Number 2, 2023

Arts and Health
The Role of the Arts Sector in Promoting
Resilience and Well-Being

1

This issue

BY MARIA ROSARIO JACKSON, PHD

The COVID pandemic took a great tollon the health of the nation. Beyond thephysical—the huge loss of life, our quest to
deal with the various new strains appearing
suddenly, and the lingering Long COVID—
there was the mental toll as well. As theSurgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy noted
in a public health advisory released in May
2023, there is an epidemic of loneliness,isolation, and lack of connection in ourcountry: “The mortality impact of beingsocially disconnected is similar to thatcaused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes aday, and even greater than that associatedwith obesity and physical inactivity.”
The arts are part of a healthy life,
contributing to greater social cohesion,
health equity, and community well-being.
This could include individual practice toimprove one’s mental health, orchestra
members playing in health care facilities tosoothe patients and their families in tense
and anxious situations, arts education
programs that support the social andemotional needs of students, the stories
we share that allow us to come together
and acknowledge our histories and bridge
differences, and more.
Mindful of the toll that the pandemic has
also taken on the arts and cultural sector,
this issue will look at some of the ways thatthe arts continue to address and contributeto public health, healing, well-being, andcommunity resilience. These are just a few ofthe stories demonstrating the importanceof the arts sector and the incredible
power of the arts to help individuals,organizations, and communities come outof a difficult time, think differently about
how they live, take control of their own
narratives, and advance efforts to be whole.
Living an artful life is essential to living ahealthy life.

Harnessing the Healing
Power of the Arts

4

Most Trusted Messengers

Ashé Cultural Arts Center Relies on
the Power of Art to Promote Health
BY AUNYE BOONE

7

Healing Wounds in the
Wilderness

Brushwood Center’s At Ease: Art andNature for Veterans and the MilitaryCommunity
BY CAROLYN COONS

10

Resilience and Opportunity

The Fort Apache Heritage Foundation
Reclaims Its Land and Community
BY PAULETTE BEETE

13

Transforming Lives ThroughMusic Education
A Look at Michigan’s Accent Pontiac
BY AUNYE BOONE

16

Lifting the Curtain on
Building HealthCreating the Roadmap for Recovery
and Resilience in Theater
BY CAROLYN COONS

19

Music as Medicine

LA Opera Sets the Stage forCommunity Health, Wellness, andRecoveryBY PAULETTE BEETE

NATIONAL COUNCIL
ON THE ARTSMaria Rosario Jackson, PhD
Chair
Ismael Ahmed
Kinan Azmeh
Bidtah Becker
Bruce Carter
Gretchen Gonzales Davidson
Aaron Dworkin
Kamilah Forbes
Deepa Gupta
Paul W. Hodes
Emil Kang
Michael Lombardo
María López De León
Huascar Medina
Christopher Morgan
Fiona Whelan Prine
Ranee Ramaswamy
Jake Shimabukuro
Constance Williams
EX-OFFICIO
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME)
Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA)
Appointment by Congressional
leadership of the remaining
ex-officio members to thecouncil is pending.
AMERICAN ARTSCAPE STAFF
Don Ball, Executive Editor
Aunye Boone, Editor
Kelli Rogowski, Graphic Designer
Cliff Archuleta
Paulette Beete
Carolyn Coons
Josephine Reed
Cover: Accent Pontiac musicians
Deshaun Arnett (left) and Lay’Onna
Scruggs (right) are all smiles while
warming up to perform at the 2023
End of Year Showcase concert.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Dunn
Photography

Harnessing the Healing
Power of the Arts
BY MARIA ROSARIO JACKSON, PHD

T

he National Endowment for theArts (NEA) has long recognized thepotential of the arts to strengthencommunities and improve healthoutcomes. Through our grantmaking programs
and national initiatives, the NEA provides
vital support to organizations that rely on thearts to help enhance community well-being,
empowering artists and communities alike, all
the while fostering a symbiotic relationshipwhere creativity can thrive and health canflourish.
I have talked about how unleashing the fullpower of art requires not existing only in isolation
or in a bubble. It requires animating work at theintersections of arts and education, community
development, climate, and more, including workat the intersection with health and well-being.
Helping to animate the full power of the arts

requires bolstering what I call an arts-infused
civic infrastructure—art (defined expansively)
woven into the relationships and mechanisms werely on to care for each other.
The NEA is a national resource for creating
and strengthening healthy arts ecosystems that
contribute to building healthy communities
where all people can thrive—where people canlead artful lives and where the important work
happening at the intersections of the arts andother fields of policy and practice is advanced.
We do this through our work with nonprofit
arts organizations, local arts agencies, statearts agencies, and regional arts organizations,and through our collaborations with otherfederal agencies, which we are growing andstrengthening.
For more than a decade, we have been
partnering with the Departments of Defense

NEA Chair Jackson
in discussion with Rear
Admiral Paul Reed, directorof HHS’s Office of Disease
Prevention and Health
Promotion, in March 2023.
NEA File Photo

2and Veterans Affairs on the initiative Creative
Forces®: NEA Military Healing Arts Network,
which seeks to improve the health, well-being,and quality of life for military and veteran
populations exposed to trauma, as well as theirfamilies and caregivers, through creative arts
therapies and community arts engagement
activities. In 2021, we were involved in apartnership with the Centers for Disease Control& Prevention (CDC) and the CDC Foundation
to launch an initiative that engaged artists andarts organizations to promote COVID vaccine
readiness in their communities. As a direct
result, with funding from the CDC, the CDC
Foundation awarded grants to 30 organizations
nationwide to support these efforts. Working
alongside the Department of Health and Human
Services, the Arts Endowment is planning toconvene an Interagency Working Group on
Arts, Health, and Civic Infrastructure. This
collaborative effort fosters exchanges of insights
and information among federal agencies andserves as a catalyst and resource for new andexisting work harnessing the power of arts andculture to advance health equity and create
resilient communities.
In addition to these growing federal
partnerships, the NEA is looking to deepen our

