Photo: Lynn Padwe
At a recent HAI
performance, there were three people over 100 years of age.
Shortly thereafter we had a different presentation at an elementary
school. These are the "new faces" of HAI…
people much older and much younger than when we started nearly
40 years ago. At that time the goal was to harness the arts
to help those who had been institutionalized for decades in
New York State's psychiatric centers. The world has since
changed dramatically, and HAI's mission has evolved to meet
new challenges. First was adapting services to reach deinstitutionalized
mental health consumers in hundreds of community settings.
Over the years, we have devoted increasing energies to growth
as well as healing. After the events of 9/11, and in collaboration
with Princeton University, HAI extended and expanded work
with schools. Children today are more vulnerable to the impact
of violence, abuse and neglect. In response, HAI has developed
an array of school programs, including several that use role-play
and student-created theater presentations to confront critical
issues. The most recent addition to HAI's educational theater
pieces, Take Ya Time, developed in conjunction with Region
7, addresses bullying and other threats that elementary school
students face. It joins a broad range of services (see pages
6 and 7) that HAI provides to the schools.
The admonition to Take Ya Time cannot apply to HAI as an
organization, whose agenda for the coming years is full. Planning
has begun to celebrate the 40th anniversary year beginning
July 2008. And, when our current 10-year lease expires on
our Soho office/loft in March 2009, we will once again have
to move. The 40th anniversary will present an opportunity
to "take stock," to look back and celebrate our
accomplishments as pioneers of the arts-for-healing movement
and innovators in developing exciting ways to reach people
through the arts. Then, as HAI later approaches its half-century
mark, the agenda will focus on transitions: a move to a hopefully
permanent location, if we haven't already, and preparing for
a new generation of staff who will be just as dedicated as
the Founder and
senior personnel have been for decades, to advance HAI's mission
of healing and growth through the arts.
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