U.S. Presidential Scholars Concert

On Monday, June 25th, I had the opportunity to witness the showcase of the class of 2018 United States Young Arts Presidential Scholars at the Kennedy Center for the Arts here in Washington D.C. With little prior knowledge of the opportunity, I entered the beautiful theater box seats with new friends from my program, the St. Albans School of Public Service, and we watched as the stage lit up with images of the quintessential "American Identity" and the cultural undertones and implications behind the "melting pot."

To start the show, spoken word artists filled the stage with their immigration stories, spanning from the birth of the US to modern times, and even including the often overlooked Native American perspectives, exploring what it means to be an immigrant in America. They spoke of heart-wrenching goodbyes with loved ones, unusual and uncomfortable accommodations and treatment en route, and the almost inexplicable feeling of classic American freedom upon entry, highlighted by a stunning performance of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and "Blackbird," accompanied by an entrancing modern interpretive dance. The main dancer took center stage in long flowy clothing, surrounded by still people representing a cage. The dancer leaped and twirled, pushing the boundaries of his enclosure until one by one, the caging figures disappeared altogether.

I took this dance piece to represent the plight of many immigrants seeking refuge, independence, freedom. The overlapping of the dance with the immigration stories brought forth experience after experience, viewpoint after viewpoint, of these complex immigration journeys, both physically and spiritually. The final breaking free of the cage showed clarity and empowerment, and mirrored what many have experienced in key points of their immigration experiences.

A later piece I came to enjoy building on the experiences of a multicultural and globally-minded America was a short film entitled, "Melting Pot." An absurdist and darkly humorous piece, "Melting Pot" starred live-action crayons of the color purple ganging up on crayons of other colors. The purples "beat up" the orange, the blue, the red, and more, and subsequently toss them into what appears to be lava. In the aftermath, the wax of these differently-colored crayons spills onto the purples, "contaminating" them, and they ump into the lava as well after finding out of their newly-colored fate. The film ends in this planet, really a styrafoam orb no larger than a softball, aflame and being put out by an adolescent male with an extinguisher and eventually his shoe. The screen then cuts to a black screen with the words "Melting Pot."

This piece, to me, demonstrates a concern for the modern multiculturalist practice in the United States, and how divisiveness and discrimination lead to self and total destruction. It seemed to me a reflection of polarization based on color and its potential consequences, wreaking havoc and causing chaos in its wake.

All in all, the patriotism of this program was not as overt as I'd assumed it would be; instead I found a thoughtful array of pieces focusing on the deeper issues of a multicultural and diverse America with aspirations to embrace such multiculturalism and diversity.