SF Ballet was proud to join over 50 arts organizations in sponsoring the second SF Arts Forum. Our organizations, which represent many city-based organizations and thousands of artists in our community, invited top mayoral candidates to a panel discussion addressing the state of the arts in San Francisco. The event attracted an audience of over 500 San Francisco voters and arts supporters to hear an informative discussion led by KQED’s Michael Krasny.

Candidates participating on the panel were: Public Defender Jeff Adachi; Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier; Supervisor John Avalos; Board of Supervisors President David Chiu; Supervisor Bevan Dufty; former Supervisor Tony Hall; City Attorney Dennis Herrera; Mayor Ed Lee; Green Party candidate Terry Baum; and venture capitalist Joanna Rees.

Coinciding with this year’s Arts Forum and elections, I also want to congratulate San Francisco’s Grants for the Arts 50^th anniversary of funding our city’s nonprofit arts organizations, including SF Ballet.  Five decades ago, GFTA started as an innovative solution to help promote tourism. Today, the program has become a nation model, awarding over $9 million in grants to over 200 organizations this year. GFTA’s success and longevity is an excellent reminder of the vital impact that elected officials have on our local arts community.

We are very thankful for the candidates’ time and thoughtful responses to inquiries made by the arts community, and encourage you to keep the arts in mind as you take to the polls to choose our next mayor.

This spring, four of our San Francisco city supervisors visited SF Ballet’s Dance in Schools and Communities (DISC) program to observe second, third, and fourth grade students as they explored concepts in dance, music, and movement. I want to thank those who participated in visiting our students and artists-in-residence at schools in their respective districts:

• Supervisor Mark Farrell visited Sherman Elementary in District 2, where SF Ballet’s DISC classes have taken place for six consecutive years;

• Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi’s aide visited Grattan Elementary in District 5, where DISC classes have taken place for 21 consecutive years;

• Supervisor Jane Kim visited the Tenderloin Community School in District 6, where DISC classes have taken place for 10 consecutive years; and

• Supervisor Scott Wiener visited McKinley Elementary in District 8, where DISC classes have taken place for 11 consecutive years.

Because of generous donations and grants awarded to SF Ballet, DISC’s nationally-recognized classes have been provided free-of-charge to all participating schools for over 30 years.  One of SF Ballet’s largest annual grants is awarded by the City of San Francisco’s Grants for the Arts program.

I’m extremely grateful that these supervisors were able to visit DISC and see firsthand the impact of SF Ballet’s programming in their own communities.

I encourage you to join me in thanking our elected-officials for supporting Grants for the Arts by emailing your city supervisor and Mayor Edwin M. Lee.  For contact information, follow these links: http://www.sfbos.org and http://www.sfmayor.org/.

DISC students practice what they've learned

Of course this development gives us pause at SF Ballet, as it probably does for any arts organization across the country that might be impacted. There’s no doubt that the NEA’s support has played an important role in our success. Since its founding in the sixties, the NEA has funded SF Ballet’s repertory seasons and education programs, in particular. During these critical years, the organization has evolved to become one of the three largest ballet companies in the United States, while garnering an international reputation as a world-class company.

Currently, we receive two NEA grants that individually support our annual performance season and the Dance in Schools and Communities (DISC) Program, led by our Center for Dance Education. DISC allows us to bring the joy of dance to over 3,500 students in more than 35 schools within the San Francisco Unified Public School district and we can’t imagine SF Ballet without its vibrant and enriching education programs.

I feel passionately that the arts are vital to society and that its contributions aren’t just cultural; the arts not only generate jobs, but directly impact the economy through tourism and income generation.

If you feel like I do, please support SF Ballet and ask the Senate to restore FY11 federal funding to the NEA. To find out more information and to easily download a message to your Senator, click here. Thank you for supporting us!

The program, held in the Forum at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts featured a panel discussion by Kary Schulman, Director of San Francisco Grants for the Arts; Moy Eng, Interim Program Officer for Arts and Culture at the San Francisco Foundation; and Joe D’Alessandro, President & CEO of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau.  These experts offered facts about the history of arts funding in San Francisco, the tremendous reach of arts education programs offered by the city’s arts organizations, and the impressive economic impact the arts have on the area.

Randy Cohen, Vice President of Local Arts Advancement for American for the Arts, the nation’s leading nonprofit advocacy organization for the arts, gave the keynote address.  Armed with research data from mapping studies of the nation’s 680,000 arts establishments and employees, Randy painted a compelling picture for the positive impacts of the arts and culture industry and the wisdom of supporting it.  Check back for more statistics from Randy’s speech in a later post.

In the meantime, allow me to share a few facts here about the value of San Francisco’s arts community.  Did you know that . . .

• Over 4 million people participate in and support the programs and activities offered by our arts organizations, with at least 1 million coming from outside the city.  They are estimated to spend over $95 million while they are here.

• San Francisco’s arts community provides jobs to over 4,500 artists, dancers, singers, musicians, writers, filmmakers, scientists, stage technicians, designers, clerical and administrative workers, and more.  Over 1,700 of these workers live in the City of San Francisco and the other 2,500 commute daily, contributing to our economic and cultural vitality.

• San Francisco’s arts community produces hundreds of free or low-cost community programs throughout the city’s diverse neighborhoods.

• San Francisco’s arts community maintains a strong commitment to educational programs, offering high quality education programs serving almost every public school in the city.  These programs reach over 700,000 young people each year.

What can you do to support this vital part of our community?  Let the candidates running in your district know that you want them to make it a priority to support the arts in San Francisco.