|
| |
|
First Lady Michelle Obama Presents 2009 Coming Up Awards at White House Ceremony
 PCAH Co-Chairmen George Stevens, Jr. and Margo
Lion open the White House ceremony and welcome the Coming Up Taller
awardees.
“This year's Coming Up Taller Awardees exemplify how arts and humanities programs outside of the school setting can impact the lives of our young people,” said Margo Lion, Co-Chairman, President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. “By exciting imaginations and providing opportunities for self-expression through the disciplines of theater, dance, music and literature, these exceptional programs offer their participants windows on possibility and a belief in a more positive future.” The field of cultural after-school programs is as diverse as the needs of the young people they serve. The 2009 Coming Up Taller awards honor programs whose settings range from both inner-city and rural cultural institutions to juvenile detention centers to libraries and museums. Whether they be part of an arts apprentice program, a poetry slam, or an intensive after-school curriculum focusing on literature, the participants in these Coming Up Taller programs all share a common experience summed up by First Lady Michelle Obama in her remarks to the awardees: “Each of your programs is using achievement in the arts as a bridge to achievement in life. . . .You help them see beyond the circumstances of their lives to the world of possibility that awaits them.”  CUT award winner Express Yourself performs at
the Coming Up Taller Gala.
Two of the programs honored at the White House, Express Yourself and Citywide Poets, performed the previous evening at a gala honoring all the recipients at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Gallery. Like other programs honored by Coming Up Taller, Express Yourself uses the discipline of the arts and humanities to engage young people in collaborative projects, in this case creating an annual multidisciplinary performance of dance, music and visual arts at Boston's Wang Center.  Coming
Up Taller recognizes exceptional programs from the U.S., like Higher
Achievement (above), and three other countries like China's Green
Path of Art (below), and awardees from Mexico and Egypt.
 Each program will receive $10,000 in honor of their accomplishments
in enriching the lives of young people and their communities. Organizations
from the U.S. receiving awards included the following: TAG
Teen Program, Willcox, AZ; Art a la
Carte, Dorchester, MA; Higher
Achievement, Washington, D.C; Sitar
Arts Center, Washington, D.C.;
Yollocalli Arts Reach, Chicago, IL; Citywide
Poets, Detroit, MI; Express
Yourself, Inc., Beverly, MA; Young
Chicago Authors, Chicago, IL; Outreach
Program with Incarcerated Youth, Albuquerque, NM; Epic
Theatre Ensemble's Shakespeare Remix Program, New York, NY;
Girls Write Now Mentoring Program,
New York, NY; Young Artists Apprenticeship,
Houston, TX; New Urban Arts,
Providence, RI; Old Brick Playhouse
Company, Elkins, WV; Harmony
Project, Los Angeles, CA. The four international programs receiving
awards included Mexico's Estrellas Con Angel and Radiombligo; China's
Green Path of Art—Arts Training for Youth in Sichuan; and Egypt's
Alwan wa Awtar. See Also:Coming Up Taller Award
Recipients 2009 |
|
“That's
what these Coming Up Taller Awards are all about. You ask our young people
to dream, and you give them the tools to fulfill those dreams. You affirm
that their contributions are valuable, and their success matters to all
of us.“--First Lady Michelle Obama, Coming Up Taller ceremony November
4