NYU arts dean to talk at Hawai'i conference

By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Staff Writer

•	The Governor's Conference on Culture and the Arts Hawai'i Convention Center Nov. 1-2 $100 for the two-day conference (includes breakfast and lunch) Registration deadline: Oct. 22 On the Web: www.state.hi.us/sfca For information: Susan Killeen, executive director, Hawai'i Consortium for the Arts, 595-3089.

"If you don't exercise it, it gets saggy and atrophies," said the dean of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. "When we take the arts out, we remove the opportunity for students to use their imagination. That, over time, will have an adverse effect on the way we conduct business and finding new ways of doing things."

She'll connect more of the dots between arts and inventiveness during a talk on "Arts as Education," part of the first statewide conference on culture and the arts in Hawai'i in more than 30 years, timed to coincide with the opening of the new state Art Museum.

"Hawai'i, The State of the Arts, The Universal Value of Culture and the Arts to Hawai'i and Hawai'i to the World" is a two-day meeting of the artistic minds that is being touted as an opportunity to give a big-picture view of art, and its effect on our everyday lives and the community.

This is a remarkable time for the state's arts scene, with the opening of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts' new museum on the second floor of 250 S. Hotel St., the former Hemmeter building and former YMCA.

There will be a Celebration of Culture and the Arts festival on Nov. 3, when the museum has its grand opening, but conference participants will get a preview Nov. 1.

The conference also will include art tours of the convention center, panel discussions and a public policy review, as well as hosting local and national arts leaders, such as:

• Evan Dobelle, president of the University of Hawai'i, discussing the impact and importance of culture and the arts in education.
• Walter Dods, chairman and CEO of First Hawaiian Bank, addressing community development.
• W.S. Merwin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet from Maui, a translator and environmental activist who is poetry consultant to the Library of Congress, who will discuss the art of poetry.
• Graham Nash, of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, who has lived on Kaua'i for 25 years, will close the conference with a talk and musical performance.
• Kumu hula Pualani Kanak-a'ole Kanahele, talking about the importance of preserving the Native Hawaiian culture.

A panel after Kanahele's talk will look at how Hawai'i relates to the world.

The topic of bringing the stories of a particular place to the arts and culture world is one that Campbell knows well. By training filmmakers who have ranged from Spike Lee to Ang Lee, the Tisch School has helped create the fabric of the culture with the stories of our diverse world.

"It's important for people to have an opportunity to speak, to fill in the weave," she said.