NEA Chair Jacksonwith National Council
on the Arts members
along with Ashé
Cultural Arts Center
staff and community
health workers in New
Orleans, Louisiana,
June 2023. Photo by
Kasimu Harris

understanding of the science behind the arts andhealing. The NEA's Office of Research & Analysis(ORA) commissions clinical research through our
research grants and NEA Research Labs on thearts’ ability to help treat chronic pain, improve
longitudinal health outcomes in the general
population, help delay cognitive decline amongolder adults, and to foster social and emotional
development in early childhood. Recognizing thepotential of music to heal and connect, the NEA’s
Music department and ORA have partneredwith the University of California, San Francisco,in collaboration with the National Institutesof Health, the Kennedy Center, and celebrated
soprano Renée Fleming, to establish the Sound
Health Network. This pioneering collaboration
explores the impact of music on brain healthand well-being, paving the way for innovative
treatments and interventions.
As our nation emerges from the devastating
impact of a global pandemic, the role of the artsin healing and rebuilding has never been morecrucial. Societal movements addressing social
inequality, and the growing concern for socialand environmental determinants of healthoutcomes, present a unique prism through which
the arts can be channeled to bridge gaps andfoster well-being.

3
The arts community, already grappling withimmense challenges, requires support andopportunities to contribute to the collective
healing process. Now, more than ever, we need
to attend to the health of the arts sector andrecognize that its health has implications for thewell-being and health of our nation.
As I noted in my discussion on the Federal
Plan for Equitable Long-Term Recovery and
Resilience with Rear Admiral Paul Reed, directorof HHS’s Office of Disease Prevention and Health
Promotion: “There are many ways in which thearts play a critical role in our ability to survive
something like a pandemic. Some of those ways
have to do with our personal well-being, andsome of them have to do with our ability to show
up as part of a collective and care for each other.
If you think of how the arts help us make sense of
the world, that’s important during a time when
everything is turned upside down.”
A framework I have used for a few years now,as I have tried to boil down the myriad waysthat the arts intersect with a number of different
fields, including health, is that the arts are crucial
to helping us reframe—see things differently
and become available to paradigm shift, retool—
expand or change the ways in which we have gone
about addressing challenges, and actually do thework of repair—the work of mending, healing,
and growing anew.
The stories in this issue provide examplesof this framework. In New Orleans, the Ashé
Cultural Arts Center is creating opportunities forcommunity wellness-focused artists and cultural
workers—what the center’s chief equity officer,
Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes, calls the community’s“most trusted messengers”—to promote healthand wellness resources and education, withthe goal of increasing life expectancy in Blackneighborhoods. In June, during our National
Council on the Arts meeting in New Orleans, I
was able to meet in person with some of thesemessengers and hear their stories about how
they are building trust and connections in theircommunity as they pursue their arts practices.
I also had a chance to meet with the staff at LA
Opera during their annual Los Angeles County
Arts and Health Week Summit and learn about
their Connects initiative, featured in this issue,
through which the company offers health-related
activities and resources in the community. Also
featured is Joseph Allen, associate professor at theHarvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, whotalks about the need to retool the infrastructureof theaters to make them healthier and safer foraudiences.

This issue also looks at NEA Our Town
grantee Fort Apache Heritage Foundation, whichis planning to renovate a former Army fort andadjacent Native American boarding school andrepurpose the sites into a place of rejuvenation,
reconnection, and healing. We also look at Accent
Pontiac, which relied on musical education
to help address some of the mental healthproblems students experienced due to the COVID
pandemic. And Brushwood Center, a nonprofit
that is striving to improve health equity andecological wellness, received a Creative Forces
Community Engagement grant to expand its At
Ease: Art and Nature for Veterans programming
to serve more veterans, as well as active-duty
personnel at Naval Station Great Lakes.
As we navigate the challenges of our time,
let us embrace the healing power of the arts tocultivate greater social cohesion, health equity,and community well-being. And while I have yourattention—here is some wellness advice from me
to you: go to a concert, a play, or an art-based
community outing. You will likely leave feelingrenewed, recharged, and reconnected. Our ability
to live artful lives is essential to advancing ourfull humanity and our health and wellness as anation.
Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD is chair of the
National Endowment for the Arts.

4

Most
TrustedMessengers
Ashé Cultural Arts Center Relies on the Power of Art to Promote Health
BY AUNYE BOONE5

In the resonance of the Yoruba word “ashé,”signifying “to speak into power,” lies an
acknowledgment of the collective ability to
manifest our intentions. Ashé Cultural Arts
Center co-founders Carol Bebelle and Douglas
Redd harnessed the power of this concept toshape a narrative of empowerment and positivity
for Black people in New Orleans, Louisiana,
establishing the center in 1998.
The organization’s chief equity officer, Asali
DeVan Ecclesiastes, said, “It immediately
became a hub for the entire New Orleans culturalcommunity, helping to meet the demand forspaces where Black folks had the keys and could
meet with regularity to plan and to create art,and eventually house productions, art exhibits,
community events, and gatherings.” Reflecting
on the last 25 years, she said, “Our campus has
expanded from one-third of the commercial
space in Venus Gardens to owning the entire
commercial space, the 29 apartments above, thetheater around the corner, an artist residency two
miles away, and across the street—the future siteof a community and worker-owned real estatedevelopment project.” As stewards of an intricate
ecosystem, Ashé’s offerings encompass programsand direct services that uplift, empower, andstrengthen Black narratives.
From a tourist perspective, New Orleansappears to be a bustling city rich with culture,music, and eclectic cuisine. Explaining theharsh realities, Ashé’s health equity leader, Avis
Gray, MSN, RN, said, “Black New Orleanians
experience the poorest health outcomes as
it relates to hypertension, diabetes, obesity,and mental health, exacerbated by historicallyhigher uninsured rates. These concentrated
disadvantages have led to a 25-year life expectancy
deficit between Black New Orleanians and WhiteNew Orleanians.”
To combat this deficit, Ashé’s I Deserve
It! program—a collaboration with Tulane
University School of Public Health, New Orleans
East Hospital, and other institutions—hires
artists and culture bearers to promote healthand wellness resources and education, withthe goal of increasing life expectancy in Blackneighborhoods. Ecclesiastes said, “Arts andculture are intertwined within everything we do,see, and feel as human beings.”
At Ashé, many artists care deeply about the
local community and are invested in making
positive impacts. One of the ways in which
Ashé leverages artists' influence in promoting
health and wellness is by providing platforms
for artists to engage with their communities

