It is art that makes life,
makes interest, makes importance ...
and I know of no substitute whatever
for the force and beauty of its process.
henry james
novelist
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
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.
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