Impact of The Negro Ensemble Company’s Monthly Meets at Riverside Church

Thank You So Much to the Ministry of Education at Riverside Church and particularly to Jeremiah Drake  and Rev.Arnold Thomas for supporting the efforts of The NEC Monthly Meet!

The NEC Monthly Meet at Riverside,and NECARTZ.COM gave artists and nonprofits the business tools,and innovative fundraising information to elevate their standard of living,identify personal obstacles though small group inquiry, set goals, create group goals and participation and initiate meaningful partnerships and organizations; market and teach The Negro Ensemble Co Training Program.

It gave the staff a chance become more involved in the lives of our students and performers and the fulfillment of their goals. It gave the company an opportunity to  mentor, hire and include actors for projects and qualified staff and interns.

It also was a driving force for many careers, initiating organizations for art and out reach, expanding what is possible for artists and nonprofits, creating new jobs.
The program including www.necartz.com and the monthly meet programs had a positive impact a revolving group of 400 artists; and several hundred through out reach programs started through the monthly meets in Riverside Church’s Multipurpose room.

Special Guests Speakers included staff members from The Field, Fractured Atlas, Artistic Director and staff from NEC, TV actor Todd Davis, Broadway Actor Ronald Wyche, Business Planning Expert Robert Ponce and others… All NEC Monthly Meets were facilitated by Marie McKinney Director of Education at Negro Ensemble Company

We were able to promote the NEC Monthly Meet on Bronx Council of the Arts, Screen Actors Guild and Actor’s Equity sites among others..

Computer donations from the Materials for the Arts, brochures from 50 artist service organizations and small snacks helped drive membership at the NEC Monthly Meets, which spawned:

1. A prison outreach program in Brooklyn headed by Ginger Spencer serving over 100 incarcerated teens,
2. An independent SAG film called Shenika’s Redemption featuring and produced by Kubbi which was an awarded finalist in The 11th Annual BEVERLY HILLS FILM FESTIVAL in Hollywood.
3. 

   Lindsay Strachen KUBBI Ralph McClain Fern Orenstein Negro Ensemble Co at CBS NY

   Maintained NECARTZ.COM and used computer to drive readership to almost 10,000 hits with a readership of close to 500 artists

4. Goal setting and career counselling led by facilitator and industry experts.
5. Non profit theaters and productions started and administrated by NEC Monthly Meet participants Teresa Lasley, Alyssia Joy Powell, Dana and Clinton Lowe
6. Supported the productions at Negro Ensemble Company and 9 productions and a band created by NEC Monthly Meet participants
7. Created partnerships with The Field and offered reduced membership, special guest appearances and mentoring through that partnership,
8. Connected uptown artists with downtown resources like The Foundation Center, Fractured Atlas and actively nurtured those connections
9. Provided interviews for 22 artists at the CBS Diversity Institute, 4 followup interviews and 2 episodic television roles for our artists
10. Created a contest donating a computer to the winner among Monthly Meet participants to drive membership.
11. Increased computer access for performing arts students.
12. Created partnership with Stella Adler Studio of Acting and NYU Tisch School of the Arts and negotiations regarding diversity curriculum and courses led by Marie McKinney.
13. Edit a video of an  outreach trip to Monrovia, Liberia with The Restoration and Healing Inc. Ministry (NEC Meets facilitator, Marie McKinney), to help victims of civil war violence and sexual abuse which was posted on youtube and helped cause further outreach there by several organizations, including Franklin Graham who created an event in Monrovia in March 2010. Since then, Noble Prizes were won by Leymah Gbowee, who united the women of Liberia to pray and end the 14 year civil war and  President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf .
14. Edited flyers, pictures and footage for Negro Ensemble Company Training Program and The Thunderbird American Indian Dancers.

Thank You So Very Much!

Marie McKinney
Negro Ensemble Company
Director of Education
Founder of Monthly Meet at Riverside
www.necartz.com
necartz@gmail.com

What does Tupac Have to do with the Amazon?

Click: NEC Training Program Participants are Awarded

.One of my former students who has gone on to create many things shared this link with me, and it showed me something important. This is why I do what I do. To give the tools to those who seek positive change, respect for culture and diversity.

People don’t realize that the activists of the 60′s were college grads & intellectuals, pacifists. H. Rap Brown was mentored by my Dad at Howard University!!! Angela Davis -a professor. King a minister. The Panthers of the 60′s -Authors. Good Radicals…Rational Radicals.The planet burns so why are we playing our missions  on video games, where it doesn’t matter, when the computer shuts down?

Right now thee are such brave leaders in Ecuador and the Amazon and Bolivia and Alaska and Oregon and NY..educating and walking and organizing to stop the destruction of and buying up of the most powerful rivers to Damn then up. The Indigenous elders are speaking up because they see the changes that has lead to destruction of the planet.  We are told we are different people but when we look in heir faces we know what is true.

Why do we allow institutions to label what is good as bad, causing us to limit who are? Why do our children play video games at libraries with book shelves that are half empty? Why don’t they know their culture and how people and things are connected?

Tupac at the age of 17 started out promoting a revolution for peace and respect. Perhaps to get girls or perhaps because his Mom taught him values she learned from being an activist.  And I’m not only talking black.here are heroes like these in different races and cultures.

What about the fearless Native Indian filmmakers coming out of South America and US now standing up for the health of our rivers, our culture and our earth? They are calling us to restore the balance in our lives, with one another in our relationships
and our relationship with our planet earth and creator.  www.necartz.com       www.nativehorizon.orgps

Shuk!

You don’t have to know the language to understand what the grand mother is saying in the video above