EDUCATION

Continuum Culture & Arts artists have a 30+ year history facilitating situations in which people of all levels, abilities, and backgrounds connect with the beauty and power of drumming and a variety of artistic traditions via direct interaction with world-class, innovative artists.

Continuum and our network of artists have extensive experience providing educational programs across the US and internationally. This includes teaching at the university level, masterclasses, workshops, professional development sessions, and private lessons.

We have led programs in schools from Pre-K to Ivy League, prisons, museums, shelters for homeless people, shelters for battered women, soup kitchens, arts camps, art galleries, Indian reservations… We have worked with people with a wide-range of disabilities. We have worked in remote villages in Guatemala and Nicaragua. We have worked in dozens of universities in the US and abroad.

THE FOREST

The Forest is a collective percussion ensemble formed in 2021 featuring Gustavo Aguilar, Leah Bowden, Andrew Drury, Lesley Mok, and Michael Wimberly.

The Forest has led workshops with people in marginalized communities in Seattle, Southern California, and the Northeast and presented workshops and masterclasses for students in high schools and at Bennington College, University of Washington, Cornish College, University of California San Diego, California Institute of the Arts.

FLY!

CCA recently launched FLY!, a new initiative aimed at using drumming and public performance to positively impact a wide range of vulnerable populations and community-based human service providers across the United States. FLY! is collaborative, interactive, imaginative, emergent, and prioritizes the artistic process.

LEARN MORE ABOUT FLY!

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE FOREST

BCS/BNS

Continuum has an ongoing relationship with BCS—P448 aka “Brooklyn Collaborative Studies”—a grade 6-12 public school in Brooklyn, where we present workshops and guest artists. We have also worked with the elementary school that shares the same building, BNS—P146 aka “Brooklyn New School.”

DRUM/BRIDGE

The predecessor to FLY! from 2016-2018 DRUM/BRIDGE brought a large ensemble of highly acclaimed professional musicians together with hundreds of teens and audience members in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville, East Flatbush, Sunset Park, Red Hook, and Crown Heights.

Students performed original music developed in Continuum-led workshops, students performed with members of Andrew Drury’s Tentet, and Andrew Drury’s Tentet debuted and presented world premieres of Drury’s original music.

Participating musicians included JD Parran, Ku-umba Frank Lacy, Stephanie Griffin, Melanie Dyer, Ingrid Laubrock, Jason Kao Hwang, Alexis Marcelo, Brandon Seabrook, Stephanie Richards, Tomeka Reid, Tomas Ulrich, Briggan Krauss, Ken Filiano, Brandon Lopez, and Andrew Drury.

DRUM/BRIDGE received support from the Brooklyn Arts Council, Haitian-Americans United for Progress, the Center for Family Life “Lifelines” program, Happylucky No. 1, PS 189, PS 821, PS 136, Brooklyn New School, Brooklyn Collaborative Studies, and private donors.

DRUM/BRIDGE 2016 and 2018 were made possible by public funds from the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and from the Decentralization Program of the New York State Council on the Arts, both administered in Kings County by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC).