HISTORY

WORLD STAGE PERFORMANCE GALLERY

"Seeking Light Through Sound"

The World Stage is an educational and performance arts gallery in Leimert Park Village, the heart of LA's African American cultural community. The Stage, as it is affectionately called, was founded in 1989 by the late world renowned master jazz drummer Billy Higgins and by poet and community arts activist Kamau Daáood in an attempt to fill a cultural void that existed in the Los Angeles community. Initially formed as a loose collective of artists and arts supporters, the World Stage has grown to assume a pioneering and pivotal role in the flowering of an arts movement in Leimert Park that has been hailed as the black cultural mecca by the Los Angeles Times.

Today the World Stage is a non-profit organization with a daily schedule of public workshops and programs in music and literature, concerts, jam sessions, master classes, readings and rehearsals and home to a talented lists of musicians, poets, writers, singers, and storytellers.

The mission of the World Stage is to provide leadership to secure, preserve and advance the position of African American music, literature and works in the oral tradition to a local, national and international audience by providing workshops where classic and emerging forms of creative expression can be supported and presented.

The World Stage represents art as a vital force for the cohesion and health of the community and an essential tool to build bridges of understanding between various cultures. As an educational center and performance gallery, The World Stage fosters exchange and interaction between artists of all levels, from beginning to advanced, and provides a place for self-discovery, experimentation and critical feedback with an expressive audience in a nourishing environment.

Through its educational programs in music and literature for youth and adults, The World Stage embraces, nurtures, and links youth with elders in the African American cultural tradition. Performance and education blend perfectly in master classes. Our master classes which have been conducted by musicians such as Max Roach, Ron Carter, Elvin Jones, and Geri Allen and literary giants such as Sonia Sanchez, the Watts Poets, the Watts Prophets, Yusef Komunyakaa and South African revolutionary poet Keopisitle Kgositsile, all who have graced the Stage with their wisdom and spirit. The fruits of this fertile mixture flower in World Stage alumni who hone and have honed their musical and performance skills through training and exposure here in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles. Some of these artists include musical groups B Sharp Jazz Quartet, Young World Stage All-Stars and Black Note; bestselling authors Michael Datcher and Jenoyne Adams; Pulitzer Prize nominee Ruth Forman; vocalist Dwight Trible; Sundance Film Fellow Nyesha Khalfani; author, poet, publisher and radio personality Peter J. Harris and many others.

The history of the World Stage is built on the contributions of many talented artists. Some of those contributors include the great pianist, composer and spiritual force, the late Horace Tapscott; drummer Cornel Fauler, who founded the weekly jam sessions and Masters series; Akilah Nayo Oliver, Nafis Nabawi, Anthony Lyons and Michael Datcher who along with Kamau Daáood founded and developed the Anansi Writers Workshop; and Don Muhammad who served as manager for the last decade. These and countless others are the unsung heroes of the World Stage Arts Education & Performance Gallery.

We also give special acknowledgement to the efforts of Executive Director Clint Rosemond, Carmella Blackwell, Kamau Daáood, Board President Tarabu Betserai Kirkland and the entire World Stage Board of Directors for stabilizing the organization and maintaining its vision. "The World Stage Performance Gallery is not a space but a spirit."