By Rebecca Stern for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan for West Virginia News Service for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration

In the halls of Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College during the day, and on the grounds of Cowan Community Center at night, the Cowan Creek Mountain Music School [CCMMS], referred to by staff and participants as "Cowan," did more than just celebrate Appalachian music.

After two years of Covid-19 prevented a safe in-person learning experience, Cowan returned, this time with a renewed commitment to diversity and inclusion. The overall structure of the program has not changed. It features morning classes, with students ranging from kids to older adults, that are taught in a call and response style, rather than with written music. Lyrics are not googled. For tunes like "Groundhog," the beginner class created their own lyrics or got them from another staff member. Every afternoon, there are masters concerts, jam sessions, and workshops like beginning flat foot dancing and Old Regular Baptist line singing. At night, there are outdoor faculty concerts and square dances.

A More Diverse, and Inclusive, Appalachian Music School

What made this year's iteration of the music school unique were the extra steps administration took to make the old time Appalachian music camp and community more inclusive of people not traditionally represented or talked about in Appalachian music.

Efforts included a workshop on breaking the silence around LGBTQ+ people in traditional Appalachian music; a faculty member - an immigrant to Kentucky from Ecuador - who taught Andean music and instrument-making; and a public recognition of all the tunes Cowan teaches from the Appalachian repertoire that have links to the African-American community. There were classes on the African origins of the banjo, and the school welcomed a primarily-female Latin Alternative group, LADAMA, whose ensemble included four women from four different countries.

"I absolutely think [Cowan] is where we get to build the Appalachia we want for everybody," said Larah Helayne, a 20-year-old queer, Appalachian musician and teacher's assistant for the beginner banjo class at CCMMS.

During a workshop on the lived experiences of some of the LGBTQ+ staff at Cowan, Helayne and two other panelists spoke and led the community in songs about being queer in Appalachia and queerness in Appalachian music. Panelists, including Helayne and Sue Massek, a member of Reel World String Band, which is sometimes called "Kentucky's feminist hillbilly band," opened-up conversation about feeling a need to hide queerness when performing, experiencing microaggressions, and the lack of public recognition for queer people in Appalachian music.

"You have to understand that marginalized people, Black people, queer people, Latinx people, and other people of color have always been in Appalachia," said Helayne. "We have always been here and we always will be, and we're not going anywhere."

The Importance of Community

Community is integral to Appalachian music. Several times throughout the camp, participants were reminded that this music was meant to be played together, in jams with other instruments, not solo. Helayne spoke about the joy of finding themselves at an all-queer jam at the Parkway Inn (a traditional night jam spot, given that the Parkway is where most participants and staff stay during the week).

LADAMA members also recognized the importance of community in Appalachian music, sharing translations for words like "jam" and "square dance" in their own languages.

Maria Fernanda Gonzalez, a member of LADAMA from Venezuela, explained that "for us, it's important to come here to find the connections and the bridge that we can build with music that's made around community."

Fernanda Gonzalez also addressed the lack of gender diversity in the music industry, an issue that exists across borders. "As a woman ensemble that creates music, as a collective...we are writing original music and that's still rare... It's important to talk about the diversity of the music industry," she said.

"No matter what country we're from, we're still facing challenges as women," added Daniela Serna, a member of LADAMA who is from Colombia.

Change Is a Process

Staff emphasized that there are other important steps Cowan must take for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Helayne named some things they would like to see, like more faculty of color and an endowed scholarship for students of color, as well as pronouns on name tags to avoid misgendering.

Executive director Carla Gover said that making these adjustments, and giving audiences and program participants a fuller picture of Appalachian music, is very important to Cowan. But these changes are not seamless and don't always come quickly in a community that puts so much emphasis on tradition.

"There were concerns expressed about how we should be a music school and not explore political issues, fears of attack from right wing groups that have made trouble for some other organizations in Eastern Kentucky of late, and a worry that some parents might not let their youth attend camp if we openly speak about LGBTQ+ issues," said Gover.

Ultimately, the CCMMS administration decided that because Appalachian music has always been political - from songs about coal mining unions, to tunes about environmental awareness by artists like Jean Ritchie - Cowan would continue to strive for more diversity, inclusivity, and cultural-historical context.

Gover added that this year's focus on diversity and inclusion doesn't supplant the school's original mission to center the living traditions of Kentucky artists and educators. Cowan is still committed to honoring this aim, especially because there is a long history of non-Appalachians teaching, explaining, and performing Appalachian music. At times this has led to misinformation, harmful stereotypes, and even cultural appropriation for financial gain, what Gover jokingly calls faking "holler cred."

"We want to make sure that 'Y'all are welcome' means 'All are welcome,' and that folks of all stripes and persuasions can feel that. Which sometimes means creating a space for tender or difficult conversations - bookended by songs, of course!" said Gover.

After all, at the end of the day, Cowan Creek Mountain Music School is really about the music.

Rebecca Stern wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.


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By Frankie (Amy) Felegy for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mark Moran for Iowa News Service reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

Chuy Renteria started dancing-specifically breaking-at the age of 14. A magazine editor and writer these days, Renteria still uses breaking to express his identity-and defiance, rebellion, and frustration with the other dancers.

"We're in conversation. We're having the equivalent of a heated argument on the dance floor," he says. The improvisational street dance is rooted in African American and Latino culture. It originated in New York City in 1980s, alongside a growing hip-hop scene.

Renteria dances to engage with the labels pasted onto him, both accurate and biased.

"When people see me walking down the street, they can't help but think A, B, C, right? So when I go to sleep and I wake up, I can't take that away," he says.

'This is Me'

Renteria grew up in West Liberty, Iowa, in the 80s and 90s-a time and place that has shaped who he is and where his art leads him.

