The arts, serving the public good

Posted 11/16/12

More than 500 people turned out to see The Weather Project performance on Saturday evening at the Yulan ball field. In doing so, each one of these audience members cast a vote (witting or not) in …

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The arts, serving the public good

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More than 500 people turned out to see The Weather Project performance on Saturday evening at the Yulan ball field. In doing so, each one of these audience members cast a vote (witting or not) in support of the arts in the Upper Delaware River region. In addition, 73 area residents acted, sang, danced or otherwise performed, including many adults and children who had never participated in a play before. Among the spectators, too, were those who had never come out to see a work produced by the NACL Theatre, confirming that the arts can draw new audiences and facilitate the development of community at its best.

The play was about three school students and their science project presentation, which is interrupted by a great storm that blows them to a strange dream world (reminiscent of Dorothy’s trip to Oz) peopled by solar-advocating munchkins (played by local children), cloud collectors (who stirred up mischief in the heavens), a trio of dastardly fossil-fuel villains (whom the crowd booed with delight), an angry and distressed mermaid (who counted animal species as they become extinct with every ringing of a bell), ominous stilt-walking characters (who hovered threateningly over the play’s other characters), and a scientist (played by a real NASA scientist) who carried the message to all humanity to live more simply without so much stuff and to “use less.” Naturally there were other messages, too.

Some of the impending consequences of climate change were tough to hear, but the medium in which they were presented made the information more accessible and strangely more palatable because everyone present was having so much fun. And there was hope expressed in the play, with a flock of children, dressed in all white, waving white paper “doves” of peace and hope.

The Weather Project Community Play, which under the wing of the NACL’s creative director Tannis Kowalchuk, was just one evening out of countless evenings year-round when the region’s residents and visitors alike can partake of the fine talents of the diverse community of local artists who enrich our society—from painters and sculptors to writers and poets, from composers and musicians to filmmakers and playwrights and more.

Following on the unquestionable success of The Weather Project, the role of the arts in our local communities is worth contemplating. What do the arts contribute to life in the Upper Delaware River Valley, and how do the arts enrich us all?

We’d like to share some of our thoughts.

The arts can:

• Create new connections between people

• Engage and strengthen participation in community

• Produce new perspectives and ways of seeing the

world

• Start a public conversation

• Inspire transformative change

• Allow people to release their creative genius

• And let us not leave out how the arts contribute to our local economies, through their impact on tourism, attracting visitors to various venues in our area.

We could go on. But the point is that the creative arts, of the kind on display in Yulan on Saturday, ask us to reexamine what sort of world, country or community do we want to live in.

The Weather Project Community Play took the audience (and, yes, those who participated, too) on a on a journey they didn’t know they wanted to go on beforehand. Whether it produces new perspectives and ways of seeing the world, starts a public conversation or inspires transformative change remains to be seen, but it certainly did create new connections between people, engage new members of the community and allow people to release their creative genius. That, in our mind, is a pretty good start.

And so today we salute Tannis Kowalchuk, the NACL Theatre and all of the participants who helped TWP to happen, and all of those who came to see it. By extending NACL’s art beyond the walls of its theatre, it brought an important issue to a new and wider audience. It helped make the subject of climate change more approachable by taking the audience and the play’s participants on a journey they didn’t know they wanted to go on beforehand.

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