The cultural life of a nation: What our performing arts institutions make possible

By Lisa Richards Toney, President and CEO, Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) 

What does it mean for a nation to recognise its cultural life as essential to who it is – and who it aspires to become?

 I have been thinking about this question as we consider the institutions that have helped shape our national artistic identity. We recognise them for their magnificent stages, extraordinary performances and architectural prominence. But their significance reaches far beyond their walls: they are part of the cultural infrastructure through which a nation comes to know itself, expresses its values and finds its place in the world.

A vision larger than the stage 

In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched People-to-People, an initiative rooted in the belief that international understanding could be strengthened through cultural, educational and humanitarian exchange. Musical performances and theatrical tours were part of that vision.¹ Two years later, he signed legislation establishing the National Cultural Center in
Washington, D.C.

His successor, President John F. Kennedy, embraced the vision and helped advance the project. These presidents, representing different political traditions, shared a conviction that a nation’s cultural life was integral to its standing in the world.² 

They recognised that the arts could communicate across differences, create relationships and express dimensions of national identity that military strength, economic power and political alliances could not.

A nation needed more than the ability to demonstrate its power. It needed the ability to express its humanity.

This understanding was not uniquely American. Australia’s Sydney Opera House creates opportunities for cultural expression and international exchange, bringing diverse voices and perspectives to wider audiences.³ South Korea’s Seoul Arts Center similarly embraces artistic exchange across borders.⁴

The credibility we build together

The significance of these institutions extends beyond the performances they present – their artistic standards, international relationships and public standing
contribute to how a country’s creative life is recognised and understood.

Consider what it means when an artist or company from Copenhagen, Seoul or Johannesburg performs on one of America’s national stages, or when American artists are welcomed by comparable institutions abroad. Such exchanges signal artistic recognition, create relationships and contribute to a larger understanding of our place in the world.

But this credibility is not created by any one institution acting alone – it emerges from a living ecosystem of artists, presenters, producers, educators, communities and organisations whose work gives our cultural life its depth and vitality. These institutions amplify that work, extend its visibility and connect it to broader cultural conversations.

In return, the field gives these institutions their purpose, relevance and continuing legitimacy – a relationship of reciprocity, increasingly important as our world changes.

Seeing the forest

For national service organisations like the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP), this relationship is fundamental – our responsibility is to see the forest for the trees.

We engage with artists, presenters, agents, managers, producers and cultural leaders across communities. We see where opportunities are emerging, traditional pathways are disappearing and conditions for sustaining artistic work are changing. That perspective helps us recognise connections that might otherwise remain invisible.

National performing arts institutions are essential partners in this work. Their reach, resources and cultural standing can translate artistic achievement into national and international opportunity. Their continued relevance, meanwhile, depends upon the vitality, diversity and innovation of the wider field. Yet neither can fulfil its larger purpose in isolation.

As technology transforms creative practice, economic models shift and new generations redefine cultural participation, we need institutions capable of looking beyond their walls – and organisations capable of looking beyond any single discipline, community or business model. We must understand not only what is changing, but what those changes make possible.

What we choose to carry forward

Perhaps the most important measure of a great national performing arts institution is not simply the excellence
it presents, but the cultural possibilities it creates beyond itself.

Artists whose work gains recognition. Relationships that cross borders. Young people who imagine their place in the arts. Communities whose stories become part of a larger national narrative. These are among the returns on a nation’s investment in its cultural life – not always easily measured, but enduring.

At their best, our national cultural institutions offer us reason to take pride – not only in what we have accomplished, but in the extraordinary range of human expression emerging from our communities. They remind us that national identity is neither singular nor static – continually shaped by the people, traditions and creative voices that make up our collective life.

The question is not simply how we preserve the institutions we have inherited – it is how we ensure that the cultural infrastructure they represent continues to evolve, remains connected to the communities it serves and creates possibilities for those who follow.

When we diminish that infrastructure, we risk losing more than stages, programmes or buildings – we weaken relationships, pathways and shared cultural standing that have taken generations to build.

But when we sustain it – and allow it to grow – we make something extraordinary possible: we give a nation the means to recognise itself, engage meaningfully with the world, and imagine what it might yet become.

That is the cultural life of a nation.

And it belongs to all of us.