2020 UMEZ ARTS ENGAGEMENT GRANTEES

DANCE

Dances For A Variable PopulationNEW MUSIC/Wise Bodies: Free public performances and workshops featuring older professional dancers, engaging West Harlem residents in dance and live music as audience members and participants at West Harlem Piers Park.

Harlem Dance Club / HDC

Harlem Dance Club presents: MOTHERSHIP THREE is an annual dance and music festival set at The Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park. The MOTHERSHIP Festival celebrates community, spirit and inclusion through performances, live music, special guests and audience interaction with professional artists.

Kotchegna Dance Company

Kekene XIII - The Gathering 2020 features a Saturday evening showcase of Ivory Coast musical traditions by Vado Diomande, and a series of Sunday workshop classes. An exciting display of village dance, drum, and spectacle, Vado and Kotchegna Dance Company present a dramatic narrative with visiting guest performers.

Leonardo Sandoval and Gregory Richardson

Partido: Choreographer Leonardo Sandoval, with composer Gregory Richardson, presents 3 tap dance and live music performances at Harlem Stage. The piece for 6 dancers and 3 musicians connects Afro-diasporic dance and music in the US and Brazil, and is accompanied by all-levels rhythmic movement workshops and a jam session.

Navarra Novy-Williams and Carlos Johns-Dávila

While You Wait... Look Around is a site-specific virtual dance installation filmed in 360º video in Inwood Park. This ongoing VR project is a physical response to the landscape, diverse peoples, and complex history of Inwood Park that challenges our sense of reality and reimagines the relationship between audience and performer.

Cassie Nordgren / ThruLines Dance Initiative

Danza Highbridge is a free dance festival in the (drained) Olympic-size pool in Highbridge Park in Washington Heights. ThruLines recruits 8-12 choreographers/companies, most of them from uptown, who create narrative performances in a diversity of styles.

Ben Arthur SongWriter is a series of five concerts in which songwriters perform songs they've written in response to a story or work of art by another artist or personality.

Dominican WritersUptown Lit Crawl is a free evening of revelry, literary trivia, readings, and performances in the Uptown Manhattan literary community, culminating in an after-party at a local establishment.

The Gatekeepers Collective, Inc.

Harlem Renaissance 2.0 is a public art and performance initiative including a series of banners on West 125th Street honoring same-gender-loving Harlem Renaissance icons and a public performance heralding the lived experiences of the SGL heirs to this legacy towards making Harlem more affirming and inclusive for the SGLBTQ community.

MULTIDISCIPLINARY AND LITERATURE

Jazz Power Initiative

Intergenerational Jazz Jam at National Jazz Museum of Harlem invites jazz instrumentalists, singers, dancers and spoken-word artists to jam with artists of all ages in a community oriented atmosphere. Hosted monthly by pianist/singer Eli Yamin, his trio and a renowned special guest, this event is open to the public.

La Casa de la Herencia Cultural Puertorriqueña

The Kings of Salsa is a Musical Stage Reading based on the life of piano player Richie Ray and vocalist Bobby Cruz, one of the most famous duo interpreters of Salsa music in the world.This show tells their difficult journey towards fame and how they became the Kings of Salsa.

Latino Film Market Inc.

Latino Film Market ("LFM") provides educational workshops, panel, screening and art exhibition for over 300 upcoming Latinx filmmakers and community members with a main focus on stories that highlight Latinx women and Latinx LGBT by artists, filmmakers,and performers.

Living Away

Living Away Festival is a live arts event created by immigrant artists from the Upper Manhattan area in collaboration with international artists. It is a space for dialogue between artistic practices and a platform for sharing art with communities located outside the reach of traditional programming institutions.

Kanon Sapp / looseKANONdance

F U Z E is a multidisciplinary art festival ignited by five queer artists. Randomly chosen, one artist serves as the 'spark', creates a work within their medium, and shares their work with the next artist until five works are complete. The festival concludes with a live performance from each artist.

NYC Kidsfest NYC Kidsfest is a two-day performing arts festival taking place in Morningside and Jackie Robinson Parks in June.

Word Up Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria Uptown Kid Lit is a one-day children's book festival in Inwood Hill Park.

Stefanie Nelson Dance GroupThe MOVING MEMORY Project is a two-day, multimedia performance event at Aaron Davis Hall, City College dedicated to raising dementia and Alzheimer's awareness, featuring multimedia dance performances, live jazz music, and visual art.

Sarah Cameron Sunde

36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea --- uptown edition: Sarah Cameron Sunde partners with Works on Water to create the final work in her seven-year, six-continent site-specific series, 36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea. She stands in a bay for a full tidal cycle. 36.5 representations will happen all over the city and the world.

