During a National Dance Institute class at PS 189, Arthur Fredric demonstrates a new move to students.

Darwyn, 10, just wants to dance. “I like the rhythm and how we move our bodies,” he says after clapping, jumping and shuffling his way through a National Dance Institute class at P.S. 189 in Washington Heights.

The small auditorium where three institute instructors teach Darwyn and his classmates once a week fills with the sounds of drum beats, snaps and squeaking sneakers as the group runs through exercises, warmups and dance routines.

For 35 years such auditoriums were the closest connection to a home base for the National Dance Institute, which provides arts education to students primarily through a free in-school dance program.

Since 1976, the institute has reached more than 2 million students and expanded to 11 associate programs across the country, as well as many others around the world. Jacques d’Amboise, a former principal dancer and choreographer for the New York City Ballet, started the institute in an effort to offer free dance education to children who didn’t get much exposure to the arts.

While the in-school classes continue, the National Dance Institute for the first time has its own permanent headquarters. The 18,000-square-foot center — between Adam Clayton Powell and Frederick Douglass boulevards on 147th Street — has two art galleries, staff offices, a terrace and four studios, one of which converts to a performance space seating about 175 people.

The institute’s new home doesn’t represent much of a departure from those school auditoriums; the building itself was once P.S. 90, abandoned since the 1970s but now once more filled with excited chatter of eager students.

Originally built in the early 1900s and completely gutted, according to artistic director Ellen Weinstein, the center features gleaming white walls bedecked with bright artwork given or lent by local artists, as well as wood floors specially suited for dancers.

“When the children come in for dance classes, they’re going to sit in the halls and be surrounded by great art,” d’Amboise says. The center helps the institute expand its reach to cover a broader arts spectrum.

“It’s been a dream for most of our 35 years,” Weinstein says. “Especially in the last 10. It had become increasingly difficult to function.”

The institute had rented or borrowed space, something that became more difficult as it grew. D’Amboise remembers struggling to find places to rehearse and perform. “The programs take place in schools during school hours,” d’Amboise says. “To do more advanced programs we needed a place.”

Weinstein echoes: “We were like gypsies. We were running out of available space, and we weren’t able to do things in a planned way because we weren’t in control of our space.”

Administrators believe the center also ensures its future. “We’re here; this is our home,” Weinstein says. “For us and for our funders, we’re not going anywhere. It’s not going to dissolve.”

Their concern was perhaps intensified  by the reality that d’Amboise — an active teacher at 77 years old — has passed traditional retirement age.  He represents the heart of the National Dance Institute, but administrators wanted to ensure that the institute would endure long after he leaves.

After years of searching for a proper location, P.S. 90 came to executives’ attention. The institute spent $11.5 million to pay for the building and its renovation. George Soros’ Open Society Foundations provided a lead gift of $5 million, supplemented by board members and other donors. “I think the stars aligned,” says Kathy Landau, the institute’s executive director.

The institute purchased the building in November 2010. Renovation, begun in December, was completed under budget and ahead of schedule, and the institute moved into the center in August 2011 and opened officially in October.

“Now we’re down to the choices part,” Landau says. “Do we buy the curtains and the tracks? What are the most important things now?”

The organization’s leaders now must grapple with determining how to preserve the original mission of the National Dance Institute after such a fundamental change.  “Rather than letting the building change the mission and purpose of the programming, it was created to support the mission,” Landau says.

In-school classes remain free and the spotlight of the institute’s programming. After-school and weekend classes, as well as special events, take place at the center. The institute has added three new partner schools in Harlem, Weinstein says, “allowing us to double and triple the number of children we’re reaching.”

To make its programming available to students who don’t attend one of the 31 partner schools and to allow for more advanced instruction, the institute also offers after-school classes at the center for a fee, a departure from its traditional policy of free instruction.

Darwyn just wants to dance. He and his fourth-grade peers, whose last names the institute withheld as a condition of the interviews, are unaware of any changes; for them, the classes are simply the road to the final performance they watched last year and enthusiastically await this year.

“I’m excited because my parents are going to see me dance,” says Jordany, 9, who moments earlier was eagerly jumping up and down, striking poses onstage.

The institute reaches about 5,000 elementary school students each week — up from around 4,000 before the center was built. In some cases, institute classes are the only arts or physical education students will receive. Darwyn and Jordany’s class of about 25 is led by master teacher Arthur Fredric, co-teacher and institute alumnus Dufftin Garcia and musician Tim Harrison. This three-teacher formula is standard.

Institute teachers are encouraged to change the configuration of the room periodically, shifting where they stand and which way students face so that no front line develops. This tactic gives all students a chance to be in the lead and allows the instructors to easily spot any struggling dancers.

“Another teacher might just say, ‘Let’s keep going and going,’ but here they’re really following along,” Fredric says. “We’re really taking our time with the kids.”

A move is repeated as many times as necessary until every student feels comfortable. Although many of the students would likely look out of place in a professional dance class, here their various heights and body types are irrelevant; all are eventually able to execute the moves with ease and style.

Fredric occasionally selects students to serve as “assistant directors” who decide whether a sequence is up to par, rendering the students active participants in determining the class’s success. When Nicolette, 9, adds a clap above her head to one of the moves, Fredric likes the change so much that he has her teach it to the rest of the class. She shyly complies — but smiles at each subsequent reference to “The Nicolette.”

“The movement is accessible to all,” Weinstein says. “We’re doing things they can all achieve — and they do.” Harrison wanders the room with a drum, adjusting his beat to fit each sequence, sometimes moving to the piano. Fredric and Garcia remind the students that they’ll eventually be executing these moves in front of an audience; in response, they all shriek.

Weinstein describes the end-of-year performances at each school as a rite of passage. The event creates a ripple effect, Fredric says. “You change the whole community,” he says. “The kids come to see the show in kindergarten and then there’s anticipation for it. They want to do it themselves.”

Some become so enthusiastic that they move on to advanced institute programs, like the SWAT Team — “scholarships for the willing, achieving and talented.” SWAT Dancers chosen from the in-school classes receive free training outside school hours and perform at the Event of the Year, which also features dancers from the advanced Celebration Team.

