At 7 o'clock last night I was wandering through the usual First Thursday art scene in the Pearl, poking my head into the stuffy wine-and-cheese galleries, when I noticed a huge crowd gathered in the middle of the street at 13th and Hoyt. From a distance, I could see bright blue ribbons stretching out of the mob and as I got closer, I could see they were dancers who leapt and gyrated in T-shirts and shorts. Sometimes they danced with the ribbons, sometimes on their own, and sometimes with each other. Cars waited patiently at the intersection for twenty minutes until, suddenly, the dancers disbursed and the audience broke into wild applause. Like me, maybe some other people here were happy to have First Thursday shaken up a bit.
It turns out this wasn't just ribbon dancing. This was ribbon dancing with a purpose. Creative Advocacy Network (CAN) orchestrated the guerrilla performances to raise awareness of their campaign to get more public funding for the arts in Portland. The Executive Director of CAN Jessica Jarratt explains that they're hoping to get support behind establishing a $15-20 million annual city fund for the arts. That would be a big jump for arts funding in the city: Portland's current annual budget gave $4.3 million to the Regional Arts and Culture Council. “We’re not actually raising money, we’re trying to set up a dedicated funding stream," says Jarratt.
Surprising as it may sound, Portland trails other metropolitan regions of its size for public funding for the arts. While Seattle spends over $7 per person for the arts, and Denver over $15 perperson, Portland only designates $3.11 per person.