Community Creativity under Austerity

In Culture of Possibility #38, Arlene Goldbard talks with Sebastian Ruth, Founder & Artistic Director and Resident Musician at Community MusicWorks in Providence, Rhode Island.
CMW describes itself as a “community-based organization that uses music education and performance as a vehicle to build lasting and meaningful relationships between children, families, and professional musicians.” Its resident musicians form a string ensemble that commissions and performs work in concert while students receive free string lessons and take part in an ongoing community of peers.
In this conversation Arlene and Sebastian explore the complex question of how classical music can connect with community arts and cultural democracy.

David Francis comes from Dumfries in the south west of Scotland, but cut his musical teeth in the north east, playing for bands like Desperate Danz Band. He moved to Edinburgh in the 1990s and became a central figure in traditional music: performing with Mairi Campbell in the successful duo The Cast while occupying key positions in the Scottish Arts Council traditional music section and the Edinburgh Folk Festival.
In Culture of Possibility #37, Arlene Goldbard talks with David Francis, who currently acts as Director of the Traditional Music Forum in Scotland, about its impressive network of traditional musicians, preservation, reinvention, formal and informal education, Scottish cultural policy and funding, and the whole tapestry of issues, questions, and possibilities it engages.

In Culture of Possibility #36 – the podcast’s third anniversary — Arlene Goldbard and Miaaw.net guru Owen Kelly will talk about cultural work and spirituality.
Some community artists reject non-material understandings, but Owen and Arlene each find their work infused with spiritual ideas and practices — albeit very different ones.
Is spirituality necessarily non-material? What can spiritual practice bring to our work? How can ideas and stories from sacred texts infuse and inform work for cultural democracy? How can they connect rather than separate us?

Judith Marcuse has become one of Canada’s senior artist/producers, with an international career that spans over 50 years as dancer, choreographer, director, producer, teacher, writer and lecturer. In 2007 she founded the International Centre of Art for Social Change, initially as a partnership with Simon Fraser University, where she was appointed an adjunct professor.
Marcuse acted as the lead investigator of a six-year (2013- 19), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council-funded national study on art for social change, the first of its kind in Canada, which involved some 50 Canadian artists and scholars.
On Culture of Possibility podcast #35, Arlene Goldbard talks with Judith Marcuse, based in British Columbia, Canada, and a powerhouse of imagination, production, and advocacy for more than 40 years. Among her projects have been large-scale multi-arts festivals; multi-year collaborative projects with youth; a major, Canada-wide study of community engaged art for social change; a national mentorship project; and a national network.
In January, JMP and ICASC will go into hibernation because of severe funding challenges plaguing the sector; of some 400 Canadian organizations doing community-engaged arts for social change work, 38% have closed over the last few years.
Arlene talks with Judith about her work, her long view of community-based cultural work in Canada, the sector’s financial precarity, the challenges and opportunities to come.

On Culture of Possibility podcast #34, François Matarasso and Arlene Goldbard talk with Ralph Lister, executive director of Take Art in rural Somerset, England.
Take Art has been offering rural touring, projects in dance, theatre, and other arts practices, and working with artists and community groups, including schools, hospitals, day centres, youth clubs and early childhood education for going on four decades.
In this episode, they look at the ways perception, funding, and policy frameworks differ for rural and urban communities, how rural projects are networking and collaborating across Europe, and about the remarkable work Take Art has been able to carry forward, even in challenging times.

On Culture of Possibility podcast #33, François Matarasso and Arlene Goldbard realize that, having talked a great deal about cultural democracy, they have yet to dive into the second half of that topic.
Many people take democracy for granted, but what is it really: certainly more than majority rule and voting every once in a while.
Where is it practiced? What’s standing in the way of democracy’s full realization and what can we do about it? How can culture advance democracy?

On Culture of Possibility podcast #32, François Matarasso and Arlene Goldbard talk with Caron Atlas of Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts New York (NOCD-NY) and Arts & Democracy, two excellent groups that bridge culture, communities, and policy.
Caron shares a wealth of stories of how creativity can be built into the fabric of communities, informing life on the ground as well as policymaking, including NOCD-NY’s recent forum to reimagine New York City.
Learn about participatory budget, trust-based funding, and much, much more.

On Culture of Possibility podcast #31, François Matarasso and Arlene Goldbard talk with Maribel Legarda, artistic director, and Beng Cabangon, executive director of the Philippines Educational Theater Association, PETA, founded in 1967!
PETA is an amazing amalgam of in-person performance, streaming, workshops, and festivals, led by a large group of artist-teachers, many of whom began as teenagers. We talk about PETA’s creative strategies to navigate massive political changes, the pandemic, and radical shifts in the support environment.
You will want to know more about this inspiring, resilient, community-based group.