American Crossroads
Integrative education
Since the Spring of 2001, the Vernacular Music Center at Texas Tech University has developed initiatives (seminars, lectures, workshops, guest artists, and teaching materials) supporting research, teaching, and advocacy on behalf of the world’s vernacular musics—those musics and related art forms that are learned, taught, and passed-on by ear and in the memory. Over the past decade, the VMC has developed multiple annual scholarships, field trips, Study Abroad experiences, fundraising activities, creative projects, and participatory community ensembles and events in support of this mission.
In the Spring of 2012, the VMC began developing a new project, creating educational and performance materials which could illustrate and celebrate the complex meetings and encounters—between people, cultures, belief systems, and genres—which gave birth to American music: African, Caribbean, European, and Native American expressive arts whose meetings, since first contact in the 16th century, have yielded the complex, idiosyncratic, challenging, yet endlessly inventive and creative popular music forms of the modern era. Everything from Stephen Foster’s popular songs to the “crossover” hits of Eminem and Mary J Blige, from Appalachian flat-foot dancing to African-American tap, from the contredanse of Haiti and Montserrat to the contras of Maine and the square-dances of Virginia, from the comedy of Abbott and Costello to the comic monologs of Sid Caesar and Red Skelton, can be traced, in content and/or intent, to the meetings of Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean in the New World.
The Crossroads Project is committed to developing educational and performance materials which illustrate and celebrate the complex meetings and encounters—between people, cultures, belief systems, and genres—which gave birth to American music: African, Caribbean, European, and Native American expressive arts whose meetings, since first contact in the 16th century, have yielded the complex, idiosyncratic, challenging, yet endlessly inventive and creative popular music forms of the modern era. Everything from Stephen Foster’s popular songs to the “crossover” hits of Eminem and Mary J Blige, from Appalachian flat-foot dancing to African-American tap, from the contredanse of Haiti and Montserrat to the contras of Maine and the square-dances of Virginia, from the comedy of Abbott and Costello to the comic monologs of Sid Caesar and Red Skelton, can be traced, in content and/or intent, to the meetings of Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean in the New World. The educational presentation American Crossroads draws on the constituent elements of the Dancing at the Crossroads stage show (music, solo & group dance, narration, solo song, projections, sets, and costume) to present the chronological and mythic narratives—stories, histories, and myths—which have shaped American cultural consciousness since first European contact. Supported by a rich body of materials--worksheets, slideshows, participatory classroom exercises, a dedicated website--developed by trained K-12 educators.
Since the Spring of 2001, the Vernacular Music Center at Texas Tech University has developed initiatives (seminars, lectures, workshops, guest artists, and teaching materials) supporting research, teaching, and advocacy on behalf of the world’s vernacular musics—those musics and related art forms that are learned, taught, and passed-on by ear and in the memory. Over the past decade, the VMC has developed multiple annual scholarships, field trips, Study Abroad experiences, fundraising activities, creative projects, and participatory community ensembles and events in support of this mission.
In the Spring of 2012, the VMC began developing a new project, creating educational and performance materials which could illustrate and celebrate the complex meetings and encounters—between people, cultures, belief systems, and genres—which gave birth to American music: African, Caribbean, European, and Native American expressive arts whose meetings, since first contact in the 16th century, have yielded the complex, idiosyncratic, challenging, yet endlessly inventive and creative popular music forms of the modern era. Everything from Stephen Foster’s popular songs to the “crossover” hits of Eminem and Mary J Blige, from Appalachian flat-foot dancing to African-American tap, from the contredanse of Haiti and Montserrat to the contras of Maine and the square-dances of Virginia, from the comedy of Abbott and Costello to the comic monologs of Sid Caesar and Red Skelton, can be traced, in content and/or intent, to the meetings of Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean in the New World.
The Crossroads Project is committed to developing educational and performance materials which illustrate and celebrate the complex meetings and encounters—between people, cultures, belief systems, and genres—which gave birth to American music: African, Caribbean, European, and Native American expressive arts whose meetings, since first contact in the 16th century, have yielded the complex, idiosyncratic, challenging, yet endlessly inventive and creative popular music forms of the modern era. Everything from Stephen Foster’s popular songs to the “crossover” hits of Eminem and Mary J Blige, from Appalachian flat-foot dancing to African-American tap, from the contredanse of Haiti and Montserrat to the contras of Maine and the square-dances of Virginia, from the comedy of Abbott and Costello to the comic monologs of Sid Caesar and Red Skelton, can be traced, in content and/or intent, to the meetings of Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean in the New World. The educational presentation American Crossroads draws on the constituent elements of the Dancing at the Crossroads stage show (music, solo & group dance, narration, solo song, projections, sets, and costume) to present the chronological and mythic narratives—stories, histories, and myths—which have shaped American cultural consciousness since first European contact. Supported by a rich body of materials--worksheets, slideshows, participatory classroom exercises, a dedicated website--developed by trained K-12 educators.
