Stax, New Ballet, And Lionheart Will Collaborate On New Project

The New Ballet Ensemble and School, the Stax Music Academy, and Lionheart Live Arts & Youth Theatre are excited to announce their upcoming project collaboration and receipt of the National Map Creation Fund Award.

Every year, The Map Creation Fund awards 40 collaborative projects for their artistic innovation and ability to interrogate and redefine notions of cultural agency and experimentation. Out of 800 applicants from across the United States, an upcoming Memphis collaboration between Lionheart Live Arts & Youth Theatre, New Ballet Ensemble & School, and the Stax Music Academy joins this year's list of creative changemakers in the performing arts field.

I'll Take You There will be an immersive performance facilitated by the team of LL&YT and created in collaboration with young participants from the NBE and Soulsville community. The project is currently recruiting 30 High School artists, from both organizations to participate in a Summer workshop and co-create the performance, which will take place Oct 19th, during the Soulsville USA festival.

The summer intensive runs July 8th -26th. LLYT will offer daily workshops facilitated by local and national artists in writing, documentary theatre, and improv. Young participants will also have the opportunity to interview community residents, as well as Stax and Hi Recording Artists, in order to co-create a series of pieces that will explore and celebrate the community narratives of Soulsville USA.

All youth participating in the creation of this piece will receive a monetary stipend to honor their participation and creative contributions to this project.

Applications are now live. Deadline to Apply is April 8st

Applicants will be invited to audition for the program during these dates:

Friday April 12th: Stax Music Academy : Time TBA
Saturday April 13th: New Ballet Ensemble & School : 10 AM

Quote from /Lionheart/--"The LionHeart Team is thrilled to begin working in Memphis with this project, and grateful for the opportunity to work with two institutions that we have long admired. We want our work in theatre to contribute to a culture where the young people in our community have a valued voice and a seat at the table in the creative process as well as the world. We explore these values by sharing tools and creating work with young people through a democratic and inclusive process that is designed to instigate curiosity in the audiences we build, as well as the artists and youth we collaborate with." -Emily Marks, Executive & Artistic Director

Quote from NBE/- This project has the potential to bring together dozens of artistic Memphis youth to create together, expand their artistic reach across multiple disciplines and grow with peers from many different backgrounds. As a creative youth development organizations, we are excited to be involved with a project that is so directly related to our mission and the educational goals of our city. -- Alexis Jackson, Director of Creative Youth Development

Quote from Stax Music Academy: The Soulsville Foundation's Stax Music Academy regularly collaborates with other music organizations from around the world and we are particularly excited to be working with community partners we admire so much who are based here in Memphis and who have a keen interest in the Soulsville USA community surrounding the academy and our Stax Museum of American Soul Music. It's a culturally vibrant and historic neighborhood that lauched the careers of some of the most icon musical artists in history, and we are happy to celebrate that going into the future.