Before the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities
April 4, 2003 "Arts Advocacy Day"

Testimony by KhaRabia Rayford, Khaymbia Arts Institute

What sustains us? The platitudes of politicians, pundits and preachers--or celebration; songs, dances, images and words spun from invigorated hearts and creative minds--The Arts.

The Arts. They stir our souls and move us onward songs of freedom, dances that lift our hearts even as they inspire us to move our limbs; spoken word which frees our psyche and fuels the fires of remembrance, paintings that deepen our experience of light, shadow, reality and dream. The Arts unify, for within the vocal harmony of a choir, the cooperation of an orchestra, the unity of dance choreography, even a singular brush on canvas, we see the essence of life orchestrated through the quivering of many hands. This is the power of the arts-whether creation, presentation or preservation that in its inception and conception, in its celebration, are the basic ingredients of human interaction. Harmony. Unity. Community. The Arts-used by politicians, pundits and preachers to bring people together, to express sincerity of spirital This thing we know as The Arts strengthens us all.

It is good to play to one' s strength. Art is Washington DC's strength, instrumental in the rebuilding of neighborhoods, schools, people, businesses, communities. Why then, does not the City Council strongly support that which strengthens its people?

In my life, I have been actor, poet/writer, author, dancer, singer, editor, activist; I have taught dance, theatre and visual arts through the UCLA Extension; I hold a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Maryland. As a student, I attended Peggy Cooper and Mike Malone's Workshops for Careers in the Arts-which later became Duke Ellington. I have produced and directed plays, CDs, Radio Drama, festivals, public events. For over 20 years I have been the director of the World Arts Institute and am currently the director of the KhaYUMbia Arts Institute. Art is in my life, and in my blood.

I am here today because I want the council to appropriate more funding, at minimum $196,000, for the DC Commission. Now, lest you think myself and other artists are here only because we've gotten grants from the DC Commission, let me say that neither myself nor my organization has ever directly received a grant from the DC Commission. Most people in this city have never received a grant from the Commission. Most likely, no one on the City Council has ever received such a grant either! Still, your life, our lives are constantly enriched and ennobled by the work of the Commission.

We have attended plays and music and dance concerts from the farthest reaches of SE-do any of you remember Ed Bishop's 8 Rock Performing Arts and Cultural Center? To the most exclusive enclaves in Northwest, sponsored wholly or in part by the Commission. Our children, both in public and private schools, have benefited from programs sponsored by the DC Commission. As we walk this city we see artwork, some permanent, in galleries, on churches, funded by the Commission or through their support of artists, some of whom have subsequently worked in dozens of places, sharing their wealth of creativity.

The commission has sponsored programs in my children's schools, both their private, public and public charter schools; I have two nieces, one at Children's Studio School, one at Duke Ellington, and grants from the Commission helps them both to dance, act, play, sing, create. My 9 year old son gets drumming and dance lessons from people who have been funded by DC Commission. All of these programs make a difference, not only in our present but to our futures.

Art's impact is timeless, and an instance when public sharing becomes personal enrichment. A few months ago, I was at a dinner party for Ralph Nader, and women from Code Pink began to sing. To my astonishment, I began singing with them. "Dona nobis, [pacem, pacem]" I didn't even know I knew that song! It was taught to me in fourth grade at Nalle Elementary; the other week my youngest son and I saw ducks on a river, and came the poem, "All along the backwater, through the rushes, tall, ducks are a dabbling, up tails all!" -3rd grade at Plummer. Or last spring , "they call them pussy willows, but there's no cat to see" first grade. I have framed paintings that my son and daughter created in kindergarten and first grade. Some funded artist took the time to help them create family jewels; my children are now college graduates, yet their art endures, as does the legacy of the person who taught them. I went to the Textile Museum and learned how to make braided rugs, one sits in my living room now. Unfinished, but beautiful. In 1976 my hair was braided at the Miya Gallery because Vernard Gray saw that braiding is art! In 1969, artist Akili Ron Anderson was funded to come to our school, McKinley, as an artist in residence, and inspired my sister who is now an artist in Arizona. At an arts funded Writer's Conference here in DC, I had a conversation with a Pulitzer Prize winning author and wrote a story based on the conversation. My story was published in the African American Review. I have taught in programs that the commission has funded, including DC Youth Ensemble and Healing the Heart through Children's Hospital. I performed with Brother Ah on the National Mall New Year's eve 1999, and when the year 2000 came in and the lights were still on and no one rioted in the streets, I felt safe in America for the first time in my life.

The DC Commission's support of the arts in DC cannot be measured. Their programs touch every neighborhood, every cultural group, every genre of the arts, from Art in Public Places to Folk Art to Arts in Education. The DC Commission gives artists a leg up with support for demos and brochures, they support existing arts programs, and the Commission has effectively put programs in places that formerly had no art at all.

Although this council is hampered by a mayor who cares more for grandiose fiscal display than for serious and sober funding of programs that enrich the lives of DC citizens, still I urge you to please give the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, if not your full support, then as much support as you possibly can. We dare not ask that you fund the DC Commission as much as the Commission deserves, for we know the arts in general and this Commission in particular are underserved, however, if we could but multiply every citizen's delight in a tapestry, sculpture, photograph or painting, if we could multiply every applause, every smile, every swelling of the heart in the wake of an aria or a scat, a djembe's break, a grand jete or a sax's solo, a sonnet, or a cypher or a children' song, by dollars, then we would have some idea what type of funding the arts deserve. But this we cannot ask. So we say to the Council, set yourselves the task of asking, not what the DC Commission deserves but what the beleaguered people of our city, the District of Columbia deserve. How many smiles? How many lifted hearts can you squeeze into your budget this year?

Thank you.