The Toronto Star
November 28, 2005

A decade of bringing the arts to kids

Music and art not ‘frills,’ founder says. Program ‘cannot keep up with demand’

by Ben Rayner

A year in Toronto wrought with bullet-scarred crime scenes speaks to what can occur when people grow up in areas deprived of options.

The 10th birthday of the admirable charity Arts for Children, brainchild of local arts education advocate and Avenue Road School for the Arts founder Lola Rasminsky, is thus a step in the right direction.

The organization has been bringing outreach programs in visual art, dance, music and theatre to kids from underprivileged areas of the city long enough now that it could feel justified in throwing itself a little party – complete with nachos, cupcakes, ice cream and pretzels – in the CBC’s Barbara Frum Atrium on Front St. yesterday afternoon.

Toronto hip-hop success story k-os, rapper Rikoshay and CBC Radio personality Andy Barrie were among the “adult” performers who joined a pack of youngsters eager to strut their considerable stuff as singers, drummers, dancers and MCs onstage in a venue thronged by children and old fogeys alike.

Displays of brilliantly coloured murals, masks and paintings turned out by Arts for Children’s many young participants added a bit of gallery-going uptown verve to the recital.

Reared-in-905 MC, singer, songwriter and generally thoughtful guy k-os graciously ceded the stage to Arts for Children’s beneficiaries after just a few supportive words, noting that his most memorable experience with arts education as a child was asking “my dad to buy me a piano. He said ‘No’…

“When I saw the nature of this ceremony, I really had to get here because I’d come to regret that when I was a child I really didn’t get involved in music and theatre, and arts and crafts I didn’t even know. I think it’s important for children to get involved,” he said.

“If you check behind me, there’s a girl wearing a hip-hop belt buckle that says ’star’ on it. And I think if that’s the result of children getting involved in arts and crafts, then I wanna say ‘much love’ to everybody for doing this.”

Rasminsky was intent on “thinking about the future rather than resting on my laurels.”

“When you and I were kids, we had good music programs and good art programs, and now there are very little, if any, in schools,” she said.

“We cannot keep up with demand for our service. We’re in 45 schools, but we just don’t have the funding to keep up with it.”

Rasminsky also refused to pull any punches in linking the rising social problems in disadvantaged Toronto neighbourhoods – chief among them the recent rash of gun murders that has besieged the city – to cutbacks in education that have largely dismissed music, art and drama programs as “frills.”

The discipline involved in mastering an artistic discipline is invaluable to a young person’s employability, self-confidence and “commitment to excellence,” she said.

“I predicted we’d pay for it in the criminal justice system when the Mike Harris government started cutting programs,” she said. “People used to be kept in the school system by the music program or the drama program, and now they’re dropping out.”