Unity in Community

“The arts and humanities define who we are as a people. That is their power — to remind us of what we each have to offer, and what we all have in common. To help us understand our history and imagine our future. To give us hope in the moments of struggle and to bring us together when nothing else will.”
-Michelle Obama

When we think back on the early days of the pandemic, we remember the horrific images of overcrowded hospitals, of temporary morgues in the form of tractor trailers, the harrowing statistical reporting of rising covid cases in our communities, and the dreaded phone calls from family and friends to report to us who had it. We lived in a perpetual state of fear and uncertainty, where our normal practices and functions were held underneath a microscope and our every move dictated by a mask and a bottle of hand sanitizer. Medical professionals, like nurses and doctors, needed to isolate themselves from their families. In fact, I always think of the doctor who had to stop his 3-year-old son from running into his arms and hugging him. He broke down and collapsed in tears as his son looked on in a state of confusion. The mere thought of showing our love and affection towards the people that mattered to us the most disappeared in a flash as we suspected every point of contact as a potential catalyst of covid transmission. We put ourselves into veritable bubbles of 6-foot diameters. The world, as we had come to know it, shut down.

But with every dark moment, every deep seeded fearful day, every venture of uncertainty, a beacon of light was able to break through. It offered comfort, distraction, laughter, inspiration, hope, and a bonding of the masses that seemed so far out of the realm of possibilities. How can one thing still manage to unite multitudes of people from afar so that we still have pathways with which to connect to one other? The arts, no matter the form, possesses this innate quality to cultivate shared experiences even in times of adversity. We turn to its optimism and escapism in order to carry on through each day. We create conversations around it that detract from the horrific stories that would otherwise take center stage. It silenced political opposition in households where war-filled fighting words had once reigned supreme and replaced it with a shared love for Baby Yoda and a mutual hatred of Carol Baskin. And, for this moment in time, we connected with each other in ways that would have otherwise seemed impossible. The arts helped us to appreciate each other, to be present, and to slow down and treasure our loved ones.

The unification of the masses through the arts can also be measured from an economic standpoint. The Motion Picture Association reported a 26% increase in streaming subscriptions at the start of the pandemic, bringing the total of at least 1 subscription to over 1 billion households (Faughnder, 2021). In accordance with the Nielson’s ratings, the top 10 shows of 2020 were Ozark, Lucifer, The Crown, Tiger King, The Mandalorian, Umbrella Academy, The Great British Baking Show, The Boss Baby: Back in Business, Longmire, and You (Faughnder, 2021). The top streaming network was Netflix. Instead of premiering films in theaters, production companies turned to streaming networks to ensure that their revenue would thrive. HBOMax launched their own streaming network with Wonder Woman:1984 premiering on it as a means to entice users to subscribe. The entertainment world continued to turn, and the masses consumed it in great quantities. Shonda Rhimes took a little obscure book that she read while on vacation and instilled Bridgerton in all our lives. She created such a phenomenon that audiences were clamoring for more. Sadly, like most shows, all production came to a screeching halt, and we were forced to watch the series on repeat, hoping that the industry would find creative ways to get the second season filming so that we could escape into the decadence of regency England. Nicola Coughlin, who plays Penelope Featherington in the show, reported that the last scene that we saw in season one was the last day they were able to film as studios and productions were forced to cease and shut down the very next day. Luckily for them, it also happened to be the production company’s last day of filming.

In Italy, people took to their balconies to sing, play music, dance with their loved ones, and play movies on the sides of apartment buildings. People were laughing and smiling in these shared moments. They bonded with one another. On the stoops of New York City, Broadway performers and Opera singers gave free concerts. On Zoom, performances and play readings were able to continue moving forward. Our very own Rockland Shakespeare Company hosted a production of Much Ado About Nothing and Monologue Madness! Recreational reading saw a substantial increase in 2020-2021, especially in print book sales (Khatib,2021). Statistically, recreational reading saw a 35% increase globally at the start of the pandemic (35% of the World Is Reading More during the Pandemic. Thanks, Pandemic?, 2020). The National Endowment of the Arts reported that Arts and Culture created $876.7 Billion in revenue for the United Stated in 2020 (2022). A study from the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union entitled Art & Wellbeing reported that over 85% of people who took part in this mixed methods research claimed to consume differing styles of art during the pandemic (Art Consumption and Well-Being during the Covid-19 Pandemic, n.d.). The researchers also offered recommendations on how people can continue to create art as a means of promoting well-being. If you have time, I encourage you to review their wonderful research in the link included below and consider their recommendations and how you can incorporate them into your own life or help support policy makers and institutions in understanding why the arts need to be incorporated into the structures of education and daily life practices.

