By Sharice Bryant | HDD Marketing Director
The evening of May 2, 2025, will go down in history as a devastating turning point for artists and arts organizations across the country. Just hours after the Trump administration announced its plan to eliminate both the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), thousands of organizations received abrupt notification that not only were future grants rescinded, but pending and existing awards would be terminated immediately.
The shock was immediate, but the long-term impact will be felt for years. Organizations—especially those serving historically marginalized communities—have had to rapidly restructure budgets, reevaluate programming, and ask difficult questions:
What does our future look like? And how do we continue to serve our communities without vital support?
At Heidi Duckler Dance, these questions have hit close to home.
Founded in 1985 in Los Angeles and expanding to Portland in 2010, HDD has always believed that the arts are not a luxury but a necessity. Our mission is rooted in community, freedom, and inclusivity, with a commitment to creating site-specific performances that meet people where they are: in parks, parking lots, housing developments, and neighborhood streets.
Our work thrives on accessibility. It’s built on the idea that everyone deserves to experience the transformative power of art, regardless of income, background, or zip code. Whether it’s through our place-based performances or our arts education programs for youth, seniors, and incarcerated communities, HDD serves as a cultural lifeline to the communities we engage.
This year, we applied for funding through the Mid-Atlantic Arts’ USArtists International (USAI) program, a vital grant that supports American artists performing abroad and is federally funded through the NEA. When the NEA was defunded, so was this opportunity. The termination of this program not only affects our ability to share HDD’s work on an international stage, but it also disrupts the broader ecosystem that fosters cultural exchange and global dialogue through the arts.
Our work is rooted in accessibility, whether through site-specific performances in unexpected spaces or through youth and community education programs. These funding cuts threaten that mission. But they also reinforce why we must speak louder, stand firmer, and organize harder to protect the arts, especially for the next generation of artists, storytellers, and culture-bearers.
In moments like these, we are reminded: art is not a luxury. It is a necessity. And we will keep dancing.
Eliminating federal arts funding threatens not only our organization but the greater ecosystem of artists, teachers, technicians, and creatives we collaborate with. More importantly, it endangers the public’s right to creative expression, representation, and joy.
In the face of these cuts, we remain committed. We are doubling down on our mission. And we are calling on our community to stand with us.
Now is the time to speak out, support local arts organizations, and demand that the federal government recognize the value of the creative sector in shaping a just, vibrant, and equitable society.
We invite you to stay informed, get involved, and if you’re able, support organizations like ours that are pushing forward even in uncertain times. Because art is not optional. Art is survival.
