Express Yourself Milwaukee celebrates the creative arts to transform the lives of underserved urban youth in the Milwaukee community.
Express Yourself immerses young people into the creative world of music, dance and visual arts, and empowers these youth with life changing results while celebrating cultural diversity and collaboration.
The organizational mission is to utilize the artistic process to enact change by:
1) Nurturing the artistic, social, and emotional development of at-risk youth.
2) Teaching the value of self-expression and community participation.
3) Creating positive relationships that reflect the diversity of our community.
4) Contributing to the cultural life of Milwaukee.
5) Enhancing academic and social progress.
6) Performing for the community at-large.
7) Decreasing the isolation that poverty and violence create.
8) Building the self-esteem of youth through the creation of art.
EYM provides multi-disciplinary arts programming to over 800 at-risk youth annually through weekly group sessions on-site at our 6 partnering organizations or in our community studio. Sessions are led by a core team of 3-4 artists from our artistic staff. In May the year culminates with an annual performance with over 150 youth on-stage.
Throughout the year EYM also holds monthly Saturday in the Studio workshops featuring a specific artistic discipline with featured guest artists. Summer programming is carried out in a 6 week Multi-Arts Camp. EYM offers an invigorating strategy to enhance school performance, ensure opportunities for self-expression, and increase access to other aspects of community life.
The program is not a substitute for arts education, but rather an intervention tool to reverse negative patterns and create alternatives for healthy futures.
OPEN STUDIO
Afterschool multi-arts group in the studio open to all youth. Explores the creative arts through our theme LIFTED with an introduction to music, visual art, dance, poetry/spoken word and theatre led by a team of professional EYM artists.
SEPTEMBER 26 - DECEMBER 12
MONDAYS 3:45 - 4:45PM
GIRLS SEWING
Sewing circle in the studio open to young women and girls. Be in the company of other women, while exploring varied medias with a focus on handsewing techniques.
MONDAYS 5:00 - 6:00PM
VIDEO ANIMATION - 6 WEEK COURSE
Video animation short course in the studio open to all youth. Led by EYM Artist, Jamal Currie (Assistant Professor, Time-Based Media, MIAD) participants will be involved in creating backdrops, developing scenes, storylines and learn how to create an animated video. Product focused--a collective video piece will be created during the course of this group.
Committement to full six weeks strongly encouraged.
OCTOBER 18 - NOVEMBER 22
TUESDAYS 5:30 - 6:30PM
SATURDAY IN THE STUDIOS
Series of monthly Saturday workshops featuring an EYM resident artist or special guest artists. Each workshop explores a partiular artistic discipline with a product driven focus.
(MUSIC) DEBO & FENDIKA - OCTOBER 22, 2011
(CERAMICS) MUNEER BAHAUDDEEN - NOVEMBER TBA
(OPEN HOUSE DECEMBER 17, 2011
ON-SITE
EYM also brings a Team of Artists into the following partner/community agencies around the city, where we serve youth either on-site at the agency or school or youth come to our studio for regular weekly multi-arts programming. Each of these sites explores the annual theme LIFTED and participants in the May Show.
Milwaukee County Juvenile Detention Center
Eighth Street School/Project STAY/New School for Community Service
St. Aemilian-Lakeside
Our Next Generation CLC
Running Rebels Community Organization
Copper Lake/Lincoln Hills
Westside Academy
Express Yourself Milwaukee is the first affiliate chapter of the award winning Boston based organization Express Yourself, Inc. (2010 Presidential Coming Up Taller Award in Arts & Humanities).
After 9 years of success after becoming incorporated in March 2003, EYM has grown to serve 7 partner organizations, agencies and schools annually reaching over 800 youth annually.
In a given program year, Express Yourself Milwaukee serves over 800 youth ages 7-21 in the Milwaukee urban area. Based on information gathered in previous years, the demographics of EYM participants are as follows:
55% male, 45% female; 85% African-American, 0% Caucasian, 5% Latino/Asian/Native American; 95% from low-income families; 75% of the youth served are involved in special education programming, 80% are or have been involved in delinquency and court services.