Most of these students won’t pursue arts careers, but to institute administrators, that might be the point. “You take mathematics in school and it doesn’t mean you have to be a physicist, but everyone should take it because it’s beautiful and great,” d’Amboise says. “Everybody should take dancing and music but it doesn’t mean you have to do it as a career. You should take it because it’s part of being a human being.”

Last year’s Event of the Year focused on the intersection of science and the arts; one routine explored the properties of DNA. “Now every kid in that class can tell you how DNA replicates,” Weinstein says. “It’s more than just reading it in a book.”

To her, the idea is simply to promote student achievement. “I’m equally proud of the people who go on to college and become doctors and lawyers,” she says. “The goal is not to train professional dancers; this isn’t a conservatory. We just want to make sure every child has a success.”

Some students have gone on to careers in the arts, however. One dancer has performed with Beyonce and another with Madonna. A student recently appeared on the television show “Glee.” Garcia was a National Dance Institute student who started a boy’s ballet class and eventually got a call from d’Amboise to teach with the institute. “We give students tools,” Weinstein says. “It’s about rigor, discipline, joy.”

The institute’s particular brand of education seems to have an effect on the fourth graders at P.S. 189. At one point Fredric assures them, “You guys are good.” One of the boys yells back in response, “Good, not great!”

This desire to never settle has helped the institute reach this milestone. “We built the physical space,” Landau says. “Now what we’re building is a legacy.”

For more information on the National Dance Institute’s move click here.

"The Spirit of East Harlem" by Hank Prussing is painted on a residential building at East 104th Street and Lexington Avenue. Click on the above image to see an interactive graphic of the mural then and now. (Photo by Elizabeth Harball)

It was the summer of 1974. New York artist Manny Vega, today known for his public mosaics and murals, was 18. He had recently graduated from high school and was trying to decide whether to go to college. Vega knew he had an artistic voice, but he didn’t yet know what to do with it. Then, while kicking around East Harlem, something on East 104th Street and Lexington Avenue caught his attention:

“I would walk by on 104th Street and this guy was on a pull-up scaffold by himself,” Vega says. “A tiny, wooden, crickity-crackety scaffold.” Armed with oil paints and a brush, the man was meticulously creating a mural on the side of a four-story residential building.

Vega walked by the mural every day or so to see it progress. Slowly, recognizable faces started to emerge from the wall –  people who lived in the neighborhood,  even people who lived in the building.

“But it was unusual because he was this Caucasian, lanky white guy painting this Puerto Rican, black barrio thing, with a lot of soul, a lot of ‘esencia’ — with a lot of essence — as though he had been living in the neighborhood all along.”

Vega, fascinated, decided to ask if he could join the project.

“One day, I screamed up at him. I said, ‘Hey, white boy! Give me a job!’ He came down from the scaffold and he asked me, ‘What, do you paint?’

“I said, ‘I can learn…’”

The artist’s name was Hank Prussing. Vega became his apprentice and helped Prussing complete one of New York City’s most iconic murals: “The Spirit of East Harlem.”

Looming above a rapidly changing neighborhood, “The Spirit of East Harlem” represents a rougher yet more romantic time in East Harlem’s history. People who look up at it can imagine what it was like to wander East Harlem in the 1970s.

It portrays neighborhood residents of that time, including toy store owner Morris Wittenberg and George Espada, who sang in an “electric Latin soul” band called Flash and the Dynamics, presented in vivid tableaus between the building’s windows.

An East Harlem street in 1973. (Photo by Hank Prussing)

The work has survived the elements, a fire and vandals. Each time it was threatened, people joined forces to preserve it. Because of its importance to residents, Hope Community Inc., which owns the building, says it is committed to maintaining the work.

“The mural became like a cultural hallmark, not only to East Harlem, but specifically to that one block,” says Vega.

“It’s a time capsule,” he says. “It invokes a dialogue with people where they come together, collecting thoughts and sharing anecdotes about the past. That’s a very precious thing.”

The mural’s story begins in the 1970s when East Harlem, known as “El Barrio,” was largely populated by Puerto Rican immigrants. Between 1945 and 1965, nearly one million Puerto Ricans moved to the United States seeking employment. Two-thirds of them settled in New York, establishing a large community in East Harlem. The neighborhood struggled with poverty and a widespread drug scene.

But it also nurtured a Latino cultural renaissance. Two arts organizations were born: El Museo del Barrio, founded in 1969, and Taller Boricua, founded in 1970.

“It was a romantic time,” says Vega. “We had more of an art scene. We had grassroots arts organizations that were sponsoring projects and places for people to go to explore their creativity.”

The neighborhood around Lexington Avenue and East 104th Street was alive with activity. Angel Ortiz Jr., who visited his grandmother there on   weekends, remembers summer block parties with food, music and dancing. George Espada and his band performed in a nearby schoolyard.

“When you were a part of that neighborhood you got to know everybody,” says Ortiz. “It was truly an incredible sense of community and family.”

Jorge Vargas, owner of a nearby botanica, recalls: “There was a lot of things going on. It was beautiful.”

A sketch Prussing used as reference to paint the mural. (Image courtesy Hank Prussing)

In 1972, Hank Prussing, a young artist from Maryland, was in East Harlem surveying the neighborhood’s public art for an architecture course at Pratt Institute. He was interested in street art and East Harlem was already known for its murals.

The Rev. George Calvert, pastor of the Church of the Living Hope on East 104th Street, suggested that Prussing add his own mural in the neighborhood. Prussing, who’d never created an outdoor mural, initially felt taken aback.

“I don’t know, let me think about it,” he remembers replying.

A family friend, Calvert had recently helped establish Hope Community Inc.,  an affordable housing organization. Calvert had grown up in wealthy Scarsdale, N.Y., but despite “that stigma of being an outsider and a white privileged guy, he had a very strong sense of a mission and he did all kinds of things for that community,” Prussing says.

When Prussing agreed to paint the mural, Calvert arranged for local stores to donate paint and a scaffold. The artist planned the project during the summer of 1973, taking hundreds of photographs of East Harlem residents and becoming captivated by its people and culture.

