On Tuesday, Dec 20 the Macon Symphony Orchestra and Theatre Macon surprised holiday shoppers at Target, Sam’s Club, Best Buy and Bath & Body Works with spontaneous performances of “Blue Skies.” Enjoy the video above and click here for more info about Random Acts of Culture™.

Why Does Knight Foundation Fund Random Acts of Culture™? Knight Foundation, like its founders Jack and Jim Knight, focuses on promoting informed and engaged communities. To that end, we strongly believe in the potential of the arts to engage residents, and bring a community together. Hearing Handel, or seeing the tango in an unexpected place provides a deeply felt reminder of how the classics can enrich our lives. As you’ll see in our videos, the performances make people smile, dance, grab their cameras – even cry with joy. For those brief moments, people going along in their everyday lives are part of a shared, communal experience that makes their community a more vibrant place to live. In these days of shrinking audiences, we also hope that these random acts will encourage people to attend traditional performances. We can’t promise it. But it’s hard to watch what unfolds during a Random Act of Culture™, and not be inspired to see and hear more.

On Friday, Dec 9 the Macon Symphony Orchestra surprised shoppers at a Tanger Outlet Center with seven performances of “Georgia on My Mind.” Relive the fun with the video above.

Why Does Knight Foundation Fund Random Acts of Culture™? Knight Foundation, like its founders Jack and Jim Knight, focuses on promoting informed and engaged communities. To that end, we strongly believe in the potential of the arts to engage residents, and bring a community together. Hearing Handel, or seeing the tango in an unexpected place provides a deeply felt reminder of how the classics can enrich our lives. As you’ll see in our videos, the performances make people smile, dance, grab their cameras – even cry with joy. For those brief moments, people going along in their everyday lives are part of a shared, communal experience that makes their community a more vibrant place to live. In these days of shrinking audiences, we also hope that these random acts will encourage people to attend traditional performances. We can’t promise it. But it’s hard to watch what unfolds during a Random Act of Culture™, and not be inspired to see and hear more.

By Laura Zabel, Springboard for the Arts

Community Supported Art (CSA) is coming to a city near you! In partnership with Knight Foundation, Saint Paul-based Springboard for the Arts is helping to plant the seeds and work with local partners to share the CSA model in all 8 Knight Foundation communities.

Based on the Community Supported Agriculture model, Community Supported Art is an exciting new model of art support and distribution that supports artists in the creation of new work and establishes relationships with local collectors and patrons. You can read more about CSA here.

CSA shares awaiting pick up in Saint Paul

The first four Knight cities to launch CSA will be Miami, Detroit, Macon and Philadelphia.

• In Miami, LegalArt has adapted and launched the program, the call for artists is already out and they anticipate shares on sale in early 2012. Kathleen Carignan, Executive Director or LegalArt, says this about bringing the CSA model to Miami, “I am excited to bring this successful model to Miami and partner with the amazing food community here in South Florida. I think this will be an exciting introduction for artists, foodies, and community members alike.”
• In Detroit, ArtServe Michigan will launch their CSA in December, with an ambitious plan to select 18 artists for 2 seasons of CSA right from the start!
• CSA: Macon will be a partnership between the Macon Arts Alliance and the 567 Gallery (with help from the most fabulous Y.O. Latimore), who are working on adapting the program for a January launch.
• In Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy has issued a request for letters of interest to identify the partner(s) for CSA: Philadelphia.

It is so exciting to see the CSA model adapted and changed to fit each new community. Watch for CSA in Akron, San Jose, and Charlotte next!

By Pilar Wilder, Hayiya Dance Theatre

As always, we have had a wonderfully busy and exciting month at Hayiya! In October we performed at the first annual Jazz in the Valley (Ft. Valley). Our very own Pilar Wilder was honored as a Partner in Progress by NewTown Macon and also served as choreographer for the Mercer University / Stone Academy / Macon Arts Alliance collaboration opera A Muskrat Lullaby.

The students of Stone Academy with their instructors Baba Ra-El and Pilar Wilder. The join production was performed with opera students of Mercer University.

