Democracy and the Next American Economy by Henry A. J. Ramos

Author:Henry A. J. Ramos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arte Público Press
Published: 2019-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Community and Performing Arts

Theatre companies and arts centers have evolved in recent years to reflect the nation’s changing culture and demography. Their work helps to bring new understanding and appreciation to the varied experiences of diverse American communities and the ways in which mutual respect and common cause are vital to our future success as a society. During recent decades, ensemble companies ranging from Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco to About Face Theatre in Chicago, and from the 20% Theatre Company in Minneapolis to Richmond Triangle Players in Virginia77 have led the way in bringing LGBTQ identity and rights issues onto the main stage in key regions and centers across the country. Similar efforts have emerged from other leading community and performing arts groups focusing on African American experiences and perspectives—such as the Harlem Repertory Theatre in New York, Chicago-based Black Ensemble Theatre, True Colors Theatre Company in Atlanta, the Ensemble Theater in Houston and the Ashé Cultural Center in New Orleans.

Latino community cultural centers have also emerged to produce increasingly important institutional leadership and content bearing on issues of American identity and democracy; these include Teatro Repertorio Español in New York City, Company of Angels theatre group and Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural in Los Angeles, the Houston-based media and publications center Arte Público Press and, more recently, via the largely viral Latinx Theatre Commons Movement. So too have leading Asian Pacific American groups contributed mightily to our national civic discourse over recent decades through the work of such performing arts centers as East West Players in Los Angeles, New York-based Pan-Asian Repertory Theatre and Minneapolis-based Mu Preforming Arts. And powerful disability community arts leaders, such as the Oakland, CA-based AXIS Dance Company and Bodies of Work in Chicago, have further added to the nation’s increasingly rich cultural content.

In addition to these important diverse institutional leaders in culture and the performing arts, an exciting emerging population of individual public performance artists, many of them women, has made important contributions to American civic discourse about democracy and our rights and responsibilities as citizens. Progressive creators of important concept and public engagement art, such as North Carolina-based artist and activist Sheryl Oring, Detroit-based multi-media innovator Maya Stovall and New York performance artist Emma Sulkowicz, have also advanced the impact of art on our evolving civic culture. Each of these cultural leaders has supported highly innovative, engaging and interactive works in recent years that are emblematic of an emerging new focus on contemporary social issues in the arts. Important recent works by these artists actively provoke their viewers to ponder contemporary issues and new possibilities related to our civic identity and democratic values.

I Wish to Say—Sheryl Oring’s “I Wish to Say” project (some would call it guerrilla theater) has encouraged new opportunities for Americans of diverse backgrounds to comment on the issues and concerns of the day all across the nation. Oring and, in some cases, select other women who she assembles in teams sit at desks stationed in well-trafficked rush hour locations, dressed as 1960s office secretaries.

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