Submitted to City Council Committee On Cultural Affairs, Libraries And International Relations on March 18, 2026
Testimony given by Raquel Du Toit, Dance/NYC Executive Director, in conjunction with the Cultural Equity Coalition.
Prepared by Melinda Wang, Dance/NYC Research and Advocacy Manager

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Coalition of Theaters of Color

1. Sandie Luna, ID Studio

Good afternoon, Madam Chair Dr. Williams and Members of the Council. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

My name is Sandie Luna, and I am the Executive Director of ID Studio Theater, a South Bronx theater company making original Spanish-language and bilingual theater from within our Latine immigrant community. Founded over 25 years ago, we have called the South Bronx home for more than a decade. Our award-winning work has traveled from here to Bogotá, to Ciudad Juárez, to Dakar. 

Along with my fellow panel member, I testify as a member of the Coalition of Theatres of Color — a network of organizations rooted in and accountable to communities of color across New York City — and the Cultural Equity Coalition of New York, together representing more than 3,300 arts organizations and over 100,000 artists.

Our CTC grant last year supported six original productions and reached 4,000 people. It made possible Cuarto Oscuro (co-produced with the Clemente Center), where performers were hired directly from the Randall’s Island migrant shelter. No auditions. No bureaucratic barriers. We went to where our newest neighbors were, worked with their stories, their images, their voices, creating a space that welcomed them as artists, and invited the rest of us to see them as more than what they have endured. This is the kind of work our organizations make possible every day: work that strengthens cultural identity, builds connection across communities, and contributes to the civic life of this city. CTC funding unlocks work like this. These are dollars that multiply — in measurable and immeasurable ways.

The Coalition of Theatres of Color was among the first cultural initiatives this Council ever created. It paved the way initiatives that followed. Those programs have grown. But CTC has not — no increase since 2021 despite adding 13 organizations to the coalition.

The communities this coalition serves are resilient, but they are on the front lines of this political moment. The capacity to support them — the trust, the relationships — takes years to build. We are asking you to protect it. Honor the initiative this Council created. The investment this work deserves is overdue.

Thank you.
 

2. Dr. Aya Esther Hayashi, People’s Theatre

Dear Madame Chair Dr. Williams and members of the Committee,

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Dr. Aya Esther Hayashi, and I am the Development Director of The People’s Theatre, where we create theatre with and for immigrant communities to build a more just and equitable world. Through professional productions, high quality free arts education programs, and advocacy, we serve over 2,500 artists and audiences annually, rooted in the belief that immigrants telling their own stories can change hearts, minds, and policy. Thanks in part to a $25.7 million capital investment by the City, we are on the cusp of opening The People’s Theatre: Centro Cultural Inmigrante, a state-of-the- art, 20,000-sf center dedicated to the immigrant experience. 

Today, I testify as a member of the Coalition of Theatres of Color and the Cultural Equity Coalition. Together, we serve more than one million New Yorkers each year. We see every day how artists, cultural workers, CBOs, funders, and policymakers are interconnected. When one part of this ecosystem is under-resourced, entire communities lose access to cultural opportunity, economic activity, and creative expression. When equity is prioritized, neighborhoods thrive. While my colleague Sandie and I represent two immigrant-centered organizations, the CTC Initiative funds 63 arts nonprofits, including legacy Black and Indigenous organizations—it is one of the few initiatives to support these groups who are core to the rich cultural history of our city. 

I am here to urge the Council to increase the CTC Initiative to $8 million in the FY2027 budget. For context, the law establishing CTC allows us to use these funds for general operating support. However, because it is administered through DCLA, we are confined to using the funds as program support. This modest $2.3M increase will boost CTC organizations' grants by nearly 30% and effectively serve as a Cost-of-Living Increase after being stagnant for 5 years. We also ask that the Council restore flexibility so organizations can use these funds to sustain their operations, build capacity, and support workforce development. This allows us to serve New Yorkers more richly, more abundantly.

Thank you.

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Arts Service Organizations

1. Marlène Ramírez-Cancio, Brooklyn Arts Exchange

Buenos días, and thank you for the opportunity to testify.

My name is Marlène Ramírez-Cancio, and I’m the Artistic and Co-Executive Director of BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange—a multigenerational arts incubator that has supported artists for 35 years through residencies, education, and affordable rehearsal space. 

I’m also a part of the Cultural Equity Coalition. 

How does an artist become an artist? Artists don’t just appear. Along with my colleague and others in the room, we are Arts Service Organizations that provide the infrastructure that nurtures artists across their full lifecycle. 

We are the connective tissue of the cultural ecosystem. Our work is often invisible—less like the skin, and more like the veins—carrying support, resources, and relationships that keep the system alive. 

