World Arts West Dance Festival delivers communal joy, despite brutal NEA cuts - 48 hills

"In May, the World Arts West Dance lost a $60,000 National Endowment of the Arts grant, part of the millions of dollars of funding cut from the NEA that forms part of the generational assault on the endowment summed up by the Cato Institute in April: "The NEA's modest grant budget substitutes individuals' preferences for those of committees, crowding out private provision, politicizing art, and violating freedom of conscience.""

"But, as World Arts West executive director Anne Huang explained by phone in response to the cuts, art does what it has always done: be creative, adapt and continue. "We've had steady NEA funding for 40 years before this," Huang said. "So we scaled down the festival, from 200 plus artists to 30-40. Many audience members come to our shows and are introduced to a new culture for the first time in their lives.""

Alleluia Panis anointed a 200-person crowd with sacred coconut water at the World Arts West Dance Festival's final weekend in the Presidio's Tunnel Tops Park. The festival lost a $60,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant amid larger NEA funding cuts and critiques about public arts funding. Organizers adapted by reducing artist participation from over 200 to 30–40 while preserving culturally specific performances. The program included the Lakbai Diwa, a Filipino diasporic spirit ceremony featuring slow, meditative movement, Spirit Boats with offerings, prayer flags, and ritual objects that center community memory and cultural transmission.

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