through various mediums, from poetry readings
to council meetings, turning these events
into wellness opportunities. Artists are also
leading and contributing by crafting social
messaging campaigns, equity toolkits for healthcare providers, and advising on health policy.
“Historically,” said Ecclesiastes, “in New Orleans
and Black communities alike, culture hasoften been a survival tactic. Therefore, artists
and culture bearers hold a precious place inour communities as those who we look to for
creativity, inspiration, and healing. Moreover, thedata collected in our health impact assessment
told us that here in New Orleans, artists andculture bearers are our communities’ mosttrusted messengers—so who better than them toserve as the changemakers and voices to connect
communities to the resources and informationthat directly impact their well-being?”
Ashé's programmatic approach is rooted inculture, community, and commerce. Ecclesiastes
explained, “Culture is a keystone of our collective
existence as Black people, especially in New
Orleans, where our biggest industries andcollective livelihoods are directly tied to theculture we have created. Community is thedriving force behind our work and we recognize
the ability of art and culture to shift the social andeconomic factors that impact our communities
across the African diaspora. Commerce is acommitment to economic justice and cooperative
economics, ensuring the ability for artists andculture bearers to havedignified, productive, andcreative lives.”
Community healthworkers in Ashé’s I Deserve
It! program “are making
larger systemic changes
by connecting over 400
residents to primary carein six months and by
being an accountability
partner within the state’ssystem of care access,and being able to identify
when services aren’t being
offered to the residents
they are connected to,”said Ecclesiastes.
One such community
health worker is poet Sunni
Patterson, who, througha collaboration with the
New Orleans Regional
Transit Authority, createdReleasingof the doves atthe 2021 Maafa
Commemoration, anannual community
healing andremembrance eventthat Ashé Cultural
Arts Center hosts in
New Orleans. Photoby Jafar M. Pierre

Community
member receives
a free COVID-19
vaccine as part of
Ashé Cultural Arts
Center’s I Deserve It!
program, administeredby New Orleans East
Hospital. Photo by
Cris Guidry

6

Sunni Patterson
and Drew Baham, I
Deserve It! community
health workers,
lead a group in abreathing session at
Imagining America
National Gatheringin October 2022.
Photo by Cfreedom
Photography

I Deserve It!
community healthworkers Brian
Washington andVictor Pizarro
provide resources toguests at A Cultureof Wellness: Because
I Deserve It! event on
December 3, 2022.
Photo by Cris Guidrya recording to play in buses across the city,
declaring the I Deserve It! Wellness Manifesto,
an affirmation to empower individuals in thecommunity that they deserve and are worthy ofa life of physical, mental, and emotional wellness.
A prominent component of New Orleansculture is its music, and musicians have been at
the forefront of community engagement throughAshé. They have initiated youth mentoring
programs, relying on music as a vehicle foraddressing youth behavioral health and trauma.
Gray said, “Since many of the artists have dealt
with some of the issues that the youth are dealing
with now, they are able to display how playing
an instrument made a positive impact on theirlives. The utilization of the arts provides a linkto the heart and soul of the community.” Thecommunity-based group's outreach extends toeveryday settings such as barber shops, hairsalons, and corner stores.

During the COVID pandemic, Ashé uplifted
the importance of strategic planning and equity.
Ecclesiastes said, “By being able to pay our staff tostay at home and serve our varied constituencies,
we ensured our ability to transition morestraightforwardly from social separationback to social closeness, while supporting 11
employees and 50 residents by making themless susceptible to the economic pitfalls of the
moment.” To address the economic distress facedby artists and culture bearers, “Ashé repurposed
programming dollars to address their dire need,”said Ecclesiastes. Partnering with Antenna
Gallery and Junebug Productions to create the
NOLA Creative Response Fund, this initiative
provided much-needed relief to the backbone of
New Orleans' cultural economy, ensuring thatcreative workers could stay afloat.
“These workers form the cornerstone of ourcultural economy, which shapes every aspect ofour city. The current COVID crisis has groundto a halt both gig work and the tourist industry
that many of them rely on. Funds that wereintended as grants for the creation of artwork
have been distributed as emergency funds forcreative workers in the cultural economy,” said
Ecclesiastes.
“Hosting and participating in events that
present ancestral, complementary, and traditional
healing practices have made a tremendous
impact in the communities we serve,” Graysaid. Extending beyond the traditional venues,
Ashé used the New Orleans East Hospital’s
mobile medical van to educate and vaccinate
communities. Their Culture of Wellness event,which was the public launch of the I Deserve It!
program, provided health resources and direct
services to the community.
“Our most impactful public event is our annual
Maafa Commemoration, a collective healing
event for our community,” said Ecclesiastes. “For
20 years, we have held a ceremony to honor ourancestors who suffered, survived, and perishedunder the transatlantic and domestic slave trades.
We identify the told and untold stories of triumph
and healing through drumming, dancing, song,poetry, storytelling, and the appointment of ourannual Grand Griot.” At the event, hundreds ofpeople wearing all white gather at Congo Square,
where a procession starts through the streets of
New Orleans and ends at the Mississippi River,where the crowd releases “our offerings of flowers
and fruit, representing the purification of ourcollective psyche.”Aunye Boone is the editor of American Artscape.

