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COURIER LIFE, APRIL 22-28, 2022
Keeping the arts alive in schools
Brooklyn teens take to Carnegie Hall, as arts education struggles to keep its footing
BY MIKAELA WEGNER
A pair of Brooklyn high
school sophomores did their
school proud back in February,
when they took to the stage at
the revered Carnegie Hall to perform
their own, original work.
But the girls and their music
teacher worry that the arts education
that propelled them to one
of the world’s most famous stages
is becoming less and less accessible
to their peers.
Ainka-Amara Gillespie and
Imaani Russell, both 16-yearold
students at Uncommon Collegiate
Charter High School in
Bedford-Stuyvesant, performed
“AfroCosmicMelatopia,” part
of Carnegie Hall’s Afrofuturism
festival, which explores the
intersection of Black culture,
technology, and visions of the
future. Last fall, Gillespie’s music
teacher Briony Price asked if
she’d be interested in collaborating
on a piece for the festival.
In 2019, Price was adjusting to
a high school teacher role in the
US, having grown up in London.
At Wednesday afternoon study
hall, her student Deborah Adesodun
gave Price a piece of creative
writing she wrote during
the block. The piece talked about
a young Black woman named
Maleeka. Titled They Say, Deborah’s
writing later became the
basis of the song Gillespie performed
in Carnegie Hall three
years later.
Once the poem was done, Russell,
who has been dancing since
childhood, choreographed an
original dance to accompany it.
The pair took to Zankel Hall at
Carnegie Hall on Feb. 27 to perform
their collaborative work.
But, statistically speaking,
the arts among their peers is dying.
While Gillespie and Russell
live passionately through dance
and music, Price sees an increasing
“missed opportunity” for her
high school students.
New York falls into the 42
percent of US states that do not
define the arts as a core or academic
subject, according to The
National Center for Education
Statistics. On the flip side, 53
percent of tourist spending in
the state is spent on restaurants,
shopping, arts, culture, and entertainment,
the state comptroller’s
office reported last April.
A pair of Brooklyn high school students performed their original work at Carnegie Hall in February, but the students and their art teacher worry that the opportunities
that led them to the storied institution are unavailable to many students. Photo by Fadi Kheir
Gillespie now has two years
left in the public school system
before graduating. She had never
had a singing lesson she started
working with Price when she
started high school.
“I’ve never heard of Carnegie
Hall,” Gillespie said. “But my
mom’s like, ‘Once you’re in Carnegie,
you’ve made it.’”
In her piece, Gillespie defined
beauty, and her sights for the future,
as a Black 16-year-old in her
lyrics. She seeks to “normalize,”
watching as the Black Lives Matter
movement is “on and off,” that
“it gains recognition, then it’s off
the map.”
Specifically in her own life,
Gillespie wants Black girl’s hair
normalized — and for people to
stop asking about “getting her
hair done” when it’s down.
“What you see, or what you
have in your mind about yourself,
is not always what’s going to
be expressed on the outside,” Gillespie
said.
After graduation, Gillespie
hopes to attend a university for
liberal arts.
Russell began training in
dance at eight years old. Having
lived in New York all her life,
Russell hopes to leave the state
for university to study law, while
also pursuing dancing and modeling
“on the side.” She said her
largest encouragements are her
dance coaches, her mother, and
her own drive to “be better.”
Russell stepped onto the stage
toe-pointed, performing a lyrical
dance while her classmate Gillespie
sang and Adesodun’s poem
played. Her movements looked
fluid, as though attached to a single
string, bending and spinning
in continuous motions, matching
the pace of lyric and line.
“I’m just trying to take the
lyrics and kinda embody what
the poem is saying, the topic of
the poem, through dance,” Russell
said. With Gillespie, Russell
asks for Black hair to be normalized
and there to be “incorporations
of Black African American
people in higher positions.”
“Things like our bonnets and
scarves are seen as ghetto and
stuff like that,” Russell said.
“Hair represents us and our
hair is definitely a big part of us
because, you know, the afro, the
kinkiness, it was usually seen as
out of place. But it’s our beauty.”
Of the three main feeder middle
schools for Uncommon Collegiate,
Price said none have music
programs. Packing content into
her high school music classes,
Price said she is trying to build
student’s portfolios who lack “a
lot of the foundational training.”
She fears her graduating students
facing an “inequity” studying
alongside other university
students who’ve studied the arts
years longer.
The New York State Senate introduced
Bill S5770 in 2019, “Adding
arts and music education
into the curriculum for public
school students.” Referred to the
Senate’s Education Committee
twice, the bill has not yet passed.
While in waiting, students
enrolled in public music classes
continues to decline. Total students
enrolled in public music
education from kindergarten to
grade 12 had decreased by 22 percent
from 1975 to 2014, according
to the New York State Education
Department. If this trend continues,
students taking music in
school will drop one percent every
two years.
Opportunities to perform in
well-known spaces like Carnegie
Hall gives Price and her students
a boost.
“It’s exciting though,” Price
said. “I feel like Carnegie does
a lot to build partnerships, especially
across other boroughs,
to help cultivate new music in
schools.”
Price often asks her students,
“Hands up if you’ve heard
of Carnegie Hall.” One or two
hands will go up in the class, she
said. She walks to the classroom
window, where she can see Manhattan.
“It’s just over there, you can
see like on the skyline where 57th
Street is,” Price said. “It’s a big
deal.”