Community Arts Projects

Large snowflakes illuminate every avenue and turnpike. Mistletoe and wreaths hang outside every shop. People decorate their homes with elegance and joy. The aroma of hot chocolate battles the searing cold air. These are just some of the sights of the holiday season that we are so privileged to experience and take part in every year. But the sight that makes this season a communal holiday season is the joy that is in the air. People are off from work, are going on vacation, taking advantages of the sales, or are most importantly relaxing and getting together with family and friends. People are out and about. This makes it a community art. There is art on the external for our eyes to see, but there’s also art in the internal during this season. People find joy in relaxing after a year’s worth of hard work. As they look forward to the new year, they spend time with those that are close to their heart. This time of the year is not limited to anyone, rather is open for everyone to take part in. This is why I chose this as a community art. What better an art than one that brings internal joy?

Although I don’t have any past relationships with the religious holidays traditionally celebrated in this season, the beauty of the holidays in present day is that I don’t need to have one in order to participate. To me, to take part in the holiday season is to be happy and appreciate life. The year is approaching the end, giving people time for introspection in order to set new and better hopes for the coming year, hence new year resolutions. We all have things that we are proud of and ones that we regret. The new year, in our minds, is a new start with the slate wiped clean. Thus, in the most basic element, the holiday season is one belonging to all humans. One can be working for an institution that causes him/her to live away from family, so for them the holidays might mean going on vacation to visit family back at home. One can be traveling to a new place alongside a loved one. One can be, again, simply gathering with those close by, free from the constraints of time. One can be celebrating the birth of Christ, or can be observing Hanukah. To me, there are no outsiders in this time of the year. The inclusiveness of the time is what makes it as joyful as it is.

My encounter with the holiday markets of this season was not a planned one, but one that, joyful nonetheless, occured prematurely. I was headed out of the Macaulay Honors College’s STEAM Festival and towards the trains at Columbus Circle when I saw masses of people crossing the street towards what appeared to be a holiday market. The market had encompassed the entirety of Columbus Circle and seemed to fit in perfectly with the neighboring Central Park. The market itself was delightful. Items varying from ceramics to chocolates were present. In just the first aisle of stalls, I saw lights, lamps, hot chocolate, scented candles, and skin products. There were also many clothing items, including sweaters, scarves, and mittens. The items were not items expected from the concept of a traditional holiday market that we have formed in our minds. I didn’t notice any Santa Claus hats or ugly Christmas sweaters. Rather I saw an Asian-style ceiling lights and lamps stall that made me feel like, for a brief instance, as if I were in Chinatown! As a result of such efforts of inclusiveness, the atmosphere was more open and accepting. I didn’t realize at the start, but the people next to me could have been from anywhere in the world. I overheard a group of people introducing themselves to another, with the former group coming on vacation to New York City from Alabama. Although my first thought of Alabama was Roy Moore, it was comforting to see people communicating with someone they wouldn’t normally communicate with. For me, this was the essence of the holiday season. People coming together in a spirit of humanity and mankind, common to us all, regardless of faith and culture.

Another aspect of the holiday market that intrigued me was the concept of the stalls. There weren’t any big companies or brands selling the products there. All the vendors appeared to be small businesses that specialized in the products that they bought to sell. How nice is that? Having lived in New York City my entire life, it’s heard to escape the big and recognizable brands and their logos. At the market, the small business vendors contributed to the essential atmosphere of the holiday season, an atmosphere of intimacy. The vendors specialized in the products they were selling. Knowing that, I had a greater appreciation for not only the product but for the small brands as well. I have yet to find better chocolate than Lindt and Godiva, with Lindt ranking above Godiva, but the chocolate at the market tasted surprisingly similar. The hot chocolate, also from an unrecognizable brand, was better than any I’ve gotten from Starbucks. This compelled me to think, was I eating the Godiva chocolate because I liked it or simply because of the brand?

As soon as I entered the market, the big sign with “Holiday” written largely across it stood out to me. Ironically, the next day I saw an interesting social media post of a friend at a holiday market in Birmingham, England. A striking difference stood out to me at once. Instead of “holiday” market, in the pictures of the post, I saw “Christmas” market written largely across the signs. This stuck with me, so I decided to look into it. To my surprise, New York City is the only place where the term “holiday” market is commonly used. Elsewhere, especially, Europe, “Christmas” market is the norm. England, a former cosmopolitan empire that colonized people of all cultures and races, I could see Christmas markets being the norm. With the monarch also being the head of the English Church, England is at its core, is a Christian country. However, I would think that a country largely responsible for the racial disparities we see today would now, in the twenty-first century, adopt a more inclusive approach. Birmingham, on my last visit, did not seem any less diverse than New York City. Yet, they say racial relations are better in the United Kingdom than in the United States. The difference lies in questioning. In this country, we have recently begun to question many things that were once of the norm. Take for example male predatory behavior. At one time, it would be shrugged off as just men being men. Now, thankfully, we feel the courage to speak out and deliver consequences for such behavior. The same theory applies to the statues of the Confederates down in the south. Now, many things that were once in denial and in the back of our minds, are now in our conscience. Isn’t it better to question the norm rather than blindly accept it for being the norm. By doing so can we even attempt to go near equality and build a common culture of inclusiveness, which I belive holiday markets are an example of and are even setting the bedrock for.