Express Yourself Milwaukee is supported in part by grants from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts
Greater Milwaukee Foundation
Bouman Dohner Family Fund
Jean Tibbs Geilfuss Fund
Sophie M Freeman Fund
Walter and Olive Stiemke Fund
Mary L. Nohl Fund
Northwestern Mutual Foundation
Racine Dominican Mission Fund
MPS Partnership for the Arts
Non-Profit Management Fund
Helen Bader Foundation
NIDC and the City of Milwaukee
Wisconsin Energy Foundation
With sponsorship from:
InTren
KS Energy Services
InterCon Construction
We Energies
Enterforce
President
Lori Vance
Eastlake Counseling/Consulting
Vice President
Elizabeth Schoone
Neeskara School
Treasurer
Gail DeVeau
Secretary
Jennifer Morrison
Directors:
Alethea Biles
Community Arts Advocate
Michael DeBoer
Sweat Equity
Mary Triggiano
Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Fred Gustafson
Psychotherapist
Brian Dietz
Enterprise Risk Management/Wells Fargo
Please join us for our annual fundraising dinner! Always a good time, fun, food, entertainment, silent auction -- don't miss it. Featuring our very own EYM Band!
Mark your calendars!
Turner Hall Ballroom
March 1, 2012
6PM
RESERVE TICKETS HERE
A series of monthly master class style guest artist or featured artist workshops. Each month explores a particular artistic discipline with a focus on product.
To pre-register please call 414.272.3498 or
email Holly Haebig at
holly at expressyourselfmilwaukee.org
TBA
February 2012 TBA
12-3PM
March 2012 TBA
April 2012 TBA
STUDIO OPEN HOUSE
Saturday December 17, 2011
Please join us for our annual holiday season event -- an open house in our studio. Open to the community at large. Come and see our space, our newly remodeled floor and enjoy an informal showcase of youth work from the Fall semester.
Arts activities and family fun!
Please join us for our annual culminating performance! It is the cohesion of a years work and the culmination of the year, allowing the youth invovled to demonstrate the skills and talents thay have worked so diligently to learn.
Over 150 youth representing all of our program sites perform on stage with the artistic staff.
Mark your calendars! Reserve tickets here.
MATC's Cooley Auditorium
WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 2011
12PM - Invited Dress Rehersal
6PM - Show
is the county transitional facility for youth awaiting adjudication.
Eighth Street School / Project STAY / New School for Community Service
offer alternative high school programs to youth ages 16 to 21, who are at risk of dropping out of school. The programming strives to change failure into success by helping students make positive connections with school, vocational training, employers and work, mentors and tutors, families, and our community.
provides innovative family-centered care and educational services that embrace diversity and empower children, families, and adults to improve the quality of their lives.
is a community learning center providing quality academic support and life skills programs to urban children and youth, from pre-K through 12th grades attending Schools around the city, through tutoring and guidance of volunteers.
is located on 13th and Fond du Lac and offers mentoring, tutoring, crisis stabilization, anger management, daily living skills, after-school and summer safe and sound program for high-risk youth and additional programs for serious chronic offenders and firearm offenders.
Copper Lake/Lincoln Hills School
provides community protection and holds youth fully responsible for their behaviors while offering them skill-building opportunities that contribute to victim and community restoration. Lincoln Hills School opened in the summer of 1970. From 1972 through 1994, both boys and girls were placed in the institution. In 2011, Copper Lake School for Girls opened at the Lincoln Hills site. LHS also serves as a secure detention resource for nearby counties.
provides a fundamental education that emphasizes the mastery of basic and higher-order thinking skills in the areas of mathematics, reading, writing, and science. A highly structured environment for students in Head Start through eighth grade is provided.
MS, LCSW, ATR, Lori serves as Executive Director, Artistic Director and President of the Board of Directors. She is a nationally known art therapist with 20 years of experience in Milwaukee, a Clinic Director of Eastlake Counseling and an engaged visual artist.
BFA, Visual Artist, is a ceramicist, muralist and visual artist who has worked on numerous public works projects throughout the Milwaukee area and creates visually inviting community spaces. His focus is African-American art, as he is most known for his work with adinkra symbols.
BA, Visual/Fiber Artist, Daisy's background is in Community Arts and Cultural Development. She also independently designs clothing and art to wear. Her specialties include the development of elemental patterns and textures through fabric manipulation and dyeing techniques. Daisy is also certified as a Wraparound care provider.
