Project pulse 2015 booklet

Community. Training. Creativity.

Project:Pulse 2015

The Musicianship 2621 Garfield NW Washington, D.C. 20008 February 18th, 2015 DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities 200 I Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003 Phone: (202) 724-5613 Fax: (202) 727-4135 TTY: (202) 724-4493 Email:cah@dc.gov Greetings Arts Funder,

I invite you to join me in welcoming our latest program Project: Pulse 2015. We at the Musicianship believe in meeting our youth where they currently are. With our new program Project: Pulse 2015 we devised a program project that will enhance music training we currently offer.

At the Musicianship, our instructors are comprised of accomplished musicians and music educators who serve as positive role-models for children. Unlike many other music schools, our students benefit from sessions led by nationally and internationally recognized performers, including Dennis Chambers, Orianthi and our own Gregory Grainger. Now, we partner with Ngoma Center for Dance and video professionals in the D.C. area to provide a theatrical musical experience!

We create a healthy environment that fosters positive peer relationships, provides strong role models and builds self-esteem. Music performances instill in students a sense of pride and accomplishment, while contributing to the betterment of our communities.

With Pulse 2015 we strive to achieve the following goals: 1. Add to the annual programming of partnering organizations 2. Aid in the development of inner-city youth through a deepened understanding of musicianship 3. Professionally develop partnering organizations through new skills in their respected mediums.

4. Educate, inform, and entertain DC residents through a multi-disciplinary collaboration I invite you to learn more about The Musicianship and our annual programming work.

Thank you kindly for your time and consideration, Jeffery L. Tribble, Jr. J.D. Executive Director The MusicianShip Inc.

Dissonance Dance Theatre in Shawn Short’s work Stitch.

Table of Contents What is Project: Pulse 2015 Pg. 3

How:The Show & Staff Pg. 10

Who: Partnering Organization Pg. 5 When & Where: Atlas Performing Arts Center Pg. 9

Quick Pitch: Project: Pulse 2015 – D.C. musicians convene to teach youth musicians through an interactive dance concert including video streaming through Youtube and DCTV.

What is the project?

The Musicianship: Student in Band Camp

The Musicianship departs from afterschool and summer music programming to offer students an exhilarating, interdisciplinary theatrical experience! Wanting to see youth and community musicians build skills, talents and the ability to participate in D.C.’s growing creative economy, lead organization The Musicianship partners with Ngoma Center for Dance (home to D.C.’s contemporary ballet Dissonance Dance Theatre) and video professionals from American University School of Communication’s Film and Media Arts department to create an award-winning production.

Young musicians will perform original music by local music producers/composers, gain deeper understanding of music theory, musical mood and style as it applies to dance theatre and film/video production. Pulse 2015 will give young musicians the chance to widen their musical range. In addition, the project will provide a budding annual arts opportunity to aspiring musicians, dancers and visual artists; stirring collaboration amongst D.C. arts professionals.

Ngoma’s Dissonance Dance Theatre in Concert

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To The Right: Musicianship: Participants in Orientation

“ Some people think music education is a privilege, but I think its essential to being human.�

- Jewel, Recording Artist

To The Right: Musicianship: Students in a Percussion Ensemble Performance.

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Jefferey Tribble Jr. with Participants

Major Partnering Organizations The MusicianShip is a 501(c)(3) charitable non-profit organization that facilitates music lessons, experiences and opportunities. While our mission is not exclusive to any one particular group, we are focused on at-risk youth as they benefit most from positive outreach and music scholarship preparation. We are committed to leading our students on a life-changing musical journey. We hope that you will encourage people to hop on board The MusicianShip!

Ngoma Center for Dance (N-Go-mah) is a 501(c)3 arts organization founded in 2012 to provide minority youth, adults, and their enthusiasts, with a deeper understanding of dance as an art form and a discipline. Its mission and goal is to produce and refine competitive level dance artists in a multicultural environment through its resident dance company Dissonance Dance Theatre (founded in 2007), Africanistic dance training, Ngoma Reader Magazine, in house professional career coaching, and artists development.

Partnerships are key to Pulse 2015’s success. Wanting to strengthen working relations amongst emerging non-profits with African-American leadership, Ngoma Center for Dance became the best dance partnership choice with its award-winning dance company Dissonance Dance Theatre (DDT).

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Dissonance Dance Theatre Dissonance Dance Theatre is the award winnning, flagship, and resident professional dance company of Ngoma Center for Dance.

Dissonance brings with it professional dancers who inspire, interact with, educate and entertain Ngoma Center for Dance students — as well as the Washington, D.C., community-at-large.