“There were people there that lived on the block and never left the block and that was their whole life,” he remembers. “They didn’t speak English, some of them, because they didn’t have to. They had their family and friends around them.”

Prussing stood out. “They called me gringo or they called me turkey sometimes,” he says, describing the neighborhood as “the quintessential different kind of environment than the one I grew up in.”

He relied on his photographs for inspiration. Each told a different story: Carmelita, who owned a nearby bodega, smiled as she wiped her hands with a dishcloth. A little girl in braids learned to ride a bicycle. Old men sat around a table playing dominoes. A musician plucked a cuatro.  Teenaged boys lunged for a basketball.

“The more I looked at them the more I was fascinated by the neighborhood and the spirit of the community that’s there,” Prussing says. “I said, ‘Why don’t I just work with the photographs – they say everything.’”

The mural was painted in three sections, the left third in the summer of 1973 and the middle third that winter during Prussing’s school break. He brushed on layer after layer of oil paints and solvent so the pigment would become imbedded in the brick. Slowly, an artistic vision of the neighborhood emerged.

Not everyone was pleased with his rendering. The bodega owner, Carmelita, was unhappy with her portrait. She was “very private and didn’t appreciate all the feedback she was getting from everybody,” Vega says. Taking matters into her own hands, she paid several neighborhood kids to paint over her face.

Of course, Prussing repainted her portrait, but he notes, “it never looked the same.”

Then, something unexpected happened: a fire broke out in the building. When firefighters arrived on the scene, one mural portrait caused some confusion:

“One of the people I had painted up there actually was a fireman, looking out a window,” says Prussing. Firefighters, startled, “thought someone was in the building already putting the fire out.” (That figure, painted on a boarded-up window, was removed later during a renovation.)

Though the fire didn’t significantly damage the mural, the building’s roof was ruined and there was some question about the building’s structural soundness. Looking up at the unfinished mural, people could see the sky through the topmost windows. Prussing didn’t know if he could finish the project.

George Espada believes that “The Spirit of East Harlem” saved the building. Calvert recognized that the mural had become a community symbol. In a 1974 article published by Pratt Institute, he is quoted saying:

“The effect is magnificent … full of variety and life. People gather across the street to gaze up at it, intrigued and strengthened. It celebrates us as people engaged here in common tasks, united by our humanity. Friends and neighbors seem to emerge from the wall, familiar, yet newly significant and we all walk taller.”

"The Spirit of East Harlem" before Manny Vega's 1998 restoration. (Photo by Hank Prussing)

Hope Community Inc. purchased and renovated the building for low-income housing. Calvert secured a grant from the New York State Council for the Arts and asked Prussing to complete the mural.

By that time, the neighborhood had embraced the artist’s presence.

“They totally adopted Hank,” says Vega. “Hank wasn’t white any more. They fed him. If he had to go to use the bathroom, he would just go through the windows. And because people thought that he was making them famous, almost, they had an endearing relationship with him.”

Prussing concurs, “I felt like I was sort of part of the family after a while.”

He finished “The Spirit of East Harlem” in 1978. “It was a big hit, I guess,” Prussing says. “All of the community residents were proud. The ones that were up there were proud they were there.”

Thirty-four years later, “The Spirit of East Harlem,” has undergone several transformations, but many who were a part of it still feel connected to the work.

Hank Prussing went on to paint about 35 more murals in New York City. Many have either faded or been destroyed  – one was lost in 2001 in the World Trade Center. Today, he’s an architect living in East Hartland, Conn., with his wife. His work keeps him busy, but he still finds time for art now and then. Prussing recently painted a mural for his daughter’s school library. “I would love to retire and go back to painting,” he says. “I always did architecture as a whim.”

Artist Hank Prussing in 2011. (Photo by Elizabeth Harball)

Prussing, now 63, accepts the way the mural has changed over the years. “I started something,” he says. “If they want to keep it up and continue to change it, that’s great. It’s not my mural anymore.”

With his support, Manny Vega restored the mural in 1998, adding his own embellishments and color palette. Once again, neighborhood residents watched and supported Vega as he brought the mural to life, bringing him coffee and doughnuts as he worked.

Hope Community Inc. financed the $35,000 restoration. George Calvert died in 2005 at age 76, but the organization continues to provide affordable housing, commercial space and social services to low-income East Harlem residents. In 1999, Prussing transferred the mural’s copyright to Hope Community. “It’s a part of our history,” says Executive Director Walter Roberts.

Many depicted in the mural have died, but a few remain and remember. Angel Ortiz Jr., now 56,works for General Electric. He can still be seen in the mural with a set of nunchucks tucked behind his belt. Ortiz never lost his love for martial arts; he earned his black belt in Taekwondo in 2002.

George Espada, 69, still lives in East Harlem. He has led a colorful life; performing with the Dynamics at Lincoln Center, pursuing a brief career in semiprofessional wrestling, then serving as Republican district leader in East Harlem for several years. Espada now works for AARP and still sings with a band. “I’ve done it all, except drugs,” he says.

When he looks at the mural, he sees many people he remembers with fondness  – Carmelita, Morris Wittenberg and two of the old men playing dominoes, whom he identifies as Joe and Mascota. Short gray hair has replaced Espada’s ’70s Afro, but he still seems to know everyone in the neighborhood; people smile and shake his hand as he passes. When he walks past Lexington and 104th Street, he often stops to look up at “The Spirit of East Harlem.”

“I’m still very proud of the fact that every time I go by there, there I am!” he says, laughing.

Take a closer look at Hank Prussing’s 1974 mural in an interactive graphic.

Click on the photo to see an interactive graphic of the mural with images from 1974 to today.

Take a closer look at Hank Prussing’s 1974 mural, or read the full article.

Njideka Akunyili, a Studio Museum's artist in residence, created a collage in homage to Romare Bearden. (Photo by Paul Smith)

Njideka Akunyili received a package from the Studio Museum in August, containing two sheets of 22 by 30 inch paper and one instruction: Create a collage in homage to Romare Bearden, Harlem’s iconic visual artist.

