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We've Moved!
The Alliance for California Traditional Arts’ San Francisco office
has moved! Please update your address books!
Mailing Address:
Alliance for California Traditional Arts
The Presidio
P.O. Box 29096
San Francisco, CA 94129
Physical Address:
Alliance for California Traditional Arts
1007 General Kennedy Avenue, Suite 211
San Francisco, CA 94129
Amy Kitchener, Executive Director
(415) 346-8700
akitch@actaonline.org
Sherwood Chen, Associate Director
(415) 346-3800
sherwood@actaonline.org
Lily Kharrazi, Living Cultures Grants Program Manager
(415) 346-5200
lilyk@actaonline.org
Please note that the Alliance’s Fresno
office contact information has not changed.
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Creating Compelling Work Samples –
The Alliance’s Work Sample
Laboratory
Sherwood Chen, Associate Director, Alliance for California Traditional
Arts
Lily Kharrazi, LCGP Manager, Alliance for California Traditional Arts
The Alliance for California Traditional Arts launched its first ever Traditional
Arts Roundtable Series in San
Francisco last month. With
support from the San
Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Program,
this series is a free, participatory monthly gathering for folk, traditional,
and tradition-based artists and arts advocates. Focusing
on specific themes, these meetings offer opportunities to engage in
discussion, networking, and technical assistance in order to develop
localized, critical community amongst folk and traditional artists
and their allies.
On February 10, 2008, the series opened with Work Sample Laboratory
and Critiques, hosted by San Francisco independent media arts center Bay
Area Video Coalition. Designed as a roundtable to discuss and
the importance of work samples that are required for most grant applications
for visual and performing artists, the session featured the viewpoints
of three experienced professionals who have had a history of working
with folk and traditional artists and who are seasoned in reviewing work
samples themselves. The featured participants included Frances
Phillips, Senior Program Officer of the Walter & Elise
Haas Fund and Director of the Creative
Work Fund; Kutay Derin Kugay, Program Director of Door
Dog Music/San Francisco World Music Festival and host of KPFA’s
weekly show Music
of the World; and Rob Bailis, Director of ODC
Theater.
Attended by a diverse range of attendees representing dance companies,
cultural festival organizers, individual artists, and traditional arts
nonprofits and cultural centers, a portion of the afternoon served as
an open lab for participants to share examples of their own work samples,
for discussion and feeback by other participants. Those who shared
work samples included Gautam Tejas Ganeshan, Indian Carnatic musician
and founder of the Sangati Center;
videographer, photographer, and Guinean percussion student Rick Rocamora; Capoiera
Institute of Berkeley; classical Cambodian dancer and filmmaker Prumsodun
Ok; Japanese Cultural Fair of Santa
Cruz; Voice of Roma; and Diamano
Coura West African Dance Company.
The rich conversation sprung from the experiences of both the panel
and the participants. Some “do’s and don’t’s” that
came out of the conversation are listed below and are points to consider
when putting together a work sample to accompany a grant application:
- Make sure you do not submit a blank DVD or CD! Be sure to test
your work sample on multiple systems, as what may work on one laptop
may not work on a DVD player, and you never know what a review panel
will use to observe your work.
- Consider that most review panels have limited time, and frequently
review work samples for anywhere from 2 to 4 minutes, or 10 slide (power
point) images maximum. Though that poses an immense challenge
for artists who want to demonstrate their breadth, range, and the complexity
of their work, it is important you anticipate such a narrow window
of time in sharing your work. Cue your tapes exactly to the few
minutes you definitely want panelists to view/hear; consider creating
a separate track or chapter on a CD or DVD to show a specific excerpt. You
might want to include longer excerpts or an entire work to give panelists
more options to view work samples in the event that they wish to.
- Sound and image quality are very important. Do what you can
to capture your work in the clearest fashion.
- Know your funder. Are they committed to certain values that
you can emphasize in your work sample? For example, are they
interested in arts education, community involvement, creation or performance? Knowing
this will help you shoot or edit your work sample.
- Be sure to reflect the diversity, cultural communities and/or multiple
generations in your setting. Sometimes it is critical and impactful
to show the people who make up your community/audience.
- To maximize your work sample’s impact, avoid repeating in your
work sample what has already been written in your proposal.
- For many traditional artists, there can be a fine line between elucidating
the sophistication, nuance, and/or context of a specific tradition
that will critically inform panelists with a given form, and over-simplifying
or “dumbing down” the information for fear that review
panelists may know nothing at all about the form. Spending time
developing precise language about your art/community is well worth
the effort and will help elucidate your work sample. This is
can be a “boiler plate” statement to use in many grant
applications.
- Excessive video editing, including frequent cuts in continuity, are
typically viewed as poor representation of one’s work, and may
raise flags to the quality and integrity of an artist’s work.
