Why Can't I?
"An Analysis on Art Availability for Communities in the South"
The Issue
“It helped broaden my spectrum on what I could have in my life, and because I gained so much from the program, I am able to give back so much,” thirty-four-year-old Tenisha Cole says this with a bashful and humble demeanor, “[Dance] gave me a different look on what was out there, things I didn't even dream of doing.”
Mrs. Cole, as she is known by her students, is the program specialist at the East Athens Educational Dance Center. She sits alongside Nena Gilreath, the center’s facility supervisor and co-founder of Ballethnic Dance Company in Atlanta. The two women shared an air of connection, even from across the table, rooted in a shared journey of struggle and hard work.
“We come from a generation where people took a little and made a lot out of it and that is why having Tenisha here is so important. She is a result of Lois’s commitment to making an impact and she is here and visible.”
Lois Tomas-Ewings’s is the founder, former facility supervisor and inspiring mentor for 29 years at the studio, training Tenisha for at least ten of those years. “I think if I wasn’t in that girl’s program after school, I don’t know if I ever would have been introduced into the arts.” It was this realization that fuels the investigation behind the lack of prevalence of these opportunities to lower-income communities specifically in the southern region of the States.
SPLOST dollars along with driven women are the reason why Tenisha leads a successful life. Without this funding, the access to after-school dance classes and performing would not be possible.
The Question
What fuels these opportunities and who has them? What becomes of communities without the arts? And what can we do here in the localized town of Athens as well as the broadened southern area of the United States?
The Facts
According to a study by USDA, the southern rural communities of the United States are “essentially a solid, grim block of poverty,” with rates above 15 percent in Georgia, Florida and Alabama alone, in reference to data collected by the United States Census Bureau. Evidence of this is seen in the figure 3 where, “Sixteen percent of counties within the South had poverty rates in the top two ranges of the map legend (from 24.5 to 48.6 percent), while the other regions (West, Midwest, and Northeast) had no more than 6.5 percent of their counties with poverty rates in the top ranges."
The lack of arts programs proves even a larger divide between the Northern and Southern soil, with fewer opportunities in rural towns due to the lack of education. U.S. News & World reports that the top10 rated graduate fine arts programs are located in the states of Connecticut, California, Rhode Island, Illinois, New York and Philadelphia, with Virginia as the first southern state to rank.
This speaks volumes to the lack of quality educational programs conducted in southern regions, specifically, the instructors and teachers placed in charge of these programs. At the core of the issue is a need to reform the engagement strategies of classes, working in tandem with making them available in the first place. In a reform study, featured in the Arts Education Policy Review, the author found that “These [poor] populations flourish when engaged in autonomous acts of discovery, experimentation, and hypothetical thinking, all antithetical to the new reform. Rather, passive submission to expository teaching is an inevitability of teaching to the test."
The study continues to discover through a survey, that arts opportunities are vital to the community but instructing of those programs take preceding importance to gain success in poor communities. A similar study at the Wallace Foundation affirmed this, “Like any other consumer, low-income youth have been conditioned to expect choice, demand satisfaction and get what they want quickly, or they will seek it elsewhere." The "elsewhere" in many cases is drugs, alcohol and crime, all activities that guaranteed quick satisfaction to the participant. Art is able to preoccupy that void as well as end addiction, as specifically acknowledged by The American Art Therapy Association (AATA).
Dance
Southern-based dance companies, like DanceFX Athens, Atlanta, and Charleston, have constructed specific programs to alleviate the inaccessibility to creativity and quality instruction in their communities.
"The Clean for Class program at DanceFX was geared so that we could have, essentially, more adults take class but feel like they were bartering for it,” explains DanceFX’s Executive Director, Allison Hayn. "It tends to be people whose schedules are erratic and people who are overcommitted which makes sense if you are working hard to create more opportunities and make ends meet.”
It is programs like this that are allowing even working mothers to take time out of their day to be creative. Studies have shown this outlet, improves home life, sets positive role models and promotes a healthy lifestyle for children of the home to model after.
