Bruce Marks

Artistic director emeritus of Boston Ballet.

I'd like to start some gangs in the inner city.

I'd like have the Arthur Mitchell Dance Theater of Roxbury Gang. And the Alvin Ailey Jamaica Plain Modern Dance Gang. And channel that energy, that terrific creativity that's going into warfare around the country, into something useful and productive.

Anyone who belongs to a tribe belongs to a cultural group, and is a peaceful person. They do not hurt their own group. It's so amazing to me that children are shooting each other in the inner city. They're shooting each other because they don't belong to the same group. They don't share any ritual or culture. We have de-ritualized our country. And we've got to give back to these youngsters a creative place to be.

We are a frightened nation, and in that fear we are eliminating a great portion of our youngsters' education. We want them to be educated in science and technology. We want them to have a vocational education. I want them to have a complete education. You cannot educate children without the arts.

We should have cultural festivals. We should celebrate ourselves. We have wonderful, wonderful artists, and we should celebrate on a bigger scale. We should be planning the "Millennium Festival of the Arts" now. We have a large Southeast Asian population. Are they dancing for us? Not enough. There's no better way to get to understand each other than to be part of each other's culture.

I sometimes envy cities like Houston and San Francisco, where they say, "Hey, we're not rednecks. Look, we support the arts." The attitude of everyone here about our cultural life is like our hats. When a Bostonian woman was asked where she buys her hats, she said, "Oh, we don't buy hats in Boston. We have hats." I think that's the case with the arts: "We don't have to pay for the arts. We're Boston. We have the arts."

I'd love to see that change.

<-- The Reverend Eugene Rivers | Gail Snowden -->