The Arts are Back

By Sarah Batrous and Anthony Bui

The performing arts have been a staple in everyday life since as far as we can remember. From ancient Greek amphitheatres to modern day opera houses, the arts have continuously evolved and progressed throughout history. So when the stay-at-home order went into effect due to COVID-19, the arts took a long intermission. Luckily, with several precautions in place, the arts have begun making their return to the stage, continuing to provide the joy we’ve all been needing.

Importance of the Arts

Several key performing arts institutions in the city placed an emphasis on the overall importance of the arts to the community and the youth.

Greg Lambousy, the executive director at the New Orleans Jazz Museum, states, “The performing arts are the glue that holds our cultural fabric together. It helps tell our individual and collective stories, and it gives us purpose and reason to work together in creative ways.”

Anwar Nasir, the executive director of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, also chimes in, “Performing arts for the community and the youth are vital to who we are. The arts spark joy and creativity. It creates opportunities for us to laugh, cry, and everything in between. The arts tell our stories for future generations. It provides a place for children to express themselves and build lifelong skills. The arts are an expression of who we are as human beings.”

There is no denying the importance of the arts. Its impact overall is huge, but the role it plays cements its legacy as a vital part of any community, especially with the added constraint of the coronavirus. Jenny Hamilton of the New Orleans Ballet Association expresses, “During the pandemic, classes have provided much needed extracurricular activities that engage students–fostering creativity, helping them maintain a sense of enthusiasm and promoting health and wellness.”

The arts have been of great benefit to the community during the pandemic, though the pandemic has affected accessibility to the arts. Performances, usually enjoyed by the multitude, are now becoming commonplace with in-home entertainment. An entirely new set of norms had to be created in order to preserve the art forms that we all know and love.

Pandemic Changes

The pandemic brought big changes to our daily lives and businesses were not spared either. The performing arts businesses had to be innovative and quick to meld with the lockdown, mask mandates, and limitations to public spaces. A few businesses share what changes they implemented and which ones will be remaining this year.

The New Orleans Opera will be continuing all of their smaller live performances, seeing that their audiences enjoyed Opera on Tap in our Yard. They found no reason not to continue these themed opera concerts held in the beautiful Guild Home yard in the Garden District. Their online programming series, ALLONS!, and virtual education programming will remain in place this season. Additionally, they hope to be live in classrooms as the pandemic gave them a wonderful opportunity to use virtual learning content to their advantage, sparking interest in schools across Louisiana.

The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra’s Our Music at the Museum series will continue this season for the community to hear members of their orchestra in non-traditional and other new spaces. LPOtv, their exclusive streaming home of LPO concerts, will be launched this fall for added comfort to fans who want to enjoy performances at home.

The Jefferson Performing Arts Society, NOLA Jazz Museum, and New Orleans Ballet Association will all be requiring masks, doing temperature checks, enforcing social distancing, and implementing any future mandates for the safety of their patrons. In addition to these precautions, the NOLA Jazz Museum will also keep in place their sanitizer stations, plexiglass barriers between the front desk staff and patrons, and will utilize contact tracing when needed. Like its neighboring businesses, the New Orleans Film Society also attests that they would continue to watch the pandemic closely, following all city and state ordinances that could change rules regarding in-person screenings and attendance limitations.

Overall, the arts will continue to adapt to keep their staff and audiences safe. Despite the safety precautions in place, these businesses are still reaching out to the community with more public events and programs.

Community and Educational Outreach

Despite the turbulent changes, the arts will still be reaching out to the public with exciting new (and returning!) programs. To these organizations, it is vital that community outreach remains one of their top priorities, and adjusting to the current circumstances remains a challenge. However, they are more than open to offering their community some amazing entertainment and learning opportunities.

The New Orleans Opera House promotes one of their more ambitious projects, The Lacrimosa Project, a music video experience named after a section of Mozart’s Requiem. Clare Burovac came up with the project as a way to showcase the New Orleans Opera Chorus, as well as acknowledge the suffering of the New Orleans community due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside this project, the opera house will continue to provide virtual content for teachers to use in the classroom. They want to partner with schools and other learning institutions to give all of New Orleans’ children the opportunity to grow, learn, and discover their talents through opera as its disciplines include singing, storytelling, visual arts, orchestral performance, technical theatre, and dance.

The Jefferson Performing Arts Society will be offering professional workshops and master classes with guest artists this fall and inviting some of the theater kids to participate. They will also be having another student production in the spring and three more next summer. Community conversation series will continue virtually, including panels with local professors, professionals, artists, and community leaders that connect the dots between their productions onstage and daily life.

The New Orleans Film Society is planning another hybrid in-person and virtual New Orleans Film Festival to take place between November 5 and November 21. Films will be screened across venues in New Orleans between November 5 and November 14. A lineup of over a hundred films will be available at their virtual cinema.

The NOLA Jazz Museum is upping their virtual outreach this season. They have increased their capacity for broadcasting through the development of their new Education Center and Ruth U. Fertel Jazz Lab. This has allowed them to install new equipment in their performing arts center and mobile streaming capabilities for outdoor events. While in the process of connecting all of these locations, they want to create multiple sound stages for TV-style broadcasts of larger events like NOLA Riverfest and their Improvisations Gala in December. In regards to the NOLA Riverfest, At Sound Collage, and the Improvisations Gala, there will be around 27 bands playing.

The New Orleans Ballet Association offers a plethora of summer programs in collaboration with NORD centers and Tulane University. Established at NORD’s request to fill a void of senior programming following Hurricane Katrina, NOBA’s Senior Dance Fitness Program (SDF) celebrates over 10 years of providing adults ages 55 and over with free, weekly dance and movement classes. They promote participation in intergenerational performances, like the annual Nutcracker Suite and Spring Concert, and their Dance for Parkinson’s Program uniquely engages Parkinson’s patients, their families, and their caregivers with new early onset workshops added to the roster. Their Freedom of Movement Program reaches veterans of all abilities, and the weekly open community classes for ages 14 and up feature both local and guest artists leading ballet and modern dance.

The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra will be offering their Soul Strings music therapy program which serves both students and adults with developmental disabilities in the Greater New Orleans area. This program both supports and increases the quality of life for their participants. Their music mentorship Music For Life program provides one-on-one or small group music study directly with their musicians. This year-round program allows for students from primarily low-income Title-1 schools to learn instrument technique and music theory.

These events are meant to meld both the young and old alike, encouraging them to express themselves. Local arts businesses and organizations express the beauty of the performing arts with every plan, exclaiming that we are never too old or too young to start pursuing our passions. In many of these community outreach programs and events, the main goal is simply to educate every member of the community about the rich history of the performing arts. Their resolve to not be brought down despite the challenges and restraints placed on them asserts that there is nothing, not even a worldwide pandemic, that could stop these organizations from educating, entertaining, and uniting the public.