A Message of Gratitude
To our beloved community—
As we reflect this week on all the challenges we have overcome in the past year, and all the people who have helped us along the way, we see so much to be thankful for.
We are thankful for our three resident companies, Noche Flamenca, On Site Opera, and the Russian Arts Theater & Studio, who are the foundation of our artistic community and have helped us keep our doors open through thick and thin.
We are thankful to our donors, whose gifts of all sizes sustain us and remind us that the work we do matters to so many people.
We are thankful for our 2020 Resident Artists, who used all their creative ingenuity to find new ways of bringing vibrant and experimental theater, dance, and musical performances to socially distant and virtual audiences during this pandemic.
We are thankful to our board members, the backbone of our organization, who made generous gifts of their time, expertise, and financial resources to help us weather the darkest days of the pandemic in New York.
We are thankful for our staff, who have faced extraordinary obstacles and unexpected challenges this year but remained dedicated to the urgent work of making the Center a thriving — and safe! — hub for arts and culture in our community.
We are thankful for every single audience member for every single performance this year, both in-person and online. You are the reason we make our work, and the gift of your time and attention in this overwhelming and stressful year is especially precious.
We are also grateful for our home, the historic West Park Presbyterian Church, which was built on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in 1889. Today, we remember that this neighborhood was once home to Seneca Village, a free and predominantly black community with its own churches, schools, and thriving civic life. In the 1850s, New York City officials destroyed this neighborhood and displaced the residents to make room for the construction of Central Park and, by extension, many of the buildings in the west 80s.
Before Seneca Village, this neighborhood and all of Manhattan was part of the traditional homeland of the Lenape people. Like indigenous nations all across our country, the Lenape were pushed out of their homeland by European settlers. Today, the Lenape and members of hundreds of other indigenous sovereign nations continue to live here in New York City. Their struggle for justice and recognition of their rights continues.
The Indigenous Solidarity Network has created a Rethinking Thanksgiving Toolkit that offers resources for examining the myths and uncovering the historical truths about this holiday and the origins of our country. This Thanksgiving, we invite you to join us in learning more about our complicated national heritage and the often unspoken indigenous history of the land where we are privileged to live, work, struggle, and celebrate together.
If you are moved to make a financial contribution to address the legacy of European settlers’ theft and violence toward Native Peoples in the New York City area, we invite you to join us in making a gift to the Manna-hatta Fund, which supports the American Indian Community House, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization serving the health, social service, and cultural needs of Native Americans residing in New York City.
As we move forward in this time of tremendous challenge for artists and arts organizations, we are grateful for the opportunity to re-examine our history and how we got to where we are today. We are called to use our voices as artists and patrons of the arts to call out injustice, to call in our families, friends, and neighbors, and to transform the systems and structures of our society to make our world more just and more free.
In Gratitude,
Scott, Zach, Natasha, and Dane
The Center at West Park