By Anya Slepyan for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration
As the 2024 election approached, news channels and commentators once again revived a familiar narrative: the urban-rural divide.
But Laura Zabel, executive director of Minnesota-based arts non-profit Springboard for the Arts, was more interested in urban-rural solidarity.
“Going into an election year, we knew that there was going to be a lot of narrative that focused on ways we might be different, or ways that people assume we’re different,” Zabel said. “And we wanted to do something to not only counter that narrative, but to help people build real relationships and real solidarity across urban and rural places.”
Stoking resentment between urban and rural communities serves to divide largely working-class constituencies that could gain more political power if they work together, Zabel said. Emphasizing what these communities have in common, across different geographies and demographics, can help counter that divide. But it’s not easy to overcome a narrative that is so deeply ingrained that many Americans take it for granted.
So Springboard for the Arts launched a new initiative, consisting of over 35 artists working on projects across Minnesota, Michigan, Kentucky, and Colorado that connect urban and rural communities. The installations include phone booths that connect communities in rural Northfield, Minnesota and Minneapolis, a culinary project that celebrates the fusion of a chef’s Southeast Asian roots and rural midwestern upbringing, and a Kentucky poetry slam honoring the renowned theorist and professor bell hooks.
The results, Zabel said, demonstrate “all of the different ways that we’re connected, and all of the different creative ways that we might reach out to one another and build that kind of understanding.”
Using art projects to foster connection and understanding is effective, according to Zabel, because they leave room for nuance and complexity that is often flattened by media narratives. Creative projects can also help people approach new ideas with a more open mind, she said.
“Art has a tremendous ability to build shared experience in ways that takes people outside of their comfort zone, or makes people more open to thinking of things in a different way,” Zabel said.
A project installed in two Minnesota elementary schools demonstrates the principles behind the projects. Artist David Hamlow worked with 2nd and 3rd graders in rural St. James and urban Minneapolis to design wall sculptures made of recycled materials. Each student was also given a yearbook photo of a participating student from the other school, and asked to incorporate that picture into the sculpture. The resulting walls of faces serve a purpose similar to pen pals, according to Zabel.
The youth-focused project also hopes to reach urban and rural children before they’ve internalized the harmful stereotypes these communities can apply to one another.
Project installations by the initial class of 35 artists are ongoing, but Zabel hopes to expand the initiative further in coming years.
“I think that if we are able to build greater understanding and connection, and help people see a more complete picture of what it looks like to live in different contexts, we end up finding out that there is a lot of shared interest and shared hope for our future and our children,” Zabel said.
Anya Slepyan wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.
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Sixty years ago this weekend, young activists marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, demanding their right to vote and changing history in the process. Today, another group of young people is using art to make their voices heard in Georgia.
A Boston-based arts group, beheard.world, has teamed up with Selma-area teens for “Selma Again,” a production that blends dance, spoken word and music to shed light on the struggles the city still faces today.
Director and choreographer Anna Myer said the performance is about pushing forward, as well as looking back.
“The piece talks about real things that are happening and things that go to the heart,” she said, “and it also talks about love and the only way forward is love and the only way to keep moving forward is if we do this together.”
Myer said she first visited Selma years ago and was struck by how poverty and crime persist despite its historic significance. She and her husband, filmmaker Jay Paris, along with Selma natives, helped create a nonprofit initiative to blend nonviolence education, performing arts and storytelling for local youth.
It’s part of the Selma Cross-Cultural Nonviolence and Performing Arts Academy, which was co-founded by Dallas County natives and civil rights veterans Charles Bonner and Viola Douglas, along with the Rev. Gary Crum of Elwood Christian Church. Through poetry and dance, teens confront modern challenges and honor past civil rights leaders.
Myer said this year’s production highlights how today’s youth can step into the legacy of activism left by the “foot soldiers” of the 1960s.
“In the performance in Atlanta, we’re honoring civil rights veterans who are still alive – Andrew Young, and Charles Steele, and Faya Rose Sanders, and Lynda Blackmon Lowery,” she added. “We’re honoring them and we’ll be also speaking their names in the piece.”
“Selma Again” will be performed today (Fri., March 7) at Morehouse College’s Ray Charles Performing Arts Center in Atlanta, and Sat., March 8, at Ellwood Christian Academy in Selma, as part of the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee.
