Photo of the Day | Louisiana health secretary Dr. Rebekah Gee Thanks NOCCA Students
In support of the recovery of Louisiana and at the request of Dr. Rebekah Gee, Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health,
NOCCA is proud to be part of The Arts Council of Baton Rouge’s Creative Relief programing.
Dr. Rebekah Gee (center) takes a moment to thank NOCCA students for their performance near the Baton Rouge River Center on Thursday, August 25.
Refection from Kyle Wedberg, NOCCA President|CEO
Her name was Zahria. I didn’t know it when we planned the trip up to perform in Baton Rouge on days notice, but Zahria could have been the sole purpose of the trip.
As we were setting up on the outdoor stage one of our seniors, Kevin Gullage. asked if he could go check on a friend who was coming out today see him and the other students perform. I said sure. She was sitting down the river front about 50 feet away. Then the two of them approached me and Kevin said as they got closer “you will have to ask Mr. Wedberg.” In the course of our collective conversation it became clear that Zahria had played in Kevin’s band from time to time, that she and her family had lost their house in the floods, that she was staying with family, that her school (Baton Rouge High) was not opening again until next week, and that she had brought her saxophone and simply wanted to know if she could sit in with the band. I asked the questions that all in South Louisiana have gotten too practiced in asking (is everyone ok, are you and your family are safe, when will you be back in school, when do you think you will be back at home). Zahria was smart, articulate, and extremely well mannered. She said she and her family were safe and could stay with her aunt as long as needed. She gave short answers as if she was being deposed. It wasn’t that she couldn’t or wasn’t willing to answer those questions, but there is a fatigue to answering these questions upteen times a day for weeks in a row. Zahria wasn’t there to talk about those things. She was just an 11th grader looking for a couple of hours of arts and normal. Zahria was worth the trip. Everything else was lagniappe.
I would like to recognize and thank all of the faculty who made the trip up to Baton Rouge yesterday: Jefferson Turner, Michael Pellera, Jee Yeoun Ko, Dilyara Shiderova, and especially Dan Zimmer who said “I will just come to support in any way that is needed”.
I also want to single out Blake Coheley and Brian Hammell who pulled off the logistics for the day and the support they got in doing so from Lotte Delaney and Leigh Traylor.
Finally thanks to each and every one of the students who traveled up and the departments that made it possible.
I was asked when we got back if it was a good and/or successful trip. As everyone of you know in your arts and your lives success and good are very slippery measures. Certainly every single one of the adults and students who experienced or remembered Katrina had a visceral reaction to needing the police escort to access River Road and then seeing the Hummvies and the City, State, and Federal law enforcement officials once we got there. As we stood outside of one Convention Center one person whispered the hard memory of going to the Astrodome 11 years ago to see if there was anyone there they knew who needed help. Everyone discussed the water levels and signs of both damage and recovery we saw on the drive between new Orleans and Baton Rouge. They were uncommon conversations of unearthed memories that have a collective grounding in the experiences of many in South Louisiana.
What I didn’t fully grasp until the equipment was set up, at the extremely hot outdoor stage on the levee between the USS Kidd and the Planetarium, was who would be left at the River Center Shelter. It was everyone who could not find a relative, a friend, an employer, or someone else in their lives to help find alternative temporary shelter during the last two weeks. These were the people who suffered and experienced a precarious personal safety net in the best of times. Those who hid in plane sight before the floods and carried all they still had with them, so it would not walk or wash away forever, as they lived another day in the temporary shelter.
There was the 31 year old who lost his recording studio and was working on his degree at Southern (“I am a musician myself and these kids are tight”) who talked mikes and set-up with the Media Arts students. Or the Vietnam Veteran who befriended Jefferson, grabbed one of the chairs we had brought, and immediately fell asleep in that chair on the stage. Some just needed to talk, some just wanted to play, some just wanted the din of being a refugee in one’s own land broken up with the sounds of our students. All just wanted the distraction of normal and I hope we brought that to those that heard us.
Last night Secretary Gee of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and I had an exchange where she thanked NOCCA for coming out and performing. And even though she is extremely busy in these days after the flood, she made the time to come out and visit our students as they performed yesterday. We had been there at her invitation with the support and help of the Baton Rouge Arts Council. She said our students were awesome. I told her thank you for her work and that I emphatically agreed, our students are awesome.
Success and good have as many measures as those that want to try to quantify them. At no point yesterday did members of the general public out number the people that came to perform on the NOCCA bus. In fact, this may be the smallest crowd those students that went yesterday will ever perform in front of during their time at NOCCA. But that is not what yesterday was about. My take on yesterday is that it was both good and successful on many different levels. I am extremely proud of and grateful for the NOCCA Community’s support of our friends and neighbors yesterday. I also hope that we never have to be successful or good at supporting those who lost to water again in Louisiana, because the need to do so has become too common for us all.