FROM ARTS SOUTH DAKOTA AND THE SOUTH DAKOTA ARTS COUNCIL
Arts South Dakota, in collaboration with the South Dakota Arts Council and Arts Midwest, hosted webinars last summer on how to make the arts more accessible. Currently, 24% of South Dakotans have a disability. Here are two stories on the transformative magic that lies in accessibility. We all benefit! To view the webinars visit ArtsSouthDakota.org/webinars.
“As we started letting people play on the stage and letting people hang art, other people thought ‘you know I can give that a try.’ And people started identifying as artists and musicians, and out of that, community started happening.” — Dan Cleberg of Red Rooster Coffee House
.4% 71 of South
Dakotans attend at least one arts event per year
COFFEE AND COMMUNITY STEP INTO ABERDEEN’S popular Red Rooster Coffee House and you sense something special. Sure, there’s the aroma of roasted coffee beans. But the atmosphere is also rich with art and music, and a diversity of people rarely found. It didn’t happen overnight. Dan and Angie Cleberg and Dan’s sister Kileen just wanted to offer a cool space that reflected their interests in coffee, art and music. But Red Rooster evolved into a model for accessibility to the arts. Cleberg saw that some of the guests were living isolated lives, even in the friendly confines of Aberdeen. He also saw that their loneliness lessened when they got involved. Thus the Fallout Creative Community was formed, focusing on projects for people with disabilities. In the past two decades Fallout has created community housing, hosted art, music and karaoke nights, formed a band called Better Ride that tours South Dakota, painted murals and made several movies. “We’re not helping anybody,” Dan tells us. “We’re building community. And within community, everybody has their own ability.” To learn more visit FalloutCreativeCommunity.org.
Dan Cleberg (at right) and members of the Fallout Creative Community formed the band Better Ride.
GET INVOLVED! Nov. 15: Using the Arts to Build Your Community. Join Lawrence Diggs to learn more about how the arts can help you build your community. Diggs will share perspectives gained from his interactions with various communities. Sign up for the free webinar at artssouthdakota. org/webinars/
A KEY TO PRISON LAWRENCE DIGGS became a Buddhist at age 15 and has been a monk for 30 years. Now at age 75, he spends time at the state penitentiary. “I can’t go to the prison and just help Buddhists. Instead, I try to make the prison better. How do we get these guys to stay out once they are released? And if they are lifers, how do we translate that to more of a monastery mindset instead of a prison mindset?” Diggs believes the arts are the key. Last spring, he helped launch a program titled “I Believe/The South Dakota Prison Project,” funded by the South Dakota Arts Council and National Endowment for the Arts. Diggs consulted with project leader Suzanne Costello, co-director of Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater in Minneapolis, and Ari Albright, arts in health instructor at the University of South Dakota. For three weeks, Costello and Albright met with inmates to explore individual beliefs and sense of identity. Those issues were translated into movement, visual arts, and writing and presented to an invited audience of loved ones and others in the community.
“We had standing room only,” says Diggs. “Some guys said they had some of the first conversations they’d had with their mother for 20 or 30 years. Another hadn’t seen his brother since he entered the penitentiary. They got to be something other than a convict to the people they loved and cared about and show a different side of themselves.” Costello and Albright have coordinated a traveling art exhibition of the men’s artwork. The result, Arts and Incarceration, begins in November 2023 at the Recreational Cultural Center in Aberdeen. A 6-by-12-foot mural, as well as sketches, writings, painting exercises, and a short video by the inmates, will travel to seven locations in South Dakota and Minnesota during 2023-2025. Email Ariadne.Albright@usd.edu for more information. The success of their work spurred Costello and Albright to bring I Believe II to the South Dakota Women’s Prison in January 2024, funded by the South Dakota Department of Health’s Health Improvement Innovation Grant.
“So many people have problems because they have a hard time communicating their needs or understanding the needs of others. We put emphasis on words to the exclusion of other ways to communicate. When you give them an art form to communicate, it is healing. As they become more communicative you see their art evolve.” Lawrence Diggs — Buddhist chaplain at the S.D. State Penitentiary and Humanities Council scholar
Nov. 16: Brainstorming: The Human Connection. Virtual conversation on how art unites communities. Hosted by Humanities scholar Lawrence Diggs, Donna Merkt of the South Dakota Art Museum, and Jim Speirs and Sarah Larson of Arts South Dakota. 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. CST. Join by visiting the South Dakota Humanities Council Facebook Page. Feb. 14: Arts Advocacy Day at the Legislature. Meet at the Capitol in Pierre to celebrate the arts. Enjoy the Governor’s Student Art Exhibition and music in the rotunda (noon to 1 p.m.). Visit ArtsSouthDakota.org for details. June 7-8: State Arts Conference. Workshops, and sessions on equity, arts education, fundraising, grant-writing and marketing. Sioux Falls. Visit ArtsSouthDakota.org for details.
BECOME A MEMBER! Support the arts by becoming a member of Arts South Dakota! Learn more and give today at ArtsSouthDakota.org!
Arts South Dakota, a non-partisan and non-profit service organization, advances the arts for South Dakotans and our visitors by connecting, advocating, and educating.
The South Dakota Arts Council is a state agency serving South Dakotans and their communities through the arts.
Arts Alive is being presented in partnership with South Dakota Magazine. PO Box 2496 Sioux Falls, SD 57101 605-252-5979 info@ArtsSouthDakota.org www.ArtsSouthDakota.org