Kindness is a journey

The Village Alliance has been a leading advocate for the Greenwich Village community for nearly thirty years. As a Business Improvement District, the Alliance works with area residents, businesses, cultural and academic institutions to ensure the district continues to grow and succeed. Our mission is to create a cleaner, greener, attractive and more enjoyable Greenwich Village neighborhood for all people.
https://greenwichvillage.nyc/

FABnyc is a team of artists and organizers working to preserve, sustain, and grow the cultural vibrancy of the Lower East Side neighborhood.

FABnyc was founded in 2001 by a coalition of cultural and community nonprofits on East 4th Street to save their homes. Today our commitment to sustaining the cultural character and diversity of the community extends across the LES: from 14th Street to Canal, from Bowery to the East River.

FABnyc works in partnership with the community – bringing artists and arts strategies to

– Fight physical and cultural displacement

– Build collective power and collaboration

– Increase equity and access to cultural resources and public space

– Support local resiliency and community health

http://www.fabnyc.org/

CultureHub is a global art and technology community that was born out of decades of collaboration between La MaMa and the Seoul Institute of the Arts, Korea’s first contemporary performing arts school. These two visionary institutions sought to explore how the internet and digital technologies could foster a more sustainable model for international exchange and creativity.
https://www.culturehub.org/ 

American Indian Community House (AICH) was founded in 1969, by Native American volunteers as a community-based organization, mandated to improve the status of Native Americans, and to foster inter-cultural understanding.
https://www.aich.org/ 

“Each year a small, courageous group of students is transformed by their exposure to master classes, lectures, performances, and the city itself. La MaMa, a center of innovation and experimentation in its own right, is the program’s perfect home. There is no other program like it.”

– Judy Dworin, Co-founder of Trinity/La MaMa

https://www.trincoll.edu/studyaway/trinitylamama/ 

Discover a new kind of university in New York City, one where scholars, artists, and designers come together to challenge convention and create positive change. Our university takes full advantage of its location in one of the most vibrant and diverse cities in the world. Our colleges and graduate schools include Parsons School of Design, Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, the College of Performing Arts, The New School for Social Research, the Schools of Public Engagement, and Parsons Paris.
https://www.newschool.edu/ 

The City University of New York is the nation’s largest urban public university, a transformative engine of social mobility that is a critical component of the lifeblood of New York City. Founded in 1847 as the nation’s first free public institution of higher education, CUNY today has 25 colleges spread across New York City’s five boroughs, serving 243,000 degree-seeking students of all ages and awarding 55,000 degrees each year. More than 80 percent of the University’s graduates stay in New York, contributing to all aspects of the city’s economic, civic and cultural life and diversifying the city’s workforce in every sector. The University’s historic mission continues to this day: provide a public first-rate education to all students, regardless of means or background.
https://www.cuny.edu/ 

Since its founding in 1831, NYU has been an innovator in higher education, reaching out to an emerging middle class, embracing an urban identity and professional focus, and promoting a global vision that informs its 19 schools and colleges.
https://www.nyu.edu/ 

Razom, which means “together” in Ukrainian, believes deeply in the enormous potential of dedicated volunteers around the world united by a single goal: to unlock the potential of Ukraine. Razom works towards that mission by creating spaces where people meet, partner and do.
https://www.razomforukraine.org/

Oran Etkin has been described as “ebullient” by the New York Times and “composer of eminent individuality” by Yusef Lateef. He was voted #1 Rising Star Clarinetist in DownBeat Magazine’s 2016 Critics Poll and has been invited several times to Harvard University as a guest lecturer. Etkin’s music can be heard on concert stages worldwide and numerous recordings including a Grammy Award Winning anti-bullying compilation album. Etkin’s duo concert with Sullivan Fortner in Paris was chosen as one of the Top 6 Musical Highlights of the year by Libération, which described it as “a concert of weightlessness, class, spark, inspiration and sharing. Magic uninterrupted for two hours. The crowd… went wild. For such is the music of Etkin: sensitive to the exchange with the audience.”
https://oranetkin.com/ 

MAPUTI

Shona mbira music of Zimbabwe is one of the

most soulful sounds on the African continent.

Mbira (the name of both the instrument and the

music) is mystical music which has been played

for over a thousand years. Its most important function is as a “telephone to the

spirits”, used to contact both deceased

ancestors and tribal guardians. Originally used in spirit possession

ceremonies, the iron-pronged mbira (thumb

piano), produces music, rhythmically

charged enough to keep people dancing through

the night. 

 

MAPUTI plays traditional songs that have been handed down through scores of generations as given to us by master mbira players of Zimbabwe.

 

Nora Balaban – mbira, vocals

Banning Eyre – guitar

Susan Rapalee – mbira, vocals

Sylvain Leroux – fula flute

Bill Ruyle- hosho

Giancarlo Luiggi – Shekere

https://www.hekatenyc.com/ 

Earth Celebrations was founded as a non-profit 501(c)3 organization on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1991 to engage communities to generate ecological and social change through the arts. For the past 30 years our programs have applied the arts to build community, collaboration and action on climate change, water quality, river restoration, waste management, and the preservation of species, habitats, nature, gardens, parks, and a healthy urban environment. We engage community to co-create and enact theatrical pageants/processions, building giant puppets, costumes, visual art and performances to amplify the community’s stories of environmental challenges and grassroots solutions. Our participatory arts projects build broad-based citywide coalitions and collaborative partnerships bringing together environmental organizations, academic and cultural institutions, municipalities, government agencies, schools, community centers, neighborhood associations, artists and local residents to work together creatively on common goals, mobilize action, develop solutions and generate ecological, policy and social change.
https://www.earthcelebrations.com 

WOW started as an international women’s theatre festival in October of 1980. Over the course of eleven days, 36 shows from 8 countries were performed for hungry New York lesbians. Within 18 months the group had a permanent space at 330 e. 11th street, where they began the monster that is WOW today: a year-round festival of women’s and transgender peoples’ performance. In 1984 (or thereabouts), WOW moved to the 1400ft loft space that we inhabit today at 59-61 east 4th street. Those familiar with the downtown NYC theatre scene call the block of east 4th between 2nd ave and the Bowery “theater row”, and WOW is proud to have among its neighbors: New York Theatre Workshop, the Rod Rodgers Dance Company, La Mama ETC, and 14 other arts groups, as collectively represented by Fourth Arts Block, at www.fabnyc.org

For sixty-six years, customers have crowded into Veselka, a cozy Ukrainian coffee shop in New York City’s East Village, to enjoy pierogi, borscht, goulash, and many other unpretentious favorites. Veselka (rainbow in Ukrainian) has grown up from a simple newsstand serving soup and sandwiches into a twenty-four hour gathering place without ever leaving its original location on the corner of East Ninth Street and Second Avenue. Veselka is, quite simply, an institution.
https://www.veselka.com/