Hayiya had a ball working as coordinating sponsor for NewTown Macon’s Friday Fest: Gospel Fest where over 300 visitors were in attendance to enjoy the sights and sounds of Downtown, Macon! We also began rehearsal for a community flash mob to be performed in conjunction with a Community Health Works event.

Every 2nd Friday, the sounds of African drums ring through Downtown, Macon. Music brings us all together!

And last but certainly not least, we rounded out the month as cosponsor and event coordinator for the 6th Annual Thriller Parade. We along with the 11th Hour Magazine and NewTown Macon thank the Community Foundation and College Hill Corridor for their generous support! With a crowd that swelled to nearly 3,000 visitors, the Thriller Parade has established itself as the premier fall event for our city. At Hayiya, we love to dance but we are ELATED to find and be apart of dance in our community.

Hayiya and "Community Zombies" represent Macon at the Gateway Macon sponsor evening at Connected Atlanta, GA.

Long live the boogie machine!

By Beverly Blake, Knight Foundation Program Director/Macon

On Monday, Sept 19,  the ultra-talented young people of the Sphinx Virtuosi gave a concert that was more than I could have imagined at Macon’s beautiful and historic Grand Opera House.  This group of string musicians performed at the top of their game and gave the people of Macon a wonderful gift- fabulous and difficult music played with energy, enthusiasm and expertise.  In anyone’s book, that would have been enough.  But for us, there was more.

The Sphinx Virtuosi performed at Macon's Grand Opera House on Monday, Sept 19

The Grand Opera House is a historic venue with opera boxes, gold leaf, stars glittering from the ceiling, and a stage that seems to be three blocks deep!  But it can be an intimidating space, and one that often does not attract a broad base of Macon’s residents.  Last night was different.  The audience actually looked like Macon.  Diversity in age, race, musical knowledge and likely many people who have never set foot in the Grand to take in the music of the Macon Symphony Orchestra or various Broadway touring shows.  It was fabulous.  We were all together sharing an experience that brought us all together.  Even a toddler in the audience was obviously enjoying the music as evidenced by his verbal expressions of happiness!

Sphinx Virtuosi is an example of all that is right with young people and all that is good about classical music as a tool to reach a community and help us experience what we have in common.  We need more of that here, and I trust we will find a way to make that happen.

By G. Pilar Wilder, Hayiya Dance Theatre

This month has been absolutely wonderful at Hayiya Dance Theatre! On Friday the 9th we performed at the first ever Otis Redding Day, here in the Magnificent Macon, GA and on Saturday the 10th, we performed by request for the Redding family at the Otis Redding evening of respect concert. But Wait! There’s more! Hayiya was a sponsor for the 2011 Governor’s Tourism Conference this week! Thanks to a grant from the Knight Foundation, we were able to “unveil” our official Hayiya Dance Theatre T-Shirts just in time for the event. A lucky few delegates received our t-shirt as a souvenir! Can our month get any more exciting. YES!!! We were also asked to perform at the Governor’s Tourism Conference on the 13th and will represent our fair city this Saturday, September 17th at the Arts in the Heart of Augusta Festival. This month, the studio launched it’s morning ZUMBA classes with great success, began working with Mercer University, Stone Academy and the Macon Arts Alliance to choreograph the children’s opera Muskrat Lullaby, will host Amamansa Whitton of Giwayen Mata (Atlanta) for Master classes and workshops on the 24th. Wheww! Lastly, something we forgot to mention last month, Macon Magazine currently features our very own Pilar Wilder as one the their “5 under 40″. Each year the magazine features 5 young leaders making a difference in their respective fields and the greater community. And the cherry on top: this month Gateway Macon launched a new website to promote the city of Macon. www.maconmogul.com highlights successful entrepreneurs. Among the the first group to be selected…HAYIYA DANCE THEATRE!!!

The Hayiya Dance Theatre

View the chat in a larger window here

NEWS RELEASE | FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 6, 2011) Knight Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) today are launching an eight-city  competition seeking new models for local arts journalism in the digital age. The initiative seeks to rethink how traditional media systems function, harnessing the latest tools and technology to make the transition to the new information environment.

Just as cultural institutions are pursuing new ways to engage audiences, information portals are also seeking innovative methods to cover, inspire and engage communities through the arts and to provide platforms for high quality cultural criticism and coverage.

