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“What’s your best idea for the arts in Philadelphia?” It’s a simple question, yet it garnered many incredible responses. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation posed this question as part of the Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia, which will grant $9 million over three years to individuals and organizations with the best artistic ideas for the city.
After receiving more than 1,700 entries in less than two months from insitutions such as museums and theater companies, as well as neighborhood groups and individual artists, the Knight Foundation narrowed down its applicants in January to 63 finalists, which include four hailing from South Philly.
An audio documentary from South of South writing center Mighty Writers, 1501 Christian St., is one of the innovative ideas that was pitched and selected as a finalist for the grant. Mighty Writers, a nonprofit center that helps students ages 7 to 17 with tutoring, workshops and an after-school program, came up with the idea for “Sound and Fury,” an original documentary project about the influence of African-American Philadelphia radio during the 1950s-’80s.
Maggie Leyman, Mighty Writers’ development director who is in charge of the “Sound and Fury” project, described the idea as a multimedia documentary project that centers around WDAS, the most famous black radio station of the ’60s and ’70s.
We want to focus on the voices of Philadelphia, WDAS, the DJs and jocks, and get the people who did it to talk about it,” Leyman said. If selected, the documentary will include music, interviews, sound bites and calls from listeners, including as much meaningful audio as possible to truly represent the legendary radio station. Mighty Writers’ children will help on the project by writing some content for the documentary, as well as having a few of their voices used on the piece. The youngsters might host a segment, call in or perform a song.
“The whole point of the project is to show the kids that this can still happen, that radio can be honest and effective,” Leyman said. “We want to show our kids that this is something they could be doing when they grow up.”
The “Sound and Fury” audio documentary will be bookended by public panel discussions to gather the thoughts of the community and hear how locals remembered the WDAS era.
“We don’t want [the documentary] to be just our vision, but we want the opinions of the community and public, as well,” Leyman said.
In addition, an interactive website will be created for updated information and access to WDAS radio history.
The Mighty Writers documentary project is one of four total Knight Arts Challenge finalists that have ties to South Philadelphia. Isaiah Zagar, a well-known South Street mural artist, is nominated for his idea to turn a 10,000-square-foot warehouse into a mosaic museum and teaching center. His contributions to South Philly include the ownership of a property he turned into the nonprofit organization Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, 402 South St. The woman behind the self-titled Nichole Canuso Dance Co., 913 Federal St., created the idea of an audience-interactive dance performance “The Garden,” which also has been nominated as a finalist for a grant. The Philadelphia Live Arts performer wants to broaden people’s understanding and experience of art and dance with this visual performance.
Create In Situ, a collaborative team of artists, scientists and architects based in South Philly, proposed The Spring Garden Gateway Project to increase interaction with the riverfront neighborhood near I-95 by creating a lighted gateway along an underpass on the eastern side of Spring Garden Street.
Once it was announced that the Knight Arts Challenge, which originated in Miami in 2008, was coming to Philadelphia, individuals and organizations alike jumped at the opportunity to apply. The challenge had just three rules: The idea must be about art, must take place in or benefit Philadelphia and the winners must find funds within a year to match the Knight Foundation’s grant.
Philadelphia’s number of submissions to the challenge — 1,752 — is the highest number of applicants in the grant’s three-year history.
“The number and quality of the ideas submitted clearly illustrates Philadelphia’s vibrant creativity and its passion for the arts,” Knight’s Philadelphia Program Director, Donna Frisby-Greenwood said in a press release.
Winners of the Knight grant will be announced in the spring. Should Mighty Writers receive the grant, it expects that its outstanding funds would come from a mix of local foundations and individuals who find the topic close to their hearts.
“If we win, people will want to be a part of it,” Leyman said about the “Sound and Fury” project. “It’s an exciting thing happening here, and it will be attractive to funders.” SPR
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