Goldring Arts Journalism

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Johanna Keller, Director of the Goldring Arts Journalism Program at Syracuse University, talks to Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. This conversation appeared in "Artwise," the program book for a national symposium held at Syracuse University in November 2004.

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A decade ago, Dana Gioia was a high-powered Manhattan corporate executive who had stepped off the fast track. A native of California, he moved back to Sonoma and spent his time writing poems, editing literary anthologies, co-directing a poetry conference, and writing reviews of the San Francisco music scene. Then in 2003, he was appointed head of the National Endowment for the Arts and he embarked on one of the most dynamic and activist chairmanships since Nancy Hanks became the NEA's first leader in 1969. In record time, Gioia has founded numerous new initiatives and revitalized the nation's arts agency.

KELLER: When you were confirmed as NEA chair in 2003, you arrived in Washington to find an agency still reeling from attacks during the 1990 "culture wars." At that time the very existence of government arts funding was in peril. In an astonishingly short time, you've changed the national conversation about the NEA and succeeded in getting Congress to increase the NEA appropriations. Washington is a tough town. How did you set about changing the perception of the NEA?

GIOIA: My argument is this simple: funding for the arts is not controversial. Most people want arts in their communities and schools, but they want to have a voice in how it happens. The fact is, during its history, the NEA has given over 120,000 grants-and only about a dozen were controversial. Journalists knew about the controversial ones, but not about the 120,000 success stories. Few people realize their local theater is helped by NEA-we're in every community. We had to get the real story out there. And we also had to have a new national initiative of undeniable quality that reaches a broad public.

KELLER: You must be talking about the new Shakespeare theater program, in which American theater companies are sent on tour. I read that performances have taken place in more than 100 cities so far-

GIOIA: Yes, and I'm proudest of the fact that almost none of those cities had access to professional live drama. In fact, for a small town called Waycross, Georgia, it was the first Shakespeare performance there in history. For me, the turning point came when we got the Department of Defense to give us $1 million to tour military bases, giving free performances, school visits and seminars.

Many of our military are married with children and it's important for the NEA to reach these nearly 4 million citizens we hadn't reached before. Now we have 30 companies touring over 200 cities, 16 military bases and 1,000 schools. By next year we will have brought 1 million high school students their first live experience of Shakespeare. These great plays are part of the regular school curriculum, and it helps teachers to be able to take the class to see the play that's being taught. We also provide free educational materials for 25,000 high schools, which reach millions of kids.

Through this program we have more than 500 actors employed performing Shakespeare and one of the touring groups has a Native American cast. Also more than 200 local presenters, many of whom had never been involved in the arts, are now presenting classical drama. All in all, we are strengthening America's arts infrastructure. But the most important thing is to create not only a new generation of actors, but a new generation of audience.

KELLER: This past July the NEA published "Reading at Risk," a deeply disturbing survey that documented a shocking decline of reading in this country. What kind of response did you get?

GIOIA: There was enormous national and international coverage-over 1,000 articles have been written about it. We have not solved the problems, but we have called attention to them and broke through the complacency of our culture that was based on Harry Potter and Oprah Winfrey. Our very carefully researched report reached thousands of influential people concerned about intellectual and imaginative impoverishment. The report is scary, not just for the future of literature, but for society. People who read are three times more like to get involved in volunteer and charity work and to attend cultural events. Our task now is to inspire effective national programs so that together we can arrest and reverse these very serious trends.

KELLER: Is research a new area for the NEA?

GIOIA: The NEA has never before served as an effective public source for information and ideas, but I believe it ought to. The FBI, for instance, issues crime statistics, and the Federal Reserve, money supply data. As America's official arts agency, we should be a source for reliable and useful data on the arts and arts education. We should not dictate arts policy but help local arts organizations make their own decisions by having information at hand. This data helps artists and organizations understand if their problems are unique or part of a national trend.

KELLER: Some of our greatest writers, such as Ralph Ellison and Ernest Hemingway, have served in the military or during wartime. You just started another new program, Operation Homecoming that gives writing workshops to encourage soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq to write their wartime stories to be published in an anthology. How is that program going?

GIOIA: After we announced it, we were deluged with phone calls and emails. Soldiers called us on their cell phones from Kabul and Baghdad, parents asked us to include their sons and daughters. We have never seen such a powerful public response. We got the money from Boeing and I went back to them for more money explaining that the program wasn't going to be big enough. Thanks to them, we have doubled the program to 20 bases with 40 major American writers involved.

KELLER: I'm especially impressed by the NEA's Nuestra Musica program that presents Latino music and the Jazz masters programs-

GIOIA: We just expanded our jazz program and added a 50 state national tour, along with television documentaries about the jazz masters. We need to give honor and recognition to artists, helping them reach new audiences.

For Black History Month, we also provide a course for high school students about jazz with teaching materials, CDs, posters, everything that can help our teachers in the classrooms.

KELLER: How do you answer the critics who charge that the arts are elitist? Despite all the successes, there are still the occasional attacks-

GIOIA: Yes, Rush Limbaugh devoted two shows to attacking me. But last year for the first time, in addition to state and regional money, the NEA got a direct grant into every one of the 435 congressional districts in this country. In the past, we've only hit about ¾ of them. Many of these districts were rural, many of the arts organizations were Hispanic or Asian. We can now say we are really reaching every community in the U.S. I have never believed that quality and access are contradictory.

KELLER: As you know, we are starting a new program at Syracuse University to train the arts journalists of the future. But so much needs to be done for the arts writers who are out there in the field right now. So I'm especially pleased that you started a new program to help working arts critics learn more about their craft, to teach them more about theater and opera and dance. Why is the NEA concerned about arts critics?

GIOIA: One of the major problems facing the arts in America today is that they have been largely ignored by the media. Radio and television especially have made no place for arts coverage. People can't attend arts events they don't know about and children don't get interested in the arts if they've never been exposed to it. The health of the arts in America depends on local and national coverage. Arts journalism is one of the most important levers for helping the arts in the U.S. You may give money to a symphony orchestra or to a theater, but if they don't receive coverage and reviews in their own community, they can't receive the recognition and local support to become self-sustatining. Most newspapers cannot afford to have a full-time music or drama critic and so the arts writers are usually moonlighting from another desk. This year we are just beginning to try to help and we are planning more critic institutes in the future

KELLER: Here in Syracuse, Richard Florida has created a stir with his message of the arts as an engine of economic development. Does that argument play in your scenario for the importance of the arts?

GIOIA: I agree with Richard Florida's views on creative communities and the economic impact on the arts. But for me those arguments are secondary. Even though the arts are indisputably good for economic development, I don't believe that is the prime reason the states should support the arts. In fact, the arts play an essential role in education, in building communities, and in human development. Without incorporating the arts in education, American will not produce citizens who realize their full human potential.

A shorter version of this conversation appeared in the Post-Standard on November 13, 2004.