Winners of the Knight/NEA Community Arts Journalism Challenge will use the latest tools for storytelling and engaging readers to create model programs that could be replicated in other communities.

“Arts journalism is essential to the kind of vibrant communities we all want to live in,” said Dennis Scholl, vice president/arts for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. “With the changing media landscape, we have a real opportunity here to find new, engaging and sustainable models.”

NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman said, “The challenges facing arts journalism are well known.  However, no clear solutions have yet emerged to sustain locally relevant coverage.  We are counting on the bold and innovative thinking in these eight communities to begin showing a path forward.”

Applications are being accepted for projects in the following cities: Akron, Ohio, Detroit, Mich., Macon, Ga., Charlotte, N.C., Miami, Fla., Philadelphia, Pa., San Jose/ Silicon Valley, Calif. and St. Paul, Minn. Although the applicant may be from outside these eight cities, the proposed project must benefit at least one of these communities directly.

Up to $100,000 is available per project: first round winners will receive up to $20,000 to create an “action plan” for developing their idea, and will be eligible for up to $80,000 in the contest’s second round to implement it.

Individuals, non-profits and businesses are eligible to apply. Partnerships between legacy and emerging media organizations are encouraged. There is no limit to the number of applications an organization can submit.

“No idea is too unusual,” Scholl said. “Embedding a nonprofit reporter in a for-profit news organization? Creating a new collective to share professional work? Asking the community to decide which arts stories are best and put up the money to cover those? Have better ideas that never would have occurred to us on our own?  Fill out the application form, and send them in. The best ideas may well be the ones that stretch our thinking.”

For application materials and more information, visit artsjournalism.org. The application deadline is Thursday, August 18, 2011.

Knight and NEA staff will answer questions about the challenge during a live, online chat at 2 p.m. July 27th at artsjournalism.org. No registration is required, though you can go to artsjournalism.org to sign up for a reminder.

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. We believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged.

About the National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts was established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. To date, the NEA has awarded more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities. The NEA extends its work through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector. To join the discussion on how art works, visit the NEA at arts.gov

Join a Web Chat
Join a web chat on July 27th at 2 p.m. to get your questions on the Community Arts Journalism Challenge answered. Register for an e-mail reminder. No registration necessary, just visit www.artsjournalism.org.

Media Contacts:
Marc Fest, Vice President of Communications, Knight Foundation,
305-908-2677; fest@knightfoundation.org

Victoria Hutter, Assistant Director, Public Affairs
202-682-5692, hutterv@arts.gov

Cross posted from http://www.nea.gov/artworks/

Today the National Endowment for the Arts along with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation launched the Knight/NEA Community Arts Journalism Challenge, a pilot competition in eight Knight communities to inspire new, innovative models for local, high-quality arts coverage and criticism. The NEA’s Senior Deputy Chairman Joan Shigekawa and Knight’s Vice President for Arts Dennis Scholl chatted about the Challenge and more broadly about why arts journalism matters.

NEA: Let’s start with a big question, why does arts journalism matter? What is the value of good journalism for artists, audiences, and the community at large?

Joan: Arts journalism is, as NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman would say, right in our wheelhouse.  We need vibrant arts journalism to reach the long term goals in the NEA’s Strategic Plan which include:  – to Engage the Public with Diverse and Excellent Art and – to Promote Public Knowledge and Understanding about the Contributions of the Arts.

Knowledge and information about the arts that engages Americans of all ages is important n to the cultural vitality and vibrancy of our towns and cities.   We count on arts journalism for this function, and arts journalism is in trouble.

Dennis: We’ve seen a radical transformation of all forms of journalism, and it has really changed arts journalism. One good estimate notes that about 25% of journalism jobs have been lost over the last five to eight years, as many as 50% of the local arts journalism jobs in America have simply disappeared. We’re losing art journalists, who are the portal to culture for a lot of people, so it’s a very critical need at this point.

