Joan Shigekawa is an American film and television producer, cultural grantmaker, and arts administrator. After a distinguished career as a senior executive at the Rockefeller Foundation, [1] she joined the Obama Administration in 2009 as senior deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and served as the agency's acting chairman from 2012-2014. [2]
As a young child, she and her family were among the roughly 120,000 Japanese-Americans interned by the federal government during World War II. Together with her parents George and Yoshiko and her brother George Jr., she spent roughly 18 months at Tule Lake camp, just south of the Oregon border, turning 6 while in captivity. [3]
Shikegawa recalled in an interview, “I remember that we were very cold and that my mother used to go out and try to find scraps of wood, something to keep us warm. While we were in the camp my brother got whooping cough.” [4]
In 1958, she received a bachelor's degree from Bryn Mawr College. [5]
Motivated by an interest in historical documentaries, Shigekawa moved to New York City to pursue her career. Her first job was as an assistant to CBS producer Julian Claman, who was working on cultural programming for the network. [6]
There were few female role models in the industry at the time. As Shigekawa told the Journal of Independent Film and Video Artists in 1976, “[W]hen I started working, it never occurred to me that I could be a producer, because I would look around CBS and I didn’t see any women producers. There were women who were forty year old production assistants, and that was the kind of job I wanted to have. It didn’t occur to me that all the young men who were already production assistants were planning their careers as producers and directors….” [7]
She gained skills and experience in a series of early jobs, including working on NBC's Today Show, at New York's public television network WNET, in theatrical production, and as a field director of admissions at Barnard College. In 1963, she helped two friends produce a low-budget documentary series about the circus, earning her first associate producer's credit. [8]
In 1973, while working as an independent producer, she received a call from Ronnie Eldridge, who spearheaded special projects for the newly created feminist monthly publication Ms ., about an hour-long special the magazine was planning for national television. [9]
Shigekawa signed on as producer of what became Woman Alive!,a feminist documentary series made by and for women that showcased the changing role of women in society. The series, which aired on New York's public television channel WNET/13, featured individual women's stories from across the country. Presented in “magazine” format, each half-hour episode included documentaries by female filmmakers, performances by female artists and entertainers, and expert commentary from leading women such as Gloria Steinem and Lily Tomlin. [10]
In a review on June 16, 1974, New York Times television critic Ellen Cohn described Woman Alive!as “powerful, provocative, moving, and funny.” [11]
On October 22, 1975, New York Times critic John O’Connor wrote that Woman Alive!“achieves a most impressive level of effectiveness, scattering valuable insights and modest epiphanies with attractive care and intelligence.” [12]
Women Alive! broadcast 10 episodes in 1975 and five more in 1977, but was unable to secure sufficient corporate funding to continue beyond its initial Corporation for Public Broadcasting Grant. [13] [14] [15]
Shigekawa was the first director of the arts program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation in New York City. [16]
In 1985, she became the inaugural director of the international Production Laboratory at the Program for Art on Film, a partnership between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Trust. [17]
From 1995-2009, she served as associate director of the Rockefeller Foundation, where she led the foundation's domestic and international programs in the arts, including the NYC Cultural Innovation Fund, Creativity in a Digital Age, and cultural exchanges between U.S. artists and their counterparts in Southeast Asia. [18]
The NYC Cultural Innovation Fund was an effort to “enhance New York City’s role as a global center of creativity, culture, and diversity, and strengthen its economic and cultural vitality.” [19] During her tenure, Shigekawa oversaw the awarding of 49 CIF grants totaling $7.8 million. [20]
When Rocco Landesman became chairman of the NEA, he recruited Shigekawa to serve as senior deputy chairman, a role she held from 2009-12. In October 2009, Landesman referred to his hiring of Shigekawa as “the best move I’ve made.” [21] In 2012, when Landesman stepped down, Shigekawa became acting NEA chairman. [22]
During her tenure, she worked closely with the Department of Defense and Kathy Roth-Douquet, CEO of the nonprofit organization Blue Star Families, to create in 2010 the Blue Star Museums program, which grants free admission to active duty military members and their families from Armed Forces Day to Labor Day. [23] [24] More than 2,000 museums participate across all 50 states, [25] serving roughly 850,000 service personnel and their families each year. [26]
Shigekawa also led efforts with the Department of Defense and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to expand delivery of creative arts therapy and healing arts to wounded warriors with PTSD and mild brain injury. [27]
During her tenure, the NEA worked in partnership with the Bureau of Economic Analysis for the Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account which, for the first time, measured the contribution of arts and culture to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). [28] [29]
The agency also created the Our Town funding program to promote creative placemaking in urban and rural America—work inspired by research Shigekawa had funded at the Rockefeller Foundation on the interplay between arts and community development. [30] [31]
Ms. Shigekawa serves on the National Advisory Board of the Center for Asian American Media and has served as a Mayoral appointee to the New York City Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission [32] and as a trustee of the New York Council for the Humanities, the Independent Television Service (ITVS), Grantmakers in the Arts and Grantmakers in Film and Television. [33]
Commenting on the role of the artist in the community, Shigekawa has said,“The role of the artist in the community is the role of any other citizen in the community---to participate, to contribute, to share, and, when possible, to lead. But to all of those tasks they bring something extra: the ability to see in a different way. The ability to create music that brings people together. The ability to create movement and joy in the summer at a festival. So both their role as a citizen and then their contribution to share their creativity as best they can.” [34]
Shigekawa's marriage to the late documentary filmmaker Tony Silver ended in divorce. [35]
Her daughter, Dr. Mariko Silver, served as the 10th president of Bennington College (2013–19); her son-in-law Thom Loubet is a musician. She has two grandchildren. [36]
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government by an act of the U.S. Congress, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 29, 1965. It is a sub-agency of the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, along with the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965, dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is housed at 400 7th St SW, Washington, D.C. From 1979 to 2014, NEH was at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. in the Nancy Hanks Center at the Old Post Office.
