News From Throughout Georgia

Paul and Darlene Bergren (center) share the story of their handcrafted dogsleds with the audience during the 2017 NEA National Heritage Fellowships concert in Washington, DC. Photo by Michael G. Stewart

Washington, DC—It is with great sadness that the National Endowment for the Arts acknowledges the passing of dog sled and snowshoe designer and builder Paul Bergren. Paul, along with his late wife Darlene who passed away in 2017, were recipients of a 2012 NEA National Heritage Fellowship, the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. The couple ran a sled-making business in Minot, North Dakota, and Paul’s sleds were widely respected for their craftsmanship and used by champion racers across the globe.Paul, from Bersford, South Dakota, met Darlene while stationed with the Air Force in her hometown of Minot, North Dakota. The two married in 1964 and made their home and business in Minot. They raised five children, and Paul frequently made snowshoes to outfit his family on trapping expeditions. Paul’s interest in dogsleds began when one of his children asked for a snowmobile to use while trapping. Instead, the family got a dog, and Paul made a sled. In a 2012 interview with the NEA about their National Heritage Fellowship award, Paul recalls the first sled he built, “Being out on the plains there aren’t many good trees for lumber, so I did a lot of looking for material to make the runners out of. I did find finally some pieces of oak over in the eastern part of the state in a sawmill and brought them home. The rest of the sled was made out of broken hockey sticks. We tied them together with rawhide, and it was crude but it was very tough and it stayed together.”Soon enough the entire family was hooked on dog-sled racing. As they attended more and more races, Paul’s interest in sled design grew. He began building sleds full-time. His sleds developed into handmade steamed and bent white ash that was laminated for durability and lightness and stitched with rawhide in an aesthetically pleasing pattern. The Bergrens shared their craft with countless others through apprenticeship programs and school residencies, working with groups such as the North Dakota Council on the Arts and the North Dakota School for the Deaf. Additionally, they worked with Boy Scout and Girl Scout groups and made presentations at craft festivals and workshops throughout the northern United States. 