Joan: Right, and I think that one of the great focus points for our Challenge is that we’re thinking about arts journalism where people live. It’s about what is exciting, intellectually and creatively in your community and making sure that you know about it. Journalism plays a huge role in helping creative people link up with other creative people and explore new forms of expression. All of that is necessary if we are going to build a creative, resilient economy and wonderful cities and towns. Without arts journalism, there’s a huge void.

Dennis: A recent Gallup poll done by the Knight Foundation, called Soul of the Community,* revealed a connection between social offerings, including the arts, in a community and how attached people are to their community. So the arts matter to people in terms of where they choose to live.

Joan: I found the poll fascinating because it dug deeper than any other study I’ve seen about why people chose to live in the place they live. I see this in my daughter’s generation all the time. They are looking at the aesthetics of place, is it an interesting place to live. All of the studies show that even in this economy, her generation is making their choices about where they want to live first and are confident about creating their own livelihoods.

 Dennis: I was just going to say, Joan, when we did the Soul of the Community we just assumed that jobs and the economy would be the things that people valued most. But in 26 different communities, over three consecutive years, the single most statistical connection was between social offerings and attraction. And arts activity and engagement are primary components of that.

NEA: Whether it is a professional reporter or whether it is a citizen journalist, describe the role that they perform in connecting art to audience.

Dennis: Certainly, a person who is a journalist for a living is in a different category than a person who volunteers as a reporter, but both are extremely important in today’s media ecosystems. The Knight Foundation has been looking at what happens when you don’t have vibrant arts journalism in your community, the decreased livability and quality of life. We’re losing a lot of professional journalists from traditional media but clearly there are many, many more bloggers, citizen journalists springing up. But volunteer and part-time efforts on the local level have not replaced what is being lost in traditional media. One thing the Challenge might do is find a way to bring professional and citizen journalists together.

NEA: What other ways has the rise of social media made an impact on the role of traditional arts journalists, for example, if the audience is able to tweet a review at intermission or leak about problems with the Broadway show Spider Man?

Joan: One of the things that anyone who is doing visual arts, or performing arts, or launching a book, devoutly hopes for is positive word of mouth. And the rise of the internet and social media has exponentially expanded the power of word of mouth. But also we need folks who are deeply knowledgeable about the arts sharing their thoughts with us.

Dennis: Joan’s right, there are many different types of news. We need to know what’s happening as it is happening. We need informed opinion, including the wisdom of the crowd. And we also need well-researched, contextual analysis. Each element has its own kind of quality, its own values. A healthy media ecosystem has the full spectrum of expression. We hope the Challenge will encourage people to think about what’s missing in arts information and engagement in their community.

NEA: Can you talk about what the Knight Foundation and the NEA are looking for in terms of a winning idea?

Dennis: I think that the chosen ideas will articulate some of the following: they will be inventive ways to leverage social networks or other emerging digital platforms, and of course mobile platforms, and to engage people with high-quality cultural coverage and criticism to their community. The new models will have some potential for sustainability although not necessarily sustainable right out of the box. That’s what Phase Two is for. We’re looking for fresh insights or unconventional solutions, creating arts journalism labs, in a way, with the best ideas from the eight target communities.

Joan: Since 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts has funded institutes to advance arts journalism. But as we saw the rapidly evolving media landscape, we went in search of new ideas. So the NEA and the Knight Foundation pooled our resources and our reach and set up a lab to see what kind of innovative approaches might be forthcoming. So it’s a public/private partnership, and it’s a great adventure.

Dennis: I just want to say that the Knight Foundation looked around and said who are we going to work with in the arts? And the answer was obvious. The NEA is the largest annual arts funder in America. They’re thoughtful and willing to try some of these new experiments with us. We’re being carefully non-prescriptive. Just give us your best idea. That’s really what we’re looking for.

*Knight Soul of the Community (SOTC) is a three-year study conducted by Gallup of the 26 John S. and James L. Knight Foundation communities across the United States employing a fresh approach to determine the factors that attach residents to their communities and the role of community attachment in an area’s economic growth and well-being. The study focuses on the emotional side of the connection between residents and their communities. Visit soulofthecommunity.org

Read the press release: “Challenge seeks new models for arts journalism“

Knight Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts are launching an eight-city competition seeking new models for local arts journalism in the digital age. Details will be announced by Knight and NEA July 6.