Guided Search: Community Arts, Immigrants

MISSION STATEMENT

Multicultural Arts Exchange of CultureTrust Greater Philadelphia is a diverse, professional, cross-cultural arts organization that serves the community by presenting, producing and promoting traditional and contemporary performing and visual arts to the underserved population in Greater Northeast and surrounding areas.

VISION STATEMENT

The South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) was founded in 2008 in order to document and provide access to the diverse and relatively unknown stories of South Asian Americans. Our collection reflects the vast range of experiences of the South Asian diaspora in the United States, including those who trace their heritage to Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the many South Asian diaspora communities across the globe.

Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists is a member based organization that seeks to build community through Pan- Asian performing arts that otherwise lack economic and artistic support. They do this through programming events, creating performance opportunities, and grassroots organizing. 

Laos in the House is a nonprofit organization that uses storytelling and the arts to continue the cultural legacy of Lao Americans. 

Courtyard Dancers is a non-profit Kathak dance company based in Philadelphia and Kolkata. We are especially interested in working with poetic forms in Kathak dance styles such as Ghazal, Thumri and Qawwali for exploring emotional landscapes of love, justice, humanism, and hope. Our dance-theater creations juxtapose the beauty of the classical forms with everyday movements to envision our own collages of life. We strive to make dance relevant to lived and diverse experiences of our lives, both ordinary and unique. While we work with Indian dance forms that are rooted in traditions, we are continuously searching to mold them to express the contemporary. We believe that tradition and contemporary are not oppositional, but are best understood as legacies, connections, and transformations.