MFA, Videographer, is a full-time associate professor of Time-Based Media Studies at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD). He has received many honors and a number of Wisconsin fellowships, including the Milwaukee's Art Futures Individual Artist Grant.
BFA (Yale '81), Musician/Percussionist, is a multi-instrumental musician and performing artist in Milwaukee, veteran musician and prop designer with Ko-Thi Dance Company, a founding member of One Drum and a faculty member at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, who works with Children of the Sun, deaf and hard of hearing drum troupe and Milwaukee Public Theatre. He is a well-known percussionist who is highly respected as a performing artist and for his therapeutic teaching skills.
BS, Movement and Musician, is a local performer in groups such as One Drum, De La Buena, and DevaNation. She is a trained massage and occupational therapist working with all populations. She has also attended many continuing education and personal growth seminars as an instructor of creative movement. Holly is our Wraparound coordinator.
Creative Movement/Dancer, is the founder/teacher of Movemefree eclectic dance and has over 10 years of solo and collaborative movement performance experience. She has a dedication to community growth and learning and has developed and presented numerous movement workshop, michELLEn and Eclectical.
Musician, is a percussionist who performed with the Chicago Afrobeat Project,
Chicago Music Awards (CMA) Award of Honor for Contribution to World Beat Music in 2006, 2007 and 2008, and Best African Artist nomination in 2004 and 2005.
BFA, Photographer, Patricia specializes in video and photo media and teaches as an educational aide at Golda Meir School for the Gifted and Talented where she runs a video club for young children.
MS, ATR, Visual Artist, is an art therapist, and Associate Director of Undergraduate Art Therapy at Mount Mary College and visual artist with 20 years of experience strengthening communities through art and poetry.
BFA, specializes in painting, printmaking and visual arts. Rashida maintains the studio organization and supplies.
Musician, David has over 15 years of experience as a professional musician with a focus on keyboards, percussion and ensemble. He also performs with the musical groups De La Buena and Kings Go Forth.
BFA, Halley is currently finishing her Graduate Degree in Art Therapy at Mount Mary College. She began with EYM as an intern and returned this summer as a staff member and Wraparound care provider.
Fearlessly manages office operations and accounts management for Express Yourself Milwaukee.
EYM works with a various guest artist throughout the year to augment the artistic team and inspire the creative process. Artists we have worked with in the past include:
Amlak Tafari
Musician/Bassist
UK based Grammy Award winning reggae band Steel Pulse .
Jimmy Santiago Baca
Poet/Writer
Cammie Griffin
Guest Choreographer
Born and raised in Springfield, MA. She has been dancing since the age of three and studied various styles of dance for 15 years. Currently she performs with the touring dance and percussion collective STOMP . Cammie has worked with EYM for the past 3 years as a guest artist doing site visits, workshops and performing on stage with youth each year.
Shelby Keefe
BFA, Painter
A contemporary impressionistic painter, teacher and performance artist and a guest performing artist at our show. She operates her own art studio and exhibition space in Bay View, on the south side of Milwaukee. Her award-winning urban landscape paintings have earned her participation in prestigious national juried shows, plein air painting competitions, and arts festivals as well as garnering commission work for a variety of corporate clients and private collectors.
Max Samson
Mask & Puppet Theatre
Kwabena Antoine Nixon
Spoken Word
Muhibb Dyer
Abdoulaye Camera
Master Drummer & Dancer
STUDIO
3333 w lisbon avenue
OFFICE
3331 w lisbon avenue
milwaukee, wi 53208-1947
414.272.3498
info at expressyourselfmilwaukee.org
Express Yourself Milwaukee is a registered 501c3 organization and all donations are tax-deductible within the full extent of the law. Please consider making a donation to help support youth fees and supplies for our programming.
We thank you in advance for your support of our work and mission!
DONATE NOW
Celebrating the creative arts to transform the lives of underserved urban youth in the Milwaukee community.
Affiliate chapter of Express Yourself, Inc.
office I 3331 w lisbon ave I 414.272.3498
Please purchase tickets to our annual fundraising dinner at Turner Hall Ballroom here.
March 1, 2011
