From global musician/master percussionist Tony Vacca, co-founder of The Senegal-America Project:
The SENEGAL-AMERICA PROJECT is an expandable, up-close-and-personal model for practicing the most essential and obvious principle of human interactions, which is that we are all connected. The primary goal of the project is to bring people together in meaningful collaborations that create transformational responses to what we share of common issues and common ground.
It’s Global citizenship… and we’re using music as the vehicle to set all this in motion.
There are two distinct aspects of this project; A performance troupe that features musicians, poets, and dancers from Senegal, America and beyond…. and a non-profit sponsored network of partnerships that is focused on the power of our inter-connected global citizenship to address our common issues. These include health, education, equity, access, the prevention of violence, and the practice of joyful respect for our exquisite humanity.
For us, these are totally interconnected elements: music has always been the engine of social change. When the music, the dance and the poetry bring us all together, the message is always that “we are all connected, our fates are ultimately inseparable, and the help we give becomes the help we get.”
To see our two CD recordings just go to: https://tonyvacca.bandcamp.com/album/evolution-of-the-vibe.
Ms. Jean Butler and her arts non-profit (Arts Are Essential, Inc.) are instrumental in sustaining and uniting these two aspects of our project.
In 2012 the US Embassy in Dakar Senegal funded the group’s trip to Senegal. During that stay (December 2012 to January 2013) we performed at Festival des Formes at des Rythmes du Monde, with Bideew Bou Bess on Goree Island and then at the CISES Concert Hall. We also did professional development workshops and then The Poetry Slam at AfriCultUrban, and several collaborative recordings that are part of the new Senegal-America CD for 2015.
In 2014 and again in 2015 we hosted visits to the US by the project co-founder Massamba Diop. Massamba is one of Senegal’s great masters of the tama or talking drum. We also hosted visits by Bideew Bou Bess, three Senegalese brothers whose music has made them Senegal’s favorite young singers/Hip-Hop artists. They joined with many of our US crew and together we did a series of public concerts. Venues included Smith College, Berklee College of Music, Vermont Jazz Center, The Iron Horse Music Hall, Greenfield Community College and many more. We also did performances and workshops at schools throughout the Northeast.
Next Up:
We’ve been invited back to Senegal for Le Festival des Formes et des Rhythmes du Monde. So we’re working on funding a return visit to Senegal for The Senegal-America Project’s performance troupe. In addition to performances and recordings we’re planning on doing a benefit concert supporting the prevention of malaria and domestic violence, and several additional activities that focus on big issues: a student generated live conversation on identity and global citizenship in the 21st century, a poetry exchange project, and a girls/women’s empowerment project.
If you are interested in helping to fund this extraordinary project, or if your school is interested in learning how you can be part of what we are creating, contact us at: tonyvacca@comcast.net and/or jean@arts-are-essential.org
The idea here is to continue our practice of using our music to create a sustainable blend of social entrepreneurism and effective community-based philanthropy.
So first: The non-profit aspect:
This extraordinary project has grown from the initial collaboration between Tony Vacca and Massamba Diop, into a network of musicians, teachers, social activists, schools, film makers and health care professionals. With the help of friends, investors, and partnerships, we’ve gone far beyond our modest original vision.
We’d love for you to be part of this, but first please take a look at what we’ve done:
In Senegal we have:
-Helped to fund new schools, building and staffing them in difficult inner city neighborhoods of Dakar
-Distributed 3500 mosquito nets free to residents in high risk areas
-Sponsored free health-care screenings and trained a Senegalese team to facilitate follow-up treatments
-Created six fair-trade collaborative recordings with world class performers
-Created a team of artists and schools who are part of our “Arts Exchange” project between Senegalese and American students and professional visual artists
-Have performed twice at Baaba Maal’s “Festival les Blues du Fleuve,” done a concert on national television as part of “Soiree Africain,” and have done numerous concerts and hands-on workshops at Sobobade, one of Senegal’s most distinctive arts centers.
In America we have:
-Brought our concert and workshops programs to over 500 schools, and worked with nearly 400,000 students
-Helped to create a new generation of students with hands-on experience as global citizens
-Sponsored trips to Senegal for students, teachers and parents to be hands-on participants in the work we’ve taken on in Senegal
-Done the first round of our new “Arts Exchange” project for Senegalese and American students and professional visual artists
-Done hundreds of concerts at festivals and clubs featuring our international collaborations.
The Senegal-America Project is itself a project of the 501c non-profit arts organization Arts Are Essential, Inc, so your much needed generous financial contributions are TAX DEDUCTIBLE.
You can make donations at: http://www.arts-are-essential.org/donate.html
You can also support what we do by donating services, and we truly welcome that.
About the perfomrance troupe: the music, the dance, the poetry…
As part of our project, we regularly bring visiting Senegalese artists to America for a variety of collaborations. This is an important part of how we finance the health and educational programs we’ve done. See below:
We currently offer:
-Concerts and workshop presentations in schools throughout America
-Festival performances
-Club performances
-Projects and Visions trips to Senegal: collaborations of all sorts that begin in Senegal and are designed by participants. Some past projects include music, health care, story telling, documentary films, student travel, and school partnerships.
Concert performances:
This Project really began with music. The connections and friendships that grew from the music soon fostered collaborations that spawned concert performances and a great recording (The Senegal-America Project, 2001). From all this, we have created the performance spectacle called The Senegal-America Project.
The groups and special guests who perform in concert as “The Senegal-America Project” include Tony Vacca’s World Rhythms Ensemble, one of Senegal’s most popular and innovative bands called Bideew Bou Bess, West African Rap/Hip-Hop pioneers Gokh-bi System, saxophonist Charles Neville of The Neville Brothers tama master Massamba Diop, Senegalese dancer Abdou Sarr, and poets Abiodun Oyewole (of the Last Poets), Tantra Zawadi, and Magdalena Gomez.
A wide variety of “hands-on” workshops can be included as part of these programs when feasible.
To book The Senegal-America Project please contact the following:
For Festivals, Colleges, Clubs & Performing Arts concerts
Contact: Tony Vacca/World Rhythms
phone/fax: 413-665-1067 tonyvacca@comcast.net
For School Programs:
Contact: Jean Butler Arts are Essential, Inc.
jean@arts-are-essential.org phone/fax: 978-263-0108
To learn more, please visit us on line: Senegal-America Project
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