Akunyili accepted the invitation unhesitantly. As a graduate student at Yale, she had studied Bearden’s work, admiring how he conjured cohesive spaces through disparate images and colors. To prepare for the commission, she boarded a train to New Haven and spent a day scrutinizing Yale’s Bearden collection.

She returned to her cluttered studio on 125^th Street (as a museum artist in residence, she works above the galleries) knowing she wanted to adapt Bearden’s palate of saturated primary colors.  But two weeks before the deadline, her pages remained blank.

Akunyili, 28, finally drew two central figures, representing herself and her husband, Justin, dancing in an imaginary nightclub. She gathered family photographs from her wedding in Nigeria and searched the Internet for images by her favorite Malian photographer, Malick Sidibe, (Bearden often referred to fellow artists in his work).

She scanned the fragments and Xerox-transferred them onto the large page, cut the two figures out and moved them about like jigsaw pieces, submitting the work just before deadline.

"Efulefu: The Lost One", Njideka Akunyili's collage, currently exhibited at the Studio Museum as part of The Bearden Project. (Photo: the Studio Museum)

Now Akunyili’s “Efulefu: The Lost One” hangs on the Studio Museum wall, surrounded by The Bearden Project’s 43 other components. September marked the centennial of Romare Bearden’s birth and curator Lauren Haynes decided that a special tribute was in order for this member of her museum’s founding council. “Instead of putting up all the Beardens from our collection,” Haynes said, “we thought it would be interesting to engage artists we work with, though the idea of collage.”

The artists’ interpretations are various. Matriarch (the mother-daughter team of Maren and Ava Hassinger) constructed a tower from boxes, shells and feathers. Nadine Robinson produced an audio montage, with only its URL address on display. Kori Newkirk’s untitled instillation consists of tin cans spilling glitter onto the museum floor.

Stacy Lynn Waddell branded and singed her two sheets of paper and painted a tropical watercolor embellished with Austrian crystals. Xaviera Simmons photographed two side-by-side figures, their faces obscured by Nina Simone and Malcom X LP’s. On the opposite wall, Bearden’s 1964 work “Conjur Woman” watches over these tributes.

In fact, the project constitutes a ramshackle collage itself. Haynes and her team will keep adding works and rearrange existing exhibits until they reach the target of 100 pieces before the exhibition closes in March.

It’s just one of many centennial tributes to Bearden. The Postal Service commissioned four Bearden stamps. His works are on exhibit in galleries from Kansas City to Cambridge, Mass. But Harlem, fittingly, is the epicenter of the festivities.

Although he was born in North Carolina, Romare Bearden grew up in Harlem.  His mother’s West 131^st Street apartment, not far from the Studio Museum, became a salon attracting family friends like Duke Ellington and Fats Waller.

A social worker by day, Bearden spent evenings painting in a 125^th Street studio above the Apollo Theatre; fellow artist Jacob Lawrence worked on another floor. After serving in World War II, Bearden studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and met Georges Braque.

"Conjur Woman," a collage by Romare Bearden, currently on exhibit at the Studio Museum as part of the Bearden Project. (Art © Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY**)

To Sherman Edmiston, owner of the Essie Green Galleries in Sugar Hill, Bearden was a companion. “Romie was phenomenal, truly a renaissance man,” he said, sitting in his gallery, eyes closed, smiling fondly. “He was a black historian that had very few equals.”

Bearden excelled at science, contemplated becoming a doctor and could even have played professional baseball, said his friend. “Today most people think being hip means knowing the slang, the music, the dance steps and how to dress,” he said. But in Bearden’s Harlem, “you had to know poetry, literature, history. You had to be well-read, because to be hip meant you had to know shit.”

Sherman Edmiston, owner of the Essie Green Galleries in Sugar Hill, was Bearden's friend. (Photo by Paul Smith)

Edmiston, a former engineer, founded the Park Plaza Gallery in Park Slope, Brooklyn, in 1976 with his late wife, Essie Green, to champion “black masterworks.” As aspiring collectors, they were unsure how to contact Bearden. ‘All we could think of was to look in the phone book,” said Edminston. “And there it was: Romare Bearden. Canal Street.”

They met and grew close. “He didn’t see us as art dealers and collectors, but as people he felt something for.” When Edmiston and Green bought their Convent Avenue brownstone, around the time of Bearden’s death, they opened the Essie Green Galleries in their basement, known colloquially as the Bearden Gallery for its frequent Bearden exhibitions.

Edmiston’s current show, “Bearden The Painter,” presents an unusual view: Bearden’s late watercolors. “People tend to pigeonhole Romie as a collagist, always talking about jazz,” said Edminston. “It’s so much more than that.”

Many of the paintings hanging on Essie Green’s purple walls are set on St. Martin, the Caribbean island where Bearden and his wife Nanette, a choreographer, spent part of each year. The effects of Bearden’s collages are evident in his final watercolors. “All the time he spent with collage, photo montage and oils sublimated into this later work, which had it all,” said Edmiston, whose favorite painting hangs opposite his desk. Gazing at “Coconut Grove,” with its foliage-rich saturated greens, is “like looking through a kaleidoscope.”

Bearden’s sparse final paintings, “Autumn 1” and “Autumn 2” are on exhibit at the Schomburg Center’s “The Soul of Blackness” exhibition. which presents a chronological view of his career. Beginning with his first collages, the circular layout encompasses theatrical posters, a textile and a commission for the Schomburg’s 50^th anniversary.

Bearden often worked in the library there, said Chris Moore, one of the show’s curators. “The founders and participants of the Schomburg lived through an era when black and African things were totally separated,” he said. “Academics and intellectuals fought against that. It became their life battle. Romare Bearden is an artist but he’s also a warrior, bringing to attention the talents and contributions of African people.”

The Schomburg regularly holds childrens’ workshops. “You can come here at five years of age and find something engaging,” Moore said, adding that young audiences “are as much in awe of his work as adults are.”

The Romare Bearden Foundation also focuses on children, supplying educational materials and lobbying for his inclusion in school curriculums for 8- to 12-year-olds.

The foundation, established in 1990 with offices on 125^th Street, houses Bearden’s personal library and extensive catalogues of his work. It organizes annual symposiums, oversees licensing and strives to raise Bearden’s profile – a challenging feat – says co-director Diedra Harris-Kelley.

