The Second Pittsburgh Humanities Festival took place March 24-26, 2017. PHC produced a discussion of humanities, arts, and equitable community development on March 25 and co-sponsored a pre-festival panel March 19 on diversity in ballet. Read more about these activities below.
More Just Communities: From Stories to Action
As part of the Pittsburgh Humanities Festival's Core Conversations series, the Pennsylvania Humanities Council presented "More Just Communities: From Stories to Action" with Carnegie Mellon University and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust on March 25 at the Harris Theater. Panelists and audience members explored storytelling and conversation, artmaking and artviewing as intentional processes that bring people together to take action and build a better shared future.
The following panelists described their work in documentary film, creative placemaking, and humanities-based resident engagement in a conversation moderated by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Columnist and Associate Editor Tony Norman:
- Chris Ivey, a seasoned filmmaker in Pittsburgh, created the “East of Liberty” documentary series, which explores issues of race and class and addresses resident’s fears about gentrification.
- Jason Schupbach oversees design and creative placemaking grantmaking and partnerships at the National Endowment for the Arts, including Our Town and Design Art Works grants, the Mayor’s Institute on City Design, the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design, and the NEA's federal agency collaborations related to community development.
- Lindsay Houpt-Varner, a historian, directs Greater Carlisle Heart & Soul, an initiative to strengthen Greater Carlisle through storytelling and community engagement, using the Orton Family Foundation’s nationally recognized Community Heart & Soul® method.
Diversity in Ballet
A pre-festival event: the panel discussion "Diversity in Ballet" took place on Sunday, March 19, at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture. It was presented by the Dance Theatre of Harlem and the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and co-sponsored by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council.
