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Engaging Matters

Doug Borwick on vibrant arts and communities

The Trash Project

January 19, 2013 by Doug Borwick

One of the joys of all the traveling and speaking I am undertaking is the opportunity to find out about cool examples of engagement work going on around the country. I am going to Austin for the Texas Commission on the Arts & Texans for the Arts conference, Strategies for Success. As part of the preparation, I asked the organizers to send me examples of interesting projects. The subject of this post is one of the most fascinating I have ever seen.

The choreographer Allison Orr (her company is Forklift Danceworks)  trained and worked for months with staff of Austin’s Solid Waste Services collecting trash, dead animals, and recycling. Out of that experience (and those relationships) she created a 75-minute performance in 18 sections highlighting sanitation workers’ jobs. It included “a dance for three street sweepers, a truck quartet, a solo for a bucket truck operator and his truck, [and] a grand finale for all 16 vehicles. It also featured SWS workers performing solos in arts activities they did “on the side.” One was a harmonica solo.

The piece was originally performed in 2009 (in the rain) with an audience of about 1500. It was encored in 2011 with two sold-out performances (in 100 degree heat) with around 4000 total attendees. It was named the #1 Arts Event of 2009 by The Austin American Statesman, the #1 Dance Event of 2009 by The Austin Chronicle, and winner of Most Outstanding Dance Concert by The Austin Critics Table. It has been made the subject of an award-winning documentary, Trash Dance, that will premiere at Lincoln Center in February (2/5/13) and be released in the spring.

There is a tendency to look on this kind of project as a clever gimmick. And while there is no question that it and its premise are attention grabbing for being so unusual, there is something about the way the work is described that makes me go deeper in my appreciation. This project took sanitation workers seriously, as community members and as people. 100% of the performing employees surveyed (yes, there were outcomes surveys) reported that The Trash Project improved morale and pride in their job. 94% reported that the performance improved the public’s understanding and awareness of what SWS does, and 97% agreed that it improved the image of SWS employees held by the general Austin public. Jermaine Defreeze, a Maintenance Worker Leader, said,

The piece took the day-to-day work of an unappreciated and unrecognized city department and made it into an art form that won several awards. As the men and women in collections now pick up trash, recycling, brush and bulky items, and clean the streets we have a sense of pride. The public now comes up, saying they saw The Trash Project, and asks our employees for autographs.

These “ordinary” people are important contributors to our society and important to our well-being. (Remember why Dr. King was in Memphis when he was assassinated?) For the arts to make a contribution to their sense of well-being and to the wider community’s appreciation of them is a powerful, important thing to do.

Clearly this is not a prototype example to be replicated by every arts organization. It is illustrative of the result of community awareness and a community-oriented frame of reference. The arts can become more important in our communities by being more important to them.

Engage!

Doug

Youtube video by bubbaofthebubbles

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Filed Under: Examples, Principles, The Practice of Engagement Tagged With: arts, community engagement, dance, examples

Comments

  1. Allison Orr says

    January 22, 2013 at 11:30 pm

    Thank you thank you thank you! What a gift to have The Trash Project be the focus of one of your columns, Doug. I am delighted you will be in Texas for the TCA conference. I really look forward to meeting you in person! All the best, Allison

About Doug Borwick

Doug Borwick is a past President of the Board of the Association of Arts Administration Educators and was for nearly 30 years Director of the Arts Management and Not-for-Profit Management Programs at Salem College in Winston-Salem, NC. He is CEO of Outfitters4, Inc., providing management services to nonprofit organizations and ArtsEngaged providing training and consultation to artists and arts organization to help them more effectively engage with their communities. [Read More …]

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About Engaging Matters

The arts began as collective activity around the campfire, expressions of community. In a very real sense, the community owned that expression. Over time, with increasing specialization of labor, the arts– especially Western “high arts”– became … [Read More...]

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Community Engagement: Why and How

Building Communities, Not Audiences: The Future of the Arts in the United States Engage Now! A Guide to Making the Arts Indispensable[Purchase info below] I have to be honest, I haven’t finished it yet because I’m constantly having to digest the ‘YES’ and ‘AMEN’ moments I get from each … [Read More...]

Gard Foundation Calls for Stories

The Robert E. Gard Foundation is dedicated to fostering healthy communities through arts-based development, it is currently seeking stories from communities in which the arts have improved the lives of citizens in remarkable ways. These stories can either be full descriptions (400-900 words) with photos, video, and web links or mini stories (ca. 200 words) […]

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