The Theater at Madison Square Garden
May 12, 2009
To the family and friends who have traveled to New York City from all over the country and all over the world, to the Tisch School of the Arts faculty and staff, to the outstanding teachers honored by the David Payne Carter award, Dr. William Simon and Constance Hoffman, to John Canemaker, academy award winning animator, one of this year's distinguished teachers at NYU, to Dory Smith Wilson, financial aid diva and one of this year's distinguished administrators at NYU, to Dean Louis Scheeder, Associate Dean of Faculty, to our guests—the President's chief of staff, Diane Yu and to our honored speaker, academy award winning actress, activist and star of stage, film and television, Whoopi Goldberg—to all of you, I have the great privilege of presenting the magnificent, the extraordinary, the outrageously talented members of the Tisch School of the Arts' class of 2009.
Look at you. You are so beautiful. Everyone in this theater is here to salute your accomplishments and your success today. You made it here today by virtue of your brilliance and hard work and with support and love from the family and friends gathered in this theater. So, the first thing I want the "soon to be graduates to do" is stand, turn around and salute all of your family and friends.
By this time tomorrow, you will all be alumni of New York University and the Tisch School of the Arts. There is a moment in the ceremony tomorrow at Yankee Stadium, the Passing of the NYU Torch. Watch that ritual carefully. The Passing of the Torch is the prelude to the provost asking all of you to stand so that he can confer on you your degree. At that moment, you transform from students to alumni. At that moment, you become a member of a community for life. Tisch School of the arts is in your DNA; we are with you forever.
These days, belonging to a community for life is a very good thing, because, as you well know, "these are difficult times." But as a very wise person once observed, "Best of times, or the worst of times, they are the only times we've got." In any case, best of times or worst of times, given the rapid pace of change, in 10, 20, 30 or 40 years much of what we think is cutting edge in 2009, will seem as quaint and old fashioned as the electric typewriter I took with me, when I graduated in 1969, exactly 40 years ago. By some estimates, the laptop computer you carry with you now, in 20 or 30 or 40 years, will have more computing power than the human brain.
What does the rapid pace of change mean for you and your future? No one really knows for sure. What many are predicting, however, is that those who will be best equipped to handle the world of 10, 20, 30, or 40 years from now are those who can speak a complex new language of the imagination, a language with a vocabulary and syntax as likely to be visual and aural, as it is quantitative or literary. Those who value hard work, collaboration and doing whatever it takes to get something right with integrity and the presence of an ethical compass will be in constant demand. In other words, many are predicting that the world of 10, 20, 40 years from now will belong to people exactly like you.
So, on this afternoon, of May 12, 2009, when we salute you, the over 1,311 photographers, screen writers, playwrights, television writers, book writers, composers, lyricists, dancers, choreographers, cinema studies and performance studies scholars, interactive media visionaries, filmmakers, actors, directors, sets, costume and lighting designers, production designers, recorded music entrepreneurs, moving image archivists and preservationists, arts politics activists, we salute the fact that each and every one of you is leaving here with not only the skills you have learned in your respective disciplines, but with uniquely special gifts that will serve you well as you make your way in the world.
One gift is your passion. You are passionate about something that seems to own you as much you own it. You couldn't stop writing, or choreographing or making music, if your life depended on it. You came to Tisch to seek out other people, who could feed your passion and you, reciprocally, theirs. I have watched in awe as your passion transforms you into another person on stage; I have listened spellbound to the music you have written. I am completely convinced by the worlds you construct in wood and fabric and light on a stage.
You have the gift of your imagination. You can see what does not yet exist and with your considerable skills you have the ability to invent something out of nothing - - a piece of scholarship or a story that changes the way we understand the world or a new business model no one had thought of before you and your team assembled it.
You have the gift of vision. You know what it means to stand for your creative vision. You know how to assemble others committed to your vision in a creative ensemble, or crew, or production team and commit yourself to working, night after night, day after day to realize that vision. You understand that the future is not something waiting out there to happen to you; the future is something that you have the power to invent. That is real power, if you seize it. You probably already know that.
What you may not know, is that challenges await you as you struggle to keep your radiant vision at the center of your life. What you may not know is that there will be choices, and distractions every day, all day long. At Tisch, faculty, staff and the members of your collaborative team — were there in support of your vision. In the world, you will need to seek out those who support your vision. They may be difficult to find. You will discover that every choice you make, will put your vision closer to your center or drive it farther away. Every choice has a direction that points in the ethical direction of your moral compass, or not. At some point, you'll ask, is keeping your vision at the center of your life worth it? We all ask that question. At some point you might ask will keeping your vision at the center of your life, make you rich and famous: maybe so, maybe not? Will it change the world: can't say? What I can say is, if your vision is at the center of your life, the impossible is possible.
I learned that lesion long after I graduated from college. Thirty years ago I took my first job in New York City. Speaking of difficult times, New York, 30 years ago, was on the verge of bankruptcy and everything in the city was falling apart: subways, the parks, the public libraries. I went to work in Harlem on 125th Street as the executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem. 125th Street was in ruins. Although I was "executive director," I had never run anything in my life. The embryonic "museum" was located in a modest loft over a liquor store. In winter there was no heat; no air conditioning in the summer; and never enough money.
In the ten years I worked there, I got a great education. My teachers were an extraordinary group of artists, scholars, curators and business people who fervently believed that we could turn this little museum over a liquor store into a world class cultural center on 125th Street. Many, in New York, assured us that this was a preposterous idea. In truth, some of the plans we cooked up, at the outset, were ridiculous. We made mistakes – a lot of them; but, with every failure, we learned something. One thing, I learned is that plans are fragile; vision is sturdy. Eventually, a bank gave us a building and we did transform ourselves into a world class cultural center on 125th Street. In the process, I also learned that vision is not only sturdy, it's demanding. Vision is like a young child that needs constant attention and all the love you can give it. But give it that time, attention and love at the center of your life and vision will give truth to what Martin Luther King, Jr. writes when he speaks of "making a way out of no way."
There is real power in that and you've got the power.
There is power. And there is joy.
I like what the great Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw has to say about "True Joy in Life." He writes:
...true joy... The being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. The being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work, the more I live I rejoice in life for its own sake.
Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I've got a hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before I hand it on to future generations.
At tomorrow's ceremony, when they pass the torch, I will be thinking of Shaw's words. I will be thinking of you.
I end my salute to you, the graduating class, with a poem I deliver every year. It's my gift to you. The author is the poet, Christopher Logue. The poem was written on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of the French poet, Guillaume Apollinaire and goes like this:
Come to the edge
It's too high
Come to the edge
We might fall
Come to the edge
And they came
And he pushed them
And they flew.
Thank you. Good luck.