Joan Ganz Cooney is an American television writer and producer. She is one of the founders of Sesame Workshop, the organization famous for the creation of the children's television show Sesame Street, which was also co-created by her. Cooney grew up in Phoenix and earned a Bachelor of Arts in education from the University of Arizona in 1951. After working for the State Department in Washington, D.C., and as a journalist in Phoenix, she worked as a publicist for television and production companies in New York City. In 1961, she became interested in working for educational television, and became a documentary producer for New York's first educational TV station WNET. Many of the programs she produced won local Emmys.
Joan Jonas is an American visual artist and a pioneer of video and performance art, and one of the most important artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Jonas' projects and experiments were influential in the creation of video performance art as a medium. Her influences also extended to conceptual art, theatre, performance art and other visual media. She lives and works in New York and Nova Scotia, Canada.
Nancy Hanks (1927–1983) was an American arts administrator and art historian. She was the second chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), appointed by President Richard M. Nixon and served from 1969 to 1977, continuing her service under President Gerald R. Ford. During this period, Hanks was active in the fight to save the historic Old Post Office building in Washington, D.C. from demolition. In 1983, it was officially renamed the Nancy Hanks Center, in her honor.
Eve Queler is an American conductor and the emerita Artistic Director of the Opera Orchestra of New York (OONY). She founded the OONY in 1971, after having worked on the staff of the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Opera. She is notable for her advocacy for, and conducting of, lesser known and less-frequently performed operas, such as Rienzi and Jenůfa.
Jujamcyn Theaters LLC, formerly the Jujamcyn Amusement Corporation, is a theatrical producing and theatre-ownership company in New York City. For many years Jujamcyn was owned by James H. Binger, former Chairman of Honeywell, and his wife, Virginia McKnight Binger. The organization is now held by its president, Jordan Roth, and president emeritus, Rocco Landesman.
The Asian Cultural Council (ACC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing international cultural exchange between Asia and the U.S. and between the countries of Asia through the arts. Founded by John D. Rockefeller III in 1963, ACC has invested over $100 million in grants to artists and arts professionals representing 16 fields and 26 countries through over 6,000 exchanges. ACC supports $1.4 million in grants annually for individuals and organizations.
Jennie Livingston is an American director best known for the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning.
Rocco Landesman is a long-time Broadway theatre producer. He served as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts from August 2009 to December 2012. He is a part owner of Jujamcyn Theaters.
Rea Tajiri is a Japanese American video artist, filmmaker, and screenwriter, known for her personal essay film History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige (1991).
Virginia Tanner was an American dance instructor and founder of the University of Utah Children's Dance Theatre. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, she began her formal dance training at the University of Utah. She studied with Doris Humphrey in New York City before returning to Salt Lake City in the early 1940s to establish her school for creative dance for children.
Yosi Sergant is an American publicist and activist. He is known for his commissioning and management of the "Hope" poster created during the 2008 presidential election by Shepard Fairey and for creating the art exhibit and events Manifest Equality, Manifest Justice, and Manifest Hope.
Thomas Allen Harris is a critically acclaimed, interdisciplinary artist who explores family, identity, and spirituality in a participatory practice. Since 1990, Harris has remixed archives from multiple origins throughout his work, challenging hierarchy within historical narratives through the use of pioneering documentary and research methodologies that center vernacular image and collaboration. He is currently working on a new television show, Family Pictures USA, which takes a radical look at neighborhoods and cities of the United States through the lens of family photographs, collaborative performances, and personal testimony sourced from their communities..
TV Lab was a program founded at Thirteen/WNET public television station in 1972 by David Loxton with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and New York State Council on the Arts. The program provided artists with advanced video making equipment through an artist-in-residence program. Between 1975 and 1977, the Video Tape Review series was established and broadcast through TV Lab. David Loxton created TV Lab's Independent Documentary Fund in 1977, aiming to provide funding for the creation of independent documentaries. Unable to match funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the IDF and TV Lab lost support, eventually ending in 1984.
Marty Pottenger is an American playwright, performance artist and theatre director. Pottenger is a pioneer in the community arts and arts-based civic dialogue movement. Joan Shigekawa, former Acting Chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts, named Pottenger as one of her favorite artists "...for her deep engagement with the lives of working people."
David Anthony "Tony" Silver was an American documentary filmmaker known for directing the film Style Wars.
Hébert Peck Jr. is a Haitian filmmaker. He produced the critically acclaimed documentary film, I Am Not Your Negro, which he received a Best Documentary Feature nomination at the 89th Academy Awards, together with director Raoul Peck and producer Rémi Grellety.
Mariko Silver served as the tenth president of Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont. She took office in July 2013 as the successor to Elizabeth Coleman. Silver previously held positions at Arizona State University, the United States Department of Homeland Security, the office of the governor of Arizona, and Columbia University. She left Bennington College on July 1, 2019.
Woman Alive! was a feminist television show resulting from a collaboration between Ms. Magazine and American public television. It consisted of one pilot episode (1974) and two series.
joan shigekawa woman alive.
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