Arts Workshops
We conduct four-day workshops with students in townships outside of Cape Town and Durban, South Africa. The workshops include acting, dance, singing and playwriting classes, culminating in a performance for the community where the students showcase what they've learned and a graduation ceremony, which includes a certificate of completion and class photo, so they can celebrate what they’ve accomplished. In addition to the classes, students receive breakfast, lunch, and snacks and a Broadway in South Africa t-shirt. These programs are completely free of charge to the students.
Our 2011 workshop series will include a leadership component for our older students. To deepen our commitment to creating cross-cultural exchange, our goal is to fly some of those students to New York in October to participate in our annual benefit gala, see Broadway shows, take classes congruent with our curriculum, and have them work with our New York-based students.
Community Outreach
We visit and conduct condensed versions of our arts workshops at schools, child crisis centers, churches and community centers in townships throughout South Africa. BSA has worked with over 1,000 children and young adults, many of whom have been directly affected by HIV/AIDS, violence and/or poverty. Though South Africa is seen by many as a tourist attraction and is touted as being the conduit of economic resurgence for the continent, there are hundreds of thousands of people living in third-world country-like conditions and the majority of our students represent that demographic.
Benefit Concerts
We present concerts in New York City and throughout South Africa to generate awareness and funding for our projects. Our concerts in South Africa put a spotlight on our efforts to create and encourage a cross-cultural exchange by performing alongside local South African artists, such as theatre luminaries Mary Rayment, Samantha Peo, Shaun V, and performance troupe Siyaya.
In New York, we perform throughout the year, most notably at our annual gala concert presented in October at the Manhattan Center. We choose ten songwriters to compose original pieces specifically for this event, based on essays and letters from our students at the Theo Twala Primary School outside of Johannesburg. The world-premiere songs are then sung by Broadway notables, such as Tony Award winner Alice Ripley.
In addition, this year’s concert featured a number of high-profile celebrities, such as AIDS activist Sandra Thurman, award-winning singer/songwriters Deborah Cox and Lance Bass, and Tony Award-winner Melba Moore. This year’s gala was sponsored by Hugo Boss and included the presentation of the first “Grande Award for Commitment to Youth Education and Development Through the Arts” to producer Michael Butler.
BSA also presented two sold-out benefit concerts at New York’s exclusive venue The Box, featuring performances by award-winning actress and model Brooke Shields and pop sensation Tiffany.
For each of our concerts and events, all of the performers and composers/songwriters volunteer their time and talents for our cause.
