How can the arts engage the community in civic issues?
author: Michael Beechey
Although the
arts are sometimes seen as being on the creative but impoverished
fringes of our community, things are cooking in that kitchen.
Statistics from the US confirm this: 5.7 million arts related jobs,
revenue of $26 billion comprising 4.2% of all business. The world of
amateur and professional participation in the arts worldwide is
massive. While Canada is a much smaller market the need of humans to
connect to the invisible and to each other is universal.
One of the
roles of the arts that can be related to community engagement in
civic responsibility has been coined by Public Broadcasting station
KCTS as “Inform and Inspire”. As an inspiration and catalyst the
arts can promote and bring out the best of human beings. A sense of
civic responsibility can be as natural as singing in the shower or as
forced as an anthem. Unity is the natural condition of humans - the
challenge is to identify what blocks the natural, what contributes to
making the process forced, what raises our awareness, engages us, and
brings us together. The arts provide a platform to address these
issues.
Neuroscience
has shown that adrenalin, serotonin, and dopamine are released in
the brain when we feel emotions, and the synapses start firing in the
direction of learning. Left brain meets right brain - the arts
trigger emotion, among them feelings of idealism and the desire to
share activities, to promote discussion, such as how to build
community. The arts can be the ultimate stimulus package, stimulating
us to dialogue and action, an animating provocative motivator.
The power of
the arts in moving the heart and mind was demonstrated to us clearly
during our time at the Maxwell International School, witnessing the
incredible power of the arts to inspire youth through their Dance
Workshop, which explored themes such as unity & diversity, and
difficult social issues of racism, domestic violence and addiction.
Some of the difficult social issues we face today related to civics
and to the arts include some current attitudes: public apathy or lack
of trust in civic leadership, the perception that “The Arts”are a
mysterious, elitist activity that don't relate to daily life,
prostitution of the arts for political or commercial slogans and
jingles, art that is either overt/missionary or
abstract/inaccessible.
Here are some
quotations that express more eloquently than I can the power of the
arts:
“The arts
provide solutions to many of our most pressing social problems...the
arts are and need to be understood as .. a valuable part of
strategies to address a variety of social issues, and build vibrant,
healthy communities.” - National Arts Policy Roundtable, 2006
"If human
beings are to survive, we need all the symbolic forms at our command
because they permit us not only to preserve and pass along our
accumulated wisdom but also to give voice to the invention of new
visions." - Dr Charles Fowler
"My
husband and I believe strongly that arts education is essential for
building innovative thinkers who will be our nation's leaders of
tomorrow." - Michelle Obama
“Nothing can
take that away from us — no poverty, no abandonment, deprivation,
or disability. Creativity is, quite literally, our birthright...I
have witnessed amazing dances from people in all stages of life,
dances that communicate deeply about the experience of being human.”
- Dance educator Kate Trammell
“Therefore,
you should put forward your most earnest efforts toward the
acquisition of science and arts...The investigating mind is
attentive, alive; the callous and indifferent mind is deaf and dead.
A scientific man is a true index and representative of humanity, for
through processes of inductive reasoning and research he is informed
of all that appertains to humanity, its status, conditions and
happenings. He studies the human body politic, understands social
problems and weaves the web and texture of
civilization”...`Abdu'l-Bahá