Arts Enterprise Zone - performing arts institutions and schools create partnership in Washington, D.C. to offer programs, performances and artist residencies

While many schools are facing an across-the-board reduction in state funding of arts education, several schools in the nation's capital are turning to an alternative source of support that isn't merely monetary. That source is the Arts Enterprise Zone, which serves as a national model for partnerships in the arts.

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Levine School of Music, the Washington Parent Group Fund and the Washington Performing Arts Society will join five public schools in the Greater Southeast area of Washington, D.C., in a season of programs and workshops culminating in musical theater, dance, drumming and storytelling performances.

The AEZ project depends on the active involvement of participating schools and their surrounding communities, with administrators, faculty and parents identifying and outlining specific needs and goals. This year's activities include a 26-week residency by master teachers of music theater and opera. Their instruction will end in March with a production of the musical review Brand New Day, which uses material from such artists as Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes.

Washington-area dancers Yvonne Edwards and Mirna Sislen, along with singer Charles Wiliams, tap dancer Savion Glover and National Dance Institute artistic director Jacques d'Amboise, are a few of the professionals also participating in this year's programs.

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