The city is less than two square miles in size; inside is a historically majority Hispanic population.

"Growing up in West Liberty, I felt too Mexican for the white people and too white for the Mexican people. And that was always this constant [existence] between those spaces," Renteria says.

As young as nine years old, the first-generation Mexican-American remembers racial slurs being flung at him. People would say they hated him.

"And when I found dance, it transcended all of that," he says. "It's like, this is me."

Finding Meaning

Renteria shares: "Just by nature of my own identity, in the context of the social constructs around us, me existing becomes this political conversation point to folks."

But that politicization isn't as direct a translation in dance as, say, artforms that use words or visuals. The dialogue is more subtle.

"Dance and movement, and that sort of expression, is just as valid, and it's just as politically cognizant of the world. It just does it in this kind of abstraction. It doesn't have to be hitting you over the head," he says.

Renteria's 2021 memoir We Heard It When We Were Young, along with his more recent blog posts in Of Spanglish and Maximalism, grapple with his past, the now, and beyond.

What is identity? How does intergenerational trauma and racism impact who we are? The list goes on: "Did I have a good childhood? Am I a good person because-or in spite of-my upbringing? ... Is my town a good town? The town that I grew up in, the town as of now, is it a good place?" Renteria asks.

"I'm really interested in the questions that I don't know the answer to."


Frankie (Amy) Felegy wrote this story for Arts Midwest.


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By Anya Slepyan for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration

As the 2024 election approached, news channels and commentators once again revived a familiar narrative: the urban-rural divide. 

But Laura Zabel, executive director of Minnesota-based arts non-profit Springboard for the Arts, was more interested in urban-rural solidarity. 

“Going into an election year, we knew that there was going to be a lot of narrative that focused on ways we might be different, or ways that people assume we’re different,” Zabel said. “And we wanted to do something to not only counter that narrative, but to help people build real relationships and real solidarity across urban and rural places.” 

Stoking resentment between urban and rural communities serves to divide largely working-class constituencies that could gain more political power if they work together, Zabel said. Emphasizing what these communities have in common, across different geographies and demographics, can help counter that divide. But it’s not easy to overcome a narrative that is so deeply ingrained that many Americans take it for granted.

So Springboard for the Arts launched a new initiative, consisting of over 35 artists working on projects across Minnesota, Michigan, Kentucky, and Colorado that connect urban and rural communities. The installations include phone booths that connect communities in rural Northfield, Minnesota and Minneapolis, a culinary project that celebrates the fusion of a chef’s Southeast Asian roots and rural midwestern upbringing, and a Kentucky poetry slam honoring the renowned theorist and professor bell hooks.

The results, Zabel said, demonstrate “all of the different ways that we’re connected, and all of the different creative ways that we might reach out to one another and build that kind of understanding.” 

Using art projects to foster connection and understanding is effective, according to Zabel, because they leave room for nuance and complexity that is often flattened by media narratives. Creative projects can also help people approach new ideas with a more open mind, she said. 

“Art has a tremendous ability to build shared experience in ways that takes people outside of their comfort zone, or makes people more open to thinking of things in a different way,” Zabel said.

A project installed in two Minnesota elementary schools demonstrates the principles behind the projects. Artist David Hamlow worked with 2nd and 3rd graders in rural St. James and urban Minneapolis to design wall sculptures made of recycled materials. Each student was also given a yearbook photo of a participating student from the other school, and asked to incorporate that picture into the sculpture. The resulting walls of faces serve a purpose similar to pen pals, according to Zabel.

The youth-focused project also hopes to reach urban and rural children before they’ve internalized the harmful stereotypes these communities can apply to one another. 

Project installations by the initial class of 35 artists are ongoing, but Zabel hopes to expand the initiative further in coming years.

“I think that if we are able to build greater understanding and connection, and help people see a more complete picture of what it looks like to live in different contexts, we end up finding out that there is a lot of shared interest and shared hope for our future and our children,” Zabel said.


Anya Slepyan wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.


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Sixty years ago this weekend, young activists marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, demanding their right to vote and changing history in the process. Today, another group of young people is using art to make their voices heard in Georgia.

A Boston-based arts group, beheard.world, has teamed up with Selma-area teens for "Selma Again," a production that blends dance, spoken word and music to shed light on the struggles the city still faces today.

Director and choreographer Anna Myer said the performance is about pushing forward, as well as looking back.

"The piece talks about real things that are happening and things that go to the heart," she said, "and it also talks about love and the only way forward is love and the only way to keep moving forward is if we do this together."

Myer said she first visited Selma years ago and was struck by how poverty and crime persist despite its historic significance. She and her husband, filmmaker Jay Paris, along with Selma natives, helped create a nonprofit initiative to blend nonviolence education, performing arts and storytelling for local youth.

It's part of the Selma Cross-Cultural Nonviolence and Performing Arts Academy, which was co-founded by Dallas County natives and civil rights veterans Charles Bonner and Viola Douglas, along with the Rev. Gary Crum of Elwood Christian Church. Through poetry and dance, teens confront modern challenges and honor past civil rights leaders.

Myer said this year's production highlights how today's youth can step into the legacy of activism left by the "foot soldiers" of the 1960s.

"In the performance in Atlanta, we're honoring civil rights veterans who are still alive - Andrew Young, and Charles Steele, and Faya Rose Sanders, and Lynda Blackmon Lowery," she added. "We're honoring them and we'll be also speaking their names in the piece."

"Selma Again" will be performed today (Fri., March 7) at Morehouse College's Ray Charles Performing Arts Center in Atlanta, and Sat., March 8, at Ellwood Christian Academy in Selma, as part of the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee.

Myer emphasized the show's ultimate goal is to spark meaningful conversations, promote understanding and inspire action for lasting change.