7

Brushwood Center. Photo by Michael Kardas Photography

Healing Wounds inthe Wilderness
Brushwood Center’s At Ease: Art and Nature for Veteransand the Military Community

BY CAROLYN COONS

The Edward L. Ryerson Conservation
Area is a 565-acre forest preserve about
30 miles north of Chicago. When you’rehiking the area’s six-and-a-half miles oftrails, you’ll also cross paths with the Des Plaines
River. In the middle of the woods, which are theancestral home of Algonquian-speaking peoples
as well as other Native nations, there is a historic
home that houses Brushwood Center, a nonprofit
that is striving to improve health equity andaccess to nature across Lake County, Illinois.
The center’s location is no accident. As
described by Brushwood Center Executive
Director Catherine Game, “What is core to ourbelief at Brushwood is that nature is for everybody,and these spaces, these resources, they need tobe accessible for everybody. Our work is reallycentered around a mission focused on improving
health equity through the arts, through nature,and through community.”
The center’s staff work with artists,
community organizations, health care providers,and scientists to conduct arts programming bothon-site in Ryerson Woods and other locations
around the Chicago area, including at the Captain
James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center,the only combined veteran and active-duty
hospital in the nation. At Ease: Art and Nature

Catherine Game,
Executive Director,
Brushwood Center.
Photo by RafaelSantiago, In Life
Photography

8Group photo of At
Ease participants with
their final artworks ofthe 2023 Water(color)
for the Soul Music
Composition Residencywith Black Moon Trio.
Photo by Michael
Kardas Photography

TOP: At Ease
participants painting
a mural at the Captain
James A. Lovell
Federal Health Care
Center. Photo by Ewa
Pasek Photography
MIDDLE: 2023
Luminary Workshop
in partnershipwith Veteran Art
Tribe, taught bycommunity artist
Kirsten Saunders.
Photo courtesy ofBrushwood Center
BOTTOM: Angela
Walker—artist, At
Ease participant, andU.S. Navy veteran—performs at the 2022
At Ease Art Exhibition.
Photo courtesy ofBrushwood Center

for Veterans and the Military Community, theinitiative that developed out of the partnership
between Brushwood and the Lovell Center’srecreational therapy department, each year offers
free nature-based painting and drawing classes,
music classes, and photography workshops toapproximately 400 veterans experiencing posttraumatic stress, depression, and anxiety. Thereis also a growing number of other community
organizations that partner with Brushwood toreach veteran populations.
In 2022, Brushwood Center received a $50,000
Creative Forces Community Engagement grant
to expand its At Ease programming to moreveterans, as well as active-duty personnel at
Naval Station Great Lakes. Creative Forces®:
NEA Military Healing Arts Network is an
initiative of the National Endowment for theArts in partnership with the U.S. Departmentsof Defense and Veterans Affairs that seeks to
improve the health, well-being, and quality of life
for military and veteran populations exposed totrauma, as well as their families and caregivers.
“With all the need for mental health services
in the [military and veteran] community, it's soimportant to invest in these community-based
programs and to create opportunities for people
to access non-pharmacological methods ofhealing, knowing that both modalities are superimportant. There's a lot of untapped opportunity,”Game explained.
“Our approach is evidence-based, and there isa lot of evidence demonstrating the mental healthbenefits of the arts. There's also a lot showing themental health benefits of spendingtime in nature. Spending justfive minutes in nature, standing
outside in a quiet space in nature,
immediately you'll start to see
physiological impacts of reduced
stress in your body,” she added.
For Game, the success of At
Ease owes a lot to the program’s
natural environment. “There's
actually research that shows people
are more compassionate and more
open-minded when they're innatural settings,” she said. “It's
why these spaces are so conducive
to creative expression. Nature
creates this space where you canlet go, you can feel safe, and you
can let your mind do what humanbrains have this incredible ability
to do, which is to create new ideas
and to translate that into artistic expression. [AtBrushwood,] we strongly believe that everyone
has the ability to do that. This is not limited to
the veteran community—there are a lot of adults,
especially, who think, ‘I'm not an artist. I don't
know if I can do this.’”Another critical aspect of At Ease is that the
programs are mostly recurring, rather than
one-off events. Game acknowledged that thiscontinuity is important for the communitybuilding that occurs among participants.
“You're coming back time after time, you're
meeting new people, you're getting to establish
relationships. We have seen in our evaluations
that's an important part of this—the social
connection that comes with creative expression
in a group setting. There's also the sharedunderstanding of experience, which is really
helpful. We've had folks come through who've said
that the program has saved their life,” Game said.
To demonstrate that the beneficial effects ofbeing engaged in nature are not only anecdotal,
the center has recently released its first locallyfocused report, Health, Equity, and Nature: A
Changing Climate in Lake County.
“We incorporated arts throughout the report,
working with 26 different artists who createdpieces kind of inspired by the major themes ofthe data, which I think made the data even more
powerful, to be able to see representation from anartistic perspective,” Game said.
“There were many veterans actually from ourprogram who participated in the qualitative datacollection component, and what we saw is many

9people identify nature as a source of healing,
especially for individuals who are coping withtraumatic experiences,” she added.
“There's an example of one of the veterans weworked with who shared how after having dealt
with killing people through his service and being
in the process of recovering from that experience,
being able to create life and to be around life,
to plant something in the ground, and then toreflect on it, to create artwork and [have] creative
expression was very powerful. The researcher
who worked with us on the report phrased it
as a kind of restorative justice, because you're
confronting [trauma] in a way that is healing.”
According to Game, further proof that the
program is working is that program participants
themselves actively work to help the community
grow its partnerships.
“They’re out in the community thinking
about, ‘Oh, Brushwood should partner with XYZorganization because they're doing amazing
work,’” she said. “One of the bus drivers from
Lovell helped to connect us to this group, Growing
Healthy Veterans, which is another organizationin our region that has community gardens thatprovide opportunities for veterans to help growfood and access food. He helped bridge thatconnection, and now we have this really strong
partnership with them. One of our staff serves on
their board.”
She also acknowledged that it’s important totackle issues like the well-being of military andveteran populations at the community level, in
addition to any statewide or national offerings, as
local organizations tend to have greater flexibility.
“There's so much opportunity for this work, but
it's challenging to be nimble when you are a verylarge system, and I think that's a huge asset that
community-based arts organizations can bring—
this nimbleness, this ability to be responsive tothe needs of different populations,” she said. “It’s
actually a really efficient use of resources in manycases because of that. I just hope that there is a lotof investment in this work in the future, across thehealth care space, because there is so much need.”
Carolyn Coons is a staff assistant in the Officeof Public Affairs at the National Endowment for
the Arts.

