The New Face of Arts Leadership in the West - westaf - The Western ...

Introduction
By Len Edgerly
The New Face of Arts Leadership in the West
began with a bang the first night, when co-facilitator
Shane Moreman busted the Baby Boomers
in a smart and funny rant against my generation.
The following day, Tony Garcia, executive director
of El Centro Su Teatro Theater Company in
Denver, continued co-facilitator Brenda Allen’s
eloquent Boomer response, grousing that “I’m
not dead yet,” even though sometimes it seems
the younger crowd can’t wait to move him out
of the way in the organization he founded. Tony
has been described in the Denver Post as no
longer being an angry young man. “It’s true,”
he told us. “I’m happy. I’d be happy to kick your
ass if I needed to.” The Boomer back-and-forth
informed much of the symposium, and I loved
it. Viewing my generation from outside itself
gave me a lift because I love to learn something
new about a topic I think I have down cold.
This happens all the time in a long marriage.
A striking aspect of this gathering of young,
diverse arts leaders was their assertion of
the need to “honor the elders,” a concept
which, decades ago, did not have a lot of
resonance for my gang, which made a fetish
of not trusting anyone over 30. An eloquent
spokesperson for the elders was Annette Evans
Smith, who works at the Alaska Native Heritage
Center in Anchorage. A Stanford graduate of
Athabascan, Yup’ik, and Alutiiq descent, she
described herself as “a daughter turning into
a mother,” and, sure enough, her first child,
Daniel Peter Smith, was born on May 8 th of this
year, a healthy eight-pounder who arrived
looking at the world—not crying, just looking. At
the symposium, Annette declined our implied
invitation to join an elite group of young leaders
who would change the arts world. “I am not
a leader,” Annette said. “I will not be a leader
until I am a grandmother.” And until then, she is
carrying out the vision set forth by her elders: To
keep her native languages and culture alive for
another 10,000 years. “If this had been a room
in my community,” Annette said, “I would have
asked permission to speak from my elders first.”
This is not to say that the young dynamos at
the symposium were shy about finding their
own ways through what James Early of the
Smithsonian called “this global moment.”
Shawna Shandiin Sunrise, a fifth-generation
Navajo weaver, told of a time when she was
dressing in full punk-rock regalia and had to fill
in for her mother to teach a weaving class in
Taos. The adult students were shocked at first
and understandably resistant until Shawna’s skill
became obvious. “I helped them fix their knots,”
she said simply. “After that, they saw me as who
my mother brought me up to be.” Shawna and
others made vivid the tragedy of disappearing
human cultures, especially through their languages.
She had a chance to visit New Zealand,
where the Maori culture has been affirmed and
brought back during the past 30 years. “When
we got off the plane, we took a bus to a hall
where we were greeted by 600 children singing
in Maori,” she told us. “I listened to them for my
mother. I listened to them with my mother.”
Samuel Aguiar Iñiguez of Sacramento inspired
me with his indefatigable work in the arts. He
has created his own time-management system
based on daily, weekly, monthly, and annual
agendas, which he uses to assure he will have
time for his own art. At 33, he mentors younger
artists by stressing the values his father taught
him, such as “keep your word.” Organizations
like WESTAF and the state arts councils are
doing essential work. But we fool ourselves if
we think that our disappearance would keep
Samuel from creating his next film or play or
bohemian rap piece. He is simply unstoppable.
By the end of the two days, the Boomer topic
has pretty well played out. In fact, when we
divided up into five discussion groups, only
two people attended the topic of “Baby
Boomers: Problem or Opportunity.” One of them,
Ricardo Frazer, Seattle hip-hop impresario
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