Myer emphasized the show’s ultimate goal is to spark meaningful conversations, promote understanding and inspire action for lasting change.
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Music lessons. A trip to the theater. Experiences like these can help students recover from cataclysmic natural disasters like the LA fires, according to experts in music and the brain.
Research shows that learning to play an instrument improves listening skills and language development.
Neuroscientist and Associate Professor Assal Habibi, PhD, is director of the Center for Music, Brain, and Society at the University of Southern California, Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences.
She said music students see improved decision-making, planning, and focus.
“We’re not just giving them a toolbox of musicianship,” said Habibi, “but we are giving them a toolbox to have better emotion regulation and better impulse control, and perhaps better respond to stressors around them when natural disaster happens in their environment.”
The center works with children in the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, and researchers noticed improved resilience during and after the COVID lockdowns.
They’re also working with several children affected by the Altadena fire – kids who are part of the Los Angeles Children’s Choir, which is based in nearby Pasadena.
Habibi said participation in musical and art experiences is especially helpful in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event, because it facilitates access to emotion.
“Some of these students may not be able to really express what is going on for them, and the fear and anger around all that happened so fast,” said Habibi. “But by going to seeing a musical performance, it gives them a connection and access to their emotion and a way to express themselves.”
As schools rebuild after the fires, Habibi said she hopes art and music education will be available to help students recover and flourish.
Disclosure: University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters Arts and Sciences and USC Price School of Public Policy contributes to our fund for reporting on Arts & Culture, Cultural Resources, Social Justice. If you would like to help support news in the public interest,
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By Brianne Sanchez for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mark Moran for Iowa News Service reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration
At the close of his whirlwind 2024, Caleb “The Negro Artist” Rainey paused to reflect. The Iowa City-based poet likened a year filled with career-validating recognition to ‘someone turning a spotlight on’ to illuminate his creative and community work.
“It’s like that moment in a play where everyone else freezes, and you get to step forward,” Rainey says. No single project catapulted his career. “A whole lot of people hit the lights at the same time for me. You prepare for something for so long, and then when it happens, it’s exciting and overwhelming.”
Over the past 12 months, many of Rainey’s wildest dreams have come true. He shared the stage with his hero, headliner Rudy Francisco, at the Mic Check Poetry Fest. (Grant funding from Arts Midwest helped support that event, which Rainey co-produces.) He launched ‘Looking Back at Black Iowans,’ a pioneering workshop series that engaged hundreds of high school students by bridging poetry and the state’s diverse cultural heritage. He created a new format for open-mic programming and expanded emerging artist mentorship. A documentary film about Rainey’s ascent as a spoken word poet and teacher premiered at Iowa’s Pearson Lakes Art Center and in Los Angeles.
In November, Rainey received an Iowa Author Award for poetry from the Des Moines Public Library Foundation.
“I’m always telling young people, if you have a poem that you’re ready with, then that opportunity will show up,” says Rainey, who facilitates IC Speaks workshops in Iowa City high schools. “Always stay ready so you don’t have to get ready.”
That attitude led to performance opportunities at events like the Okoboji Writers’ and Songwriters’ Retreat, which amplified his exposure and expanded his network. His infectious enthusiasm also caught the attention of collaborator Lisa Roberts, nonprofit founder of Iowa City Poetry. She witnessed Rainey remain undaunted by early-career rejections.
“I’ve learned a lot from [Caleb’s] ideas that, if you don’t see what you need, then make it happen,” Roberts says. “Don’t fret too long about not being invited into the club. Make your own club. That’s what he’s done. Then, he’s invited everyone else in.”
Committing to His Creative Practice
Now, Rainey is asking himself what comes after attaining so many of his dreams. He recognizes he still has so much to learn as a poet, performer, and youth facilitator.
At the beginning of 2024, Rainey chose to focus on the word ‘discipline’ and explore how he could be more attentive to his creative practice. 2025 will be about staying “centered.”
Conducting his monthly ‘poetry potluck’ prompt on Instagram with fellow Iowa poet Kelsey Bigelow is one way Rainey ensures he remains consistently engaged with his craft and in touch with a community that inspires him. On the first Monday of every month, followers submit words he incorporates into a completed poem that he shares the first Friday.
“The biggest thing that I had to learn when it came to the discipline of my writing process is to be dedicated to answering the phone when inspiration calls,” Rainey says.
Brianne Sanchez wrote this story for Arts Midwest.
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