10

Resilience andOpportunity
The Fort Apache Heritage Foundation
Reclaims Its Land and Community

BY PAULETTE BEETE
All photos © Thinc Design. All rights reservedA

ccording to a recent story in the New
York Times, at one point in the late
19th and early 20th centuries, there
were more than 500 boarding schools
for Native children across the United States,
more than three quarters of which were federally
supported. Children were often forcibly removed
from their homes and sent to these schools where
they were stripped of their original names andgiven English-language ones, their traditions
and languages were forbidden, and contact withthe families left behind was severely curtailed.
The children were often engaged in forced labor,
and the chief educational goal was assimilation
into non-Native culture. Some children died
under the harsh conditions; those that survived
were left traumatized, a trauma that continues tohaunt generations of families still today. As U.S.
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Laguna
Pueblo) noted in the Times piece, “Federal Indianboarding school policies have impacted every
Indigenous person I know. Some are survivors,some are descendants, but we all carry thispainful legacy in our hearts and the trauma thatthese policies and these places have inflicted.”
The Theodore Roosevelt Indian Boarding
School, one of the federally supported schoolsthat remains in operation, is located in Arizona.
Sharing the site is the now-decommissioned
U.S. Army’s Fort Apache. For decades, thesetwin representatives of colonial power kept
strict watch over a people whose land had been
usurped, reducing their lives to a subsistencelevel governed not by the values the Apache had
held for centuries but by a system of laws andregulations determined to break the people’s
spirit, with the supposed intention of creating“good Americans.” Despite everything, theApache people have persisted. Today, withsupport from an NEA Our Town grant, theagency’s creative placemaking grants programthat supports activities that integrate arts anddesign into local efforts, the Fort Apache Heritage
Foundation is working with a range of partners toactively reclaim the site now known as the Fort
Apache and Theodore Roosevelt School National
Historic Landmark for its community. They will
be turning a place of loss and grief into a place ofrejuvenation, reconnection, and healing.
According to Executive Director Krista Beazley(White Mountain Apache), the foundation’s
mission includes education, health and wellness,preservation, and economic development.
They also co-manage both a gift shop that sells
local crafts and Nohwike’ Bágowa, the White
Mountain Apache Tribe Cultural Center and

11
Museum. The foundation is actively engaged inrehabilitating the natural landscape as well as
existing historic structures on the site’s 300 acresof protected land to meet community needs suchas housing, office space, athletic fields, and places
to gather. “The tribe is very in need of spaces justto do programs,” Beazley explained. “On thereservation, we have a shortage of living quarters.
It’s so sad that close to 1,200 tribal members areon a waiting list for a home to be built. Most of
our structures that are rehabbed we try to rent tocommercial and residential tenants.”
The foundation’s board secretary, John
Welch, a trained archaeologist who has worked
with the tribe for decades, noted that reclaiming
the entirety of the site for use by the tribe is at theheart of the healing process. “In the Apache wayof thinking about the world, there’s no separation
between the land, the spirit, the mind, and the
body. To the extent that we can heal the landat and around Fort Apache and eliminate theboundaries that have been erected between Fort
Apache and the rest of the land, [it will] enablepeople to be healthy through greater connections
to the land.”He added, “We want to turn the place kind of
inside out, because it was set up architecturally
and institutionally to be a bounded place where
people were brought in and their attentions
focused in on the military power structure that
was at the core of it, and then the school power
structure.”
In order to make sure that the foundation’splans are in alignment with community priorities

Visual projectionof a view from theback side of Fort
Apache right acrossthe canyon.

Former boys
dormitory at the
Theodore Roosevelt
Indian Boarding
School.

12

Map of Fort
Apache Historic Parkand rendering of
proposed gathering
space.

and values, the Our Town grant has been used tosupport a series of listening sessions facilitated byThinc Design, a New York City-based design andexhibits studio. Welch said, “We wanted to hit areset button and say, ‘Hey what are we missing?
What are we forgetting about?’ And to talk to
people, to go a bit more systematically throughsegments of the community: religious leadership,community leadership, youth leadership, artisan
leadership, and representation of communities
that aren’t normally brought into the fray,including [those] that are unempowered, even in
an unempowered community of Apache people.”
Based on these conversations, a number ofcommunity priorities arose, such as language
preservation. “It’s a bittersweet area, but still
they consider Fort Apache as the cultural site,and language preservation is where it should
all start,” said Beazley. “One of the elders, I
remember him saying, ‘When you come on toFort Apache, I want to put a sign that says when
you pass this sign, you have to speak Apache.’”Welch added another community need is“lots of spaces for intergenerational contact,
lots of places where elders and kids would feel
comfortable interacting in shady green places
with access to water and places to sit down. It’s
a community of over 10,000 people, and there’s
just no place for people to go and play and sit in
the shade and watch the kids and be Apache.”
Even though the project is in early stages, andwas delayed, as most everything was, by the onsetof the COVID pandemic, there are already signsof healing. For example, as new buildings areplanned and existing ones rehabbed, the designs
reflect Apache ideas of harmony and balance,with a preference for organic shapes. Describing
a site visit by a group of tribal engineers to apossible location for a STEM (science, technology,
engineering, and math) lab, Welch said, “They’venever been inside a building in Fort Apache, andthey walk in and they’re just like, ‘This is freaking
cool! Look at the cool structure. Look at the thick
adobe walls, these gigantic, thick timbers.’ To
me, when somebody walks in and lights up in ahistoric building and says, ‘I can share the visionof this place as something that’s going to be goodfor kids, have them not be afraid that somethingbad is going to happen to them because they’re at
Fort Apache,’ that’s success.”
Beazley also reported that the local healthcenter has organized foraging trips for traditional
foods, such as acorns, and the foundation has
partnered with the local farm to reintroduce
Apache foodways such as wild tea and traditional
cornbread. Even the annual fun run represents
Apache tradition as, according to Beazley, thetribe was originally nomadic, traveling to different
areas for food sources until they were confined to
the reservation.
The project’s next steps include securing
funding to continue restoring the site’s historicbuildings. They are also working to make surethat even more community feedback is integrated
into the planning process. Beazley noted that she
also hopes to strengthen their relationship with
their partners.
Though it will take years for the Fort Apachesite and community to be completely healed, thehealing is well underway. As Welch put it, “People
are starting to see the place as opportunity, as [asource of] pride.”
Paulette Beete is the social media manager
in the Office of Public Affairs at the National
Endowment for the Arts.