One of our Artists in Residence recently shared that BAX was the first place where she felt believed in—not for what she had already done, but for what she might do. She developed her work at BAX, premiered it at a major venue, and is now on tour. That kind of sustained support is what allows artists—thousands of them, across our Coalition—to stay in New York and build a life here.

Unlike presenting organizations, service organizations don’t rely on ticket revenue, and much of our work isn’t public-facing. It’s ongoing and relational.

We maintain studios, run residencies, and offer long-term support that is essential to the artistic process, but often harder to fund because it’s less visible.

We’re facing rising costs across rent, staffing, healthcare, and materials—while philanthropic and federal funding becomes more unstable. (As you know, this is especially true for those of us who support for BIPOC, queer, migrant, and disabled artists.)

As Dance/NYC’s data shows, arts workers are already among the most economically vulnerable in the city. 

Arts Services Organizations make it possible for artists not just to become artists, but to sustain their practice. 

We want a city where artists and cultural workers can live, work, play, and stay. 

Muchas gracias.
 

2. Raquel Du Toit, Dance/NYC

Thank you Council Member Louis and the Committee for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Raquel Du Toit, and I am the Executive Director of Dance/NYC. Our organization serves and represents the estimated 6,000 dance workers and 1,700 dance entities in our city through advocacy, regranting, and knowledge sharing.

As Marlène explained, arts service organizations, or ASOs, are vital lifelines for the 326,000 New Yorkers who work in the creative sector. By building deep relationships, we serve as a vital bridge between complex funding ecosystems and that of the working-class vogue artist that creates spaces of queer belonging, or the immigrant auntie keeping folk dance traditions alive between hospital shifts.

And the need here is astounding. 63% of NYC artists don’t have the cash to cover a $400 emergency. Our State of NYC Dance 2023 report found that despite the inherent risks of dance work, 37% of dance workers don’t have health insurance, and 64% support their work from their own pockets. The gap that ASOs are being asked to fill is only growing wider, as the affordability crisis deepens inequities for working-class and marginalized artists.

Yet, the current funding ecosystem leaves ASOs struggling, forced to do more with declining resources. The highly responsive yet invisible nature of our work means that project-based funding models designed for presenting organizations don’t work for us. We are asked to compete for the same pool of funding as the people & organizations we serve, undercutting the stability of the ecosystem.

That’s why we support the sector-wide ask to baseline the $30 million addition. But beyond that, we need a separate funding process for ASOs with general operating support so we can serve, not compete. And we need the city’s partnership in serving our artist constituency, working collaboratively for portable benefits and for arts space subsidies.

The city must view arts workers as service providers and necessary workers, but also as valued constituents with support needs of their own. Strengthening partnerships with ASOs is the first move we need to take in this process.

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Culturally Specific Organizations

1. Eva Mayhabal Davis, LxNY / Latinx Arts Consortium of New York

Thank you, Madame Chair Williams, and members of the committee, for the opportunity to testify. My name is Eva Mayhabal Davis, and I am the Project Manager at the  Latinx Arts Consortium of New York. Latinx Arts Consortium of New York  is an intersectional network of 54 Latinx-serving cultural organizations, our members include local community groups, CDFs and CIGs from one-person-run-festivals to historical spaces like Flushing Town Hall. We envision a New York City where Latinx arts and culture are fully funded, deeply valued, and celebrated as an integral part of the city’s diverse and vibrant cultural fabric. We host gatherings that foster knowledge exchange, resource-sharing, and collective action towards systemic change. 

Along with the rest of the Members of this panel, our organizations are rooted in, led by, and accountable to BIPOC and Queer communities, whose mission, programming, and public role center the histories, cultural expression, and lived experience of members of those communities. We are also members of the Cultural Equity Coalition led with my colleagues at the Asian American Arts Alliance (A4), the Alliance of Resident Theaters/New York (A.R.T./New York), Dance/NYC, and IndieSpace.

CECNY represents a combined entities across multiple artistic disciplines and racial communities. Collectively, our members reach more than one million New Yorkers each year.

Most recently, Latino/Latine/Latinx arts and culture have had a spotlight (Bad Bunny at the Superbowl!) that was quickly reduced and attacked and further proliferated permission for hate and intolerance. We are witnessing the violent surveillance and stigmatization of entire communities simply for being. Simply for speaking another language, simply for expressing who we are. Our cultural expression is policed and that is not okay.

Our organizations are grounded in the legacy and mission of the Cultural Equity Group (CEG) dating back to the early 1990s, this has been 30 years in the making.  We strive to support the leadership, prepare emerging leadership and amplify the stories of our communities.

As the largest immigrant group in New York City and the United States, Latinx communities experience, descrimination, precarity,  affordability pressures shaped directly by immigration. Many artists and cultural workers are immigrants or first-generation New Yorkers navigating workforce precarity, limited access to benefits, and barriers to public assistance. 