Visual Art
Tiffani Taylor of Savannah, Georgia is a local artist working with the community to share her story of humble beginnings as well as making art a catalyst for change. Taylor grew up in a home of extreme poverty and domestic abuse. She continually shares her story to artists of all ages and backgrounds and admits the huge stake it had in her development of the Savannah Art Walk (SAW), a free-of-charge visit to Savannah’s professional and student galleries, where the art of all stature and form is displayed on the second Saturday of every month. “It was difficult growing up in a lower-income house and there was much anxiety. I think this contributed to my knowing that whatever path I chose, I would persevere and do well because there is absolutely nothing romantic about starving. I think it was the trauma I experienced in my childhood that led me to art,” says Taylor. In regards to keeping SAW a free event, Taylor attested, “I believe there is enough abundance for all and by being supportive and having positive energy, we are all stronger. It is important the event is free because of my humble beginnings and my belief that art is for everyone.”
Another artist local to Athens, GA, Carolyn Propst says that she couldn’t imagine her art career without her upbringing. “Thank goodness my parents supported me,” she laughs. Propst also commented on her future as a southern artist, “Sure there are great programs in New York but I hate the cold and my inspiration for my pieces come from my environment in which I learned to paint.” As the study discussed earlier, Propst agreed that the root of the issue with southern art programs is the lack of quality instruction, even within the university in which she attends. “You get some teachers who care and then you get some teachers that want you to produce your art the way they like it,” says Propst. She also attributes her success in the art world to her early exposure from her grandparents, who took her to drawing classes at the young age of eight.
Music
Music and sound are also important avenues of the arts and require the same creativity and accessibility as movement and painting. The organization, SoFar Sounds, is a concept based on a global community, coming together to share the love and craft of simply music.
"SoFar was founded to bring the magic back," gushes Lauren Tolbert, director of SoFar Sounds in Athens, "so offend you find yourself wrapped up in the gig, the performance, the scene, that you forget about why you came there in the first place, for the music."
According to SoFar's homepage, Today, "Sofar Sounds is a community of thousands of artists, hosts, fans, travelers and more, putting on hundreds of secret, intimate events per month, across 404 cities around the world." This is a concept, just introduced to Athens at the end of 2017, SoFar currently resides in twenty-five other southern cities, both big and small.Each show is put on by the local community by local people for local artists, putting the small ticket fee back into each link of that chain, thus propelling the music community forward and promoting a culture of collective reliance.
The Findings
Through these profiles, focused on areas of dance, visual art and music, it is evident that there are some programs in effect that are promoting accessibility amongst art in southern, poor communities. Unfortunately, this is just the beginning in terms of funding, specifically in Athens, GA. Without the help of donors and legislation, the SPLOST funding building that now houses East Athens Educational Dance Center, would not exist, without qualified teachers in art programs, Carolyn Propst would have followed an art career path, without pro-community music alternatives, our city of Athens, and others like it, would lack a monetarily sustainable music scene. All of these art forms work in tandem, producing both a more culturally enriched society, healthier population and safer streets, all of which begins with access.
Spotlight on Tenisha Cole
Tenisha Cole’s laugh fills the room, simple clothes and hair pulled tight into a bun gives her a professional notion but it is really her smile that captivates. Surprisingly, she composes herself and spits out, "I'm still shy; I've always been shy. They say I’m not, but I've always been extremely shy."
Cole is a 34-year-old mother of two sons. She lives in Athens, Georgia and owns a cleaning company called “Cole’s Cleaners.” She is a lover of Mary Kay and spends her off days working at the East Athens Educational Dance Center as the program director. Her life to most seems average, but this is a reality Cole never envisioned for herself.
“I came from a family that had no one. My momma didn’t graduate from high school, no one in my family went to college. I came from a lower income family that couldn’t afford dance classes anywhere,” explains Cole.
It wasn’t until Lois Thomas-Ewings founded the East Athens Educational Dance Center (EAEDC) that Cole could get access to dance classes through scholarship and affordable tuitions.
“I begged my momma! ‘Oh, I want to dance; I want to go. It’s only ten dollars. I want to go,” she recalls fondly, “The soul print that [dance] put on me [changed] my whole outlook on the world. It showed me goals that I didn’t have in my sight before,” says Cole.
Her story starts and ends with the self-confidence, discipline and skills she got from involving herself with the arts at an early age. Tenisha’s vibrant laugh and commanding presence made sense.
