Report To The Community 2021

“Our connection to the community
is embedded in NJPAC’s DNA.”
– Donna Walker-Kuhne
Some cultural institutions
quickly turn into their own little
gated communities. Inside?
The traditional arts and a
passive audience. Outside?
Everything and everyone else,
including cultural change,
social questions, informed
debate and real diversity.
But that was never the
model for NJPAC.
“Our connection to the
community is embedded
in our DNA,” says Donna
Walker-Kuhne, the Center’s
Senior Advisor for Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion.
“Newark is a city of color, and
while we serve many audiences,
we have a responsibility to
respond to that community
and their different interests.
the workplace, and the impact
of racism on people of color
in the LGBTQ+ community.
“The Black women in business
event had a very dynamic panel
and great participation from
the audience,” says Walker-
Kuhne, naming some of her
favorite events. “Colorism was
a very hot subject, too.”
Most of the programs offered
during 2021 were part of the
PSEG True Diversity Film Series,
which pairs screenings of
socially engaged cinema with
provocative, post-screening talks.
“We’ve gotten into a kind of
rhythm,” Walker-Kuhne says.
“The films and panels ignite
very interesting discussions
on topics like sexuality,
violence, immigration and
and choreographer, drew
viewers from around the country
to both watch the film and hear
afterwards from his successors
at the helm of the Alvin Ailey
American Dance Theater — both
Robert Battle, current artistic
director of the company, and
Judith Jamison, the company’s
artistic director emerita.
Throughout 2021, these
programs remained virtual
events, even as NJPAC opened
its theaters — ensuring their
accessibility to all, in New Jersey
and beyond, and the ability for
the community to discuss these
important topics safely, even
during the Omicron surge.
“We decided to go right into
your living room,” explains
Eyesha K. Marable, Assistant
standing in solidarity w
NJPAC’s 2021 social justice programming events
included (clockwise from top left): Immigration:
Enforcement, Detention and Advocacy; Economic Justice:
Poverty, Injustice and Racism; Queer, Black, Trans:
Creating Safe Spaces for All Identities; and Colorism:
The Darker Side of Fair
We’re constantly stretching
and looking for ways to
deepen our connection with,
and impact on, the community.”
That bond has grown even
stronger over the past year,
as the Arts Center’s crossdepartmental
Social Justice
Programming Task Force,
established in the days following
George Floyd’s murder and
the revival of the social justice
movement, expanded on its
work in its second season.
For almost two years now, thanks
to the work of the Task Force,
NJPAC has offered at least one
program every month focused
on race, equity and justice.
In 2021, programs included
symposia on such of-the-moment
subjects as the ongoing push for
reparations for Black communities,
colorism, immigration policy, the
challenges Black women face in
water. The series has become
a particular passion of mine.”
Last year films included
documentaries like Darker
Side of Fair, a 2004 film
on the prejudice faced by
dark-skinned women in India;
Banished: How Whites Drove
Blacks Out of Town in America,
which examines on the
expulsion of Black families from
neighborhoods across the South
during the post-Reconstruction
era; and Rust, by Newarkbased
filmmakers Marylou
and Jerome Bongiorno, which
focuses on Newark as a
microcosm of the effects that
deindustrialization, racism and
mass incarceration have had
on the lives of the working poor,
especially people of color.
In January 2022, a screening of
Ailey, a biographical film about
the celebrated Black dancer
Vice President of Community
Engagement. “We offered
people the opportunity to
view something in advance
via a link, and then join us
online, where we had five
to seven amazing panelists
engage in a conversation
about the film and the topic.”
“It’s a bit of a book club
model now, and it’s working
terrifically,” says Walker-Kuhne.
“Of course, it’s lovely whenever
you can come together
communally, in a theater.
But I think, even as we move
past the pandemic, we’re
going to keep a hybrid option
for this. We’ve heard from so
many people, ‘I love joining
in these discussions — but I
especially love being able to
do it now from the comfort and
safety of my own home!’” •
– Stephen Whitty
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