Report To The Community 2021

amplifying the arts across the city
a variety of grooves to get into
at Military Park, from the funk,
soul and fusion of After Work
Fridays to the uplifting stylings
of Soulful Summer Sundays.
Jersey Fresh, NJPAC’s popular
virtual open mic event that
launched in fall 2020 and ran
through spring 2021, grew
into an in-person celebration
of Garden State performers
through a series of live iterations
of the show at several city parks.
The Community Engagement
team produced more than 100
events in the parks, including
all the programming at Military,
Washington and Riverfront. And
the Arts Center’s Marketing team
promoted the initiative, which
drew more than 10,000 people
from July through October.
Another program, the Arts
Center’s long-running Books on
the Move, celebrates children’s
literature while highlighting
iconic performing artists of color.
In 2021, NJPAC teaching artist
Wincey Terry gave free virtual
readings of the biography Celia
Cruz: Queen of Salsa, geared to
engage the youngest readers in
the life story of that legendary
performer. The book, selected
for Hispanic Heritage Month,
drew 500 children from schools,
libraries and homes to take
part via Zoom. Through the
Participants in one of the virtual dance classes presented by NJPAC and
RWJ Barnabas as part of Wellness Wednesdays.
end of the season, five more
public, virtual Books on the
Move events are planned.
“Books on the Move has
grown way beyond our local
community,” Marable says. “We’re
now in Jersey City, in Asbury
Park, Atlantic City, Pleasantville…”
Yet even as NJPAC engages with
communities around the state
and around the world — “since
the pandemic, we’ve had people
joining us online from England,
Canada, Curaçao,” Marable
says — its heart is still at home.
“We base programs on what’s
happening in the community,”
she explains. “We have an
amazing advisory council, six
different teams — Latinx, jazz,
faith-based, elders, dance,
LGBTQ+ — and their suggestions
are essential to our programming.
We’re not just dreaming
things up sitting at home.”
Or even just thinking about
one part of the city.
“I realized last year that 80
percent of our work in Newark
has been in the Central Ward,”
Marable says. “So we spent
the last six months touring the
other wards. We spoke with
leaders in those communities,
making sure we know who their
emerging artists are and asking
how we can partner with them.”
Marable’s own work continues.
She ticks off plans for 2022
projects already scheduled
or about to take place:
A day of events, classes and
celebrations held in conjunction
with Alvin Ailey American
Dance Theater during the
company’s annual residency
at NJPAC; a celebration of
community elders; and a big,
in-person celebration of Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and
of contemporary activists
working for social justice as
he did, which will now be held
in May, after Omicron moved
the event from its traditional
January date. By the end of the
2021-22 season, Community
Engagement will have produced
245 events, both virtual and
in-person programs.
The mission, she says, is
simple — and ongoing.
“Find amazing artists and
platform them well,” she says.
“Give the community the
opportunity to hear their voices,
to see things through their
lens — and make sure the world
continues to be a better place.” •
As NJPAC made plans
throughout the year for the
redevelopment of its campus
in Downtown Newark, staff
members held targeted
conversations with Newark’s
artists, families and local
groups to ensure its work would
best serve the community.
And when the Arts Center
asked for feedback from
its neighbors, it got it.
“They all said ‘Look, we
love what you’re doing,
but what about coming to
us, to our neighborhood?’”
recalls Eyesha K. Marable,
Assistant Vice President of
Community Engagement.
“So we listened to what
people had to say to us, and
I had to agree: They were
accurate, we’re not really
present predictably across the
city’s neighborhoods. So we
came back and reassessed.”
The result of that reassessment?
A new determination to
“double down on Newark,”
as Chelsea Keys, Director of
Special Projects, puts it.
The desire for consistent,
predictable performing arts
programming, produced by
NJPAC or in collaboration with
local artists, presented in all
the city’s neighborhoods, gave
birth to a new plan for NJPAC
to deeply partner with existing
local organizations to provide
more access to the arts citywide.
“The idea is that we will have
a menu of our programs that
we can make available, but
we also want to ensure that
these locations will offer events
that reflect the faces of the
community, that will spotlight
the artists who live in those
neighborhoods,” says Marable.
“We’re going to do it by
partnering with organizations
that are trusted, that have
built-in connections with these
communities, but that may
not have the resources of a
large arts organization.”
“We’re coming in to say:
What do you need? How
can we help with what
you’re already doing?”
These locations throughout
the city would feature
programming designed to
complement existing events
run by the Arts Center’s partner
organizations, and offer new
programming that reflected
the needs and wants of each
locality, from music classes
for preschoolers to open mic
performances for neighborhood
artists. NJPAC could amplify
the resources of each partner
by offering equipment,
marketing assistance or
production services.
NJPAC is working with
consultants at CNTR Arts,
a team of community organizers
and creative producers who
have worked on similar
projects with New York City’s
Public Theater, among other
organizations, to begin to
create a rubric describing both
how to select local partners
in this work, and how to
approach the overall initiative.
“The team at CNTR Arts
has taught us a new way of
working,” says Keys. “They have
experience in large, communitycentered
initiatives, and they’ve
been working with us every step
of the way on the visioning part
of this. With their help, we’ve
thoughtfully engaged a diverse
cross section of community
stakeholders and NJPAC
staffers in this planning, and
we’re determining what kind of
partner we’re going to be before
we enter into partnerships
with local organizations.”
Although the ultimate goal of
this plan is to have these venues
in neighborhoods throughout
the city, the first step will be
to open one location to serve
as a model, as early as fall
2022, while taking the time to
more thoughtfully spread out
existing community engagement
programs throughout Newark.
“We have to take our time to do
this right,” says Marable. “We’ll
start with one location, build
out the programming there, and
learn from that experience.” •
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