Wednesday, June 11, 2:00-3:30pm
Celebrate the performing community and share exciting visions of what the future of the performing arts could be!
Hosted by Anna Deavere Smith, playwright, actor, professor
Performance: Denver March Pow Wow
Introduction by Dana Gioia, chairman, National Endowment for the Arts
Denver 2028:
Introduced by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper
Presented by Erin Trapp, Director, Denver Office of Cultural Affairs
You'll hear inspiring stories of successful community-building with the arts, from two distinct and compelling perspectives: Oregon Shakespeare Festival artistic director Bill Rauch talks about creating performance in partnership with community; and Denver's Mayor John Hickenlooper and Cultural Affairs Director Erin Trapp, present Denver's deeply researched and carefully crafted vision for a healthy performing arts future in 2028.
Don't miss this exciting session. It will lay the foundation for ideas that will be discussed and challenged throughout the Convention. These views and an action plan will be voted on and formalized at the final session led by AmericaSpeaks on Saturday—a plan that will send the performing arts community out ready to take action together.
Thursday, June 12, 12noon-1:00pm
Best-selling author Jim Collins discusses his groundbreaking theory on what makes the difference between a "good" organization and a "great" one, and how to achieve superior performance in the social sector.
Read selections from Jim Collins's monograph From Good to Great and the Social Sectors.
Friday, June 13, 1:30pm-3:00pm
Celebrate the innovative work being done in other countries by our speakers. Each one has introduced bold strategies that establish the arts at the center of community life. Meet José Antonio Abreu, the visionary founder of El Sistema, the Venezuelan music education miracle, and Germaine Acogny, considered by many to be the "mother of contemporary African Dance." Moderated by Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Artists:
José Antonio Abreu, founder, El Sistema
Germaine Acogny, founder, Centre for Traditional and Contemporary African Dances
Moderated by Marin Alsop, music director, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Performance by Colorado Children's Chorale, Debbie DeSantis, music director
Meet two extraordinary leaders who have created innovative programs that are changing the way performing arts are perceived in their countries and building powerful relationships with their communities. These pioneers will inspire you as they offer dramatic models of what is possible.
José Antonio Abreu is the founder of El Sistema, the Venezuelan music miracle that has changed a country's perception of classical music and created a national program of music education and performance for the underprivileged.
Germaine Acogny is an award-winning dancer and choreographer and the found of an International Centre for Traditional and Contemporary African Dances in Senegal: a meeting point for dancers coming from Africa and all over the world, a place of professional education for dancers from the whole of Africa with the aim to guide them toward a contemporary African dance.
Moderator Marin Alsop will weave together these real life examples of the potential for the performing arts with strong leadership, purpose and vision.
Caucuses are Wednesday, 4:00pm-5:30pm; Thursday, 10:15am-11:30am; Friday, 10:00am-11:30am
In preparation for Saturday morning's 21st Century Town Meeting three caucus sessions will be held, one each day Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The caucuses are designed to cull ideas, identify a shared vision and shared strategies for consideration on Saturday, one aimed at ensuring a strong future for the performing arts in the years to come.
The caucuses will be broken into round tables of ten. Each table will engage in a facilitated cross-disciplinary conversation which will identify goals and action steps toward a vital performing arts future. Each caucus will have a core question and a specific outcome, and the responses of all of the tables will be compiled every day and shared with the full convention to form the basis of the following day's work.
The National Performing Arts Convention has engaged AmericaSpeaks to lead this process of caucuses leading to our town meeting, using methods and technologies that they have refined in over a decade of work nationwide helping citizens be heard on important issues. You'll find a level playing field where every voice is equal, where all ideas are written down and considered. Join the discussions—let your ideas, opinions, and hopes help shape the ideas, opinions, and hopes of others. Click here to view the AmericaSpeaks video.
Saturday, June 14, 10:00am-12:30pm
The ideas that surface at the caucuses the previous three days will be addressed at Saturday morning's 21st Century Town Meeting. Using the latest technologies, topics will be consolidated, discussed and voted upon by thousands of your peers, each with an individual touch pad. Results will be projected on large video screens in order to identify and hone strategies to be ratified by this newly unified performing arts community.
At this concluding session, you delegates representing all the performing arts disciplines will help agree upon and commit to strategies that will affect how the arts will be perceived now and in the coming years: by our communities; by national, state, and local governments; by our supporters; and by our audiences. Let your voice be heard, and your vote count, so that we will speak with one voice and together ensure a vital future for the performing arts.