Dissonance is working to develop a national presence through presenter engagements while, also, continuing to enhance its brand recognition with local performances throughout the Washington D.C., metropolitan area. Dissonance provides an apprentice and trainee program.

Next Steps

Ngoma Center for Dance: Programs

Ashley Blondell and Daniel Moore in Short’s Big Band Suite

Seeing a need for artistic and non-artistic development amongst his dancers, Shawn Short launched a pilot program titled Next Steps in 2012.

The mission of Next Steps is to assist Ngoma dancers and administrators in refining their professional business skills and provide basic living conditions during their time in the organization.

William Wilson learning cooking skills.

Next Steps program functions around 3 major components: Desire, Structure and Habitat. Desire makes us motivated to produce outcomes in life. The Next Steps program cultivates dancer’s personal goals while they train and perform. This gives dancers thoughts on what journey is next in their professional careers.

Ngoma Reader Magazine The Ngoma Reader (NR) is D.C.’s first minority dance magazine! NR is a quarterly online publication that gives literary voice to the minority dance artists of Washington, D.C. NR speaks through three core components: Community (D.C. dance directory), Awareness (shows, events, projects, season announcements), Celebration (history, spotlights).

The origin of Ngoma Reader sprang from a need for us at Ngoma to archive vital stories of artists and provide a “go-to” news source for what’s going on in the D.C minority dance community.

Dawn dancers in class

Dawn: A Black Mens’ Initiative’s mission is to offers

artistic and practical work experience in dance and arts administration with leadership development and mentorship by responsible Black men.

Dawn worked with aspiring Black male dancers, ages 16-26, living in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area for eight weeks, and was designed to bridge their interests in dance to the broader fields of business and civic engagement.

Ngoma: 2014 Program Highlights: Trainee Program * Ngoma’s trainee program served 10 students ages 15 - 21 years old. Students lived in Washington, D.C. (Wards 1, 6, and 7), Baltimore and Prince George’s County, Maryland.

* Racial demographics: 80% Black, 10% White and 10% Hispanic; 40% Male, 60% Female. * Trainees received summer scholarships to attend Dance Theatre of Harlem summer intensive and were placed in intermediate and advance levels. * Selected trainees performed in across Washington, D.C. (Wards 1, 2, 3 and 5). * 80% of trainees are currently enrolled college students. * First trainee accepted into international arts program!

School Partnerships * Partnered with Northwestern High School to provide arts and after-school dance activity programming and discounted tickets to performances.

Above Image: Dancer auditioning for program. (c) Jeremiah Jones

“DDT’s show was just amazing as always!!! Every single piece, dancer, and expression of emotion and feeling really moved me all the time not to mention their superb technique.”

Misako Iwamoto, DMV Dance Network Pg. 7

Left Image: DDT dancers in rehearsal. (c) Shawn Short

Dance Presentation: Dissonance Dance Theatre: * Five sold-out dance productions * Nominated for two 2014 D.C. Dance Awards: - Outstanding Group Performance - Outstanding Overall Production * Washington Post Express’ Best of 2014 Theater Nominee. * MD Theatre Guide for 2014 Best Dance Company Nominee * Performed for 5,000 local audience members. * Hired 5 stellar guest choreographers * 18 Local dance artists employed * Produced our first pointe-shoe ballet * Only D.C. Contemporary Ballet

company with office headquarters “East of the River.” * Principal Choreographer/Founder Shawn Short received a 2014 Princess Grace Award Nominee in Choreography (New York City). *Eighty percent of dancers migrated to D.C. to join Dissonance Dance Theatre; addingto the creative economy and diversity of the region.

Images from top to bottom: (top) DDT dancers in Short’s ballet Big Band Suite. (middle) Damon Foster and Dominique Atwood in Short’s work Baby It’s Okay. (bottom) Chanel Smith and William Wilson in Adam Sage’s Baroque Fantasy.

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When: September, 19-20 2015 Where: Atlas Performing Arts Center The Atlas Theater was originally built in 1938 by the Kogod-Burka movie chain, the same company which built Cleveland Park’s famed Uptown Theater. The very first film shown in that 1000 seat theater was the Mickey Rooney vehicle, Love Finds Andy Hardy. The Atlas was one of four movie theaters which once thrived on the H Street corridor.

Above: The Atlas

H Street Northeast, originally known as Swampoodle, was a bustling commercial district for much of the early and mid twentieth century. The neighborhood consisted of Irish, Russian, German, Jewish and African-American residents and business owners who lived and worked in relative harmony considering that much of the city was segregated during this time period. The neighbors even petitioned the city to allow them to have an integrated school but they were denied.