Cultural organizations often become informal support systems, workforce incubators, and trusted spaces for people navigating language barriers, documentation concerns, and economic instability. This labor is essential to the functioning of the cultural ecosystem, yet it remains largely unfunded and unrecognized.
 

2. Lisa Gold, Executive Director, Asian American Arts Alliance

Good afternoon, Madam Chair Williams and Members of the Council. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

My name is Lisa Gold, and I am the Executive Director of the Asian American Arts Alliance, or A4. For over 40 years, A4 has worked to ensure greater representation, equity, and opportunity for Asian American and Pacific Islander artists and cultural organizations across all disciplines.

I want to start with a simple question: can you name a famous Asian American?

If no one comes to mind, you are not alone. A recent study found that 42% of Americans could not name a single Asian American public figure. And those who could most often named Jackie Chan (who isn’t American) or Bruce Lee (who is dead).

This isn’t just about celebrity. It’s about visibility. It’s about belonging. And ultimately, it’s about safety. When communities are unseen, they are too often unheard—and underserved.

That is where culturally specific organizations come in.

Organizations like A4 create spaces where artists and cultural workers of color are not only supported, but understood. We build community, provide resources, and create pathways to opportunity—so that the stories shaping our culture actually reflect the people who live here.

And yet, at a time when the federal government is actively rolling back equity efforts, and private funding is shrinking, our city must step up—not step back.

Instead, we are facing a lack of transparency and persistent inequity. Based on DCLA funding data, I’ve found that AAPI organizations receive roughly 5% of Cultural Development Fund grants—already far below our share of the population. But even more concerning, those grants are, on average, 23% smaller than others. And with no dedicated AAPI-led or -serving CIG, less than 2% of total cultural funding is allocated to our community—despite representing 18% of New York City.

That gap is not just a number. It is lost opportunity. It is silenced voices.

Culturally specific organizations—like A4, LxNY, and the LGBTQ Museum—are essential infrastructure. We ensure that artists can thrive, that communities feel seen, and that New York’s cultural landscape reflects its true diversity.

I join my colleagues in supporting the sector-wide ask to restore and baseline the $30 million in arts funding, and to take meaningful steps toward equitable distribution across our sector.

Because when you invest in culturally specific organizations, you are investing in a city where everyone belongs.

Thank you.

 

3. Risa Shoup, American LGBTQ+ Museum

We are asking:

• that the council restore and baseline last year's $30M add to the culture budget
• that the baseline be indexed so it automatically increases with inflation, 
• that the capital funding for culture be streamlined and revised for greater ease and efficiency, 
• and that the funding for the Coalition of Theaters of Color initiative be increased to $8M to reflect the greater number of organizations it is serving. (It has not been increased in 5 years, while the number of groups has gone up 20%).

More advocacy points around the ask:

This year, we are asking the Council to support cultural institutions and organizations in New York City in these ways: 

1. Baseline Restoration: We ask the city to restore and baseline the $30 million that was added in the FY26 Budget to support DCLA and the entire arts and culture sector. Baselining this funding is critical to ending the budget dance and supporting sustainable culture and culture jobs. Huge swings in annual funding levels impede staffing, planning, and programming, and are most damaging to small community-based organizations in our coalitions.
2. Annual Increases: This year, we are asking the city to consider annual cost adjustments year over year to support staff wages and increased costs connected with inflation for arts and cultural organizations. Costs overall for our cultural institutions continue to increase, and we ask the city to consider a system for sustainability for our organizations that will allow us to retain, expand, and provide fair pay for the cultural workforce. 
3. Improve and Reform the Capital Project Process: 
   1. Create transparency. Update the open data portal for capital projects at cultural institutions, which has not been updated since 2021, and hold a hearing on capital projects so that Council Members understand the issues.
   2. Plan responsibly. Develop a capital infrastructure plan for culture to allow all organizations to build and maintain infrastructure more efficiently. 
   3. Identify key process improvements. Cultural capital projects can take 6-10 years — or more — to complete. Consider key process improvements that allow CIGs and other cultural institutions and organizations to leverage city capital funding in timely and efficient ways to preserve and invest in our buildings and effectively serve our communities.
4. Increase the Coalition of Theaters of Color Council Initiative to $8 Million: An increase would provide a cost-of-living adjustment and help stabilize the 63 organizations facing rising costs for staffing, space, and production.
5. Restore Flexibility in the CTC’s Use of Funds: CTC funding was historically intended as general operating support, but because it is administered through the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, organizations are currently required to treat it as programmatic funding. DCLA should create a process for its use as GOS, as exists within the DCLA portfolio for CIGS.