doubleXposure Podcast

In March 2020, cities around the world shutdown all but the essential activities in the effort to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Now, as vaccination rates in the Seattle area hover above 70%, businesses in the downtown core hope to see more traffic on the street and more customers coming through their doors.

Jon Scholes, Executive Director of the Downtown Seattle Association, tells co-host Vivian Phillips that the arts are critical to the city's economic and social emergence from the pandemic.

We've hit the end of our first season and to celebrate, doubleXposure brought our show on the road, recording a panel discussion before a live audience at Seattle's Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute.

Guests University of Washington Drama Professor and stage director Valerie Curtis-Newton, President and CEO of Arts Fund Michael Greer, Tim Lennon, Executive Director of LANGSTON! and Trish Millines-Dziko, founder and Executive Director of the Technology Access Foundation, talk to Vivian and Marcie  about everything from the role of culture in policy-making to how their own lives were touched by the pandemic.

One big challenge for BIPOC led nonprofit cultural organizations is funding. Traditional philanthropic channels have been rethinking how they hand out money and who they give it to.

Jonathan Cunningham, a Senior Program Officer at the Seattle Foundation, walks co-host Vivian Phillips through the Creative Equity Fund, aimed specifically for groups led by and serving BIPOC communities.

Seattle's cultural sector is a major pillar of the local economy, yet many politicians overlook it when they craft their policy agendas.

On October 4th, hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman got a chance to ask candidates about how arts and culture fit into their visions for Seattle. 

In this episode, Marcie and Vivian listen to mayoral candidates Lorena Gonzalez and Bruce Harrell and mull over what they heard.

In March, 2020, three Seattle-area artists knew they wanted to help their fellow creatives who'd been slammed by pandemic closures. They created a grassroots Artists Relief Fund, ultimately handing out more than a million dollars to more than 2,000 people.

The Seattle cultural organization Langston administered the fund. Now, Langston Executive Director Tim Lennon says they're getting ready to launch a new relief fund aimed specifically at Black artists.

Throughout the long pandemic, the arts have helped to buoy our spirits. Now, in many cities around the world, they're helping to rebuild our communities. But very often, political leaders either minimize or overlook the cultural sector's role in civic vitality. Guests Dr. Jasmine Mahmoud of the University of Washington and Tracey Wickersham, Director of Cultural Tourism for Visit Seattle, help trace the connections between the arts and public policy.

The Covid pandemic has hit hard everywhere and in every economic sector. But arts and cultural institutions, and the people who work within them, have been especially hard hit.

This year Congress approved ARPA, the American Rescue Plan Act. Co-host Vivian Phillips talks to Brian Carter, Executive Director of 4Culture in King County, Washington, to explain what ARPA is and how it could help the embattled cultural community.

We're 18 months into the pandemic, but many theaters are contemplating opening their doors to live audiences, with Broadway leading the way.

Covid hammered the arts world, but guests Tim Bond, Artistic Director of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, and Valerie Curtis-Newton, nationally known stage director and founder of the Hansberry Project, and African-American theater laboratory, don't want to see a return to the way things were pre-pandemic. They believe it's time to push for true racial equity, and for broader awareness of the essential nature of theater--and all the arts--in our communities.

After almost 18 months, many arts organizations thought the worst of the pandemic was behind them. The Delta variant has played havoc with their plans for a full reopening this fall.

Spectrum Dance Theatre Executive Director Tera Beach talks with host Marcie Sillman about the latest pivot in the long trek to keep the dance company afloat.

Donald Byrd has been making dances for half a century, sometimes in the most challenging of circumstances. The Covid-19 pandemic pushed the choreographer to re-imagine his artform, and to re-learn lessons of resilience his grandmother taught him more than 60 years ago.