Friends of Olympia Racial Equity Statement
Although Friends of Olympia Station is organized around a single artist’s vision and work, her leadership, along with our board and staff, has always demonstrated the common purpose of building recognition and support for the extraordinary and dynamic value of the arts by leading, serving, and advancing the widest range of artists and audiences, in age, race, culture and language.
A guiding principal of our company has been to ensure our companies reflect the face of America. The arc of our historical work reveals collaborations with a range of culturally diverse peoples, whose work stretches and expands our own, and we trust is mutually beneficial, in view of the numerous repeat collaborations. Our organizational commitment to address, serve, and uplift communities of color in our region is enriched by our community partnerships in our four nearby counties. Our extensive outreach, which began 50 years ago in Watsonville and Salinas, continues to this day and reaches as far south as San Benito and north to Alameda.
Our paid administrative staff has consistently been composed of Asian, Black and White Americans, our teaching staff is 50% Latinx, Black, and Asian and our performers have been, and are, inclusive of all races and cultures.
We endeavor to ensure that our communities have access to the transformative power of the arts—and that everyone can see a reflection of their own image, and witness a cultural range of people working together harmoniously.
· Friends of Olympia Station is committed to racial equity in our organization and our programmatic accessibility.
· We are committed to creating and sustaining an environment in our organization that honors and hears all voices and experiences.
· We actively work to create a diverse organizational and teaching staff, performers and tech crew, and board and volunteers, to create bridges into all parts of our communities to further the inspiration of art.
· We will continue to commit ourselves to removing any barriers to access and to recognizing and addressing any discrimination in our organization.
Our historical commitment is revealed in our programming below:
Scoville Units (2020) presented the work of composer Jon Scoville in collaboration with Filipino Hip Hop dancers, Balinese dancers, a Brazilian dancer, and various Americans, dancers and musicians, both Black and White.
The Family Concert Series (2013-2020) annually presented in downtown Santa Cruz include concerts by: Linda Tillery’s Cultural Heritage Choir, Omar Ledezma’s KaHon Percussion Ensemble, SoVoSó, John Santos’ Musica Calibre, Tammi Brown (Blues and More), Rhonda Benin (Gospel), Kitka, Keith Terry Crosspulse Percussion Ensemble, Micha Scott (former Garth Fagan soloist), as well as world dancers from Bali, Brazil, Congo, Mali, Guinea, India, Ghana, Spain, Mexico, Ukraine, Argentina, Polynesia, Ireland, and the Balkans. These artists also perform in our arts education program ArtSmart in the schools throughout 4 counties.
Our lead teachers for ArtSmart (2012-Present) have been 66% BIPOC. We actively recruit people of color for our training program for the next generation of teachers, one of whom has gone on to teach at Cabrillo College.
Discover Dance (1989-1993) We produced the first local world dance festival as well as the first inclusive presentation of classes from dancers from world traditions: Argentina, Spain, Congo, Bali, Balkans, Mexico, Brazil, ballet and contemporary dance.
The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light (1986-7) Commissioned by the SF New Performance Festival, with Ibe Kyoko, National Treasure from Japan as Scenic Designer—and performers who were from the Philippines, Malaysia, and China as well as Black and White Americans.
Listening to the Earth (1985-97) a dance theatre work that when performed in New Mexico had starring roles with Native American actors, and in CA and UT had African American and Hispanic actors. It also featured 300 kids, 80-90% non-white, for audiences that were also 80-90% non-white. One iteration was created in downtown Santa Cruz with children from all the homeless shelters.
Upon taking on leadership of the Pickle Family Circus (1990-2000), we established for the company a new pattern of mirroring our multi-cultural world by hiring: a master trainer from China (until his retirement in 2017), their first Black acrobat, first Russian performer, and first Chinese performers (3). Our director also hired artists from Mongolia and Japan.
Dance Around the World (2005-Present), our program in the schools with world dancers as teachers and performers, showcases world dance groups at each school, and provides children with a “Cultural Passport” to broaden their understanding of the larger world beyond their neighborhoods. This program has consistently been in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District and Monterey Peninsula Unified School District schools, which are 80% Hispanic students.
We were the first to present Bobby McFerrin in Santa Cruz in 1986 and continued to present his work numerous times since. We also presented his Voicestra, as well as tours across the country with McFerrin.
We hired SoVoSó, a culturally and generationally diverse a capella group, in 2005 to rescore Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker and they have consistently toured with us in this concert, in JOY! and in Mangia Del Arte, as well as various corporate events.
Friends of Olympia Station is an equal opportunity employer committed to treating all employees fairly. We expressly prohibit any and all forms of discrimination or harassment, as well as retaliation for reporting discrimination or harassment.