The Atlas Performing Arts Center is home for adventurous audiences, artists and ideas — presenting contemporary music, film, dance, theatre and performing arts unlike anywhere in the city. An artistic anchor in Washington, DC’s historic H Street NE corridor, the Atlas is committed to its neighborhood and the arts community.

Keeping in the spirit of diversity, Project: Pulse 2015 will be house in the Lang Theatre of the Atlas Performing Arts Center.

To The Right: Lang Theater

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How & Why:The Production

Our inaugural production Beats, Sweat and Love is a celebration of original song, sound score and musical composition produced by D.C. area composers and producers.

The music will take into account feedback from artistic dance staff.

Together, the music and dance staff will create the foundation from which choreography will be produced; resulting in six dances, six to eight music compositions, and film/video shorts, which will form the basis of an exciting production. Video professionals will collaborate with production staff to design and implement production branding, marketing and artistic footage in addition to the handling of live video streaming for YouTube and DCTV. The creative minds of Musicianship Executive Director Jeffrey Tribble and Ngoma Center for Dance Director Shawn Short developed Pulse 2015. The two leaders wished to increase opportunities for their respective organizations while further engaging community impact. This project provides a wonderful opportunity for their respective organizations to work together.

Project:Pulse 2015 is groundbreaking due to its desire to galvanize the African-American artistic community by bringing artists together to create new, collaborative artistic works and building the community spirit among African-American- managed organizations. Within D.C. city limits, Musicianship is the only emerging African-American managed music organization.

According to “A Change Gon’ Come: A Text on Washington, D.C. African-American Dance History, Typology for Black Dance’s Reconstruction and Advancement in the New Millennium” by Shawn Short (2012), only 7 out of 35 host dance institutions in D.C (20% of total dance entities) support professional African-American dance entities and activities. Only 4 out of the 35 host dance institutions are African-American managed; approximately around 11%.

Professional collaboration amongst African-American-led non-profits is minimal. In addition, music education programs for youth are confined to after-school programs and private lessons with very few outlets such as Pulse 2015.

In an age of “cell phone dependency,” many patrons are enthralled with creative entertainment options like Netflix, Hulu or Redbox TV services. Pulse 2015 is here to increase the creative economy by aiding in the rejuvenation of live performing arts in Washington, D.C. Top to Bottom: Director Shawn Short with Dawn program participant, Musicianship Executve Director Jeffery Triblle Jr. With Board Member and Miss America, Ngoma’s Dawn Program Alum Moyston & William

Pulse 2015 addresses innovation by demonstrating that D.C.’s intergeneration of musicians, dancers and local visual artists can produce a stellar collaboration. Pulse 2015 aims to provide a streaming and performance venture that reaches diverse audiences and help to galvanize new arts patrons; particularly millennials who are very supportive of a technology-rich, pop-culture lifestyle.

The project’s audience is tailored to a wide demographic market. To explain, the video stream performance will be targeted to 13 - 24 year olds with the live stream capacity focusing on 25+. Our rationale for these demographics is directed by Hunter-Miller Group’s recent research findings: 1. Millennials and their engagement with social media 2. Adult residents and their exposure to African-American managed arts organization (Ngoma Reader Magazine/ Survey Study 2014).

Pulse 2015 responds to concerns and needs of our respectful organizations and how we wish to demonstrate the viability of the arts to our selected demographics. In a time when smaller arts organizations suffer with minimal funding, creativity becomes the oasis from which to draw. We believe that showing the reality, personal engagement, and celebration of our collective work to residents will spark newfound joy in how artists cross disciplines can work together in Washington, D.C. Currently from our knowledge, there are no multidisciplinary projects by African Americans that commission collaborative live video streaming as a part of live performance viewing.

We wish for Pulse 2015 to achieve is the following: 1. Add to the annual programming of partnering organizations 2. Aid in the development of inner-city youth through a deepened understanding of musicianship 3. Professionally develop partnering organizations through new skills in their respected mediums.

4. Educate, inform, and entertain DC residents through a multi-disciplinary collaboration Impact for the Pulse 2015 project will be measured through the goals mentioned below: 1. Increase in music theory literacy. (Pre & Post evaluation) 2. Increase in mailing list registrants. (projected vs actual) 3. Tickets sold and revenue. (projected vs actual figures) 4. Increase in the musicality of dancers (rate evaluation) 5. Performers rating card (qualitative assessment)

Community & Artistic Partners Adventure Theatre-MTC Atlas Performing Arts Center CapitalOne Bank Catholic University of America School of Music CulturalD.C. Dance Metro DC Georgetown University Music Department

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