“We do these retrospectives,” she said, “Everyone comes out and says it’s great but it’s not trickling down. It’s just simply not enough.” She hopes the centennial’s sustained spotlight will cement his status as an American master and encourage editors to include him in influential art compendiums. Bearden remains relatively unknown outside the States, something the Foundation also hopes to rectify.

Harris-Kelley, who is Bearden’s niece, is driven by fond memories of visiting her uncle’s Canal Street studio as a child. “He was always happy to see company,” she said, describing how he’d entertain friends in his loft space.

Like his collages, his creative process was somewhat fragmentary. “He’d be telling some story or other,” said Harris-Kelley. “Or showing off art. Or making spaghetti.”

Bearden’s Centennial in Harlem:

The Studio Museum

44 West 125th Street

“The Bearden Project”: multimedia collages by contemporary artists inspired by Bearden. Until March 11^th

http://thebeardenproject.studiomuseum.org/

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

515 Malcolm X Boulevard

“Romare Bearden: The Soul of Blackness / A Centennial Tribute”: paintings, collages, prints, posters and textiles spanning Bearden’s career. Until January 7^th.

http://www.nypl.org/locations/schomburg

Essie Green Galleries

419A Convent Avenue,

“Bearden The Painter”: watercolors from the artist’s late career. Continuing.

http://www.essiegreengalleries.com/

**Reproduction of this image, including downloading, is prohibited without written authorization from VAGA, 350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2820, New York, NY  10118.  Tel: 212-736-6666; Fax: 212-736-6767; e-mail: info@vagarights.com; web:www.vagarights.com

MIST will occupy the first floor of the Kalahari condominium complex. (Photo by Chris Le)

Emile Derygou emigrated from Benin to New York 11 years ago but remains a proud West African. He reveled in the performances of coupe de calle, dances set to rhythmic drums, at the annual African Day Parade.

“When you hear it, it brings back memories,” he said. He frequents the Malcolm Shabazz Market and Le Petit Senegal, where shoppers can find traditional carved wooden figurines and handmade African-style clothes. But that’s merchandise. “There’s so much more to our culture,” Derygou said.

Enter: My Image Studios.

Construction began last month on the 20,000-square-foot Harlem center that will spotlight African and Latino culture. The project, called MIST for short, aims to support established and emerging artists and revive the local economy.

“It’s the cultural capital of the world,” My Image Studios’ chief executive, Ronald Laird, said of Harlem. He hopes MIST will be a stage for two growing local populations. “It will focus on the African and Latino diaspora,” he said.

Curtis Archer, president of Harlem Community Development Corp., said, “There aren’t many African cultural centers, but MIST would be a good draw.” He added that the area between Lenox and Eighth Avenues is so dense with West Africans that it could be called Little Africa.

About 15 percent of Harlem’s black population is foreign born, with a growing number from Africa and the Caribbean, according to a 2000 census. The Latino population, once concentrated in East Harlem, has reached an all-time high in central Harlem, up 27 percent since 2000. “It would be great for that underrepresented culture,” Archer said of MIST.

In the center, 13,000 square feet will serve as arts space, including three theaters totaling 344 seats, for multicultural music, dance, independent films, spoken word and theatrical performances. The remaining space is reserved for a restaurant and bar, featuring foods influenced by African, Caribbean and Latin American cuisine.

MIST organizers are trying to emulate the 92^nd Street Y, the famous Upper East Side culture center, said Alexa Birdsong, director of programming. “We want something that’s community based – for the community, by the community,” she said.

“The art scene in Harlem is historic,” said Birdsong. “It’s become invigorated in the last 10 years and we want to join the party.”

MIST will occupy the ground floor of the Kalahari, a 249-unit, African-themed condominium building at 40 W. 116^th St. The center was part of the plans for the original condo, finished in 2007, but the recession stalled the construction. Now, with $21 million in financing – from a New Market Tax Credit deal, which helps businesses and real estate projects in low-income areas; the state; and equity loans from Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group and Prudential – the center is slated to open early next year.

It has created 140 construction jobs and, once done, 50 permanent jobs, 70 percent of which Laird vows will be filled by Harlem residents. In September, unemployment rates in New York City were 8.1 percent, 10.7 for Hispanics and 14.0 for blacks, according to the State Department of Labor.

“It’s about keeping the dollar in the community,” Laird said.

Hope Knight, chief operating officer of Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, said: “Harlem experienced a big downturn in terms of tourism and visitors since the recession. But business has been improving continually since 2010.” MIST organizers expect the culture center to bolster Harlem’s recovering economy and growing appeal as a tourist destination.

“We want the community to benefit in tourism,” marketing consultant Taneshia Laird said of MIST. “We want it to be Harlem’s living room.”

Residents of the Kalahari building agreed. “It’s about bridging the gap,” said Reynaldo Forbes. “You can’t have a community unless you cater to everyone, not just the privileged. A cultural center could do it, if they do it right.”

For Derygou, it will be welcome nostalgia. Usually too busy with work for recreation, he said an African culture center would lure him out. “Just to bring back those memories of home,” he said.

Frank Parra prepares for a recording session. (Photo by Myeisha Essex)

When the rest of uptown is sleeping, Frank Parra can be found in a home studio at his Washington Heights apartment, experimenting with drum patterns. He paces from keyboard to laptop in search of the perfect sound; his music has a throwback vibe, mixed with the energy and grit of city life. He works best at night.

Everything seems set in its proper place—no tangled cords or scraps of paper. A guitar case sits propped against soundproofed walls covered in foam. The space is filled with countless sets of speakers, two keyboards, an iMac, a laptop and, on the floor, a crate of  $1 records purchased from a thrift shop.

Frank Parra has three jobs: He’s a content manager at iStandard Producers, a production company that showcases  up-and-coming producers. He’s a tutor to a Harlem second-grade class and he’s one of the best-known music producers uptown, with a resume that includes time at Island Def Jam and Atlantic Records.

