Reclaim Arts, LLC
formerly Reclaim Artist Collective,
Home of The American Griot Project
Our Creative Process
Reclaim Arts LLC provides community organizations and schools with masters-level teaching artists that have decades of experience. Our writing and theatre workshops improve skills and raise consciousness about social justice topics, culture, and important moments in history.
Reclaiming My Time actress Amirh Brunson hugs griots (story tellers) Marian Dornell (right) and Shel Taylor-Zdankiewicz.
Our Signature Program
Poet/playwright, Maria James-Thiaw used her unique historiographic poetics method to create the choreopoems Reclaiming My Time: An American Griot Project, and its 2020 Zoom version, RMT 2.0. They are based on the oral histories of real women (griots) who lived through the Jim Crow era. In the same way, organizations can partner with Reclaim Arts to learn this method to develop their own choreopoems, readings, or performances.
Community partners can also work with Reclaim Arts to produce Maria's choreopoems, the way The Harrisburg (PA) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated has worked with us to bring HairStory: Reclaiming Our Crown to the stage. Click here for more information.
THE AMERICAN GRIOT PROJECT
Reclaim Arts LLC Production Manager Janet Bexler and HairStory director, Roe Braddy pose with members of The Links Incorporated at a local Kwanzaa Festival in December, 2022
You can be a "griot" too!
Through the American Griot Project Residency Program, you can help history come alive to high school and middle school students in marginalized communities. We need storytellers of all ages to share their experiences. Were you a witness to a historical event? Do you remember the Vietnam War? Did you march to end gun violence? Your story could be used to help students learn history, improve their writing skills and use the art of poetry and theater to inspire others.
The Rev. Dr. Eleanor Moody-Shepherd spoke with audiences of Reclaiming My Time: An American Griot Project about her time as an activist with Martin Luther King Jr and the impact of the Civil Rights movement on today's culture.