Spotlight On
October 1, 2007
Organization Name: Sitar Arts Center
Founded: 1998
Contact Person: Ed Spitzberg, Executive Director
Address: 1700 Kalorama Road, N.W., Suite 101
Washington, DC 20009
Phone: 202/797-2145 ext. 100
Fax: 202/483-0789
E-mail: ed@sitarartscenter.org
URL: http://www.sitarartscenter.org/
Mission:
Sitar Arts Center provides young people in its inner-city community the opportunity to discover their gifts in the visual and performing arts. The Center's programs are built on the knowledge that exposure to the arts dramatically enhances learning skills, cognitive development, social awareness and self esteem.
Background:
Sitar Arts Center provides children and youth residing in Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant with the opportunity to discover their gifts in the visual and performing arts. The Center was founded by Rhonda Buckley in response to an intense community need for affordable arts education programs and safe after-school spaces for the economically disadvantaged. In less than a decade, the Center has grown tremendously from serving 50 children in the basement of a small subsidized apartment building in 2000-2001 to offering more than 500 students a multidisciplinary arts program in a state-of-the-arts facility in 2006-2007. A semi-finalist for the 2006 Coming Up Taller Award, Sitar Arts Center was distinguished by the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities as one of the top after-school arts program nationwide.
It is the Center's policy that a minimum of 80% of students come from low-income families, defined as 60% of the Districts's median income. Many families survive on as little as $14,000 a year making the cost of arts education at traditional venues prohibitively expensive. While it costs Sitar Arts Center approximately $1,000 per student each semester, families who fall into the low-income bracket pay from $15 to $55 per 16 week semester for unlimited classes. Families with higher incomes pay from $95 to $295 per 16 week semester. Sitar Arts Center fills a dual need by supplying a safe after-school haven and affordable arts education programs for these economically disadvantaged families.
Current Programs:
Sitar Arts Center provides multidisciplinary arts instruction across two academic semesters and a summer session. Programs are taught in collaboration with 120 volunteer artists and nine institutional partners that include Arena Stage, CityDance Ensemble, Corcoran Museum-Corcoran ArtReach, National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, National Symphony Orchestra, The Shakespeare Theater, The Washington Ballet, Washington National Opera and Washington Performing Arts Society. Each semester the following programs are offered:
- More than 60 classes in dance, theater, music, creative writing and the visual and digital arts are offered each semester.
- Nearly 120 individual instrumental music lessons are taught each semester in combination with coursework in music theory.
- Free monthly performances for students that have included Step Afrika, Cambodian-American rapper praCh, Sitar Arts Center's faculty, WPAS' Quintago, and NSO's Flute and Oboe Duo.
- Each summer, Sitar Arts Center produces a musical that brings together students and community member together from across the artistic disciplines. Past performances have included You're a Good Man Charlie Brown (2007), Once Upon a Mattress (2006) and The Wiz (2005).
- The Early Childhood Music program is designed to provide interaction between children (ages pre-natal through pre-school) and their care givers through song, play, movement and story telling.
- The Teen Initiative is an effort to boost enrollment of adolescents by providing them with opportunities to apply their technical skills in the arts to potential career opportunities through classes such as Entrepreneurship in the Arts, Emerging Art Leaders, graphic design, web design, music production and flash animation.
Funding Needs:
In order to offer high-quality arts education programs and to meet the organizational benchmark that 80% of students are from low-income households, Sitar Arts Center must raise more than $1 million annually to substantially subsidize students' tuition.
The "Spotlight On" highlights the
activities of a different 501(c)3 nonprofit organization
serving the Metropolitan Washington, DC community.
The selection of organizations for the "Spotlight
On" is based on criteria such as programmatic
interests, geographic focus, and size, to ensure
the broadest possible representation of the region's
nonprofit sector.
If you'd like to see your NPO in the "Spotlight,"
e-mail a description of your organization, following
the above format, to dclibrary@foundationcenter.org,
with "Spotlight Submission" in the subject line.
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