March 2025 News
April 1, 2025 • 6 minute read
Eight years ago, NPN made social justice in the arts sector explicit to our mission: to build a more just and equitable world. Today, we remain rooted in our core commitment to ensuring artists, culture workers, and communities marginalized by systems of oppression — including Black, Indigenous, and People of Color; trans, nonbinary, and LGBTQIA+; deaf and disabled people, immigrants, and religious minorities — have the power, resources, and opportunities to thrive, here in the Deep South and across the country.
NPN believes that all people and institutions have a role to play in creating a more just and equitable world, and that we — the cultural sector — must engage in this work.
As Harold Steward, Executive Director of the New England Foundation for the Arts and former Board Member of NPN, recently wrote: “Every polarized nation needs menders, and menders need tools. And it is in culture that we, the menders, trust for this task. From creatives to funders to producers, business owners, policymakers, community builders, media personnel, educators, organizers, strategists and spectators, this is our assignment: to leverage the transformative power of art to heal a fractured nation.”
While chaos and fear are tools used to isolate us, NPN upholds our interconnectedness, working across sectors and communities for material change, and gathering colleagues together to build collective action.
One small way we reinforce connection is through this monthly newsletter, where we share stories that are shaping and informing our work — including stories of artists and arts organizations within NPN’s network, and news from beyond our immediate sector — and that hone our political analysis, sharpen our tools as practitioners, and deepen our connections to each other.
The Theater Offensive Joins Lawsuit Against “Gender Ideology” Ban
The Theater Offensive (TTO) joined a lawsuit in March led by the ACLU, alongside National Queer Theater, Rhode Island Latino Arts, and Theater Communications Group, challenging the National Endowment for the Arts’ new requirements that force grant applicants to certify they do not “promote gender ideology.” In response to the lawsuit, the NEA removed the “gender ideology” certification requirement while the case is decided by the Court (an earlier injunction had already suspended DEI-related certification requirements).
TTO — an NPN national Partner and grantee — presents liberating art by, for, and about queer and trans people of color that transcends artistic boundaries, celebrates cultural abundance, and dismantles oppression. “We’ve been rooting ourselves in radical optimism as a mechanism for sustaining our mental and emotional wellbeing in the wake of the current administration,” writes TTO’s leadership, “and while we will continue to present work from a place of self liberation, sometimes you have to galvanize in new ways. We are stronger together, and I am grateful for the bravery of our co-plaintiffs and the immense support from the ACLU.”
A Renewed Case for Funding the South
“We ignore the South at our own peril,” says Emily Timm of Way to Rise, a nonprofit philanthropic strategy center working to advance multiracial democracy in the South. While NPN works in urban, rural, and tribal communities across the U.S., we are grounded in New Orleans and the South, knowing no national strategy is complete without being inclusive of southern communities of color. A recent article by Nonprofit Quarterly assesses the harm Executive Orders gutting equity work and environmental justice initiatives will disproportionately have on communities in the South, and makes the case for funders to renew resources in the region.
Meanwhile, groups like Southerners on New Ground (SONG) affirm that “the safest community is an organized one.” SONG recently launched “Won’t You Be My Gaybor?”, a door-to-door organizing drive that engages in “the simple but powerful act of getting to know our neighbors…. This work will help us create community defense and disaster response and prevention networks across the Southern region to defend queer and trans kin, fight back against targeting of Black and immigrant communities, and address ongoing climate catastrophes.”
Learn more about SONG and their new “Won’t You Be My Gaybor?” campaign
How Does Your Leadership Embody Racial Justice?
“We are cultivating a new way of holding space and of being, which embraces many ways of knowing and doing work — and which accords respect and dignity to all.” —Dipankar Mukherjee, Pangea World Theater
Leadership isn’t a title — it’s a practice. Card 8 from our Mixed Metaphor Learning Deck challenges us to consider how leadership can be an active choice toward racial justice and cultural equity. It invites us to reflect on our approaches, relationships, and the ways we support our teams in creating liberating alternatives to toxic systems. The questions on card 8 help move us from react to respond. We invite you to walk through these questions with your staff and build actions around your answers.
Join us October 6-9 for NPN’s Annual Conference in New Orleans
This October, we’ll gather with fellow artists, funders, and cultural workers in New Orleans to reaffirm the power of art and culture in social movements, civic engagement, and liberation. As we kick off NPN’s 40th anniversary, we’ll also explore the artists, projects, impacts, and movements NPN has been part of, the turning points in our sector, and how collectively we continue to build a more just and equitable future. We hope you’ll join us!
Registration opens in July, and we’ll send out details shortly before then. In the meantime, you can preview the conference schedule and sign up to receive updates at our newly launched 2025 Annual Conference website.
Opportunities
Asian Arts Initiative Leadership Search
Asian Arts Initiative (AAI) is looking for a visionary Executive Director to lead the organization in its next chapter of artistic and social justice innovation. AAI — one of NPN’s national Partners — is a hub for creativity, community, and cultural transformation, nationally recognized and also rooted in Philadelphia’s dynamic arts scene.
Announcements
United States Artists fellows
United States Artists recently announced its 2025 awards, in a commitment to durable, sustainable support to artists and creative practitioners “in All Stages, in All Ways, Always.” The 50 fellows include NPN-supported artists Rudi Goblen, Raquel Gutiérrez, Trajal Harrell, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Makini, and Anna Martine Whitehead. “This year’s Fellows center origin and belonging, many honoring work that explores regional specificity,” writes USA. Collectives are also prominent among this year’s fellows. “The future is mutual aid. In times of scarcity, artists are creating abundance by pooling their resources.”
Upcoming Creation Fund Activities
ANTARANGA: Between You and Me, Ananya Dance Theatre
April 17, 7:30 pm
John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI)
ANTARANGA: Between You and Me is set in a world in deep crisis, where most people have lost their ability to sense the energy of other human beings and can no longer recognize or connect with each other. A few humsafar (Urdu for “fellow travelers”) remain, blessed with super-connecting and heart-opening powers. As they undertake perilous journeys, they forge connectivities that may yet heal the world. The first work in a multiyear series called Futures Forward and explores themes of intimacy, connection, trust, and community among BIPOC women/femmes.
APOLLO (World Premiere), Pioneer Winter Collective
April 25 & 26, 8:00 pm
Lightbox at Miami Theater Center (Miami Shores, FL)
Join us for the world premiere of Pioneer Winter Collective: APOLLO, a dance-theater work exploring intergenerational queer dynamics, memory, HIV/AIDS, and legacy. With inspiration stemming from the ancient Greek myths of Apollo (god of music, prophecy, healing), this new dance-theater work unites a younger queer dancer with three queer elders: each of them former, different iterations of Apollo. They meet, compete, and confront the tension of generations fighting to understand each other, and be understood themselves.
What We’re Reading
Each month, NPN’s staff and board engage with a reading that helps shape our analysis of our sociopolitical landscape and deepen our understanding of how to embed liberatory practices throughout our work. The Collective Learning Series is organized by NPN’s Department of Racial Justice and Movement Building (DRJAM).
This month we are reading two short pieces by Toni Morrison — “Peril” (2008) and “Racism & Fascism” (1995) — that were published together in a recent In These Times article, featuring Black women authors addressing authoritarianism and censorship.