Sekou Sundiata was a huge influence on us here at MAPP and we often find ourselves asking how we can continue to embody his practice of empowering diverse communities of people to explore the intricate and powerful connection between their citizenship and their creative voices.

Over the past couple years we’ve been working, with the support of Maurine Knighton, to finish a project that Sekou began: the America Project DVD.

This summer we’re finalizing the design of a package including:

• finding the 51st (dream) state,  a 30-minute documentary about the process merging civic engagement with the creation of new performance work created with producer/ director/writer Stanley Nelson of Firelight Media and accompanied by an essay by Julie Ellison, Director of Imagining America
• the full performance recording from the 51st (dream) state at Brooklyn Academy of Music in November 2006, and
• The America Project: A Teaching Method for Collaboration, Creativity and Citizenship, a guide for teachers and community organizers pursuing arts-based public exploration of the meaning of present-day U.S. citizenship.