Claudia Alick led a 75 minute workshop for theater professionals entitled “Disability Justice and Anti-racism: Creating Fully Inclusive Spaces” at “Creating Change: Moving Toward Equity, Justice, and Anti-Racism in the New Jersey Arts Community”

Friday 23 Apr 8:45 AM – 10:00 AM

‘This is the time’: NJ theater community holding equity, anti-racism summit

Ilana Keller, Asbury Park Press

“Creating Change: Moving Toward Equity, Justice, and Anti-Racism in the New Jersey Arts Community” It’s a weighty title. But the New Jersey Theatre Alliance and ArtPride New Jersey online summit planned for April 22 and 23 is up to the challenge. It will bring together arts minds from around the state for two days of learning, collaboration and the acquiring of tools that will better equip participants to tackle the systemic issues that plague the theater world — and society.

“I’m excited about this conference because it will enable us to bring together New Jersey arts leaders and emerging leaders and students to examine how every single person’s role is critical in building this culture of equity, diversity and inclusion,” said Donna Walker-Kuhne, a marketing and diversity expert who is part of the summit’s steering committee and a senior advisor at New Jersey Performing Arts Center.

“Creating Change: Moving Toward Equity, Justice, and Anti-Racism in the New Jersey Arts Community” will take place from April 22-23 2021.

“As a state arts community, if we are focused and committed to creating the healthiest environment possible for our artists and our community to be engaged, then we have to take action,” she said. “That’s not just something you wake up and all of a sudden we’ve all examined our biases. We’ve all looked at our microaggressions, we’ve all looked at racism – we know that’s not an automatic effort. It’s something that has to be intentional.”

Walker-Kuhne said the goal of the conference is to not only bring awareness, but provide solid tools that every person can implement.

Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright and performer Nikkole Salter (“In The Continuum,” “New Amsterdam”) will offer one of the event’s keynote speeches. It is important for everyone to hold themselves accountable in change-making, she said. Nikkole Salter is a keynote speaker for “Creating Change. “I think everyone thinks of making a difference as though it’s some epic thing and that if you’re not Martin Luther King, then you’re not making a difference,” she said. “I think the difference that you can make can start in your sphere of influence, whether that’s your individual home and close relationships or your workplace or wherever that is.”

Walker-Kuhne said the summit’s timing is crucial as the theater world confronts its systemic issues. “This is the time to do this,” she said. “We’ve been inching in this direction for several years, but this has all been advanced based on the murder of George Floyd, the rise of Black Lives movement, demands from We See You White American Theatre and many other artists from throughout the industry who are now calling out systemic racism. So this is the perfect way for us to respond in a very thoughtful way, with voices of experience with our colleagues, with individuals who can really inform this process.”

Salter said this summit will allow arts leaders new vantage points as they come together with peers from differing aspects of the theater world, something she says has been an invaluable experience throughout her own career, which spans both writing and acting in theater, television and activism.

“I think that it has afforded me an opportunity to really understand better what I’m actually a part of,” she said. “I think when you work in any industry that is sort of siloed by professional genre, it’s easy to become combative because you don’t understand what you’re a part of as a whole. You understand your experience only and you’re always looking to improve your experience only, not necessarily within the context of the whole.”

Vu Le will take part in “Creating Change: Moving Toward Equity, Justice, and Anti-Racism in the New Jersey Arts Community.”
One of Salter’s latest roles meshes well with her advocacy for change. She recently made her first appearance as Isabel Sarasa, a hospital chief equity officer, on NBC’s “New Amsterdam.” She praises the show for tackling issues like systemic racism head-on.

“So many people are so afraid that their audiences will be lost and they’re afraid to say things to them,” she said. “I love that they don’t placate to sort of a base niceness. They’re like ‘Our audiences are smart, they’re intelligent, they can take the conversation.’ “

The summit comes at a time when the theater world is shut down by the coronavirus, which also plays into the defining moment that the industry finds itself in, Walker-Kuhne said. “We’ve seen the preciousness of life, and so what do I want my future to look like? That has been informed by experiencing such suffering and also has propelled the voices from our global majority of what we don’t want anymore.”

