3. 3
PILOT
PROJECT
2007
10 kids
1 year
$40,000
Community Programs Dept.
PHASE
II
60 kids
4 years
$275,000
Community Programs Dept.
11 Teaching Artists
Artistic Team:
Daniel B. Roumain & Marc B. Joseph
$1.2 million
2 years
2 workshops
Artistic & Production Dept.
Artistic Team: Bill T. Jones
WE
SHALL
NOT BE
MOVED
2017
Hip H’opera 2007-2017
6. • MISSION
1. Propel the genre
2. Best artists doing their best work
3. Programming in and outside the opera house that
resonates with Philadelphia
• VISION
– Instigate civic pride
Mission & Vision
6
7. AUDIENCE
DEVELOPMENT
• Build future audiences
– Community initiatives
• Opera on the Mall
• Community recitals
– Ticket programs for
schools with arts
resources
• Enhance opera
experience for patrons
– Adult programming
• Lectures
• recitals
– Podcasts
CITY
YOUTH
• Arts Education
• Project-based learning
• Vocational opportunities
• Mentors and role
models
• Collaborations with civic
minded organizations
• Opportunities for
family/guardian
involvement
7
COMMUNITY
• Easy access to the arts
• Arts reflective of the
community
• Better intra-
neighborhood
connections
Different Needs of Audience, Youth & Community
8. AUDIENCE
DEVELOPMENT
• Build future audiences
– Community initiatives
• Opera on the Mall
• Community recitals
– Ticket programs for
schools with arts
resources
• Enhance opera
experience for patrons
– Adult programming
• Lectures
• recitals
– Podcasts
CITY
YOUTH
• Arts Education
• Project-based learning
• Vocational opportunities
• Mentors and role
models
• Collaborations with civic
minded organizations
• Opportunities for
family/guardian
involvement
8
COMMUNITY
• Easy access to the arts
• Arts reflective of the
community
• Better intra-
neighborhood
connections
Managed by Institutional
Advancement
Different Needs of Audience, Youth & Community
9. 9
AUDIENCE
DEVELOPMENT
• Build future audiences
– Community initiatives
• Opera on the Mall
• Community recitals
– Ticket programs for
schools with arts
resources
• Enhance opera
experience for patrons
– Adult programming
• Lectures
• recitals
– Podcasts
CITY
YOUTH
• Arts Education
• Project-based learning
• Vocational opportunities
• Mentors and role
models
• Collaborations with civic
minded organizations
• Opportunities for
family/guardian
involvement
COMMUNITY
• Easy access to the arts
• Arts reflective of the
community
• Better intra-
neighborhood
connections
Managed by Institutional
Advancement
Different Needs of Audience, Youth & Community
Mike
In 2007 we piloted a program with a small nonprofit that serves at-risk teens through an after school arts-based program. Spoken word teaching artists from the collaborating organization mentored these kids to help them tell their stories through poetry. We then commissioned composers to set those poems to music scored for singers, chorus and a small orchestral ensemble. We then bussed in 500 of their classmates for a performance in which the students read their poem, which was followed buy a performance of the composition it inspired. And this was pretty special. This is where impact can become deep as opposed to broad…afterwards the kids said “we want to write an opera.” And we said “oh boy.”
Mike will talk about the growth of the project from 2007 to 2017, emphasizing the department responsible for each phase.
In Phase II, two teaching artists with long backgrounds working with urban youth were hired to work with students from three Philadelphia high schools with the highest dropout rates. Collectively we developed various prompts to explore their everyday lives. They spent the year working with them, helping them to tell their stories. Then we commissioned composer Daniel Bernard Romain and librettist Marc Bamuthi Joseph, two very accomplished African American artists in the classical, hip hop, and spoken word mediums, to join us on this journey. They met with the students in the program and got to understand their reality. And we told Daniel and Marc and then go write a hip hop opera telling the story of these kids – what it means to grow up in Philadelphia as an African American kid.
The result is We Shall Not Be Moved (hold off on story until next slide), an opera set to premiere in 2017. the project is now managed by the artistic department…Bill T. Jones has joined the creative team…
Annie will briefly describe the events of May 1985
Speaking Notes:
MOVE is a black liberation group formed in Philadelphia in the 70’s – all the member change their last names to Africa, vegan, animal rights
They were terrible neighbors – huge piles of composting, shared political views through a bullhorn all day long, had a lot of guns
Growing tensions between them and the predominantly white police force and their African American neighbors
It escalated in May 1985 where the entire police force was outside the house, they were firing on each other, and then two bombs were dropped on their rowhome, there was a big explosion and a big fire, and the fire department didn’t come. 6 adults and 5 children burned alive. One 5-year-old escaped, naked, on fire. One adult escaped. 65 homes and two city blocks burnt to the ground.
Terrible, polarizing, shameful event in Philadelphia.
Annie will give a quick synopsis of the opera, including the vision of Bill T. Jones to make a story about any urban family anywhere in America.
Speaking Notes:
Takes place in 2013 in Philadelphia. The public school system is in total free-fall - $600M+ deficit, hundreds of teachers and staff laid off, schools closed or merged. A young woman and her four brothers decide to stop going to school and they set up their own home school on the block where this tragedy happened. Through the course of the opera they are taught lessons by the spirits of those who perished in the 1985 fire. Truancy officers get involved and the whole drama starts to escalate in a similar way to the events of 1985, but this story has a different ending.
Slated for spring 2017, Bill T Jones has joined as director and is shaping the piece so that it can travel, telling a story that holds true in any urban, diverse setting in America.
We have met with nervousness and resistance. While the piece isn’t about MOVE, it happens in the shadow of MOVE, which was such a complicated and tragic incident.
Annie will give a synopsis (not word for word) of mission and vision.
Speaking Notes:
Before describing the organizational structure I think its important to point out that we have a mission and vision that actually guide the work we do every day…(mission and vision)…We have made many organizational structure changes over the past few years to best achieve our mission and vision, the most recent being the division of labor between the community programs department, and the marketing department
Mike will explain the division of duties between community programs and advancement.
Mike will explain the division of duties between community programs and advancement.
Mike will explain the division of duties between community programs and advancement.
Annie: We’ve provided an overview of how these initiatives work form the inside, but how we brand to the outside is still a work in progress. We’ve completed an overhaul of our institutional brand, and we’re still refining how we deal with all the sub brands that go with it. We’re producing in four different venues, we have OOTM, CIR, ARP, etc.
Annie and Mike – remember to bring annual reports!