"Frontline Arts in the Pandemic":
A Webinar On the Future of the Pandemic Era
Featuring
JASMINE BLANKS JONES,
PhD, MPP, Public-Health and Performance-Studies Scholar and Founder & Executive Director of B4 Youth Theatre
and
MARC BAMUTHI JOSEPH,
Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
JASMINE BLANKS JONES,
PhD, MPP, Public-Health and Performance-Studies Scholar and Founder & Executive Director of B4 Youth Theatre
and
MARC BAMUTHI JOSEPH,
Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
EVENT VIDEO
Photo Credit Above: Coronavirus Health Practice Messages-- A Film with Hannah Nentakpeh McKay,
Burning Barriers Building Bridges / B4 Youth Theatre
Burning Barriers Building Bridges / B4 Youth Theatre
MAY 12, 2021 3-5PM EST
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WE HAVE ENTERED A PANDEMIC ERA," writes Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine claims that ARTS INTEGRATION is the solution to the challenges of our century.
DR. BLANKS JONES will draw on case studies from the Ebola and Covid-19 outbreaks in Liberia to address innovative ways that the ARTS and PUBLIC HEALTH sectors can work together to prevent and mitigate future public-health emergencies. In this talk she will discuss how youth-theatre performances during public health crises save lives and give young people a chance to tell a story about themselves and their lives that is different from dominant world views about youth in Africa.
BAMUTHI will respond to Dr. Blanks Jones and discuss how his experience leading the Kennedy Center for the Arts’ Social Impact division during the duel pandemics of COVID-19 and American racism has shaped his vision about FRONTLINE ARTS INTERVENTIONS in PUBLIC HEALTH CRISES.
BAMUTHI will respond to Dr. Blanks Jones and discuss how his experience leading the Kennedy Center for the Arts’ Social Impact division during the duel pandemics of COVID-19 and American racism has shaped his vision about FRONTLINE ARTS INTERVENTIONS in PUBLIC HEALTH CRISES.
SPEAKERS:
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Jasmine L. Blanks Jones is a Public-Health and Performance-Studies scholar & Founder and Executive Director of Burning Barriers Building Bridges Youth Theatre (B4YT)- a cultural performance company dedicated to radical community empowerment through the arts:
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Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a world-renowned artist, activist, author, and Guggenheim Social Practice Fellow and Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. Bamuthi's works feature the through-line of healing:
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"We're gonna activate the REACH [the Kennedy Center's new interactive arts expansion] with a lens on Public Health...."
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Having developed a track record of leadership in arts and advocacy in communities of color globally since 2010, Jasmine recently extended the scope of B4YT to include a consulting practice, Creating Brave Stages, which provides support and guidance for advocacy organizations looking to integrate the arts into their movements and artists aspiring to create positive change through their performances.
To date, B4YT has partnered with international development organizations, transnational governmental institutions, and local organizations including:
In 2014-15, B4YT's awareness campaign on the Ebola crisis in Liberia reached 300,000 people motivating action towards prevention: 
Photo Credit: Annie Kaempfer / B4 Youth Theatre
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"The Healing Future Begins Today" #HOW WE HEAL, composed for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's National Day of Racial Healing, Jan. 2021:
Bamuthi's 2017 Opera, "We Shall Not Be Moved," was hailed by the New York Times as one of the year's best classical music performances:
“It is an epic poem as much as it is a libretto."--Daniel Bernard Roumain, composer 
Bamuthi appeared in HBO's special event Between The World And Me on Nov. 21, alongside Ta-Nehisi Coates, Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett, Angela Davis, Alicia Garza, Tip “T.I.” Harris, Jharrel Jerome, Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, Oprah Winfrey, and others:
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Sponsored by:
In Collaboration With:
