Cross-Cultural Dialogue through the Arts, develops and creates collaborations betweeen disparate communities. Conceived by Judith Sloan, Cross-Cultural Dialogue Through the Arts (CCDTA) is a training and mentorship program for college students and high school students to work under the direction of professional artists. CCDTA is currently offering a unique hands-on opportunity for graduate and undergraduate college students to work in teams as mentors and performance collaborators with new immigrant teenagers through a multi-media arts and theatre project at the Queens International High School. Students from 50 different countries, speaking almost as many languages and dialects, populate QIHS. A sister project to Crossing the BLVD, (CCDTA) iis currently avialable to all New York City area college students to participate as an indpendent study or an internship. CCDTA is consists of weekly theatre, dialogue and writing classes that culminate in a public performance. Currently open to New York City college students, Queens International High School Students and high school students at several other area high schools. College students train in theatre, writing, oral history, community organizing, interviewing techniques, performance and documentary art. Students also study issues of immigration and the changing face of America. This unique collaboration across cultures also gives immigrant teenagers exposure to a world of higher education which is often closed to them. Theatre exercises in improvisation, characterization, humor, storytelling, and conflict resolution are used to develop monologues and scenes. Students form creative teams to produce and document the final performances and public dialogues. The workshops take place in a theatre at La Guardia Community College in Queens. For young people interested in performing and multi-media arts as well as human rights and community organizing. Participants in the fall and spring 2004/2005 included students from New York University, SUNY Empire, and Queens International High School.

Cross-Cultural Dialogue Through the Arts is a partnership between EarSay, the Queens International High School, New York University's Bronfman Center for Jewish Life, and LaGuardia Community College Theatre. Cross-Cultural Dialogue Through the Arts is expanding to include partnerships with the Queens Museum of Art, Newcomers High School and Briarwood Middle School, serving over 400 students. The project is made possible with support from the Independence Community Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Center for Arts Education, the Laura B. Vogel Foundation, Citibank, and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. If you are interested in supporting the project or would like to particpage please contact us.

Contact: /i> info@earsay.org

In this slide lecture presentation, Warren Lehrer discusses his own work in relation to other works of visual literature from cave paintings, illuminated manuscripts and comic books - to the burgeoning field of artists' books, public textworks and interactive hypertexts. Lehrer expounds on his obsession with capturing the shape of thought and reuniting the pictorial and oral roots of storytelling with the printed word, as well as his pilgrimage with language through art, music and theater into literature. As part of the lecture he performs excerpts from selected books and scores. Geared primarily for colleges, art schools, arts organizations, audiences of artists, designers, writers, readers and educators. A lecture presentation can also be combined with a Crossing the BLVD or Portrait Series performance, and/or workshops. Workshops include:

• Scoring from Life: Typographic/Writing workshop
• Writing and Designing the Visual Book
• Object/Text - Text/Object
• Writing from the Inside Out - Personal Narrative Into Art

Booking Contact: info@earsay.org

Judith Sloan presents a lecture demonstration looking at ethics and politics in performance and expressive documentary projects that use oral history as source material. Questions of who owns a story, responsibility of the author/artist to the subject, ethical decisions involved in using "real" peopleÕs stories. A look at oral history projects in theatre, film, books and radio and how those projects impact the lives of the subjects as well as the artists. Sloan performs excerpts from EarSay projects and discusses the work of Studs Terkel, Anna Deveare Smith, Dave Isay among others. Geared primarily for universities, theatre programs, audiences of documentary artists, writers, actors, educators. A lecture presentation can also be combined with a Crossing the BLVD performance.

Booking Contact: info@earsay.org