Robert Frost defined poetry as “a way of remembering what it would impoverish us to forget.” Surely the same thing could be said of theatre, music, and dance. It would indeed

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impoverish us were we not to listen again to the stories that others tell, were we not to reexperience the magic of the human body’s extraordinary movement, were we not to recall the conversation of cellos, violins, flutes. The arts teach us about the grand human experiment, reminding us of who we are and inspiring us to be better than we are, representing the beautiful, plumbing the painful, affirming our deepest aspirations. Still, funding for the arts can be a tough sell. Donors wonder how to justify their support when there are hungry folks to feed, house, and clothe. Perhaps the answer is that there are different kinds of hunger, and both need to be fed. That is why every arts organization in the Catalogue is also a committed community citizen, offering outreach programs, workshops, and afterschool or summer activities. They all understand how central the arts can and must be, not only for those who buy the tickets (and the tickets must be bought!) but also for those who cannot. This year’s Catalogue presents a wide array of arts groups in every discipline, including several that first appeared in 2003 (they are marked with our icon ): theatre, music, and dance organizations that entertain, inspire, and educate; arts centers that become safe hubs of neighborhood energy and activity; community programs that blend the making of art with the making of healthy young men and women. It would impoverish us to forget.