“The producer makes the beat; the music goes to a songwriter, then it finally reaches the artist,” he said, explaining the music-making process. Without someone to manage the audio development, he says, a song lacks structure.

“I had never heard of him before I went to his studio,” said Audubon, another Washington Heights musician who frequently collaborates with Parra. “What made me say, ‘let’s work,’ was how fast he could play on the keys. When I gave him an idea, we made a lot of music in a small period of time.”

Parra started early. During his senior year at State University of New York at Oneonta, a music business major, Parra sold a beat to rapper Juelz Santana, who then recorded a song called “Get Down.”

“He didn’t even know who I was,” Parra said. “But he liked the music enough to want to rap over it, so I knew I wanted to pursue it full time.” He did, and “once music took over, it really took over.”

Parra plays the keyboard and guitar. “Hazy Nights in the Heights” is a live project, many songs from jam sessions with his band. (Photo by Myeisha Essex)

In the music industry he’s a rising star at 26, but in the Heights, as he refers to his neighborhood, he’s just Frankie P—a local guy and enthusiastic promoter of the uptown lifestyle.

Parra spent his last few years producing music, sending beats to various record labels without knowing if anyone actually heard them. Tired of waiting for artists and A&R representatives to recognize his ability, he decided to take matters into his own hands. His debut solo album, “Hazy Nights in the Heights,” was digitally released a few weeks ago.

Its 16 tracks offer what Parra calls an instrumental ride though the mind of Frankie P. “It doesn’t need vocals because it tells a story on its own,” he says. “I wanted to do something that wasn’t trendy or what’s popping, something to play 10 years from now.”

Photographer Nelson Salcedo, who shot the album art, says Parra’s work goes beyond passion. “Frank is constantly on,” he says. “Constantly working, but to him it’s not work. He’s just always creating music and thinking of ideas for how to bring his music to life visually.”

Parra likes to work alone, “without too many chefs in the kitchen.” He sat at the mixing board one recent night, preparing for a 10 p.m. studio session with one of his artists. He nodded as the music blared from the speakers at a volume sure to have caused a few noise complaints. He wore sneakers, black sweats and a t-shirt that revealed a left arm covered by tattoos. He stands 6 feet, one inch tall, with a goatee framing his face.

His favorite song on the album, he said breaking into a smile, was “To Amy,”  dedicated to the late Winehouse, who died while he was completing the project. “It felt like something she would have sang over,” he said.

He was born to a Dominican father and an Ecuadorian mother in 1986.  The family left the Bronx when he was two and moved to upper Manhattan, where “just leaving my house, I heard bachata, merengue and hip- hop,” Parra said, “just a mixture of a lot of different cultures.”

His musical preferences are so diverse he doesn’t like to label them. His style fuses jazz, salsa, techno and R&B. He rarely listens to hip-hop although he produces hip-hop music. On his playlist, soulful music of the ‘60s and ’70s alternates with punk rock and artists like The Doors, Anita Baker and Janis Joplin.

“Frank listens to a wide array of music,” said Audobon.  ”I do the same thing. So when we put it all together we get some interesting music.”

Parra works with local artists of all genres from rap to dancehall. When producing for an artist, he is very selective. “I get the best vibes off of great artistry,” he says.

Parra recognizes that music producing is a tough, competitive industry. Even with countless contacts, it’s hard for him to get his music to the right people. “Out of frustration, many producers just give their beats away,” he said. Instead, he’s decided to focus on artists he believes in and to build his brand, focusing on creativity.

He made his album available for free online to create awareness and “to give my audience a taste of what I can do,” he said. “What got to me the most is the people that heard it I didn’t expect to hear it. The response has been amazing,” he said. “Even people in their 50’s.”

In five years he hopes to have the luxury of making music full-time.  Although New York City has been a catalyst for Parra’s music, he’d rather live more quietly. If he could, “I’d have a house somewhere in Wisconsin, making music,” he said.

After dozens of songs and late-night studio sessions, Audubon is certain Parra’s career will endure. “In five years he will be what you hear in the speakers in Wal-Mart, in hoopties through out the hoods, on the radio and somewhere on the TV,” he said. “Provider of our life soundtrack.”

Listen to “To Amy,” the fourth track from Frank Parra’s album, “Hazy Nights in the Heights.”

Sánchez and White’s urban dolmen is part of El Museo del Barrio’s (S) Files art series, which features the work of Latino, Caribbean and Latin American artists in New York City. In this, the sixth biennial series, a record 75 artists work in almost every medium, including performance, paintings and murals, multimedia and sculpture. Also known as the Street Files, the series began in June and continues into early January. (S) Files exhibits and performances have been hosted by galleries, museums and, in collaboration with the New York Restoration Project, community gardens across the city. Take a look at the Sánchez and White outdoor exhibit below:

The (S) Files continue until Jan. 8. See the El Museo calendar below:

Wednesday, Nov. 16:
The Artists Speak: The (S) Files 2011
7 to 9 p.m., BRIC Rotunda Gallery | 33 Clinton St., Brooklyn
“An artist-led tour and discussion at BRIC Rotunda Gallery featuring Armando Mariño, Lisa Iglesias, Alicia Grullon, Jessica Mein, with a special performance by Rafael Sánchez.”

Now through Nov. 30:
(S) Files (S)cavenger Hunt
El Museo del Barrio | 1230 5th Ave., New York
“Get in on the game as we challenge you to follow the clues around NYC to satellite venues and events surrounding El Museo’s Bienal: The (S) Files 2011. Learn about the artists, their work, and what inspires them as you go. Each week we’ll be posting 3 featured clues on El Museo’s Facebook page, with a complete listing of clues and details available at elmuseo.org. Find answers in our galleries, online videos, and special events. Be one of the first 25 lucky participants to win an (S) Files prize package when you visit three of the four featured venues.”

On view through Jan. 6:
Lehman College Art Gallery | 250 Bedford Park Blvd. West, Bronx
“The artists featured at Lehman College Art Gallery share an affinity for illustration and the narrative force of images. The exhibition itself becomes a picturesque walk through the city, a catalogue of people, objects, out-fits, daily and imaginary cityscapes. The urban environment is the setting for social and political exchanges of all kinds, and a place of compelling crossings—symbolic and real. When the street becomes the starting point, the images don’t just portray urban scenes. They also depict details that often translate into the global remains of consumer society, the resilience of urban dwellers, or the tools for a crime.”