Organizers say they welcome all members of the arts community to take part in the event, including students.

Set to take part in the summit:

• Claudia Alick, Executive Producer, Calling Up Justice
• Elise Boddie, Professor of Law, Director, Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice, Rutgers – Newark
• Keywuan Caulk, Director, Rutgers University Center for Social Justice Education & LGBT Communities
• Alejandra Duque Cifuentes, Executive Director, Dance/NYC
• Kristin Curry, Institutional Giving and Special Events, The Newark Museum of Art, Incoming President, New Jersey Association of Museums
• Dr. Antoinette Ellis-Williams, Chair and Professor of Women’s & Gender Studies, New Jersey City University
• Dr. Iris L. Davis, Integrative and Functional Medicine
• Candace Feldman, Co-Founder & Producing Alchemist, Unlock Creative
• Jessica Gaines, Team Lead, Leading Changemakers
• Tamanya Garza, Director of Community and Justice Initiatives, Parent Artist Advocacy League
• Deonté Griffin-Quick, Manger of Programs and Services, New Jersey Theatre Alliance
• Vince Hall, Membership Services Associate, ArtPride New Jersey
• LB Hannas, Senior Inclusion Strategist, Tangible Development
• Porché Hardy, Program Officer, New Jersey State Council on the Arts
• Ruby Lopez Harper, Vice President, Equity and Local Arts Engagement, Americans for the Arts
• Rachel Spencer Hewitt, Founder and Programming Director, Parent Artist Advocacy League
• Emily Johnson, Choreographer/Director, Catalyst Dance
• Jeremy Johnson, Executive Director, Newark Arts
• Sharnita Johnson, Program Director, Arts, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation
• Garlia Cornelia Jones, Producing Director & NYC Chief Rep, Parent Artist Advocacy League
• Marshall Jones, III, Associate Professor – Theater, Mason Gross School of the Arts
• Emil Kang, Program Director for Arts and Culture, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
• Amos Koffa, Poet, 2017 NJ Poetry Out Loud Champion
• Vu Le, Founder, Nonprofit AF
• Andrea McChristian, Law & Policy Director, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice
• Keryl McCord, President/CEO, Equity Quotient
• LaNeshe Miller-White, Executive Director, Theatre Philadelphia
• Taneshia Nash-Laird, President & CEO, Newark Symphony Hall
• Purple S. Norris, Hip Hop Artist and Educator, New Jersey Performing Arts Center
• Rev. Dr. John Norwood, Principal Justice of the Tribal Supreme Court, Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation
• Jacob Padrón, Artistic Director, Long Wharf Theatre
• Lindsay Roberts, Artist | Manager | Educator, Lindsay Roberts Consulting
• Michele Russo, President & CEO, Young Audiences of New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania
• Nikkole Salter, Playwright, Actor, and Arts Advocate
• Sharon Stroye, Director of Public Engagement, Rutgers Newark
• Jamar Tyndale, Manager of Corporate Responsibility, PSEG
• Donna Walker-Kuhne, Creating Change Steering Committee Chair, Senior Advisor, Community Engagement, New Jersey Performing Arts Center
• Dr. Deborah White, Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History, Rutgers University

“Creating Change” is hosted by New Jersey Theatre Alliance and ArtPride New Jersey. Spotlight Sponsorship is provided by the Grunin Foundation, with additional support from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, PSEG and Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts.

For more more information visit accelevents.com/e/CreatingChange#speakers.

Ilana Keller is an award-winning journalist and lifelong New Jersey resident who loves Broadway and really bad puns. She highlights arts advocacy and education, theater fundraisers and more through her column, “Sightlines.” Reach out on Twitter: @ilanakeller; [email protected]