The shyness emerges when she talks about her first time performing in front of an audience. “Oh I was scared, I was terrified! Just like I am now every time I get ready to perform. Of course, once you get on stage it’s like a different kind of adrenalin rush. It feels good to have everyone in the audience screaming, you feel real special. It’s like you’re a local celebrity.”
Tenisha Cole’s life has not always been this way. She grew up sharing a house with her sister, two brothers and mother, living in multiple different communities throughout the Athens area. Although technically from a single parent home, Cole has never felt her mother was a single parent. “My dad has always been in my life.” Even still, Cole explains that families with two parents wasn’t a dynamic that she was accustomed to.
“My dance club became my family and [they] all came from very different backgrounds and households. Their families were different than mine. Some people’s parents were teachers, lawyers and doctors. Everything than what my family was not. It wasn’t worse or better, just different,” says Cole.
Her single-family home did not have disposable income for extracurricular activities. In fact, before dance, Tenisha attended the after-school Girl’s Club program as her sole social and creative outlet. Luckily, it was this very program that lead her to the dance world. One day when Cole was nine, a woman came to talk to her club about a new program that would be starting within the month. That woman was Lois Thomas-Ewings.
Fast forward ten years and Tenisha has found her home. She is as an inspiring teacher and programs director at the EAEDC.
Her supervisor, Nena Gilreath, believes she is the key to keeping the studio grounded. “Having Tenisha here is so important. She is a result of Lois’s commitment to making an impact, and she is here and visible,” she says.
Gilreath also expanded upon the importance of Tenisha as an evidence of success. “Of course there are many other people who are evidence, but they are not necessarily here and visible, she is,” explained Gilreath. The importance of this evidence goes back to the creation of the space, which was funded by SPLOST dollars. “Enough people had to vote yes! This is important,” says Gilreath.
Cole’s students yield her care and careful instruction in classes and beyond. “Lois taught us how to choreograph and we were able to do a lot of things other dancers our age were not able to do. Lois wanted us to be enriched in dance community rather than just dancing and just performing. This is a principle I pass down to my students,” says Cole.
The studio’s commitment is not just to dance; it is committed to the community. A responsibility Thomas-Ewings placed upon her students at a young age.
Thomas-Ewings still hangs around the studio from time to time. “We can’t keep her away...and honestly we don’t want her away,” says Cole with a laugh. “She has been my second mother, to me and to my students…she cares.”
It's from this care that sprouted the humble beginnings of the studio, “It wasn’t even a studio when I first started it, I started the program in a small room in the community center and I went door to door in the Nellie B Public housing community spreading the word. We stayed in that one room until 1992 then moved to a Dudley Park facility,” said Thomas-Ewings. “Tenisha was one of the first kids to walk through those doors.”
It is these doors that Cole began her training in dance and life skills, “I havelearned a lot about management and running a facility like this,” says Cole. Thomas-Ewings agreed, “She knows about every genre of dance out there. It helped her a lot in her own businesses she has in the modern day. Well that is what the arts do for people.”
And this is what the arts, specifically dance, continue to do for people. One child Tylar Smith, has found shelter under Cole’s instruction and friendship. Smith a fourth-year student at the University of Georgia, studying in their dance program and is also from the local Athens community.
“Coming to school can be hard, especially as a minority. Cole and the dance center gave me a place to escape and just be simply creative,” says Smith.
Smith’s eyes shift down but smiles continually appear on her face whenever Cole or Thomas-Ewings’ name is mentioned. “I have nothing but respect for these women, and I hope I can continue what they started.”
Smith's respect is a continual process, “I can already feel the younger girls looking to me!” says Smith, “and I lean on Tenisha for support because it can be a lot of pressure.”
This long line of ladies is the lifeline for the East Educational Dance Center because performing dance is so much more than just dancing. As Gilreath says, “It is about life, it is about your self-confidence and your determination for a better life.”
Cole still juggles her two little boys, second job and husband, but her passion for mentorship that was passed down from Thomas-Ewings is what keeps her as a living, breathing example for girls just like her that didn’t know they could have the quality of life that Tenisha Cole now lives.