MUSIC

The Art Song Preservation Society of New York, Inc (ASPSNY)

Spring Into Art Song Festival 2020: Through recitals and workshops, ASPSNY presents New Yorkers with an array of public events celebrating spring with art song performances. In addition to enjoying high quality music performances by talented musicians, attendees to these public events have educational opportunities and a chance to interact with the artists.

Centro Civico Cultural Dominicano Music Appreciation Through Concerts: Two annual concerts including a celebration of Dominican Independence and a concert dedicated to mothers and fathers.

Cornerstone Chorale

Celebrate: Cornerstone Chorale's 30th, Beethoven's 250th!: Featuring Beethoven's Mass in C, the Cornerstone Chorale celebrates its 30th anniversary by bringing this great choral work of the master to the Washington Heights/Inwood neighborhood, with soloists, chorus, and orchestra.

Courtney's Stars of Tomorrow Feel the Spirit: The Art of the African-American Spiritual is a series of public events designed to revitalize, teach, and preserve African-American Spirituals.

Taikoza Concert Series is a series of concerts of Japanese music offered in city parks and recreation centers in Upper Manhattan.

Ekmeles

Ekmeles Uptown 2020: Ekmeles vocal ensemble performs three concerts of contemporary music in their home neighborhood of Washington Heights, with programs including works by European masters and young American talents, new commissions for the ensemble, and microtonal works.

Fair Trade Chamber Music Society

Fair Trade at MOSA is a free community concert featuring 'I Only Speak of the Sun,' a new string trio (2018) by former Washington Heights resident, Jessica Meyer, plus Schnittke's String Trio, and Gabriel Fauré's Piano Quartet No. 1 with pianist Taisiya Pushkar.

The Harlem Chamber Players, Inc.

4 Concerts during The Harlem Chamber Players' 2020 Season presents the 12th Annual Black History Month Celebration; A Joint Concert with the Opus 118 Harlem School of Music; A Chamber Music Concert at Broadway Presbyterian Church; and Annual Bach Concert.

Harlem Presents, Inc.The Harlem Opera Festival presents approximately eight emerging opera singers of color over the course of four Sunday evenings, preceding the Classical Theatre of Harlem's Sunday evening theatrical performances.

Jazz WaHi, Inc.

The WaHi Wednesday Weekly Jazz Jam is a gathering place for the many jazz musicians and aficionados in and around Washington Heights. Every week, dozens of musicians and listeners show up to play, listen, and experience the joy of making music together.

El TallerEl Barrio Canta Su Historia II is a project of self-discovery, recuperation and sustainability focusing on Latin American music and culture reinventing the city's urban map. Two series of concerts will honor and represents the diversity of Latin America in El Barrio.

loadbang

Plays Well With Others - loadbang and String Orchestra is a program of music commissioned for the ensemble and string orchestra by composers Paula Matthusen, Eve Beglarian, Heather Stebbins, and Scott Wollschleger, as well as loadbang members Jeffrey Gavett, Andy Kozar, and William Lang.

Los Pleneros de la 21 (LP21)

LP21's Cultural Legacy Initiative Project 2020 presents two world-class special performances by Los Pleneros de la 21, NYC's preeminent Bomba and Plena ensemble, embracing the identity and soul of the NY-Puerto Rican community and welcoming everyone to join and celebrate at these time-honored cultural events.

Makam New York, Inc.

Kervan(caravan) is a performance exploring Rumi's conceptions of respect and honor for all religious traditions and ethnic groups,and continuously challenged in ours. Artists reflect on the symbolism of the movement of melody, as the traditions cultivated in the atmosphere of multiculturalism focused on universal spiritual harmony.

NAMA Harlem NAMA Harlem 20/20 is a weekly presentation of live music jazz, R and B in the Harlem community.

New York Scandia SymphonySCANDINAVIAN MUSIC FESTIVAL 2020 is a unique series of three concerts held on Sundays in June on Billings Lawn in Fort Tryon Park, featuring the music and culture of Scandinavia and performed by musicians of the New York Scandia Symphony.

Christine Pulliam Melamed / Prelude Opera

Little Red Riding Hood, A Children's Opera is a children's opera written by Seymour Barab and performed by professional opera singers. About 60 minutes long and performed with piano, it serves to introduce family-friendly opera to children.

PUBLIQuartet

MIND | THE | GAP: Reflections on Beauty is a new composition for improvising string quartet and the center piece of a series of concerts in Harlem celebrating the life and work of Madame CJ Walker, creating a musical story of Madam Walker and the strong communities she fostered in America at the turn of the 20th century.

