Sacramento, June 7, 2001
Invited to present their experience and perspectives on the topic were Sara Greensfelder of the California Indian Basketweavers Association, Joel Jacinto from Kayamanan Ng Lahi Philippine Folk Arts, Kaiwi Pang and Ka'ala Pang of the Pacific Islander Community Council, and Eugene Rodriguez from Los Cenzontles Mexican Art Center.
Amy Kitchener, ACTA Project Director, introduced the panel with the following remarks:
Our panel on the topic of strategies for sustaining traditional arts features five speakers, each with significant experience and success in fostering traditional arts at the community level. When I asked Ka'ala and Kaiwi Pang to be on the panel, I knew that they had a very strong model for Pacific Islanders, and I think we can see that demonstrated here today [The Pangs organized a large delegation to attend the conference in Sacramento, many of whom were in the audience]. They can help us learn how to build infrastructure around traditional arts in our communities, by their own example. The other panelists have all been involved in different kinds of activities that help sustain traditional arts, promote advocacy, bring funding to sustain traditions - all working in different ways in their communities. I wanted to bring this group together to hear about what each of these groups has done and then to look at what we could learn from these groups in building our statewide infrastructure. We can learn from these models and create new ones based on the collective experience here.
I've asked each panelist to describe their organization, why the organization was put together, the challenges, the successes, what they've learned from their experiences that maybe other traditional artists and groups might benefit from. We will have a group discussion after each of them has presented.
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