Outreach Performance of The Christmas Revels

Our annual Christmas Revels outreach performance delights over 1,200 school children, seniors, and others who otherwise would not have the resources or the opportunity to attend. ssisted by a grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and
Humanities, Revels paid for buses to transport over 125 school children to and from the performance.

Groups interested in attending should contact Outreach Performance Coordinator Rosanne Gochman at 301-657-8796 or rgochman@revelsdc.org.

Washington Lawyers Committee - School Partnership Program

In a partnership now underway with the Washington Lawyers Committee's School Partnership program and the World Bank/IMF Community of Artists, The Washington Revels is
sponsoring the presentation of tradition-bearers in over 25 D.C public schools.

Washington Revels’ Community Initiative

In 2005, Washington Revels launched its new Community Initiative. Its purpose is to expand Revels and its impact by doing what Revels does best – producing performances by and for a community, using people and resources from that community – in school, church and other neighborhood communities in the Washington area.

This does not mean producing the Christmas Revels in those communities. Rather, Revels will partner with them to produce smaller-scale shows that can be efficiently and economically mounted, while still embodying the unique Revels performance “mix”: a large cast of all ages, including children, teens and adults; professional and amateur performers; traditional material combining music, dance and drama; and lots of audience participation.

Revels will use its quarter-century of experience to produce, design and direct the shows. The performers, rehearsal and performance facilities, production assistants, volunteers, marketing and audience will come from the partner communities.

Washington Revels has developed and adapted three separate vehicles for its Community Initiative productions. All three productions were premiered in a 4-month period between November 2006 and March 2007:

• On November 4, 2006, Washington Revels partnered with the 900-member Cedar Lane Unitarian Church in Bethesda, MD on the first Community Initiative "Festival Day.", a one-day celebration in which people signed-up in advance to participate in various Revels activities (chorus, Morris and other folk dancing, a mummers' play, instrumentalists, teen and children's group activities, and crafts) and then came together to learn some ensemble songs, broke up into rehearsal groups for their chosen activities, came back together to perform for each other, and then shared their activities in a performance for an audience of other community members. The production involved over 100 adults and 50 children from the church as performers, and the performance was attended by over 200 members of the congregation, thus touching over 25% of the parish.
• On February 3, 2007, we partnered with Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church, a 1,600-member African-American congregation in Southeast DC, in two performances of Bridges of Song in the 350-seat theater at THEARC, the remarkable community center on Mississippi Avenue, SE. The script, created by Revels, featured the music and history of that area of the city as well as of Allen Chapel. The production involved over 100 adults and 25 children from Allen Chapel as performers, and was attended by over 450 members of the church community. It also honored six elders from the Allen Chapel community whose oral interviews were taken and preserved as part of an Oral History Project introduced and supervised by Revels.
• Finally, on March 9 - 11, Revels partnered with the 3,600-member St. Columba's Episcopal Church in Northwest DC in four performances of Benjamin Britten's Noye's Fludde, a musical dramatization of the Noah's Ark story first produced in the US by Revels founder John Langstaff. With over 150 members of the congregation taking part - including 45 adults and 60 children in the cast in the cast and orchestra and the remainder assisting with the production - the four performances were seen by more than 750 attendees. All told, the production touched nearly a quarter of the parish through participation and attendance.

For more information on Washington Revels’ Community Initiative or to propose a partnership, please call 202-723-7528.

THEARC (Town Hall Education, Arts and Recreation Center)

In 2005, The Washington Revels implemented a two-phased project designed to foster the development of a performing arts community in and around THEARC (Town Hall Education, Arts and Recreation Center), a brand-new, 90,000 square-foot, $27 million community center located in Southeast Washington.

Phase I of this project culminated in two performances on Saturday, October 1, 2005, helping to inaugurate a new 350-seat theater at THEARC. The production was an adapted version of "Hidden Washington," a program seen by thousands of D.C. school students through a partnership between Revels and the Library of Congress, based on experiences of Washington's post-Civil War African-American community and incorporating material from Revels' 1998 African-American Christmas Revels. It featured Revels' Hidden Washington chorus, a dozen children performers from Southeast Washington, Rickey Payton, Sr.'s Urban Nation H.I.P.H.O.P. Choir, and actors in the roles of Frederick Douglass and pioneering Washington educator Nannie Helen Burroughs.

Phase II of the project was the February 3, 2007 production of "Bridges of Song" discussed above. Instead of the Urban Nation H.I.P.-H.O.P. Choir, the second half of the program involved performances by Allen Chapel's many choirs and dance ministries.

This project addresses two principal needs: first, to assist THEARC in becoming an important community-theater resource; and second, to expand performing arts opportunities in a section of D.C. where such opportunities
are very limited. The project seeks to address those needs in both the short and long term, in ways that will enrich and continue to enrich the local community in terms of learning and appreciating its heritage and traditions.

Recent Library of Congress Partnership

For a period of 3 years, one of the most important Washington Revels outreach activities consisted of the
educational programs developed in partnership with the Library of Congress. These programs were presented to nearly 2,000 children a year at the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium and the Smithsonian’s Discovery Theater.

They have provided children a stimulating, first-hand involvement in history and cultures from around the world, inspiring curiosity and fostering learning through the dynamic interplay of artistic performance and primary resource materials from the treasury of the Library’s collections.

The three programs presented at the Library of Congress and the Discovery Theater were:

Hidden Washington: the Alley Communities of the Nation's Capitol was based on material from the 1998 "Shepherd Alley" Christmas Revels. This interactive learning experience delves into the lives of African-American and immigrant city dwellers who shared alley neighborhoods after the Civil War. This program was also presented at Benjamin Johnson Junior High School in October 2002.

In Leonardo's Workshop: the Invention, Art and Science of Leonardo da Vinci, children met the famed genius of Italy's Renaissance, who explains the personal curiosity and scholarship that sparked his fabulous inventions. He and Revels performers concluded by leading children in a lively galliard dance.

Celtic Roots: Stories, Songs and Traditions from Across the Sea featured familiar Revels music and "The Straw Boy Mummers" along with primary source material from the Library of Congress (such as films, photographs, poems, stories and first person narratives), the program involved and engaged the children.

Streaming Webcasts of all three performances are available for viewing on the
Library of Congress LIVE Web site.

The Outreach Committee invites you to get involved and share your ideas. If you have an interest in working on one of the above activities, or can suggest community groups that would be interested in learning more about Revels, please contact please contact the Revels office at 301-587-3835.

Image credits: Top photos by Shep Ferguson

More information on "Library of Congress Live" is available on the Web at www.loc.gov/kidslc. In addition, Webcasts of all three programs are available for viewing.