The Arts Council for Long Beach has been awarded $150,000 by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is to be used for numerous performances to be staged throughout the city.
Long Beach was one of one of 80 cities nationwide chosen to receive an Our Town grant, and one of only five to receive the maximum grant amount, says John Glaza, interim executive director for the Arts Council.
“It feels good to be one of only five locations in the country to have received the maximum award given,” Glaza says. “So I guess we did a good proposal.”
From the proposal:
The Arts Council for Long Beach and the City of Long Beach’s Development Services will use an Our Town grant for the A LOT series of free multidisciplinary performances on vacant lots. […] The series will take place in nontraditional venues and activate vacant lots that contribute to urban blight in lower-income Long Beach communities. The partners will build alliances with community-based organizations, neighborhood associations, and business improvement districts to promote the performances. The project is expected to reduce perceived or physical barriers to access to the arts, and to broaden local arts audiences to include both the intentional viewer and the casual passerby.
“We’ll be working with neighborhood associations and district offices to help us identify spaces that might be well served by such performances,” he says. “The goal is to engage residents in the performing arts.”
Glaza says that no decision has been made concerning how to distribute the two-year grant (which he believes the Arts Council will receive in two separate $75,000 installments) and the Arts Council to concoct an operational plan in order to make that determination. The only determinations made thus far are that the performances be spread out citywide, with some in each of the nine council districts.
“How do we select the artists and organization and how do we make sure the resources are delivered in ways that will make them successful? There are all kinds of possibilities,” he says. “But we want to stay focused on engagement and on bringing the performing arts to as many places as possible—particularly communities that are typically underserved.”
According to an Arts Council press release, the A LOT series
is intended to increase access to the arts and broaden the audience to include both the intentional viewer and the casual passer-by. […] The goal is to expand who engages in the arts and where they engage. Rather than placing activities in enclosed venues for a limited number of people for a couple of hours, the objective is to enliven vacant lots, streets, and entire areas with creative energy—sound, light, visual art, and performance—for days or weeks at a time.