One spring day in 1840, on the bank of Goose Pond in Massachusetts—not far from Walden Pond, where Henry David Thoreau would make his stand—Ralph Waldo Emerson and the poet Jones Very were admiring the interplay of wind and water. “I declare this world is so beautiful that I can hardly believe it exists,” Emerson was moved to say. His more empirically-minded companion noted: “See how each wave rises from the midst with an original force, at the same time that it partakes [in] the general movement.”The exchange appears in Emerson’s journals. It is quoted in God’s Scrivener: The Madness and Meaning of Jones Very, Clark Davis’ biography of the troubled, messianic figure. It may seem improbable, but Very’s remark is an apt metaphor for the constant flow of small-scale studies that attempt to locate specific mental health benefits from arts participation. These studies are as wavelets on a pond. Though small, each study often reflects an original theory or methodological insight, even while partaking of a common narrative about the arts’ potential effects on psychological well-being.The latest such study (or wavelet) to cross my desk is titled “Impact of Opera on Resilience and Thriving in Serious Mental Illness.” Published in Community Health Journal, the article describes the results from a pilot evaluation study of how audiences responded to a 75-minute opera about recovering from schizophrenia. The performance was preceded by a 45-minute workshop on approaches to recovery and resilience.  The opera itself was composed by Kenneth Wells, a psychiatrist and the director of the Center for Health Services and Society within UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience. It was based on The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey through Madness, a 2007 memoir by Elyn Saks, a professor of law, psychology, and psychiatry at University of Southern California. With funding from the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, the opera premiered before 117 online attendees and 107 in-person attendees in an auditorium at UCLA’s Semel Institute. The pre-opera workshop featured stories by local community members, facilitated dialogues, talks by academic and community partners, and a choral work that was co-created by Wells and a community leader, Loretta Jones. Pre- and post-event surveys were conducted with the help of the Arts Impact Measurement System (AIMS), an online assessment tool that has been developed by the NEA Research Lab at UCLA. AIMS includes validated question-items about positive and negative mood affect. The technology permits survey respondents to indicate their mood on a color-gradient by using a mouse or touchscreen. Social connectedness was also measured as a primary outcome.  Secondary outcome measures included assessing whether the events increased understanding of mental illness and sympathy, and whether it reduced stigma of mental illness, as well as whether audience members improved their willingness to engage with people with mental illness or schizophrenia. In the post-event survey, the researchers also explored how well the opera and workshop communicated the importance of social or family support, of hope for recovery, and of one’s personal journey toward resilience/recovery, among other themes.Based on these and other data collected from attendees at the opera and workshop, “primary findings on post-pre outcomes are consistent with potential for opera events on true lived experience of serious mental illness to increase positive affect and social connection,” the researchers write, noting also the workshop seemed to have been “more engaging” for healthcare providers or people with “lived experience” of mental illness.Demographic data suggest that the average age of the pre- and post- survey respondents as in the mid-50s. Half the respondents were White, half were female, and 41 percent were mental health providers.  The authors caution: “While characteristics were similar for persons with only pre- and pre- and post-surveys, findings could reflect selection effects with those with more experience and a tendency for positive reaction to such events to complete both surveys.”“However, findings could reflect actual impact, and may inform future studies of more general audiences, larger survey samples, and as feasible, comparison conditions such as participation in other types of events,” they conclude. Greater statistical power and representativeness, standardization of outcome measures, and appropriate selection of comparison or control groups—all of these challenges are frequently cited as hindering the dramatic scale-up of studies involving arts-based programs or interventions. (Other common pitfalls include the lack of a mechanistic understanding of the intervention being studied, or poor fidelity measures—i.e., tracking whether the program is being implemented exactly as theorized.) Still, studies like the one in Community Mental Health Journal hold promise for other researchers seeking to investigate the premise that musical performances—in this case, opera—when coupled with educational efforts, can improve emotional and social well-being and attitudes toward mental health trauma. Regarding the mental health of older adults, the National Institutes of Health has produced a Music-Based Intervention Toolkit to assist music/health researchers and practitioners with designing and evaluating therapies and programs that address brain-related disorders of aging. Further, in the March 30, 2024 issue of The Lancet, representatives from NIH, the NEA, and the Kennedy Center—including the soprano Renée Fleming, published “Music and medicine: quickening the tempo of progress.” This article reviewed the proceedings of a December 2023 workshop, “Music as Medicine,” and concluded that more transdisciplinary partnerships are needed. Specifically, “a shared lexicon must be cultivated that enables scientists, musicians, music therapists, technologists, and health-care providers to design research projects collaboratively,” we wrote. Embodying this ethos is the Sound Health Network, which the NEA supports at the University of California San Francisco. There is plenty of work ahead, to be sure. But the UCLA opera study—like so many small but rigorous studies that have received NEA and/or NIH support—is contributing to a stream of evidence that has picked up velocity in recent years. Even if we lack a single large, prospective study that can establish a causal link between music on mental health outcomes, the pace of learning has been torrential.Sunil Iyengar directs the Office of Research & Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts.  

