See: Dr. David Pleasant archive at: www.davidpleasant1.com
From the Stage at CAT Cafe
2019
SEE: 2019-2020 WWS MotoQuests.
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PLEASANT Institute is a multidisciplinary arts resource center which appreciates the best of Indigenous and contemporary community based culture. Through combinations of music, history, visual culture, social critique, movement, and more, the Institute supports Arts, Health and Society as crucial life enhancements. It is our belief that history, culture, literacy and the arts are vital nutrients for a healthy community. They must be actively sustained as normal daily-life practices—and advocated for as basic quality of life entitlements.
The PLEASANT Institute, in collaboration with Cat Sparks Art, Inc., once located in the CSA multipurpose arts space serving the community of Barrio Logan and beyond: Mercado del Barrio, 1109 Cesar Chavez Pkwy., San Diego CA 92113... is now a show on the road (as we develop plans for a new California location). See: www.Catsparksart.com
PLEASANT Institute is a subsidiary of David Pleasant’s Riddimathon!, Inc.www.davidpleasant1.com
The PLEASANT Institute provides classes, workshops and public presentations in the following:
- DRUMS and Percussion
- Visual art (various)
- Vocal Training
- Poetry
- Public Reading
- Oration
- Movement with special emphasis on STEPPING and Body Percussion
- Master classes are available for graduate and/or continuing education students
The Institute’s programs are arranged in an ever-unfolding array of historically grounded community arts practices. The main focus is for:
CONTACT-DIALOGUE- and GENUINENESS!
Grounded in the historically relevant legacies of Gullah-Geechee culture, PLEASANT Institute promotes a meaningful engagement of arts, arts activism, and citizenship. Literacy drives its focus on culture as a useful dialogue and creative option for individual and community growth.
PLEASANT Institute is:
- PARTICIPATION
- INCLUSION
- And Unmitigated (no holds barred and unstoppable) LOVE
“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality.”—Dr. Martin Luther King, 1960
PLEASANT Institute is facilitated by veteran percussionist, scholar David Pleasant. Having grown up in the Sea Islands and rice coasts of the Gullah- Geechee corridor, Pleasant received a first hand experience in the rich cultural legacies of Georgia and South Carolina. The Gullah-Geechee corridor is home to the oldest and most strident forms of African American resistance and culture. David Pleasant, an advocate of social transformation with numerous TV appearances, protests, and lectures to his credit, has remained a “Trailblazer” of Gullah-Geechee and early African American performance for over 40 years. As a published writer, composer, choreographer, consultant, and specialist, his work has appeared in theater, dance, television, institutions, and film.
The PLEASANT Institute
Dr. David Pleasant, BA, psychology, Oberlin College
MA, Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
C.A.G.S., European Graduate School, Ph D, European Graduate School, Arts , Health, and Society
Additional studies Columbia University, Ed. M program
Fulbright Senior Specialist and candidacy 2017
Fulbright/World Learning Scholar
Smithsonian Institute Signature Event Coordinator
**see: calendar May 7 + 13** Art Sparks Community-- COMMUNITY Sparks LOVE!
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