artBeat Narrative

The seeds of artBeat Collective, Inc. were planted in a 2006 poetry seminar. Inspired be an exchange of their written work, founders, Montana Ray and Claudine Kanku Page, began a dialogue regarding the capacity of poetry to express ideas of social currency. 

Montana and Claudine were further united by an interest in East African culture; Claudine was fundraising to bring a local poet of Congolese origin, Omekongo wa Dibinga, to speak on Georgetown's campus, and Montana had previously worked as a curator for the Nommo Gallery, in Kampala, Uganda. In each other they found a shared objective to use the arts to fashion a positive self-image and promote communication across cultures. 

"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.

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