- For performing artists, excerpts of one or two pieces maximum often
times are more effective than showing a collage or repertory of work. On
the other hand, for festivals or cultural events, sometimes it can
be advantageous to show the breadth of programming and audiences which
may participate in your event.
- Though accessibility to grantmakers can vary dramatically, remember
that often, grantmakers capture panel review discussions about your
proposal and work sample, and can provide valuable feedback or technical
assistance to you so that you can strengthen future work samples.
Attendee Rick Rocamora, who is himself a student of Guinean drumming
and frequently documents the work of San Francisco Bay Area Guinean dancers
and musicians, summed up the roundtable lab in this way: “Talented
artists are not getting the recognition or getting grants because of
their lack of experience and knowledge of various ways to present their
case or promote their work. The sample lab opened up new windows
for them to share and highlight their art to a broader audience. It
also validates the great need to help artists in promoting and documenting
their performances.”
Don’t miss the upcoming Traditional Arts
Roundtable Sessions this
spring and summer! Our next session, Ethnic and
Mainstream Media Today, on March 19, 2008, is
free to the public. Join us!
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Attention San Francisco Bay Area Folk, Traditional, and Tradition-Based
Artists, Organizations, and Advocates!
The Alliance for California Traditional Arts launches its Traditional
Arts Roundtable Series, a free, participatory monthly series of gatherings
at various locations in San Francisco for folk, traditional, and tradition-based
artists and arts advocates.
Sessions focus on specific themes and offer opportunities to engage
in discussion, networking, and technical assistance in order to develop
local, critical community amongst folk and traditional artists and their
allies.
To receive announcements regarding the rest of this series, please contact
us, call (415) 346-3800, or check this web page often for updates. This
pilot series is made possible with support from the
San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Grants Program.
Join us for these upcoming sessions!
Ethnic and Mainstream Media Today
Date: Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Time: 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Location: ZeroDivide/Community Technology Foundation, 425 Bush
Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94108
Description: With the “new” majority in California clearly
not the classic mainstream, what resources are available in the media? How
is this new America represented? How does media coverage help or
hinder you and your work? This convening will invite media workers
to discuss the changing and expanding field that is both of vital importance
to artists who depend on publicity, as well as artists who wish to see
coverage of ethnic America break the barrier of exotica. Space
limited. Light dinner served. RSVP required.
Featured Participants:
Jamal Dajani - Director of Middle Eastern Programming, LinkTV
Andrew Lam – Writer; Editor, New
America Media
Samuel Orozco – Senior Producer, Radio
Bilingüe (National Latino Public Radio Network)
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Audience Development and Marketing
Date: Saturday, April 5, 2008
Time: 10:00 am to 2:00 pm
Location: The San Francisco Foundation, 225 Bush Street, Suite 500, San
Francisco, CA 94104
Description: Considered one of the most pressing concerns amongst past
and present Alliance program participants, this session will highlight
community-specific strategies to strengthen audiences, as well as examine
innovative examples to identify new audiences for traditional artists
and community groups.
Featured Participants:
Eugene Rodriguez – Director, Los
Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center
Celine Schein – Executive Director, Chitresh
Das Dance Company
Mother Tongues: Language Preservation, Interpretation and The Power
of Words
Date: Sunday, April 27, 2008
Time: 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Location: Bayanihan Community Center, 1010 Mission Street, San Francisco,
CA 94103
Description: In an English-dominant world, what role does language play
in cultural transmission, heritage and intergenerational relations? Join
a rich discussion with indigenous, newcomer, and first- and second- generation
born folk and traditional artists, storytellers and singers to discuss
language impacts, best practices and challenges around language preservation,
perpetuation and cultural transmission.
Featured Participants:
L. Frank – Advocates for Indigenous California
Language Survival
Shawna Alapa’i – Kumu Hula master
Ruben Guzman – Mexican cartonería artist
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Multiculturalism and Diversity in Community Arts Education
Chike Nwoffiah (left), Executive Director, Oriki
Theater (MountainView, CA) and Liz Lerman, Founding Artistic
Director, Liz Lerman Dance
Exchange (Washington, DC).
Photos:courtesy of National Guild of Community Schools of the
Arts
At the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts Conference in
Los Angeles in November 2007, Keynote Speaker Chike Nwoffiah and National
Guild Leadership Award Recipient Liz Lerman called for a paradigm shift
in the way community arts education providers perceive art, education
and their relationship to community. Their speeches focused on
issues of diversity, multiculturalism and accessibility, and also our
need to continue to examine new approaches to these issues. In
a follow-up interview, National Guild’s Heather Stickeler
reconnected with Nwoffiah and Lerman to discuss their perspectives in
more detail. [This interview first appeared in GUILDNotes (Winter
2008), published by the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts. It
is reposted with permission.]
Chike Nwoffiah is a member of the Alliance’s Board of Directors.
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