments—from visitor services and public relations to curatorial and education departments—during the programming development process. The result has been a series of new experimental initiative —including interactive exhibitions, Wi-Fi–enabled smartphone tours and special late-night events—which, in turn, have helped to effectuate increases in the DMA’s visibility, attendance, membership and public programming participation. These new initiatives include:

• The DMA’s Center for Creative Connections
One of the most significant of these new initiatives is the Museum’s Center for Creative Connections (known as C3), an experimental environment within the Museum offering interactive experiences with original works of art from the DMA’s collections. Launched in 2008, C3 presents exhibitions and programs that encourage museum-goers of all ages to explore their own creativity and introduce them to new ways of experiencing art. Programs have ranged from a two-part documentary filmmaking workshop, which was attended by Enthusiasts and Independents, to art-making and performance activities, allowing visitors to create their own interpretations of the art on view, which were particularly of interest to Participants.

• Interactive Exhibitions-Based Programs
The Framework for Engaging with Art study has also helped the DMA further activate its collections through programs that have multimedia and multidisciplinary dimensions. For example, the forthcoming collections-based exhibition Coastlines: Images of Land and Sea (opening on April 25) will feature an evocative multi-layer sound installation through the exhibition galleries. This “soundscape” will respond directly to the works on display and provide visitors with an immersive and interactive experience of the coastal landscapes presented in the show. This project builds off the experimental program offerings presented in conjunction with the recent exhibition All the World’s a Stage, which explored the intersection between performing and visual arts. The exhibition was supplemented by over 200 artist talks, performances and other programs presented in a dedicated space within the galleries, and featured a special Music Bar that invited visitors to listen to musical interludes relating to works on view. Independents appreciated hearing the artist’s voice; Participants and Enthusiasts appreciated the interactive opportunities; and Observers responded to daily films and concerts.

• Expanded smARTphone Tours and Digital Presence
The Museum has also dramatically enhanced its online presence with a redesigned website and a new series of smARTphone tours that provide direct access to supplemental information about works from the DMA’s encyclopedic holdings. Through their own Wi-Fi–enabled handheld devices, visitors can engage with the work from the Museum’s holdings in a myriad of ways: Enthusiasts may be drawn to watch a video of Jackson Pollock painting while they stand in front of the artist’s 1947 work Cathedral created with the same technique; Participants may choose to listen to excerpts from Ovid’s Metamorphoses that inspired Jacques-Louis David’s 1722 painting Apollo and Diana Attacking the Children of Niobe; or Observers may discover the meaning of the Aramaic inscriptions that appear in a Roman mosaic of Orpheus from the 1st century A.D. These smARTphone tours—which have been expanded to include the Museum’s Wendy and Emery Reves Collection and such special exhibitions as The Lens of Impressionism (on view through May 23, 2010) and African Masks: The Art of Disguise (opening on August 22, 2010)— provide interactive opportunities for visitors to learn more about art on display, whether they are standing in the galleries or sitting at their desk at home.

• Innovative Public Programs
Finally, A Framework for Engaging with Art has also encouraged the DMA to expand its public programming, in particular its successful “Late Nights” series, in which visitors are offered monthly opportunities to explore the Museum after hours through multi-disciplinary events and performances that target each of the visitor clusters. These events include “insomniac tours” led by Director Bonnie Pitman, as well as DJs in the galleries, and bedtime stories for the Museum’s youngest visitors. With its diverse group of offerings, the “Late Nights” series allows the DMA to connect with a broader community of visitors from throughout the region and country in new and unexpected ways. It also illustrates the Museum’s determination to serve as a vibrant cultural center with expanded visitor opportunities and access.

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