The Apollo pronounces the launch of Apollo Tales, an interactive digital studying hub that goals to attach college students and educators throughout the nation with the applications and legacy of the famed Apollo, offering lesson plans, sources and actions that discover themes of social justice, cultural change, id and extra.
The inaugural classes are constructed round The Apollo’s world premiere stage adaptation of Ta Nehisi-Coates’ Between the World and Me. Geared in direction of activating and amplifying the voices of excessive school-aged college students, this system displays The Apollo’s dedication to using the humanities and humanities to foster dialog centered within the Black expertise—all whereas creating an expansive and generative neighborhood for instructing, studying, creativity, self-expression, and for giving younger folks a framework to grasp and navigate points of latest America. The Apollo Tales challenge is now reside at tales.apollotheater.org.
“Apollo Tales will contribute to The Apollo’s imaginative and prescient for a brand new, various American canon and domesticate forward-looking conversations on subjects about race, id, and creative expression. We’re launching within the midst of a motion to ban books and curriculum on the Black expertise—together with Between the World and Me—from our public colleges. These troubling actions are a reminder that the work of overcoming social injustice is much from over,” mentioned Kamilah Forbes, The Apollo’s Govt Producer. “Now greater than ever, there’s a neighborhood want for discourse on Black historical past and Black creative expression, for which The Apollo has been a neighborhood hub for many years.”
The brand new educator-created initiative supplies educators with methods, lesson plans, and writing prompts adaptable to educator’s curriculum that discover themes of Black pleasure and resilience, in addition to troublesome subject material together with inequity and types of trauma. The primary classes of Apollo Tales, centered on the critically acclaimed e-book Between the World and Me, examines the Black American expertise within the type of a letter from creator Ta-Nehisi Coates to his teenage son, navigating among the most urgent and difficult questions on America’s historical past and beliefs. This system will deal with three crucial themes from the textual content—race, the Black physique, and the American dream—by way of greater than 30 classes, workshops, and actions. In future iterations of Apollo Tales, college students shall be inspired so as to add their unique works to the platform, incorporating younger voices into the platform.
Following Between the World and Me, Apollo Tales will launch classes centered on the brand new musical work The Renaissance Mixtape, a collaboration between the nonprofit and music and multimedia group Soul Science Lab. New tasks shall be added on a rolling foundation.
Behind the curation of those lesson plans is a rotating cohort of “fellows” chosen by The Apollo that signify a cross part of educators from throughout the nation, spanning New York Metropolis to Mississippi to Georgia and the Bay Space. Following publication of the lesson plans, all collaborating educators are invited to develop upon the fabric and submit their very own concepts and associated classes, in addition to the ensuing scholar work, organically rising the catalog of shared content material. The Apollo will average all submitted content material.
The Apollo Tales challenge is led by The Apollo Schooling Division, Arts Educator Benton Greene and Apollo arts advisor James Kass. The initiative is supported by JPMorgan Chase and the Ella Fitzgerald Basis, together with a handful of neighborhood companions together with: The Kennedy Heart, The Black Instructor Mission, Nationwide Fairness Mission, The XQ Institute, Vibrant Analysis Group, and Youth Speaks/ Courageous New Voices.
“At this pivotal second in our nation’s historical past concerning the difficulty of race, it’s important that we offer educators, mother and father, and college students with significant sources and information to encourage dialog and assist construct bridges between various communities, mentioned Justin Grant, Govt Director of Neighborhood Improvement for JPMorgan Chase’s Advancing Black Pathways. “We’re proud to help and amplify the Apollo Tales challenge, which is according to our mission to advertise racial fairness within the communities we serve. We anticipate that this endeavor can have an enduring, far-reaching affect for generations to return.”
As Apollo’s Artist-in-Residence from 2019-2023, Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ongoing collaboration with The Apollo contains the upcoming [at] The Intersection: The Apollo’s Inaugural Pageant of Arts & Concepts, in addition to previous onstage conversations with Oprah Winfrey about his debut novel The Water Dancer; and Lupita Nyong’o and the late Chadwick Boseman concerning the movie Black Panther. Between the World and Me additionally premiered on HBO, in a particular directed by Apollo’s Govt Producer Kamilah Forbes that mixes components of The Apollo’s manufacturing, highly effective readings from the e-book, and documentary footage.
