BLACK SWAN ARTS & MEDIA

OAKLAND, California, 94602-2415 United States

Mission Statement

Black Swan Arts & Media creates and produces original performance and multimedia works that travel beyond borders of race, religion, culture and politics—from real-life immigrant stories to the post 9/11 wars to the environment.

About This Cause

Black Swan started in 2004 as an arts education provider - a grassroots consortium of parents, teachers and artists committed to bringing the arts to underserved kids. Helen Stoltzfus created The Ancestor Project, an oral history theatre program for 2nd and 3rd graders. Over a six-year period, we collected more than 400 oral histories that spanned the globe from Yemen to Guatemala, and from Cambodia to East Texas. Those narratives became the genesis of our first performance work, HEART OF AMERICA: Stories from the New Ellis Island. It brought 30 immigrant stories to life through music, dance, aerial arts, puppetry, and video effects. That, in turn, gave rise to a program for public radio, INVISIBLE AMERICANS: Stories from the New Immigrants that continues to be broadcast nationally. Our education program had a long and fruitful run, serving more than 12,000 children in the San Francisco Bay Area. But our focus has shifted full-time to our production arm. We are very grateful to all those who allowed us to bring the arts into their communities. We have then embarked on two seemingly disparate projects. One was an exploration of the post-9/11 wars, called, THE PREPARED TABLE: A Feast of Foods, Live Performance and Stories from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the FOB (Forward Operating Base of the U.S. Military). The other is THE LOST AMERICAN JAZZBOOK,winner of “Jazz Vocal Album of the Year” from the 14th Independent Music Awards.

BLACK SWAN ARTS & MEDIA
P.o. Box 2736
OAKLAND, California 94602-2415
United States
Phone 5105017766
Unique Identifier 203634089