The claims of President Donald Trump in regards to the term “Happy Holidays” are an example of something the holiday season does not stand for. President Trump campaigned on and even today in his rallies, searingly cries to reconstitute the phrase “Merry Christmas” in place of “Happy Holidays.” I even once heard the following: “We will take back Christmas.” If people are finally recognizing that Christmas is not the only holiday of the season, then why would that be seen as something unlawful or wrong? There is Christmas, but also Hanukah, Kwanzaa, and several other micro-cultural holidays. Then there’s the New Years holiday, a secular holiday that is celebrated by the majority of the world. The fact that “Happy Holidays” is seen as inapplicable clearly denotes a racist and xenophobic ideology underlying President Trump’s claims. This would be something that I would want to delve into. It would be interesting to ask people visiting the holiday markets their opinion on this topic. Since the people visiting come from all over the world, I’m interested to know what types of comments I would receive. And although some perceive this topic as divisive and not appropriate for the holiday spirit, it would be an important conversation to have. Are we heading towards cultural inclusivity, or xenophobia? Being at the holiday markets in New York City definitely felt like the former. Seeing people from all over the country, the world even, collectively interacting and appreciating intimate and cosmopolitan items spoke to the essence of the holiday season. This is a season of unity, and whether it be just for a brief moment, we all get to breathe in the air of joy.

Community Arts Paper

As I started to enjoy art more, I noticed that art existed in every aspect of my life — my walk home,  my food, and even the holidays celebrated around me. Thus, the focus of my community arts project was holidays, specifically the Christmas Holiday Market at Union Square. I had heard about this location for years now from my friends, who always mentioned that it was a beautiful and enjoyable experience. I, however, never actually had the time to go out and see it. This project was the perfect excuse to go experience the wonderful, beautiful traditions of the holiday market. I specifically chose art in the form of the holiday market because I had always heard it was nicely decorated and an amazing experience. I was genuinely interested in seeing the beauty instead of just hearing about it.

I always considered myself an outsider to Christmas because I was born into a Muslim family. Growing up, everytime I brought home drawings of christmas trees from school and tried hanging them up, my mother would remind me that “We are Muslims.” She believed that it was not right for us to celebrate another religion’s traditions. Thus, everything I knew about the holiday was what I learned through movies or school. I watched, with remorse, as my friends posted pictures on instagram in front of decorated trees at their house. I would always wish I could do that too. Yet, I always understood where my mother was coming from and why she did not want to bring home a tree.

Even though I never experienced Christmas inside of my home, I still celebrated it to an extent. Every year, I would participate in Secret Santa with my friends. We would all write our names on a piece of paper and put it into a hat. From there, we would choose a name out of hat and would become their Secret Santa. On a specified day, we would go to one of my friend’s house, whichever friend that had the nicer tree that year. We would all put the presents under the tree and we would open them at the same time. Thus, I was not a complete outsider to the holiday, and in a way did participate in it.

To actually see the art, I visited the Holiday Market at Union Square- 14 Street. I was able to see why my friends believed the market was beautiful from the moment I walked through the opening. Lights were strung everywhere and even though it was after sunset, I was able to see everything clearly. Stands lined both sides of the path and people were selling everything from chocolate and food to lights and monkey products. Most of the items being sold were homemade and thus were unique. The overall aesthetic of the market was breathtaking.

As I walked through the market, I noticed the things we were taught to pay attention to in class: the “audience”, the “venue”, the “costumes”, and the lights. Except since this was located out in the open, the venue was just the stands and the audience was typical New Yorkers with their families. The costumes was what everyone was wearing: their typical clothes. These aspects prepared me for my presentation. They all added to the wonderful experience the Holiday Market provided. I took plenty of pictures and included them in the slides during the presentation.

I discovered that the holiday market was truly a form of community art. The location itself made it easily accessible for most New Yorkers since it was in the heart of the city and open to everyone. As I watched people having fun in the market, I noticed the community aspect. Everyone was either with family or friends. Everyone was either laughing or smiling.

I discovered that even though my mother never allowed me to participate in celebrating Christmas, I actually really want to. I decided that after I grow up and get my own house, I want to buy and decorate a christmas tree every year. I want my children growing up with the tradition of the holiday not because of the religion it represents but because it provides them with culture.

The main limitation I experienced while researching this art was the fact that  never experienced Christmas traditions in my own house. I never felt the aspect of community when it came to this specific holiday so I  had to learn through online and the physical visit to the market.

I want to perform more research on Christmas and actually begin to celebrate it. Most people believe that you have to be Christian to celebrate it, but I believe the culture and tradition of Christmas has transformed over the past decades to allow everyone to experience the culture.

