Thai Culinary Workshop

In March 2008 we planned, Cooking Thyme. A Thai culinary workshop with local chef Tao Vigsittaboot of Thai-Xing and Raising Expectations, Inc. a DC-based youth programming company; held at the Latin American Youth Center, Art & Media House. 

"On Art and Social Practice" "DC-VA-MD Arts Education Dialogue Series"

In December 2006 we embarked on a dialogue project, "On Arts and Social Practice" with the goal of uniting the educators we had worked with and reaching out to others in DC's arts education community. Our first dialogue on building communities across culture, featured round table leaders from Hip Hop Matters, LAYC Art & Media House, Young Women's Drumming Empowerment Project, Latino Media Collective, and Provisions Library. Our second dialogue was held at Provisions Library in June 2007 and included educators from 16 local arts-based organizations; this discussion focused explicitly on defining our collective "Art Values." The third dialogue was held during the artBeat Retreat at St. Stephens & St. Agnes and focused on ways in which we can support each other's projects and build a network of the youth with whom we work.

Spread the Word 2007

Thursday, April 26 2007, we celebrated literacy in the district with our first annual Youth Literary symposium, Spread the Word.   The gathering was held at the  and WVSA ARTiculate Gallery and was generously funded by Lannan Literary Programs, Georgetown University.  At Spread the Word 07, youth gathered from seven DC-VA-MD  area organizations and schools to read their poetry.   Participants also had the opportunity to ask questions of our guest reader, Dinaw Mengestu, author of the acclaimed, "The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears."  Christylez was the emcee and Kristin Arrant of the Young Women's Drumming Empowerment Project backed readers on her drums. 

Growing Roots

 Held in december 2006 at the LAYC, Art & Media House, Growing Roots was a week long artBeat event series featuring an exhibition of works by Nigerian-born Aniekan Udofia and DC-born Tanekeya Word and the music of Aquarela do Brasil, featuring Gigi Maclaughlin-vocals, Didier Prossaird-keyboards, David Sachs-trombone, and Thomaz de Castro-Brazilian percussion.  The event closed with the spoken word of poet of Congolese origin, Omekongo wa Dibinga. 

Beat Making with Hip Hop Matters

In 2006 artBeat co-hosted beat making workshops with Jeff Tate of Hip Hop Matters for youth of the Latin American Youth Center,  Art & Media.  Pictured above is Jeff Tate at work on the mixer. 

AfroBeat

Fight the Power (Outage), an account of People's Paradise.  People's Paradise, an AfroBeat concert at Bohemian Caverns, on Sunday, November 12th, 2006, was co-hosted by Biribelle Clothing.  It was held for the purpose of connecting individuals interested in fusion-driven arts and culture, and contributing to an international arts community in the U Street Corridor.

Who would have thought that despite all of the delicious connections and good intentions, the rain gods would have opened fire, handed us the first day of winter, and triggered a power outage across five blocks of U St?  A power outage?  No joke!  For an hour we drummed and channeled our energies, til we remembered our city is one of Southern efficiency and Northern comfort, and realized the power was out for the night.

Crazy.  And yet the atmosphere and tea-candle reserves of the Caverns could not have been better suited to combat the outage.  Local artist Jolley D held it down on the drums.  Guest got cozy or added their brush strokes to our cave art canvases.  artBeat ladies regrouped to plot plan B.

The AfroBeat must go on.  artBeat is grateful to Juliana Landim for trucking home to pick up the Guerilla Poet's battery-powered microphone and to Boho Caves for permitting the event to continue and running the bar by flashlight.  And further thanks to performers Burnface, Lethy Denise, and, particularly, Wanluv, for accommodating the technical impossibilities and giving his all a cappella.

Wanluv's spinning tunic, in colors of his native Ghana, appeared perhaps more majestic by candle-light; and the crowd circled closer to catch the ironies replete in "Green Card," a song about the tribulations of immigrating to the US.

Thank you, also, to the progressive and beautiful crowd in attendance.  Thank you for your patience and support.  We hope to see you at future artBeat events and learn more about ways in which we can work together. 

"No electricity is a drummer's dream."  Jolley D. 

Welcome!

Our narrative: artBeat was born in a 2006 poetry seminar instructed by Jamaican poet and scholar Mark McMorris at Georgetown University. Inspired by an exchange of thier written work, founders Montana Ray and Claudine Kanku Page began a dialogue regarding the capacity of poetry to express ideas of social currency.