By gloria stravelli
Staff Writer
The Monmouth County Arts Council’s efforts to foster diversity in the arts community got a boost recently with a $10,000 grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.
The grant to the MCAC’s Community Outreach Project will support the project’s goal of identifying artists, ethnic and minority arts groups, and other nonprofits that have arts programs and encouraging them to connect with arts council member groups.
"Through the Community Outreach Project we reach out to arts organizations and ethnic and minority groups that have arts programs to let them know about us and to see how we might be able to partner and connect them with our other arts groups," said Mary Eileen Fouratt, MCAC executive director.
The project also aims to give the groups a higher profile in the community, helps market their performances and exhibits and strengthens communication among the groups and the 70 MCAC member groups and 300 individual members.
Through a Diversity Committee formed in January 2001, the MCAC began outreach to ethnic and minority arts groups, Fouratt said. The committee has connected with artists with diverse backgrounds including African-American theater and dance, Filipino music, Indian classical dance and Indian and Korean fusion dance.
One of these is Mrittika South Asian Center, Manalapan, whose mission is the preservation of south Asian language, dance and music.
"We’re finding a lot of groups like that in the county," she continued, "that are not strictly arts groups, but have this component where they’re teaching their art forms. Many seem to want to reach out to a wider audience."
"There’s a big Haitian community, growing Mexican and Central American communities, a Russian community," she observed. "There are a lot of groups we feel we need to reach out to," she added.
The Diversity Committee’s 14 members represent diverse groups that include the Monmouth Center for World Religions and Ethical Thought, New Jersey Youth Asian Dance Troupe, Stages East Ensemble, a theater multicultural theater company and M’zume, which performs African/Caribbean/Cuban dance.
One of the committee’s projects was an Asian Arts Festival held at the Monmouth County Library in the fall.
"The group has met twice, and will meet again in September to talk about barriers to participating in the arts," explained Fouratt, who said some groups initially resist becoming more involved with others.
"They like their art form, and sometimes don’t see the value of networking," she explained. "The barriers for these groups might be much different. Sometimes there are language barriers; sometimes it’s not understanding what the arts group is for."
"It’s really hard to connect with them," she said, adding that the Diversity Committee has already discussed ways to get the groups more involved and find out what their needs are.
According to Fouratt, the diversity initiative matches what’s happening on the state level, where the New Jersey State Council on the Arts has received a grant for a program to broaden and diversify arts participation.
The MCAC is also working on a transcultural project with Rutgers University, New Brunswick, she said, that will begin with the visual arts and expand to include performing arts. The project will include exhibits of works by Latino, African-American and Asian artists, as well as traveling exhibits.
"This year, our main focus is to try to bring some of these groups into networking events," she said, explaining that the MCAC’s annual meeting proved the value of networking for some arts groups.
"When groups came and saw everyone involved," she said, "they joined immediately. They immediately got what would be valuable about joining the arts council."