San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
A LOOK AHEAD AT 2021
Through sheer determination, San Diego artists vow to make a comeback
MICHAEL JAMES ROCHA THE UNION-TRIBUNE’S ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
It was a refrain I heard over and over again: For the arts, 2020 was heartbreaking. Gutwrenching. Painful. Devastating.
Grab a thesaurus and find every word that means bad, and it's been used to describe what the arts community has gone through — and still is going through.
I exchanged many emails and had many phone conversations this past year with people in the arts — stage managers, artistic directors, sound engineers, musicians, actors, costume designers — and you could sense it in their words or hear it in their voice.
The sadness. The despair. The agony.
Back in July, four months after all of her work disappeared, stage manager Laura Zingle was still grappling with the neck-breaking speed at which everything evaporated. Just gone.
“I began to ask myself, ‘Just how long could this last?' All of the organizations I relied on were suddenly shut down. I had a lot of questions: How long is this going to last? Are we even going to have jobs to go back to when this is over? ... It's overwhelming. Many people and many organizations are struggling. I know many are trying to replace live performances with streaming, and they're trying very hard. It just reminds me how much I miss it so much. It just makes me cry.”
Costume designer Chanel Mahoney had a simple question she wanted answered: “How am I going to keep the lights on?” Mahoney and the cast and crew of San Diego Rep's “House of Joy” had just wrapped up opening night in March when the coronavirus pandemic shuttered everything.
“You know when they say, ‘If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life?' That was my life,” Mahoney told me last summer. “I loved waking up every day and designing and making beautiful things. After all this, with debt and bills piling up, is that going to be enough?”
Zingle and Mahoney aren't alone. As the coronavirus pandemic began to take hold in March, theaters, concert halls, clubs and museums all closed their doors to curb the spread of COVID-19. The domino effect was disastrous, sending the arts world falling into a period of eerie silence and haunting darkness.
The National Endowment for the Arts reports that last quarter, 27 percent of musicians, 52 percent of actors and 55 percent of dancers were unemployed.
That's a staggering number until you stumble upon another number, this one from the Americans for the Arts: 95 percent of artists and creative workers have reported loss of income.
As parts of the economy reopened these past few months, many in the arts were still locked out. Performing arts organizations were among the first to shut down in the spring, and due to the nature of how this virus spreads, they will probably be among the last to return. Early pleas for federal support for the arts seemed to fall on deaf ears, spawning hashtag-driven movements like #savethearts, #saveourstages and #REDALERTRESTART.
The recent stimulus bill sets aside $15 billion for the arts, but it cannot be ignored that in the nearly 10 months since this all began, much damage — some permanent — has been done to the arts community. Many doors that closed may never open again. It's a future that's hard to fathom.
In March, when the arts shutdown seemed like a weekslong inconvenience, I wrote: “We must move forward. It's truly our only choice.”
That still rings true today. If you look hard enough, you'll find people and organizations moving forward. People and organizations making sure art is created and voices are heard — all voices.
There are hopeful signs: Resilience. Persistence. Determination.
Yes, 2020 has been a catastrophic year for the arts, but I find comfort in the words of City Ballet principal dancer Lucas Ataide.
“I think we're going to survive ... and we'll be even better when everything comes back.”
Yes, Lucas, we will be even better. It's truly our only choice.