Tenth Intervention

Songs for the Resistance is a concert program featuring community chorus and chamber ensemble centered around music that represents the power of the collective, performed by Tenth Intervention and Sing in Solidarity chorus at Revolution Books NYC in Central Harlem.

Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra

Pieces of Us | Piezas de Nosotros: WHCO Winter-Spring 2020 Concerts: Three concert weekends in Upper Manhattan featuring music we've created, music that has shaped us, music woven through Washington Heights' tapestry of cultures.

The American Slavery Project

Black Women and the Ballot is a series of three short plays and two conversations by Judy Tate and Saviana Stanescu feature stories of Black women and voting, which will play before the 2020 election during the bi-centennial anniversary year of American women gaining suffrage.

Barrio Independent Productions

Frenzy Fest is a unique theatrical festival that showcases six different plays intended to raise awareness and reduce stigma on issues of mental health through the use of theatrical storytelling. Frenzy Fest incorporates post-show discussions which also give the audience a voice creating an empathetic bridge while shifting perceptions.

Clutch Productions, Inc.

empowHER Reading Series is a free, annual staged reading series featuring original one-act plays and short screenplays written by emerging female writers. At least 50% of the roles in each play are for actors identifying as female, and each piece is directed by a woman.

Melinda Hall / Willful PicturesThe 10th Annual Shakespeare's Birthday Sonnet Slam features 154 Readers of all ages & abilities performing all 154 of Shakespeare's Sonnets aloud at the Riverside Church in a 3-hour celebration of the birthday of William Shakespeare.

People's Theatre Project Doña Carmen (World Premiere), is a multidisciplinary devised theatre piece by the PTP Company's Sol Ensemble.

UP Theater Company"Barn Play" by Lizzie Donahue is a play following a group of barnyard animals who, under the direction of an owl, attempt to produce a play. But when the animals' offspring are pulled to fates unknown, their priorities for the play shift.

African Diaspora Film Festival, Inc. (ADIFF)

ADIFF 2020 presents a program of films and discussions focusing on the theme of ART & RESISTANCE. Stories of past and present artistic resistance movements are explored as a means to develop a better understanding and create a dialog around contemporary resistance movements, particularly within communities of color.

ArtCrawl Harlem, Inc.

ArtCrawl Harlem Presents Harlem Renaissance 2020 Art Exhibit is a 100th Celebration of the Harlem Renaissance. Inspired by the era, four to five black artists create works for an art exhibition with supporting events that include an opening reception featuring artist talk-backs and an art showdown with a Harlem Renaissance live painting competition.

Paul Deo

Virtual Harlem Renaissance 2020 is an interactive celebration of Harlem's most iconic cultural figures, including the creation of a newly commissioned mural at Harlem Hospital Center, an augmented reality experience that animates this new mural as well as Deo's renowned mural Planet Harlem, and a series of public events linking both locations.

THEATER

VISUAL ARTS & MEDIA

Dyckman Farmhouse Museum Alliance

The Dyckman DISCOVERED ARTS initiative employs local artists to interpret and react to newly found information about the enslaved peoples of the Dyckman family and of, what is now, Inwood. The initiative allows visitors to experience and engage with history and the artistic process through artist led public programs.

Harlem Needle Arts (HNA)UpSouth is a public art textile exhibition series at six parks in Harlem which artistically interprets pre through post Harlem Renaissance movements that continue to influence Black contemporary life.

Zaq LandsbergReclining Liberty is a large statue depicting Lady Liberty lying on her side, eyes closed, recalling a traditional pose of the Buddha, before the departure into final nirvana, to be installed in Morningside Park.

Marcus Garvey Park Alliance, Inc. Renaissance Women is a public sculpture by Alice Mizrachi, commissioned by the Marcus Garvey Park Alliance to honor the women of the Harlem Renaissance.

Marcie Revens

Letters to 125th Street is an interactive public art installation that invites residents to share personal stories of living in the neighborhood, with mailboxes that can be visited by anyone and encourage one to freely share their stories or address current issues surrounding the neighborhood.

Omanut: Jewish Uptown Arts

The Uptown Jewish Film festival is a one day event that shows three quality, thought provoking, and family-friendly films with a Jewish theme in Northern Manhattan. In addition to the films, three speakers speak about a topic relevant to the film and answer questions from the audience.

While We Are Still HereThe 53rd Year: A Kamoinge Collective Retrospective is a two-month photography exhibition highlighting this venerable Harlem institution and featuring the images of all twenty-five members of the group, from 1963 to the present.