13

Accent Pontiac combined ensembles perform their originalcomposition “Drum City” at their 2023 Winter Showcase.

Transforming Lives
Through Music Education
A Look at Michigan’s Accent Pontiac
BY AUNYE BOONE
All photos courtesy of Jeff Dunn PhotographyIn 2014, armed with a generous commitmentof one million dollars from Kirk's CapitalCampaign, Kirk in the Hills Presbyterian
Church embarked on a journey to createa project that would touch the lives of its

neighboring community, Pontiac, Michigan.
Driven by a deep-rooted love for music and abelief in its ability to touch the human spirit,
the Kirk leaders researched various avenues forsocial change through music. It was during this14

Accent Pontiac
musician Validity
Shirley performing
in bucket band at
the 2023 End of Year
Showcase Concert.

exploration that they stumbled upon the worldof El Sistema-inspired programs—a global
movement that has brought the gift of music tothousands of children worldwide, transforming
their lives and strengthening communities.
The values and principles of El Sistema
resonated deeply with the Kirk leaders, and thedecision was made to launch Accent Pontiac, amusic education organization where children
from the Pontiac School District come together
to learn, grow, and unlock their full potential.
Accent Pontiac serves more than 270 students,
providing a free comprehensive music education
experience that includes in-school and afterschool classes. Through community-based
partnerships, students receive transportation,
daily snacks, and meals. The summer programs
offer day camps, overnight experiences, andscholarships for students. Sommer Dawson,
Accent Pontiac’s executive director, said, “Music
brings the community together. When Accent
Pontiac students perform, they create bonds
with their audiences and boost community
pride. Music adds vibrancy to communities
and strengthens our sense of belonging andconnection with others.”
A distinctive feature that sets Accent Pontiac
apart is its unwavering commitment to giving
children a voice, allowing them to compose
their own music. Composition classes at theorganization foster active listening, teamwork,and collaboration. Students
come together to craft originalpieces of music, requiringthem to collaborate closely inorder to integrate all elements
into their new compositions.
“Accent Pontiac has seen the
powerful impact that music
has on Pontiac students,
including greater confidence,
improved focus, increased
school attendance, andstronger leadership skills.
When a child discovers thatthey can create something ofbeauty and contribute thatto their community, it canchange the whole trajectoryof what that child believes ispossible for their life,” said
Dawson.
Each activity at theorganization is crafted to be
culturally sensitive and placestudents at the forefront of their experiences.
Alongside the musical curriculum, they haveestablished a social-emotional curriculum thatencompasses self-awareness, relationshipbuilding, effective decision-making, and selfmanagement. Dawson said, “We provide
leadership activities throughout programming:
younger students may be asked to count off thestart of a piece or introduce a piece to the audienceat a performance; older students may be asked tolead a piece during a rehearsal or performance, orto mentor a younger student.”
The onset of the COVID pandemic brought
into sharp focus the mental health concerns
faced by students across the nation, including
those in Pontiac. Dawson said, “Students haveshared feelings of anxiety and uncertainty withAccent Pontiac staff, and this has become moreprevalent as students approach middle school.
Our after-school programming supports students
by providing a consistent presence with trusted
adults that students can rely on.” Additionally,
Accent Pontiac partnered with the Pontiac School
District to offer students access to professional
mental health services, when needed.
“I think some of the most important lessons
we learned [from the pandemic] were aroundflexibility in our approach and to the specificneeds of each of our students and families.
During the pandemic, we pivoted to providing
individualized lessons with students at their15homes, outside on their porch,” said Dawson.
This customized approach remains integral tothe organization’s mission, as they continue toassess each student's unique circumstances andaddress any obstacles to their participation,
including transportation and food accessibility.
This current school year, with support from the
NEA, Accent Pontiac will expand after-school
programming at Pontiac Middle School toserve students transitioning from Herrington
Elementary School, Walt Whitman Elementary
School, and Alcott Elementary School.
Accent Pontiac’s students recently performed
and received a standing ovation at the State of theCity Address, an event that had more than 300
people in attendance. Dawson said, “By providing
opportunities for Accent Pontiac youth toperform throughout the community, we not only
develop the joy and confidence of Pontiac youth,
we develop the pride of the Pontiac community inseeing its youth thrive through music.” Dawson
added, “I received an email from a community
group saying that they saw our students perform
at the State of the City Address. She said thatthey were amazing and wondered if we would beavailable to participate in their upcoming event.”
Accent Pontiac is continuing to expand,hosting a four-day overnight musical retreat
in West Michigan for a group of middle-school
students, and looking into partnering withanother El Sistema-inspired organization (i.e.,
Kalamazoo Kids in Tune or EcoSistema) for
special programming that brings students
together through music.
Reflecting on the organization’s impact thus
far, Dawson said, “Social change is not somethingthat takes place overnight; it is a gradual change
in mindset and a societal view that can often takedecades to fully achieve. We are achieving socialchange through music by providing opportunities
for Pontiac students to be seen as leaders andcreators, with hopes that how they are viewed
by the community becomes the norm for Pontiac
youth. Our young musicians are helping bring
their community together through music.”
Aunye Boone is the editor of American Artscape.

Accent Pontiac
musicians Dynasty
Smith (left) and
Early Porchia (right)
performing on
percussion at their2023 End of Year
Showcase concert.

16

Audience at American Repertory Theater at
Harvard University. Photo by Liza Voll

Lifting theCurtain on
Building HealthCreating the Roadmap for
Recovery and Resilience in Theater

L
Joseph Allen.
Photo courtesy ofJoseph Alleness than three months after performing arts
venues across the country began closing
their doors in response to the COVID
national emergency, Harvard University’s
American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) and the
Healthy Buildings Program at the Harvard T.H.
Chan School of Public Health released Roadmap
for Recovery and Resilience in Theater, an

BY CAROLYN COONS
online guide that uses public health principles toinform theaters of best practices to keep staff andaudiences safe, evolving as the science around
COVID advances.
The project was spearheaded by A.R.T.’s
artistic director Diane Paulus and Joseph Allen,
director of the Healthy Buildings Programand associate professor at the Harvard T.H.