Now that the world has returned to some semblance of normalcy, I ask you to remember the beacon of light that shined in our lives during our darkest days. Like a good friend, the arts have always been there for us. Remember to value it and recognize its significance in all our lives. The arts make us well-rounded and cultured individuals. It still possesses the power to create bonds with people that you may have otherwise overlooked. We engorge ourselves with the arts every day by listening to music in our car on the way to work, talking with our colleagues about last night’s episode of The Handmaid’s Tale, buying the entire Bridgerton book series because the power of a TV show brought us back to recreational reading, or making sure that we get our tickets to Immersive Van Gogh in NYC so that we can saturate ourselves in his incredible artwork. Remember the countless people who work tirelessly to provide you with the thing you crave the most and the creative ways they needed to develop strategies for the arts to continue to keep up with the high demand. Next time you are at the movie theaters, I ask you to sit and watch the credits of a film. Look at the hundreds of names scrolling across the screen. All those people came together to create that for you. Without even realizing it, we spend more than a 1/3 of our lives consuming it. The arts make us laugh when our hearts are broken, help us to learn about different cultures and different mindsets, and reach down into our souls to enlighten us on the vast possibilities of everything that life has to offer. It makes us interested in travelling to different civilizations as it shows outsiders what makes their culture beautiful. Give thanks to the arts because it unified and uplifted us during a time of great vulnerability and ambiguity. It has been there for us for thousands of years and continues to be there for us now. THE. ARTS. WILL. ALWAYS. BE. THERE.

Christina Schaudel, M.F.A
Student Success Advisor – School of Arts, Education, Humanities and Social Science
Adjunct Professor – Visual and Performing Arts
Doctoral Candidate- Educational Leadership

References

35% of the world is reading more during the pandemic. Thanks, pandemic? (2020, November 11). Literary Hub. https://lithub.com/35-of-the-world-is-reading-more-during-the-pandemic-thanks-pandemic/

Art consumption and well-being during the Covid-19 pandemic. (n.d.). Art & Wellbeing. https://art-wellbeing.eu/research-covid-19-pandemic/

Faughnder, R. (2021, March 18). Streaming milestone: Global subscriptions passed 1 billion last year. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-03-18/streaming-milestone-global-subscriptions-passed-1-billion-last-year-mpa-theme-report

Khatib, J. (2021, March 12). How the Pandemic Changed the Way We Read. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/12/books/reading-trends.html

National Endowment for the Arts. (2022, March 15). New Data Show Economic Impact of COVID-19 on Arts & Culture Sector. https://www.arts.gov/news/press-releases/2022/new-data-show-economic-impact-covid-19-arts-culture-sector

“Where words fail, music speaks.”
–Hans Christian Andersen

When I was five years old, I begged my parents for a piano and lessons. Thanks to the generosity of an aunt, the piano wish was granted; the lessons, on the other hand, would have to wait until I learned to read. I don’t think this is typically a milestone before one can start piano lessons, but it was my highly literate parents’ scheme to prod me to learn how to read.

At the age of six I began taking classical piano lessons. I was wholly committed to the genre until my older brother began hosting rock band practices in my family’s basement. It was there that I first heard the keyboardist in the band play Styx’s “Come Sail Away.” From that point on, I was dissatisfied with learning Mozart and Chopin, and obsessed with figuring out how to play the rock songs I was hearing on the radio.

By age eleven I had started my own rock band. At that time, there were no girls playing rock music and there were no competition shows like American Idol or The Voice. So, when none of the boys would invite me into their bands, I started my own. We branched out from the junior years in my basement to the “Concert Against Cancer” and the “Battle of the Bands” in high school.

In college, I would sneak off to the piano practice rooms and play tunes for hours and hours between studying and classes. Music has always been like oxygen to me. After I graduated college, I juggled teaching during the day with gigging at night. I joked that I was the adult Hannah Montana.

However, when I started teaching at St. Thomas Aquinas College after graduate school, I decided that this was a part of my identity that I needed to keep separate from my colleagues, administrators, and students. I was there to teach writing, research, and literary analysis; this was the mode of literacy that was most valued in the academy, and I believed that I needed to model that mode with integrity and modesty. I felt that they wouldn’t take me seriously once they discovered I played in a rock band.

I hid this facet of my life for nearly twenty years. Ultimately, though, the launch of social media thwarted my attempts at secrecy. Students who’d graduated requested me as a Facebook “Friend”. Suddenly, my posts about my musical life and advertising for gigs began to spike. It was shocking to discover that it was the very students I had been hiding this part of my identity from who were my most devout supporters! Then…the game changer…for their Senior Week events, the graduating Honors class scheduled one of my gigs as part of their celebrations and surprised me by showing up.

When I started at RCC several years ago, I was excited to bring my musical experiences to the College as a spark that might ignite the flames of creative collaboration. My hope is to support musical students in starting a Music Club and showing them how to host an open mic night, market themselves and their groups.

“Where words fail, music speaks.” There are multiple literacies, and the Unity in Community inspires us-all in our community-to share, collaborate, create, and celebrate the unique light that is within us in our individual ways. Nothing should eclipse that passion.

Rachel Kraushaar
PhD, MPhil, M.Ed.
Assistant Professor of English