The term “community arts” seems pretty self-explanatory, and it is. Community arts are art forms that are based in a community and characterized by interaction within that community. That being said, some community arts are forgotten about such as parades, dance and cooking. People often forget that these things are art in general and also forget that they involve the community. Dance is the art form that I choose to discuss in class. I have been dancing since I was five and I have been in surrounded by the dance community since I was born. My oldest sister was dancing two years before I was even born so I came into the world knowing the dance community. I wanted to share my unique experience with this community art with my classmates.

I chose dance because it is very personal to me. I have been taking classical ballet lessons for fourteen years now and I was born into the dance world. I am the youngest of three girls and each of us started ballet lessons when we were five. Therefore, when I was born, my oldest sister had already been talking dance lessons for two years and my other sister would start within the next two years of my life. I grew up knowing the dance community and I have never been separated from it until college started. My old dance company, Step by Step in Cornwall, New York, is still a part of my life. I recently saw their production of the of the Nutcracker which we call “A Familiar Suite”. It was strange to be on outsider after all the years of being in the production. It was my first time watching the nutcracker since I was four years old instead of performing it. I was always an insider, and to a degree I still am. I am not a professional by any means, but I am trained in classical and modern style dance forms so I am usually an insider in the dance world. I am still performing with Step by Step this summer, however, I feel more like an outsider than I ever have before. In college, I don’t yet have a dance company or club that I participate in. I now watch dance and hear about it. I no longer see the same girls I did every day at the studio. It’s a very strange feeling being an outsider of something you’ve only ever known as an insider.

For my presentation in class I showed my senior production of A Familiar Suite. To prepare for this I first had to get the video. Unfortunately, it was in a box in my parents’ house…in Florida. I called my mom and asked her if she could send it to me over the weekend. She searched the boxes of our stuff to find the DVD and sent it as priority mail as soon as she could. I checked my mailbox for the disc every day. Every day that is wasn’t there I prepared more by trying to decide which scenes to show in class. Should I show the scenes I performed in or the ones that are most important to the storyline? Or I could even show parts of every single dance. The day of the presentation finally came and there was still no DVD in my mailbox. I explained to my professor and she completely understood (you rock professor Natov). That day after class the DVD was waiting for me in my mailbox, of course. I prepared some more to presentation during our next class. I watched the show again and decided which performance of that year I wanted to show. We perform it twice in one day and I decided our first show was better to present. We were more unified as a company in the first show. We were more in time and had more energy. We’ve been performing the same dances with mild changes our whole life so it comes down to things like smiles and all of us tilting our heads the same way to decipher which performance was better than the other. I didn’t do much other research because knowledge of dance is like a second language to me. There are few questions about our performance that I couldn’t answer and even fewer about our community.

I didn’t discover much about the art of dance or community of dancers that I was already privy to, however, I did recall things I thought were most interesting. One of these things happened to be the differences in the generation of dancers I was a part of and the younger girls in my studio. Most of the older girls have been dancing together since they were three while the younger girls were a mod podge of different communities. They were also introduced to competition dance much earlier than we were. In fact, the girls I graduated with only did competitions our senior year. Comp is a completely different community and discipline than the dance we were used to. It is more about tricks and what would be interesting to those who know nothing about dance. Basically, you have to turn a lot, flip a lot, and perform a lot. I noticed the younger girls get more concerned with out-doing each other than performing as a unit. My class-year was unified in our thoughts and our dancing. Most of us had been dancing together for so long that we didn’t need to watch each other intensely to move at the same time. The younger generation danced against each other while we always supported each other. When one of us missed class, others would make sure to record it and send them what was missed. We would meet for extra time in the studio if something was unclear. The younger girls gossiped to each other when someone was falling behind, and that person would eventually fall even more behind if no one helped. When anyone in the studio performed for us in class there was always applause, but if we performed for the younger classes they did not applaud without coaxing from the teachers. What I discovered about myself is that I miss dancing and the girls I danced with way more than I expected to. I was one of the girls who transferred into Step by Step later than the rest, therefore I always felt a little bit on the outside. However, they always welcomed me in and they supported me just as much as they did each other. I knew I would miss the friends and the community, but I never would have guessed I would miss it this much. I am looking forward to finding a place to dance again in Brooklyn.

With this project, I faced frustrating technical limitations. The first was having the main feature of the presentation be more than a thousand miles away. Next was having priority mail show up a day late. Lastly, my new laptop no longer contains a disc reader. I had to go out to Target to buy an external disc reader to plug in to even watch the performance. This project made me curious to get back into a dance community. It also made me want to research more of the origins of dance as a community. When was the first dance school established? When did dancing actually become a viable career path? I also want to see more of the effects of competition on dancing communities. I’m curious to see if competitions are even the reason the younger girls at Step by Step are more self-motivated than we were. Competition is a relatively new norm for neighborhood dance companies and I am curious to see how it effects the small community dance centers. Dance has always been a part of my life and living for a few months without it has only confirmed that it always will be.