Members of the Boyle Heights-based band Cuicani lead a collective songwriting workshop for youth at Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory, as part of ACTA's Engaging Cultural Assets Project, in partnership with the California Endowment's Building Healthy Communities Initiative.  Photo: Sara Aguilar

WATCH :: Collective Songwriting in Boyle Heights

ACTA's ongoing work in Boyle Heights with The California Endowment's Building Healthy Communities initiative has allowed us to support traditional artists' efforts to further develop cultural convening methodologies.  Most evident is the Collective Songwriting processes that have facilitated many important conversations.  These methods are drawing from embodied knowledge to engage community members, organizers, youth, educators, and many more in conversations about youth advocacy, Prop 47, DACA/DAPA, the Local Control Funding Formula, health care access, and restorative justice practices in schools.  The traditional forms that are informing these processes include Son Jarocho, Chican@ music, Corridos, Cumbia, and Hip Hop.  The spaces created during these processes support bonding and bridging, incite the imagination in a multitude of ways, and create a horizontal space where artists can be in community with music and vice versa.

Read More    



Photo courtesy of Patricia Miye Wakida  

ACTA Welcomes New Development and Donor Engagement Manager Patricia Miye Wakida
 
ACTA is excited to welcome its newest staff member Patricia Miye Wakida.  As ACTA's Development and Donor Engagement Manager, Patricia will be working in close partnership with Executive Director Amy Kitchener to spearhead the implementation of the organization's fundraising activities.

Read More    



Kumu Betty Ann Bruno was one of many culture bearers to participate in the second annual Kapil'i Polynesian workshops organized in Berkeley by the Mahea Uchiyama Center for International Dance, a 2015 Living Cultures awardee.
Photo: Craig Scheiner 
 

Webinars in English and Spanish :: Information on Funding Opportunities for 2017
 
Join us for a webinar to learn more about ACTA and its funding for folk and traditional artists through our Apprenticeship Program and Living Cultures Grants Program. Application deadline for both programs is July 15, 2016.

Webinars will be held on on May 31 or June 9 (English) or June 2 (Spanish).

Read More    



Dancers perform samba de roda, a traditional dance and music genre from Brazil.  Photo: Luciana Batista, 2008
 

 
Please join ACTA for our 2016-17 Roundtable Series in Los Angeles County. The Series is designed to strengthen intercultural arts networks and to offer opportunities for traditional and tradition-based artists and arts advocates to learn from one another through intimate discussion, technical assistance, skill-building, networking, and sharing community-based arts and culture.

The Roundtable Series in Los Angeles County will kick off this summer with two events -- Bantu: The Central African Legacy in Afro-Latin Popular Music on June 12 and Turntables and Traditional Music: Exploring Multiculturalism Through Vinyl Records on July 14 -- and will continue to offer programs throughout the year at various arts venues.


Read More    






ACTA's Living Cultures Grants Program
Deadline: July 15, 2016

ACTA's Apprenticeship Program
Deadline: July 15, 2016