Creating Artist Citizens
A summer grants program takes education beyond the classroom.
Last summer, six Juilliard students—two dancers, two actors and two musicians—spent two weeks in Arusha, Tanzania, sharing their art with students in a poverty-stricken region. Meanwhile, seven other Juilliard students traveled to Botswana to teach dance and drama to schoolchildren, many of whom have been impacted by HIV/AIDS. And yet another team of dancers, actors and musicians headed to Detroit, to launch an arts immersion program for abused, neglected, long-term foster and paroled youth.
These trips were made possible by The Juilliard School’s Summer Grants Program. For 20 years, Juilliard has partially funded student-run outreach programs in Peru, Indonesia, South Africa, the Philippines, Korea, Nigeria and more, as well as across the United States, allowing talented young artists to make a difference in arts-needy communities. The grants help fulfill Juilliard president Joseph W. Polisi’s philosophy of “the artist as citizen”—and students who participate in these trips come back forever changed.
How It Started
In 1990, four piano students approached the school administration with an idea to do a 10-city performance and education tour in the Midwest. The students drew up a budget and asked for help raising funds. The school gave the students access to a $5,000 grant from The Presser Foundation, which supports music education, and the resulting tour was a huge success. The following year, more students applied for funding for similar projects, including an interdisciplinary dance and drama trip to The Gambia, in West Africa, and an annual initiative was born.
“Early on, we developed the rule that projects must incorporate outreach,” says Karen Wagner, vice president and dean for academic affairs, who has been on the Summer Grants committee since the program’s inception. “We wanted programs to target communities that really needed the enrichment.”
How It Works
The call for proposals goes out before the start of spring semester. (Juilliard students in any grade are eligible to apply.) Teams of students come up with projects on their own and submit a written proposal that includes the objective and target audience, a complete budget, a timetable, any other organizations involved and an explanation of the students’ qualifications to undertake the project. The proposal must also specify other potential sources of funding; with approximately $7,500 of the campus Development Office’s budget earmarked for summer grants in a given year, Juilliard does not completely fund any one project.
A committee that includes representatives from Student Affairs, Career Services, Academic Affairs, Development and other campus offices reviews the proposals. They look for those that show research and organization. In keeping with Juilliard’s goal of developing artists who think outside their disciplines, preference is given to projects with interdisciplinary opportunities. The committee interviews finalists in person and announces awards by the end of February. They often meet with students who don’t receive funding, to go over how an application fell short.
Writing and defending a grant proposal prepares students for life after graduation. “Grants are very important to artists in the United States,” says Risa Steinberg, associate director of Juilliard’s dance division. “An effective proposal requires writing skills and organizational skills. You must be thoughtful in a very specific way—you have to learn how to edit your thoughts and make them drive the point, and then defend those points.”
A Complete Education
Because the outreach projects are voluntary and extracurricular, students who participate tend to be extremely motivated. “If they’ve applied, they’re already interested in their impact in the world,” Steinberg says. “They’re curious and want to use their art and their talent to make a difference.”
But that doesn’t mean students are always ready for what their experience will offer. “Seeing something firsthand is very different than reading about it,” Steinberg says. “Students are impacted in different ways. They may be sad because they’ve never seen such poverty, but also excited to see young children in that situation become excited to beat on a drum and make movement.” Students often present photos and videos from their travels at the school’s fall convocation, allowing them to share what they’ve learned with their peers.
Juilliard dancer Rachelle Scott, who participated in the Arusha trip in 2010 and will be returning this summer for the project’s third year, says working with the teens and young adults at the Umoja Centre in Arusha showed her the power of the arts. “This is about more than just being in a studio practicing,” she says. “It’s about taking what we’re studying and reaching out to the community—doing something bigger. It’s now a life goal of mine to continue outreach programs like this.”
“We went there to teach dance, but also taught confidence, team-building and independence,” adds dancer Jenna Pollack, who will also be returning to Tanzania this summer and is planning a similar trip to Uganda. “Our students might have had nothing, but they were so uninhibited with dance. I go to Juilliard and don’t have that much confidence! Seeing that makes you reevaluate your priorities.”
In fact, Juilliard’s many service opportunities are part of what drew Pollack to the school. “The summer grants program not only complements what I am doing in my dance training, but also allows me to do the things I should be doing even without Juilliard,” she says. “The school has such a high standard of excellence in the arts, but it moves beyond that standard to complete the artist as a human being.” DT
Kathryn Holmes is a writer and dancer in NYC.
Photo: Juilliard students lead a workshop at the Umoja Centre in Arusha, Tanzania (courtesy of Rachelle Scott)