Photos of nine finalists by James Kegley

WHAT: Out of a field of 55 state and jurisdictional champions, nine high school students are advancing to the 2024 Poetry Out Loud National Finals on May 2. These students will recite classic and contemporary poems, competing for the title of 2024 Poetry Out Loud National Champion and a $20,000 award. A program of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation along with the state and jurisdictional arts agencies, Poetry Out Loud has reached more than 4.4 million students since it began in 2005. This year’s state and jurisdictional champions advanced from more than 160,000 students nationwide.WHEN/WHERE: Thursday, May 2, 7:00–9:15 p.m. ET at Lisner Auditorium, The George Washington University, 730 21st Street NW, Washington, DC. In addition, there will be a live, one-time-only webcast at arts.gov/Poetry-Out-Loud.WHO: Hosted by Huascar Medina, poet, editor, and National Council on the Arts member. Judges are H-Dirksen L. Bauman, Amber McBride, Lupe Mendez, Mei Ann Teo, and Laura Tohe. The evening will also include a performance by acclaimed Haitian-American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter Leyla McCalla.2024 Poetry Out Loud National Finalists:District of Columbia Champion Nyla Dinkins, a 10th-grade student at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School Florida Champion Niveah Glover, a 12th-grade student at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts Georgia Champion Tiana Renee Jones, a 10th-grade student at Whitefield Academy Louisiana Champion Grisham Locke, a 12th-grade student at Ruston High School representing the Ruston Cultural District Minnesota Champion Ariana Kimball, a 12th-grade student at Washburn High School South Carolina Champion Jessie Leitzel, a 12th-grade student at Charleston County School of the Arts South Dakota Champion Grace Powell, a 12th-grade student at Dakota Valley High School Texas Champion Oluwabori Fadairo, an 11th-grade student at The Hockaday School West Virginia Champion Willow Peyton, a 12th-grade student at St. Marys High SchoolINTERVIEWS: Pre-event interviews with the nine national finalists are available on request. Contact Carolyn Coons at coonsc@arts.gov to arrange an interview.PHOTOS/VIDEOS:CONTACT: Media must send a request for coverage to coonsc@arts.gov by 5 p.m. ET tonight. Video crews covering the Thursday night national finals must arrive by 6:45 p.m. to reserve a space. No flash photography.

(clockwise, from top left) A scene from East West Players’ 2018 production of Vietgone. Photo by Michael Lamont; Multidisciplinary artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya working on a mural in Washington, DC. Photo by Will Martinez; Chitresh Das and Jason Samuels Smith performing at the 2009 NEA National Heritage Concert. Photo by Michael G. Stewart

During this month, the NEA celebrates Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AANHPI) and recognizes the many contributions of the AANHPI community to the cultural fabric of our nation.  AANHPI artists, culture bearers and arts workers have carried forward a spirit of innovation inherent within their respective crafts, and set a foundation of leadership to support generations to come. The work of NEA National Heritage Fellows Chitresh Das and June Kuramoto transcends the traditional boundaries of their disciplines. Chitresh Das choreographed cross-cultural performances and collaborated with tap dancer Jason Samuels Smith, creating unique experiences for audiences across the globe. June Kuramoto, as part of the Asian-American band, Hiroshima, fused traditional Japanese koto with other musical forms to produce timeless genre-defying music. AANHPI artists and culture bearers also play vital roles in preserving traditions, safeguarding heritage, and telling diverse stories. Roen Kahalewai Hufford, a Native Hawaiian and NEA National Heritage Fellow, has been a leader in the movement to restore traditional Hawaiian cultural practices. For decades, she has revitalized and reclaimed the practice of ka hana kapa (making barkcloth) and teaches students on her farm every week to ensure that the knowledge of kapa making endures. President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities member, educator, and multidisciplinary artist, Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, uses her public art campaigns to make visible the experiences and the stories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. East West Players in Los Angeles, California, is a leading Asian-American theater company and one of the longest running theaters of color in the country. It was founded in 1965 to tell stories about Asian American experiences and provide Asian American artists and actors opportunities they were historically excluded from. The theater continues to break new ground in presenting diverse narratives of modern Asian American experiences and has reached national and international audiences through its programming. The innovation and leadership of AANHPI artists, arts workers, and culture bearers challenges us to expand our thinking about what is possible. Their artistic innovations push the boundaries of their artforms and build bridges between ideas and cultures. From blending traditional and contemporary music, reclaiming cultural practices, integrating diverse genres of dance, and presenting AANHPI narratives, these artistic expressions cultivate curiosity about ourselves and others. In doing so, these artists help us relate to one another and bolster our civic infrastructure, the systems and mechanisms we rely on to care for each other.  Our communities are stronger, more resilient, and more whole because of their work.  This month, the NEA encourages everyone to learn more about the diverse heritages and cultures present within the AANHPI community through the arts.