BY DAN BOSCALJON
As part of our Staff Spotlight series, we humbly help you get to know the faces and names you may have encountered at the Englert (maybe even tonight!). In this volume, we’re spotlighting House Manager Caleb Rainey and his involvement in the larger Iowa City arts community as a spoken-word artist, writer, producer, and leader of IC Speaks.
You came to Iowa as an undergraduate who identified as an artist and as a writer. What are some of the most important skills that you developed by choosing to make your home in a place where writing is valued?
Listening. Being open. The act of connecting. Those are the things I’ve learned the most in Iowa, in Iowa City—connecting to the arts, and learning. It was learning how to be open to artists, learn from other art forms, and how to talk about art in a way that’s accessible.
Was that more during your time as a student, or your time since graduation?
The University and Iowa City go together—both of them taught me [those skills], both in the classroom and out. Working with Akwi [Nji] and other artists in the area let me learn how to connect with community artists as well as student artists.
As part of your creating an artistic identity, you decided to adopt the stage name, “The Negro Artist,” acquired from a Langston Hughes essay discussing the importance of claiming racial identity as an important ingredient to the artistic process. How has claiming this name and identity changed your approach to what it means for you to write?
It has allowed me to feel comfortable saying whatever I feel is my truth. The hardest thing oftentimes for people to connect with me on is race. To adopt a name where that is on the table, where who I am and what I look like is acknowledged, makes it easier. It’s liberating and freeing—you know who I am. The characteristic that’s hardest is out of the way, so I can share the rest of my truth. It gives me the freedom to say “they know that—I can focus on the rest.”
You’ve developed an incredible reputation in Iowa City as someone who creates opportunities for others, whether through Black Art; Real Stories—the literary magazine you began as an undergraduate—or your work at The Hook spin off Drop The Mic. Can you talk a bit about your understanding of the relationship of community to the artist?
I think the best artists are the artists who are connected to the community, and by listening to artists in the community you learn more about your art form, your preferences, and you learn what your community needs to hear. You don’t need to write for others, but it is important to hear what they’re talking about. I know that I’m limited in my views, there are experiences I can’t have, so it is important to have other artists who can speak to those experiences and add their depth to a topic that the community cares about.
Can you tell me about IC Speaks?
I started a new program called “IC Speaks” which is partnered with the Englert and IYWP (Iowa Youth Writing Program), in which I teach a workshop at four different High Schools at the district—and they meet together once a month at the Englert. In November, the Englert hosted a showcase that followed a full day conference. We had workshops in the morning, panels in the afternoon where they heard other artists, and then we closed with a program of young writers. The Englert is hosting another showcase in April that the students will perform in.
How did that evolve?
The IWYP did a spoken word club at West High for the past two years. I got involved because one of the directors of IWYP had seen me perform and asked me to help. I became the leader of the club, and then I pitched the idea to expand it and allow it to become a standalone project. It is its own entity, now includes three other schools, and it does this thing. My goal was to create a community—they’re now bold enough to branch out to community events and open mics—and I realized that this may be true of the other High Schools. …get to know other writers, know that you’re not alone. When you perform, you share yourself. It’s vulnerable. The more people who are there, the more powerful it is and the more self-assured. We’re at City, West, Tate, and Liberty.
You’ve published as an author and performed as a spoken word artist—and while these are in some ways related in terms of a love of language, they also draw on a very different skill set. Can you describe why each medium has been important for you, and how you see their similarities and differences as informing your understanding of art?
On the stage, as a performer, the skill set is an art of ownership, to speak what it is that I believe. That means really figuring out my own story and how to tell that. On the page, the reader has more time to decipher what it is that you’re sharing—you don’t have to be as clear. You focus less on storytelling and more on detailed word choice, the relationship of how words look on a page. One of the largest differences between stage and page is that the page lets me cut words and move them so the words appear differently. On the stage, my voice does that—different lows, emotions, pace. On the page, detailed accuracy is what is most important. To go between both is a really cool thing.
Say more about going between both—what has occupying that space between them allowed you to learn?
I think that it helps me understand that—to respect all mediums more. I can tell the same story, or the same essence of a story, but on the stage and page they look different. That helps me respect different medium. Even if I’m more of a spoken word fan, I can read a poem and respect it. If I love reading page poetry, but a rapper comes out with spoken word and music behind it then I can see how the medium lets that person tap into something they couldn’t otherwise.
Has your practice at moving between them helped you to understand other art forms as well?
I’ve found myself having more and more appreciation for the visual arts also, which I can’t do. I’m just not good at it. As I’ve grown to love different mediums and appreciate them, I can look at visual art and, even if I don’t know the techniques used, I can open my heart to understanding the medium a bit better.
Talk about your role as House Manager at the Englert: what is it that you do, and what have you found most exciting about it?
So: as a house manager, my job is to make sure the event runs smoothly from start to finish. That means welcoming the band and tour managers, getting them through sound check, taking care of them—including food, tea, and whatever else is needed. I also make sure ushers, security, concessions are set up. I also need to interact with patrons, making sure they have a good time and get what they need. Also, wrap up: make sure everyone gets paid, loaded out, and then lock up.
The most exciting thing: the energy of running an event. I’ve produced smaller things in the community, but a larger scale event—750 people in the audience—requires a different set of skills, or more of the ones I have—is exciting. To juggle all the pieces and make sure I have everything flowing correctly is the most exciting thing.
How has adopting this role as House Manager expanded your understanding of the role of the arts (beyond writing) in Iowa City as a whole? What new opportunities and discoveries have you made?
What [this job has] taught me is how hungry we are for art, how [art] is essential to Iowa City, how much we appreciate the energy when people come to a show at the Englert—music, or comedy—far outside of poetry. But people are so ready, willing, and open to the arts. We have regulars, people who come to every other show because they need it. I didn’t know that before working at the Englert. Now, I know how many people appreciate and really need the arts.
I’ve gotten the opportunity to talk to artists and learn what it means to be on tour. It’s also allowed me to talk to people who might appreciate the arts but not come to a spoken word event, and realize we have things in common and want to collaborate on projects. You get in a bubble and don’t always realize you’re there. That happens to me and to others who come to the Englert. It’s cool to talk to them at intermission or before the show starts. People are excited, but don’t always know all the things that are there. It connects more circles of artists.
How do you see the Englert’s investment in Building the Greatest Small City for the Arts in America coordinating with your personal drive to expand opportunities for local creatives and artists and help them to find platforms for expression?
I think the Englert is dedicating itself to really uplifting the arts in a lot of different genres, different methods. That coincides with me because I want to make sure that artists are seen, heard, listened to, and appreciated. They’re fully dedicating themselves: they’re a venue, they’re adding educational programming. They’re leveraging it to make it more for the community as a whole. That’s exactly what I want to do: to be an artist, as I progress, to make opportunities for others to learn and connect.
Your support as a Friend of the Englert is integral to supporting endeavors including IC Speaks, our other educational programming and outreach, our nonfiction fellow, and original commissioned works. Thank you for your ongoing support!
