Initiative to Promote Arts Dialogue

Through a key programming theme for 2006–2007, Promoting Dialogue: Arts Engaging Social Change, PITT ARTS seeks to create opportunities for University of Pittsburgh undergraduates to explore and dialogue around issues of social justice and social change as expressed in the arts.

These special programs embrace the internationality of art, encouraging students to be invested global citizens, with a special emphasis on leadership-building. By encouraging our students to go beyond asking questions to actually seeking the answers, deep communication and questioning leads us towards ways of understanding and actions that better the world.

PITT ARTS on-campus events include the Recent Justice Minister of Canada Irwin Cotler, a champion of human rights speaking at Pitt made possible by a key partnership with the University of Pittsburgh Law School.

Off campus we will attend a performance and reading by Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka in collaboration with the City of Asylum Project. The America Jewish Museum’s If My Eyes Speak exhibition engages students in questions about genocide in the contemporary world. The Gray Zone, a play produced by barebones theatre explores how some Jews became survivors during the Nazi regime. The African American Opera Artists Luncheon, brought to Pitt by the Pittsburgh Opera, teaches students about the long, hard history of some of the world’s most distinguished opera stars—African American singers.

These are just a few examples of our Promoting Dialogue: Arts Engaging Social Change programs.