It is Wynton Marsalis speaking for an hour about the interwoven legacy of the arts in America; not just as nostalgia, but as the engine of our unified identity.
It is a masterful, moving, articulate, and sweeping overview of our national history as well as an argument to insist that the arts have been THE key to identifying "who we are."
“We want to embrace one another, but don’t know how. And the answer is not more education, but more substantive and more culturally-rooted education. The primary justification for the value of education is not some competition with other countries for technological jobs, or to win the so-called science race, or to beat anyone. Our arts demand and deserve that we recognize the life we have lived together.”
“Now the challenge of this generation is to find the frontier of our collective souls. And though it is a soul with a history of slavery and injustice and struggle, it is a soul with freedom and striving and triumph. And you can’t get past the truth of yourself.”
“Who will have the courage to teach the most heroic songs and stories of what we have done all over this land and demand that the best of who we are be the national story?”
Wynton Marsalis: 22nd Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy from Americans for the Arts on Vimeo.
No comments:
Post a Comment