Last Wednesday, our Miracle MainStage Artistic Director Olga Sanchez visited Portland City Hall to offer testimony during the Regional Arts & Culture Council’s «State of the Arts» report to city commissioners. Here is the text of her comments …
Good morning Mayor and Commissioners, I’m Olga Sanchez, an Artistic Director for the Miracle Theatre, I’m honored to be invited to speak as a humble example of the arts organizations in our city engaged in arts education. A little bit about us, we serve the whole community with our focus on Latino arts and culture. We produce works in English, Spanish & bilingually that illuminate and share the Latino experience, we provide opportunities for Latino performing artists to experiment and grow through training and productions; and we’ve expanded our work to serve Latino artists of all disciplines at El Centro Milagro.
The diversity of our region is growing, and as it does we receive more and more requests to support the cultural and artistic needs of the community; providing the Latino community a place to meet, celebrate heritage, feel a sense of home in public, and share nurturing culture with their children. We take this responsibility seriously; with 1 out of 5 students in the PPS system identified as Latino, we embrace our charge to support arts education through culturally responsible programming. This is our 28th season, we have a long history of going into elementary, middle and high schools with writing, performance and visual art workshops, some that last a day or two, some that last months. It’s tremendously rewarding to watch students get an idea and develop it into a reality, not to mention seeing former students emerge in positions of leadership over the years.
We all know that the arts build stronger students, our particular focus is to provide accessible forms of expression, so that kids feel heard, appreciated, even applauded for their creativity ~ for their positive contribution. Whatever limitations or barriers they might encounter day to day, whether it’s intolerance, language barriers, or simple misunderstandings, arts and culture provides a place for all children to meet, share their hearts and minds, to recognize each other’s gifts, and to grow together into a stronger, more compassionate community.
Our newest venture, Community Artes, is focused on building relationships with other companies, independent artists and students of all ages, children to seniors. Last December, a mother told us that she really wanted her young daughter to participate in our Posada Milagro play because the girl had done it the year before and ever since then her grades had shot up! I asked her how she knew these were related events, and she told me that her daughter had suffered from low self-esteem, and that being in the play, learning lines and performing well, made her feel strong. She wanted to make sure her daughter (and her son) could have that experience again.
These are powerful, motivating things to hear, and we know that we share this experience with many of our fellow arts organizations in our town. We are proud to be a strand in the tapestry of arts education in our community and thank you for your support.