Arts Research

The Chicago Dance Mapping Project (CDMP) was conducted by Dance/USA over a period of eighteen months through 2002 "to capture a census of dance activity" in the six counties of the greater Chicago metropolitan area. Although the research coincided with the San Francisco and Washington, D.C. needs assessments described in the winter 2004 (Vol. 15, No. 1) Reader, the Chicago research was even more broadly inclusive of diverse dance entities and was originally intended to be reported and used as a database.

Through the ages artists with disabilities have been important to our history and culture. Beethoven was deaf, Van Gogh was mentally ill, El Greco was visually impaired. For the most part we do not associate them with their disability. We celebrate their lives for the gifts of music and art that they left in our midst.

2003, 38 pages. Meet the Composer, 75 Ninth Avenue, Floor 3R Suite C, New York, NY 10011, (212) 645-6949; Ken Gallo, Communications Manager, kgallo@meetthecomposer.org

2002, 100 pages. The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation and the Judith Rothschild Foundation, 830 North Tejon St., Suite 120, Colorado Springs, CO 80903, (719) 635-3220, www.sharpeartfdn.org

What roles will arts and cultural organizations and funders play in the November 2004 election?

2003, 253 pages. Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, London, England, ISBN: 0-275-97013-2, hardback, $62.95

2002, 20 pages. Americans for the Arts, 203.371.2830, www.AmericansForTheArts.org

"When we hear talk about reducing support for the arts," writes Robert Lynch, president of Americans for the Arts, "we should ask: Who will make up for the lost economic activity?" The gist of the message of that group's Arts & Economic Prosperity report is simple and catchy: "the arts mean business."

July 2003, 25 pages. Project on Regional and Industrial Economics, Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, 301 S. 19th Avenue, room 231, Minneapolis, MN 55455, (612) 625-8092

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   The Artistic Dividend (1.6Mb)

May 2003, 272 pages. Southern Illinois University Press, Robert A. Shanke, Theater in America Series, editor, 800-346-2680 or 618-453-2281, www.siu.edu/~siupress

"Without getting on a soapbox, I would say that dancing is as much a calling as it is anything else. Don't think of it as a career. You're stupid if you do. You've got to have something burning in your gut that you want to express."