During a time of severe global travel restrictions, Idyllwild Arts reminded the world of its global reach and its open, cosmopolitan outlook on June 6 and 7 with One World. One Idyllwild., a 24-hour virtual event showcasing the talents and passions of the students, faculty, alumni, and friends of Idyllwild Arts Academy and the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program.
Idyllwild Arts was rewarded with some $260,000 in donations for presenting One World. One Idyllwild. Meanwhile, those who watched on our website and on Facebook Live were rewarded with the pleasure of countless astonishing performances and exhibits, representing every arts discipline taught by the Academy and Summer Program. Viewers watched from dozens of different countries, forming a global community of which the Idyllwild Arts campus is a microcosm, and constituting a precursor of the post-COVID-19 world in which we’ll again be able to meet face to face with friends and fellow lovers of the arts from every corner of the planet.
That post-COVID-19 world will of course not be a post-problem world. The demonstrations in the streets protesting police brutality–especially racially motivated police brutality–and demanding racial justice remind us that post-COVID-19 normalcy will be business as usual in the sense that we will continue to face serious problems, and not only those that provoked the recent and ongoing unrest.
But One World. One Idyllwild. highlighted the kind of creativity that we need to create not only beautiful works of art, but a beautiful world. When the citizen artists trained by Idyllwild Arts leave the stage or studio behind, they enter spaces where we must all be citizens together. Idyllwild Arts looks forward to seeing its current students as well its alumni continue to exercise their creativity in all of these spaces.