On view through Jan. 8:
The (S) Files main exhibits
El Museo del Barrio | 1230 5th Ave., New York and Bric Rotunda Gallery | 33 Clinton St., Brooklyn

Jaylene Clark preps for the evening's technical rehearsal at the National Black Theatre. (Photo by Gabriel Stargardter)

As she doubled her arms behind her back, tightening her chest muscles, Jaylene Clark recited a staccato mantra — “Re-pe-ti-ka, re-pe-ti-ka” — ejecting the syllables from her diaphragm.

She was excited. One year after leaving Ithaca College, Clark stood on the stage of the National Black Theatre in Harlem, about to start technical rehearsals for the play she and her childhood friends had co-written and produced.

“It started as a Facebook status, comparing Harlem to the belly of a killer whale due to gentrification,” Clark said. It seemed fitting that the resulting play, “Renaissance in the Belly of a Killer Whale,” was partially funded online.

Lacking the money to rent a theater, Clark and her friends turned to Indiegogo, a San Francisco-based crowdfunding website. Founded in 2008 to “democratize fundraising,” the website has helped fund more than 45,000 campaigns and boasts 10,000 members from 134 different countries. Despite not yet reaching $1 billion in revenue, Indiegogo recently raised $150 million in additional investment, a sign of investor confidence. In predictably wacky start-up fashion, the office dog, Pepper, is credited as the CFO — “Chief Furriness Officer.”

Unlike its major competitor, Kickstarter, which charges a five percent commission and denies funds to campaigns that fail to meet their financial goals, Indiegogo charges four percent and users keep all they raise. As a result, many of Harlem’s artistic entrepreneurs, like Clark, find crowdfunding via Indiegogo a valuable tool.

“Back in the old-fashioned days you had to have a fundraiser, wash cars, hold a bake sale,” said filmmaker John O. Nelson, a Harlem native now living in Los Angeles. “The ways have shifted somewhat.”

Nelson is an Indiegogo veteran. In 1991, Jay B.U.M., as Nelson was then known, signed with Mercury Records. But as his hip-hop career faltered, his interest in acting developed. “I did a couple of videos and loved being in front of the camera,” Nelson said.

Acting classes followed, and by the late 1990s, Nelson could point to television roles in “New York Undercover” and “The Cosby Show.” In 2000 he moved to Los Angeles, where he appeared in “E.R.” and “Ally McBeal.”

“Two movies I was in with Will Smith, but got cut out of,” Nelson said.

More recently he’s turned his attention to web series, a format that allows him to retain artistic control and still attract audiences. His videos have more than 5 million hits on YouTube, where he’s just shy of 60,000 subscribers. “I’m kind of known on the Internet,” he said.

Such recognition has boosted Nelson’s crowdfunding efforts. With ever-lower filmmaking costs, the traditional barriers to entry have almost evaporated, said Abe Schwartz, an indie filmmaker who has written extensively on crowdfunding. Branding has now become the key to success.

“The barriers are in relation to standing out amongst the clutter. Thus, the need to be compelling with the content, product and marketing,” said Schwartz.

Nelson pointed to the success of Freddie Wong, a YouTube sensation who raised $77,000 in 24 hours for his last project on Kickstarter. Clark was similarly impressed by Issa Rae, the powerhouse behind “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl” web series, who managed to raise $44,000 in one month, also on Kickstarter.

Harlem’s crowdfunding aficionados had yet to emulate those figures or even approach them. Nelson wanted to raise $2500 for “Everybody Knows John O”, appealing to his fans to “help bring anotha hot web series to the net,” but when his fundraising deadline expired last month, he had only hit $1500, the second time he had come up short. “Last time I was trying to raise $4000 and I raised $2557,” he said.

Clark, too, looked unlikely to reach her goal. She sought $10,000, but with 37 hours to go, she’d only raised $500. In truth, she and her friends got lucky: the National Black Theatre took an interest in their project and offered to provide a home. Clark said they’d invest whatever money they raised in future projects. There’s talk of a college tour.

“It is probably no easier to raise funding for a film through a crowdfunding site than any other method of film finance,” said John W. Cones, an attorney and author of film finance guides. “All forms of film finance are difficult. In addition, of course, crowd funding has a practical limit as to the amount of funds that can be raised.”

“It’s just a way to get started,” he added.

Indiegogo executives disputed this, pointing out that many of the website’s film projects had been featured at film festivals like Tribeca and Sundance.

“The keys to a successful campaign are to have a clear pitch (including a video and good perks), to find the right audience (this may take a few tries), and to be very proactive with your outreach,” said Indiegogo’s Erica Labovitz via email.

Dozens of tour buses drive tourists to Harlem's famous historical landmarks every weekend (Photo by Sandra Ifraimova)

On the weekends, double-decker buses have become a common sight in Harlem – tourists who choose to hop on and off at the neighborhood’s historic landmarks look down at the long lines of people waiting outside the Apollo Theater on 125^th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Frederick Douglass Boulevards.

New York welcomed a record-breaking 48.7 million visitors in 2010 and tourism has been booming in the five boroughs, according to reports by NYC & Company, the city’s marketing and tourism organization.

“The business is coming back on track, the fear is gone,” says Neal Shoemaker, Harlem’s tourism veteran and founder of Harlem Heritage Tours, as he recalls the industry’s evolution since 1998. That was the year he first got paid for giving a tour of the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque to Turkish visitors.

“When I started the business 10 years ago, there was a lot of talk in the air about the future Harlem, about businesses developing, condos coming,” he says.

Today, Harlem is experiencing what some call a “second Renaissance” with chain stores, like Starbucks, and luxury condominiums rising side by side with small soul food restaurants and iconic gospel churches that give the neighborhood its distinctive flavor. “People now feel safe coming up here,” says Kathy Benson, project director at Museo Del Barrio on 103^rd Street and Fifth Avenue.