17
Chan School of Public Health. Allen’s academic
background is in exposure and risk science,and his research is focused on how indoor air
quality affects health—expertise that was highly
sought after during the pandemic. Allen served
as commissioner of the Lancet COVID-19
Commission, an interdisciplinary initiative
convened to provide recommendations andaddress crises that arose from the pandemic, andhas written opinion pieces for the Washington
Post, New York Times, and USA Today, providing
insight on how best to combat the spread of
COVID.
Allen spoke with the National Endowment for
the Arts about creating the roadmap with A.R.T.
and how performing artists and theaters are
uniquely positioned to advocate for public healthinterventions.
“I'm a fan of performing arts, have been myentire life, and I love the work of the American
Repertory Theater,” said Allen. “Maybe a year
or so before the pandemic, I started working
with Diane Paulus, who directs A.R.T., on their
new theater that was being built on the Harvard
campus.”
They sought input from professors andcommunity members on its design. "We had
a great discussion with the architects, theengineers, and the artistic team about this newbuilding and started to talk about not only
energy-efficient buildings, but also healthybuildings," Allen said. As COVID began to sweep
across the globe, Allen turned his attention to theissue of airborne transmission of the virus. "Onceyou accept that [COVID spreads
through the air], then you know how
you manage the building is goingto have a major impact, specificallyaround ventilation and filtration,"he explained. "If you take somebasic control measures, we can keeppeople safe in any environment.”
Paulus and Allen recognized thatthe performing arts faced uniquechallenges during the pandemic, astheaters were forced to shut down.
They also understood that their
combined knowledge could help keeppeople safe indoors, even in theaters.
“We decided to take the meetings
we were having at A.R.T. with theirstaff, what we were going to do intheir theater, and turn it into a larger
project to share this information of
how we were thinking about recovery

and resilience in theaters,” Allen said. “We wanted
to bring some of this science forward, recognizing[that] we have an obligation. We are a universitythat had a school of public health and a worldclass theater—there aren't that many of them.”
The response to the roadmap was in Allen’swords, “terrific.” “The feedback I got was that
it was a helpful resource and helpful to havesomewhere to turn [in a confusing time]. Our goal
was to make it really actionable and solutionsoriented, such that any building anywhere could
have been a space where you could congregate
and keep risk low," Allen stated.
Making improvements to building healthdoes not have to be complex or expensive.
In fact, Allen pointed out that the Lancet
COVID-19 Commission’s report, The First Four
Healthy Building Strategies Every Building
Should Pursue to Reduce Risk from COVID-19,
emphasized four essential strategies: gettingbuilding tune-ups, bringing in outdoor air,
upgrading filters, and deploying portable aircleaners. “Health isn't just absence of disease or
avoidance of disease,” Allen noted. “There are the
pro-health benefits like feeling good and overall
well-being and being able to perform optimally,
and indoor air quality influences those aspects ofhealth too.”
While theaters pay attention to air quality,with a focus on thermal comfort, Allen believes
it's time to broaden the perspective, such as,“How do we improve air quality beyond making
sure it's comfortable from a temperature
perspective? Then we can think about water

Audience at preshow for American
Repertory Theater's
production of WILD: A
Musical Becoming in
2021. Photo by Nile
Scott Studios

18

Adi Dixit, Rowan
Magee, Celia Mei
Rubin, and Nikki
Calonge in Life of Pi
at A.R.T. Photo by
Matthew Murphy andEvan Zimmerman for
Murphy Madequality, and we should think about the materials
we use. A lot of the products we put in buildings
have toxic chemicals that interfere with hormone
systems. COVID has opened up the door to awider conversation on what else matters in thebuilding related to health,” he said. The project’s
healthy building strategies extend beyond COVID
mitigation. By improving air quality throughout
an entire theater, the risk is lowered for COVID,
influenza, and other respiratory illnesses. “Thebeauty of your building, the inspiration, the awe,the acoustics, the lighting, clearly theaters think
about all that, but there are these other aspectsof how they actually influence health beyond theperformance, including the spaces the publicdoesn't see. It's not just the auditorium,” he said.
Artists occupy a powerful place in shaping
society's perception and decisions. "The wider
role artists play in society are messaging andstandard setting. Others are listening and paying
attention. Artists are inspiring and bringing theirmessage beyond what happens in the theater
itself," said Allen. “Theaters are a highly visible
community, and that pushes society forward bothin terms of the art, but also decisions about how
they operate.”
The healthy building movement is gaining
momentum, and Allen believes that it is oneof the greatest public health opportunities that
our society can benefit from. The future oftheaters is not only about the performances but
also about the health and well-being of those
who enter their doors. Reflecting on the pathforward, Allen said, "We need to start thinkingof our buildings as a public health intervention
tool, and the goals and mission of theater andperforming arts are aligned with the goals of
public health.”
Carolyn Coons is a staff assistant in the Officeof Public Affairs at the National Endowment for
the Arts.

19

MUSIC AS MEDICINELA Opera Sets the Stage for Community
Health, Wellness, and Recovery
BY PAULETTE BEETE
All photos courtesy of LA OperaW

hen we think of the art of opera, we may
think of lush, embroidered melodies,ornate costumes, and stories told in
languages we may not understand. At
its most basic level, however, the art of singing
opera is simply about controlling the ability
to breathe. Air over the vocal cords creates
lustrous sound, and even more air amplifies
and sustains that sound as it exits the mouth. In
other words, while opera can certainly elevatethe spirit, it also is rooted in one of the body’s
most basic functions. This idea—that music canbe an essential part of healing, in a holistic sensethat is linked to both our physical and mental
well-being—is at the heart of LA Opera’s health,wellness, and recovery programs.

The company’s commitment to these
activities reflects its profound belief that, as anonprofit arts organization, it exists to serve
the Los Angeles community. This includes notjust the presentation of high-quality opera
performances—Don Giovanni and The Barber ofSeville are highlights of this year’s season—but
also the power of opera as a vehicle to meet othercommunity needs.
Tehvon Fowler-Chapman helms Connects, thecompany’s community engagement and learning
department. As he explained, “Everything we
do at LA Opera is for the community, right? It’spart of the idea of social impact within an opera
company. When we are talking about community
service and social impact, it is more or less saying

Veterans Circle
participants discuss
their experiences andconnect with othersat an LA Opera postshow talk.

