The Black Lives Matters movement has woken up performing arts groups around the nation with many examining their roles in perpetuating racism in their organizations.
Tucson groups have not been exempt from that self examination, and a virtual town hall slated for September is designed to address those issues.
The foundation for the Tucson Performing Arts Town Hall on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion will be the stories about discrimination in the arts that people of color in our community have experienced.
Alexis George, one of those helping to shape the town hall, has experienced that racial microaggression.
She was cast in a show here and when tensions ran high she was targeted as a troublemaker.
“I was held at an extreme standard, and if I spoke back I would get kicked out,” she said about her experience. “It was easy to latch on to the person who is the brownest in the room; we are much more likely to be villainous.”
George has found that others have similar stories to hers.
The hope is that the town hall will help facilitate a change in the treatment of and attitude toward artists of color.
“I think the ultimate goal is to shift our performing arts community into an explicitly anti-racist paradigm, especially since inclusion and diversity seem to have failed our (performing arts) community,” said China Young, another of the organizers.
She points out that the racism isn’t overt.
“I think there are inherent biases because of the images of performances in productions that preexist,” she said.
“We’ve all seen the movie ‘The Sound of Music,’” she said as an example. “The roles are traditionally played by white people because the movie so embedded these images of the perfect character as white, and we haven’t been willing to break out of that mold.”
George is currently surveying the performing arts community and is gathering statistics and those stories, which will only be shared at the town hall with the permission of those submitting them.
But George hopes many will be willing.
“I’ve learned personal stories, numbers and stats help hold people accountable,” she said. “When they see how large this is, that’s what will facilitate change. When we get stories, we can realize we can grow and move on and make for a better performing arts community.”