Samantha Jacomin, a 24-year-old visitor from Paris on her first visit to Harlem, says: “I heard a lot of terrible things about Harlem, and I wanted to see it myself. But I personally don’t see it at all. All I see is a vibrant community, great music and great food!”

The Apollo Theater – famous around the world for launching the careers of Ella Fitzgerald, Stevie Wonder and for epitomizing black talent – is Harlem’s major attraction.

“We attract over 1.4 million visitors a year in between shows and tours,” says Nina Flowers, the theater’s marketing and communications director. Amateur Night, which has been taking place every Wednesday since 1934 is a favorite of tourists, who come from as far away as Japan.

Some tourists’ desire to satisfy their curiosity in regard to the neighborhood’s alleged “ghetto culture” – or the visitors’ fascination with poor people – angers locals.

“I cannot stand these tourists that come to our neighborhood, walk around the projects hoping to find men dealing crack or whatever,” says Diana Moore, 47. “We have a difficult past, and a difficult present and I don’t want people exploiting it for entertainment.”

While gospel tours grow in popularity among European and Japanese tourists, regular churchgoers complain about the visitors’ disrespectful behavior.

“These guys who come on the bus make so much noise during the service,” says Rob Evans, who has been going to the Abyssinian Baptist Church on 138^th Street for over 15 years. “They talk to each other during the service and sometimes speak on their cellphones, it’s unacceptable!”

Yvette Jones, who lives near the Abyssinian Church, is used to people gazing down on her street from the buses, and wishes they would come down and mix with the people.

“I don’t get what these people can see from up there,” she says angrily. “If they want to come to our community and experience it they better come off and talk, socialize with people, we don’t bite.”

While some residents are bothered by dozens of buses riding up and down their street every weekend, store owners nearby enjoy the dollars the Apollo brings to their businesses.

Every day Leah Mitchan sells about 30 T-shirts of black heroes, like President Obama or the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,  for $15 a piece. “Sixty percent of my business comes from tourists,” she says, adding that she picked a strategic location for her stall – next to the Apollo Theater and opposite Franco the Great, also known as Harlem’s Picasso, who is known for painting on metal security gates on storefronts on 125^th Street.

Franco Gaskin, also known as Harlem's Picasso, greets tourists every sunday on 125th Street (Photo by Sandra Ifraimova)

Every Sunday, Franco greets hundreds of visitors, who come to get a glimpse of what is unofficially known as “Franco’s Boulevard.”

“I began to bring the tourists when I started to paint the gates of the store owners on 125^th Street,” he says. “It brings a lot of money to the community.” He admits that constantly marketing himself and using African-American culture to build his brand is what made him so successful. They are fascinated by Harlem because it was forbidden,” he says of the tourists. “And I capitalize on that.”

Sylvia’s has been the No. 1 destination for authentic soul food in Harlem. But since Sylvia Woods opened her restaurant in 1962, the clientele has changed and so has the number of customers.

“In the mid-90s there were more African-Americans here, but now the real estate is more developed and Harlem attracts more and more people,” says Shauna Woods, the granddaughter of Sylvia’s founder and the third generation to run the family business.

“We get over 2,000 people a day,” she says. “A lot of tourists during the weekend but people from our community come too, it bounces out our profit.”

Amy Ruth’s, another famous soul food eatery, is a hotspot for Japanese tourists and visitors from the Northeast corridor.  “This place is famous for fried chicken and waffles,” says Dwayne Ribel, from Hoboken, N.J. “And I don’t mind driving from New Jersey to have some.”

As more and more people venture into Harlem, the number of tourism companies in the neighborhood increases. “People want to see what is hot and Harlem is hot,” says Kebe.

The Harlem Chamber of Commerce monitors these businesses, and the website www.harlemtourismnow.com serves as an online directory of all the tourist attractions in the neighborhood.

“There are a lot of companies, five or six companies and they are all behind me today,” says Shoemaker. His company offers an array of different tours – gospel, food, civil rights, walking and shopping are all available to visitors for an average price of $35.

“Whoever has the most experience, whoever can be the most imaginative pretty much wins the game,” he says of the fierce competition between the owners.

Jacqueline Orange started her company, Taste Harlem: Food and Cultural Tours, in 2008, and has added another activity to Harlem’s list of tourist attractions.

“We started an art tour called Art Crawl Harlem,” she says. “We showcase art galleries and we let gallery owners bring the artists.”  Three times a year, for $55, visitors travel by an old-fashioned trolley and get the chance to discover Harlem’s Art Scene.

“It has been extremely successful,” Orange says. “We promoted it, we used our own money and now the community knows us and we have a following of customers.”

But lately, tourists have had to choose where and what to spend their money on. Street vendors who sell incense, body oils and shea butter along bustling 125^th Street say tourists no longer stop at their stalls.

“Since the recession, I don’t sell half as much as I used to five years ago,” laments Mustafa, who declines to give his last name because he works illegally in the country. When Mustafa moved to Harlem five years ago from his native Mali, he was making a good living selling his products to tourists.

“I was making $200 a day, they bought souvenirs and brought stuff back for their families,” he says. “They wanted to have a memory of Harlem, but now they will spend the money on food, or tickets to the Apollo.”

The community has grown to understand, and accept the role that tourism plays in the local economy and residents slowly start to appreciate it.

“It warms my heart to see people coming into Harlem and enjoying our culture,” says Ross Leighton, who was born and raised in Harlem. “It helps our economy and makes us feel proud.”

Harlemites want to show their cultural history while growing their tourism industry and getting their share of the city’s estimated $16.6 billion in tourism-related wages. “No gentrification, no killing Harlem,” says Shoemaker. “We want to use this industry called tourism to preserve our culture, traditions and local economy”.

Many visitors come to see the painted gates on 125th Street (Photo by Sandra Ifraimova)

Indie band the Goddess Lakshmi performs Sunday nights at the Paris Blues, a bar on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in Harlem. Performing original tunes by lead guitarist and Harlem resident Rene Calvo, the band draws a small, yet devoted, local following. “It’s an auspicious time in Harlem,” says Calvo, “whenever you have new groups of people meeting in a new place, it tends to mark a period of new collaborations and great creativity.”