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. 

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. 

1 comment:

Alan said...

There's a profile of Aniekan Udofia posted at http://alanwking.wordpress.com

September 11, 2009 at 1:33 PM

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