• Performed with the Jubilation Dance Company, Hartford, CT - October 1992
  
• Select to perform at Hartford's First Night Celebration - December 1993
  
• Several members of the ensembles were selected to attend a special two week workshop hosted by the Ministry of Youth and Culture at the Naitonal Dance School in Nassau - August 3-17, 1995

Arts Education Background:

The Artists Collective's Choreographer's Workshop is comprised of selected advanced dance students ages 9-17 years of age. This ensemble, under the direction of master choreographer, Lee "Aca" Thompson and Cheryl SMith, Dance Director, has performed throughout Connecticut at schools and civic events. They have performed with the Nanette Bearden Dance Theater, Mickey Davidson and Friends Dance Company, and the Jubilation! Dance Company, in addition to their performances at the Boston Globe Jazz Festival, the Bushnell Memorial Hall as part of an Arts-in-Education Conference, at Hartford's First Night Celebration, and at Artists Collective special events. The Choreographer's Workshop performs original choreographic works in jazz, tap and traditional African dance.

Selected younger dance students ages 9-13 years of age make up the Children's Performing Ensemble who also perform traditional African, jazz and tap. This ensemble has performed at OHATAC (Open House At The Artists Collective), the Rite of Passage-Yaboo Ceremony and at other Artists Collective special events.

Arts and the Community:

The Artists Collective, Inc. was founded in 1970 and officially incorporated on April 11, 1972. Initiated by Jackie McLean, the internationally acclaimed alto saxophonist, composer and educator together with co-founders Paul Brown, musician, Ionis Martin, visual artist, Cheryl Smith, dancer and Dollie McLean, now Executive Director, the Artists Collective has served as a focal point for artistic training and quality programming.

Based in Hartford's North End community, the Artists Collective is the only multi-arts cultural organization of its kind in Connecticut which emphasizes the cultural and artistic contributions of the African American/ African Diaspora and on exposing its students and the community at large to great and often overlooked artists of the past and present. The Collective offers the highest quality training in the performing arts - dance, theter, music, and visual arts to children and adults by a highly skilled professional staff of working artists. In addition, the "Skills For Living" / educaitonal workshops are an intergral component the After School Program, the Rite of Passage - Yaboo Ceremony and the Summer Youth Employment Training program. Since its inception the Artists Collective has trained thousands of students in all arts desciplines and has touched their lives and those of their families. Workshops are structured to develop the youths' awareness of cultural identity and self-esteem through positi ve accomplishments and self-discipline.

The Artists Collective presents a variety of special events for the public which include concerts by world-reknown jazz artists, master jazz sessions, tribute concerts, productions form the dance and drama departments, and visual arts exhibits. Musical artists presented have included Ray Charles, Roberta Flack, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach with Aminata Moseka, Nancy Wilson, Ahmad Jamal, McCoy Tyner, Betty Carter, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, B.B. King, Frank Foster's Big Band, "Little Jimmy Scott", O scar Brown, The Mighty Clouds of Joy, Sun Ra and his Intergalatic Arkestra, Evangelist Shirley Caesar, The Jackson Southernaires, Cecil Taylor, Milt Jackson, Wynton Marsalis and many others. Yaboo, a rite of passage ceremony based on African tradition, has been present annually since 1976.

In other special programming, the Artists Collective has sponsored lecture series focusing on the lives of such leadrs as W.E.B. DuBois, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Charlie Parker, and Paul Robeson. The Collective has presented plays such as "The Long Black Block" and "Day of Absence" directed by the late Roger Furman, "For Colored Girls . . ." and an adaptation of "The Three Penny Opera". The dance series has rpesented Pearl Primus, Kevin Jeff, Diane McIntyre, Moi Thian for master workshops and in concert "Sounds in Motion". Jubilations!, PHILDANCO, Joseph Holmes Company, Nanetter Bearden Contemporary Dance Theater, Jubilations! Dance Company among others.

The Artists Collective has collaborated with the Hartford Public Schools on a model program in dance, drama and music and an all-city High School jazz band. The project was funded by a five year $250,000 grant from the United Parcel Service Foundation with matching funds for Xerox, the Hartford Jaycees, and the State of Connecticut Department of Children and Youth Services. The program is being continued through the regular after school training workshops with funding from the Naitonal Endowment Expansio n Arts Program and the Department of Children and Youth Services.

The Artists Collective was selected as one of sixteen national jazz network sites to receive a special grant through the Lila Wallace - Reader's Digest National Jazz Network which has enhanced the music department's training program and music presentations.

The Artist Collective was a recipient of th prestigous State of Connecticut Arts Award for service and excellence in the arts. In 1993 the Artists Collective was chosen as one of six community art centers nation-wide to participate in Project Co-Arts, a research initiative bassed at Harvard Project Zero, Harvard University. The Collective and one other organization have been asked to continue to work with Project Co-Arts in the next assessment phase of this initiative.

The Artists Collective will be taking a major step forward with its new $7.9 million building project expressly designed to meet the needs of the Collective's programs. The facility will be located in the Upper Albany Avenyue North End section of Hartford and will be a key component of the economic development of this area and the City of Hartford.