Education Programs

Interactive Exhibition Tours, Workshops, Artist Talks, Film Screenings, Community Walks, and Live Performances

Our Summer @ the Dwyer education programs include:

• Tours of the Dwyer’s multimedia exhibitions, Weusi Revisited:2010 and harlem is… THEATER
• Unique hands-on workshops with teaching artists and notable community leaders: What ‘U’ See: Young Art Critics View the Weusi, Drawing with the Weusi, Songwriting in the Blues Tradition, Conversations with Harlem Theater Masters.
• Film screenings and discussions from the Harlem on Film collection that celebrate the history, culture and artistic legacy of Harlem
• Live theater, music and dance performances in our Harlem is….GLOBAL series that honor the diverse roots of Harlem
• Community walks with thematic experiences that bring Harlem’s history and culture to life in this world famous neighborhood

Click on the image to the right for more detailed information on our summer programs.

Poetry Workshop: Poetic Conversations With Our Harlem Elders

Poetic Conversations with Our Harlem Elders is a workshop intensive where ten youth poets create original poetry in response to the stories of Harlem elders. Students will work alongside Performance Poet and Educator kahlil almustafa, who is also the Dwyer’s Poet in Residence. kahlil is a talented performance poet who has been working with Harlem youth as a teaching artist for years. He recently published two collections of poetry Growing Up Hip-Hop (August 2008), and From Auction Block to Oval Office: 100 poems in 100 days of Obama’s Presidency (January 2010). He is also well-known for his work as an educator working with groups such as New York Collective of Radical Educators and Urban Word NYC.

During the workshop, students go through all the steps of a traditional Performance Poetry workshop: Exposure, Drafting, Revision, and Performance and will speak to issues raised by elders in the Harlem community. They view video clips from elders and historical Harlem icons, as well as conduct street interviews of elders. At the end of the workshop series, our young poets will perform their work in a live multi-media poetry performance at Saturdays @ the Dwyer – an open house for families and members of the community. Both the workshop series and the culminating performance are designed to create pathways for exchange between young people and elders.

Click HERE to visit The Young Poets’ Blog