20

LEFT: Renée
Fleming at the 2022
Arts and Health Week
Summit.
RIGHT: LA Opera
Connects artists
perform holiday carols
at local hospitals.

the art is fantastic, but it is not the center. It is thecatalyst for serving something that is greater thanitself, the community.”
Under the umbrella of Connects, thecompany’s health-related activities are diverse,
ranging from one-on-one bedside hospital visitswith Alzheimer’s patients and patients withtraumatic brain injuries to online breathingworkshops for those facing pulmonary issues,
such as Long COVID and asthma. The company
also works with military veterans suffering
health challenges by hosting post-performance
conversations where opera is a jumping off point
to encourage participants to share their own
stories and develop a sense of connection to alarger community.
“Now that we have looked at wellness in amore holistic way, we’re thinking about our
education programs beyond the fact that theyteach people about opera. They also give people achance to connect as a community and to engage
in art making. Those two things in themselves aretherapeutic and help people not just make senseof the world but also help them in ways that wewould not have thought about in terms of wellbeing,” explained Fowler-Chapman.
To develop and facilitate its health, wellness,and recovery programs, LA Opera works with anumber of health care partners, including Rancho
Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center,
UCLA (University of California Los Angeles)
Health, and the Mindful Veteran Project. “We
don’t do this in a vacuum. It is done in partnershipwith health care professionals,” Fowler-Chapman
acknowledged. “So the other important thing for
us is being receptive to the feedback from ourhealth care partners.”

Fowler-Chapman views the company’swellness activities as giving the community
another way to connect with the company,
one that builds a personal relationship even if
someone doesn’t consider themselves an opera
lover. “Our music and mindfulness programmingis trying to give the space for people to actually
use music as their own catalyst. It doesn’t feel likewe have to be the center of it, but we’re actuallygiving them tools to process the things that they
are doing,” he said.
Nani Sinha, a longtime teaching artist withLA Opera, is certified as a trauma-informed
instructor and provider as well as additionallycertified by the National Association of Dementia
and Alzheimer’s Caregivers and Practitioners.
Like Fowler-Chapman, Sinha believes that arts
organizations have a powerful role to play insupporting community health and wellness
efforts. She said, “I think it is so important thatthe opera get involved, or any arts organization
get involved, because music is inherently human.
Music is important for brain health and for physicalhealth, and the fact that LA Opera recognizes thatand champions this is so important.”
Having suffered a life-changing accident that
initially left her paralyzed and unable to sing,
Sinha has experienced firsthand how her training
as an opera singer helped her recover not justemotionally but physically. “One of the doctors at
UCLA, Dr. Nida Qadir, who is on the pulmonary
team there, she said, ‘Opera singers are theOlympian athletes of breathing…. Who better to[to teach breathing] than an opera singer?’”
Inspired by her own medical experience aswell as a similar program by the National English
Opera, Sinha and fellow LA Opera Teaching Artist

21
Michele Patzakis worked with UCLA Health todevelop a six-week workshop, which can be held
over videochat, to help pulmonary patients with
their recovery. Each session includes mindfulness
work, gentle movement, and breathing exercises,
as well as the singing of simple songs such as
nursery rhymes.
“The more that we learn about the human
body, the brain and disease and healing, themore that we are realizing that it’s not just about
medicine, that music and art and dance…help
us down regulate the nervous system and help
increase serotonin and feeling good,” said Sinha.
She added, “Singing is not for special occasions
only. It’s a part of nervous system reset. It’s a partof mental health. It’s a part of physical health.”
Through Connects, LA Opera also convenes
arts and civic leaders, medical practitioners,
teaching artists, arts and music therapists, andothers for an annual Los Angeles County Artsand Health Week Summit aimed at building
connections among those working at theintersection of arts and health and sharing
knowledge. NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jacksonparticipated in the 2023 summit this past June;
the summit focused on creative aging andincluded participants such as Renée Fleming
and Christopher Bailey of the World HealthOrganization.
As Fowler-Chapman described, “So many
people, not just in Los Angeles but in the country,
practice forms of music in therapy and arts intherapy and arts as therapy. But we rarely meet
together to talk about the shared challenges andopportunities that exist. Arts and Health Week
was more or less created to actually bring people
into the room to share ideas, to talk about both[theory and practice] so that we can all walk awayfrom this feeling as though we are gaining new
knowledge, gaining new contacts, having theability to make the world that we exist in a little
bit smaller but in a way that we can expand on theimpact that we provide through these programs.”
He also said that the summit can help redefine
what falls under the mantle of the healing arts.
For example, at the most recent summit, amartial arts practitioner made the point thatwhile the martial arts are considered a sport, theyalso include mindfulness and healing elements.
Fowler-Chapman noted, “As an asthmatic but
also a black belt in Taekwondo, I recognized that
there are meditative practices through the artof movement. Tai Chi is all about centering andmindfulness.”
It goes without saying that investing incommunity-focused activities has the added
benefit of helping the company to build its
audience. Still, Fowler-Chapman said that
there’s much more at stake than ticket sales.
“There’s always going to be a need for us to selltickets, but I think the bigger part of when we’retalking about being a nonprofit organization,
we’re talking about being a cultural institution,”
he said. “There is the importance of filling theneed of the community because that is where I
believe nonprofits are meant to exist, where theneeds are.”Paulette Beete is the social media manager
in the Office of Public Affairs at the National
Endowment for the Arts.

LEFT: A patientengages in a remotemusic therapy
workshop at Rancho
Los Amigos National
Rehabilitation Center.
RIGHT: Nani Sinha
conducts a workshop
as part of LA Opera's
Connects program.

22

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Grandpa's Hand by Soren Glassen, from City Lore's program From Heritage to Health: An Ar t–Centered Approach to Cultural Competence (H2H).
Cour tesy of Soren Glassen and City LoreWe feature an audio piece on City Lore’s From Heritage to Health program that highlights the ways in which storytelling andthe arts can inform the diverse practices of medical professionals, and a video piece on Dance Exchange’s Climate Initiative,
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