Building an Equitable Arts Infrastructure Symposium

The Equitable Arts Infrastructure Research Group and The University of Texas at Austin College of Fine Arts are hosting a national symposium focused on the enduring challenge of cultural, economic and racial equity in the nation’s performing arts sector. Over two days, through conversations with cultural professionals and humanities scholars, this convening will address gaps in understanding about how performing artists in the U.S. work and how their work is supported systemically. By defining, theorizing and historicizing new methods and approaches to an equitable arts infrastructure, this symposium will create a foundation for new understandings of how educational institutions and cultural professionals can support each other.

This symposium is free and open to the public. Registration is required to ensure we can accommodate all attendees. 

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Questions about the Building an Equitable Arts Infrastructure Symposium?
Email artsinfrastructures25@utexas.edu.

Schedule of Events 

Friday, February 28, 2025 

All events will be held on The University of Texas at Austin’s campus at the Harry Ransom Center (300 W. 21st Street, Austin, 78712). 

Breakfast (8:30 - 9:30 AM) 

A light breakfast and coffee will be available for guests in the North Atrium.  

Welcome from the Equitable Arts Infrastructure Research Group (9:30-10:00 AM) 

Speakers: Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, Charlotte Canning, Sarah Wilbur  

Morning Session - Value/Mission (10:00-11:30 AM) 

Every performing arts organization prominently includes its mission and values as part of its story, and it could be argued its mission and values are its story. Telling a story is a way of assigning worth to what the story narrates. How do we tell the stories of the value of the performing arts? Do those stories reflect actual or aspirational value? How can we change the story to change value?

Led by:
Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, Professor of Theatre and Dance, University of Michigan
Colleen Hooper, Associate Professor and Coordinator of Dance Education, Point Park University
Todd London, Author, Founding Director of The Third Bohemia
Koritha Mitchell, Professor of English, Boston University
Adam Fong, Program Officer, Performing Arts, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Lunch (11:30AM-1:00PM) 

Hosted by The University of Texas at Austin College of Fine Arts at the Second Floor Atrium of the Harry Ransom Center.  

Afternoon Session - Data/Story (1:00-2:30 PM) 

How can cultural workers, including those in the academy in the arts, humanities and arts policy, deploy data with story to advance an equitable arts infrastructure? What types of research can be combined with programming? What questions might we ask? What models are emerging? What innovations or practices require a spotlight?

Led by:
Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, Professor of Theatre and Dance, University of Michigan
Esther Kim Lee, Frances Hill Fox Professor of Theater Studies, International Comparatives Studies and History, and the Director of Asian American and Diaspora Studies, Duke University
Martine Kei Green-Rogers, Dean of the Theatre School, DePaul University
Brian Herrera, Associate Professor of Theater, Princeton University

Late Afternoon Session - Capital/Resources (3:00-4:30 PM) 

Capital and resources in the performing arts are typically framed as financial, but the value the performing arts create is often less monetary than cultural, social and political. Value is accrued to and by the performing arts not through the exchange of concrete commodities, but through experiences, feelings and/or mental exchanges. Economic capital is not less important, however, to a healthy performing arts ecosystem. Indeed, discussion of performing arts infrastructure all too often is reduced to issues of equity and debt. What do we need to turn conceptions of capital/resources into productive tools for creative professionals?

Led by:
Sarah Wilbur, Associate Professor of the Practice in Dance, Duke University
Michael Sy Uy, Associate Professor of Musicology and Director of the American Music Research Center, University of Colorado Boulder
Lara Evans, Vice President, First Peoples Fund

Keynote Address - (5:00-6:30 PM)  

Reception (6:30-7:00 PM) 

Held in the Spence Lobby of the Harry Ransom Center. 

Saturday, March 1, 2025 

All events will be held on The University of Texas at Austin’s campus at the Harry Ransom Center (300 W. 21st Street, Austin, 78712).  

Breakfast and Coffee (8:30-9:30 AM) 

A light breakfast and coffee will be available for guests.   

Welcome from the Equitable Arts Infrastructure Research Group (9:30-10:00 AM)

Speakers: Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, Charlotte Canning, Sarah Wilbur  

Plenary Conversation - U.S. Representative Chellie Pingre (D-ME 1st District) and Dr. Charlotte Canning (10:00-11:30 AM) 

Chellie Pingree is a former farmer and small businesswoman, and she has served as the Congressional Representative for Maine’s 1st District since 2009. Together Rep. Pingree and Dr. Canning will discuss the possibilities and liabilities of federal cultural policy, particularly as it relates to the performing arts. 

Lunch (11:30-1:00 PM) 

A light lunch will be served on the Second Floor Atrium of the Harry Ransom Center. 

Afternoon Session - Labor/Work (1:00-2:30 PM) 

Artistic production is driven by people and their efforts to create. In this session, panelists focus on the experience of the artistic process on the human body and how it is affected by the conditions of creative work. Cultural workers have long experienced the precarity of the flexible workforce, and that mode of working has had a tremendous impact on what the performing arts can and cannot do. How does re-visioning labor with justice and equity in mind change infrastructure? How does infrastructure impede or enhance these possibilities?

Led by:
Patrick McKelvey, Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts, University of Pittsburgh
Patricia Ybarra, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, Brown University
Angie Kim, President and CEO, Center for Cultural Innovation
Laura Zabel, Executive Director, Springboard for the Arts 

LATE Afternoon Session - Market/Audience (3:00-4:30 PM) 

Markets and audiences can be defined as the people who are intended and invited partners for performance, a framework for interactions and outcomes or a place of desire and aspiration. In order to understand market and audiences from the point of view of performing arts infrastructure, the panelists will discuss how these forces structure and organize the possibilities for cultural professionals on and off stage. How is performing arts infrastructure shaped by current market forces and available resources, who attends and supports the performing arts and what ways can those forces be changed to create a more equitable and just market for the performing arts?

Led by:
Jasmine Jamillah Mahmoud, Assistant Professor of Theatre History and Performance Studies, University of Washington
Derek Miller, Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies, Harvard University
Bob Bursey, Executive and Artistic Director, Texas Performing Arts
James Fuller, Audience Insight Manager, Ballet Austin
Nataki Garrett, CEO and Executive Director, The Ladder Leadership Services
Donna Walker-Kuhne, Founder, Walker International Communications Group

Concluding Remarks and Continuing the Conversation (5:00-6:30 PM) 

After the symposium’s formal gatherings, we want to enter into a time of reflection, brainstorming and planning for the future of arts infrastructures. What provocations do we want to create for the future of arts and cultural workers? Where should we direct energy and focus in the coming year?  

Led by: 
Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, Professor of Theatre and Dance, University of Michigan 
Charlotte Canning, Professor of Performance as Public Practice, The University of Texas at Austin 

Parking

Parking for the symposium has been generously provided by the University Co-Op at their garage, located two blocks north of the Harry Ransom Center. After parking at the Co-Op garage at 2214 San Antonio Street, please bring your parking ticket to the Harry Ransom Center for validation at the symposium.

These events are co-sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, The University of Texas at Austin College of Fine Arts, the Department of Theatre and Dance and the Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Endeavors.