Kate Clugston

Thoughts on Community & Art in DC

For me, art doesn’t imitate life, art is life, which is why I work inside the community, not over there or above it.  All humans are creative beings, we all have a right brain and we all have a story to tell, so lets share that. Something beautiful and amazing happens in the room when an audience and a performer has a connection, it’s magic and we are bound together forever by it. It’s even more extraordinary when the performer on stage speaks as them self, from their world, a local person whose voice would have otherwise been unheard, silenced or ignored. But now it’s on stage, it’s deeply personal and immensely powerful.

Ok, so I am an Australian performance artist and a community theatre director,  currently living in Washington DC selling my Dad’s Aussie Wine. I love being at my creative edge and thus I thrive on working with collaborators from different disciplines and to work with non-performers. I spent 5 years directing community arts professionally in Australia (with Shopfront and Sidetrack) so it was a shock to the system to try and find paid work in DC. There is a lot of theatre here and it’s a particular kind of theatre, almost all of it happens on a stage while the audience sits in the dark, there is a script performed by union and non-union actors. Yes, there are grants one can apply for to run community projects and there are plenty of non-profit community service organisations that will welcome an artist with open arms. But where are my contemporaries? It seems there are very few people here who speak the language of theatre for social justice, while also being active in their practice, one of them is Melanie St Ours who I just met very recently, after being in DC a year already. Why did it take so long to meet in such a small city of only 500k people?

It is also puzzling to me that this is city full of non-profits and social services, a city full of art and culture, and yet the intersection points are hard to find. And when I say that I don’t mean the community outreach arm of a big arts company where they go an teach in low income schools. I mean a dedicated integrated practice of art in life and the radical use of art for social justice and community building.

But yes, DC is a ‘cultural city’, there are lots of free museums and galleries, A few wonderful happenings and events I have found are  The Capital Fringe Festival, the Source Theatre Festival and Artomatic where I continue to meet creative people and see their work. There are places for physical performers to train like the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange , Arachnea Air and if you are into the art of circus/fire toy manipulation you can learn it at Contradiction Dance. All this stuff is of interest to me, but again… lacking the diversity of perspective offered by a gritty performance created within and by the community itself.

In November 2009 I initiated a relationship with Miriam’s House a local community home for women with HIV and AIDS. I worked with the women for nearly 8 months, to collect stories/poems/collages and photos to pull together in a public arts show and live theatre performance for their Anniversary Benefit. Throughout the process I had been searching for a collaborating artist to work on the project with me and finally found Melissa Klein, from DC’s Puppet Underground who came on board in the last few weeks of the project as a workshops/writing facilitator. It was a beautiful project, one of the residents actually performed her story on stage, others were in the audience, their poems, photos and collages hanging around the room in an installation. We raised $10K that day for Miriam’s House. It was an amazing project, a fascinating community of women to work with. But where are the other projects like this in DC? With so many non-profits and so many complex social justice issues, where is the art that reflects these stories?

But despite my reservations about making art in this city, and my frustrations with it’s disconnectedness and shortcomings, I feel a movement brewing in the city. It began on the weekend of January 16^th 2010 The Inaugural Columbia Heights Arts Salon, showcased the works of local artists, featured in four local homes each overflowing with a different artform. Three hundred and fifty people wandered through the Salons that night, and as they cruised the streets from house to house, something magic was happening. When someone opens their home, they stakes are high, they are saying they trust you and it’s powerful. This was art born from the community, happening inside the community, it was raw and amazing and drawing on the traditions of Columbia Heights past when the activists and arts would get together in basements and jam– usually with Punk Music.

Initiated by CHARTS (Columbia Heights Arts) Foundation, who formed in January 2010 this Salon Series is a winner, and in my eyes a perfect model for arts in community and similar to the model used by Puppet Underground. If you have had some extraordinary Arts in Community experiences, please comment, I would love to hear from you.

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