Developing cultural arts in Church
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Facing the challenge of fostering cultural arts locally in an increasingly global Church, the Music and Cultural Arts Division is doing what has been done successfully before: mining the talents of members themselves.
The Deseret Dramatic Recognition Awards recently spotlighted Church members who submitted scripts, musical works and poetry for judging by a committee. The authors and composers were honored at a luncheon on Feb. 23. At a "Temple Square Performances" event in the Assembly Hall that evening and the next night, excerpts from the scripts were presented in reader's-theater format, and selections from the musical works were performed.
This is the third year of the awards, which Michael Magleby, manager of cultural arts for the Church, characterizes as a plant that one is not precisely certain where it will bloom. The submissions may bloom in wards and stakes under the direction of local priesthood leaders.
Speaking at the luncheon, Dorothy Klc, chairman of the all-volunteer script evaluation committee, said accessibility has been a prominent concern in selection of submissions.
"If we take the premise that wards and stakes will be able to utilize these at some point, we realize that now we are a worldwide Church," she said.
Thus, advantages such as microphones and theater rental, that might be present in some parts of the Church, might not be in others, she noted.
"They might just have the bare bones," she said. "I want them to realize that they, too, can partake of these gifts."
Accordingly, the presentation in the Assembly Hall was done with minimal rehearsal time, microphones on stands and only a few prop and costume pieces.
Reflecting diversity in content, the works carried such titles as "Bethlehem," "The Friends and Family of the Prophet Joseph Smith," "Songs of the Prophets," "Commitment, Commandment, Conversion," and "Tonight I'm Thankful."
Addressing the luncheon guests, Brother Magleby spoke of a "filter that you feel in your heart," one that "you don't start to recognize until you have read three or four hundred of these submissions. Then you start to feel those things that carry the kind of power that transmits a testimony."
David T. Warner, director of the Music and Cultural Arts Division of the Church, gave something of an illustration of that power when, in his talk at the luncheon, he told of an experience that occurred in connection with the new pageant now being presented yearly in Nauvoo, Ill.
One night, a man came to view the pageant who looked different from the other people who were there in terms of clothing and hair length. Several cast members observed him and later learned of his experiences as he enjoyed the pageant.
During the opening scene of the pageant, an actor portraying Parley P. Pratt, says to the audience, "When you're here, we're here, because we're in you. Some of what you are is because of what we are, what we became here in this place, this beautiful city called Nauvoo."
"He had a feeling," Brother Warner said of the pageant spectator he was observing. "And the feeling was that his grandfather, now passed on many years ago, was sitting right next to him, and he turned to talk to him. But, of course, he wasn't there in the flesh. And he couldn't shake the feeling all night long that his grandfather was there. All of the feelings of love that he had for his grandfather filled his soul."
As the pageant played out, the man gradually remembered and then became quite certain that his grandfather had been a Latter-day Saint, Brother Warner said. "How had he not known that? How had he forgotten that? How had that slipped away? He wasn't sure, but he was sure of this: his grandfather was one of those Mormons."
Eventually, the man experienced "a clear recollection that when he was a boy, his grandfather had taken him to the waters of baptism, and he had, himself, been baptized, that he had been a member of the Church all these years and hadn't remembered it.
"Well, the next day, he went up to the temple grounds, and cast members felt prompted to go and speak with him, and he shared his story and they shared theirs nearly all day long."
Brother Warner testified that the work of those who have been entrusted with gifts in the arts can be an instrument of the Spirit of the Lord — an instrument of "awakening feelings, of testifying of what we feel and what we know."
E-mail to: rscott@desnews.com
