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Arts NC State
NC State LIVE

Community Engagement

NC State LIVE seeks to program artists who are committed to engaging our community and patrons beyond the stage. Almost every artist who performs at NC State offers our community some type of engagement in addition to their performances. And each season we provide residencies to a few artists who connect more deeply with our campus and the surrounding community. The following artist residencies are examples of this community engagement work:

2024 | Small Island Big Song

Small Island Big Song were in residence with NC State LIVE for a week of events from April 8-12, 2024. This collective of Indigenous musicians come from island nations in the Pacific and Indian Oceans – Taiwan, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Madagascar, Mauritius, Easter Island (Chile) – where they are on the front lines of climate change. The Small Island Big Song musicians have come together with filmmakers, oceanographers, scientists, and artists across Raleigh to create a week of extraordinary events. The residency came to a celebratory close with a concert by Small Island Big Song in Stewart Theatre.

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2023 | Daniel Bernard Roumain

In 2022-23, NC State LIVE celebrated our 50th anniversary of presenting visionary performing arts on campus. To mark this momentous occasion, we commissioned a work with acclaimed violinist and composer Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) performed by NC State students and community members in the Raleigh Civic Symphony, as well as young musicians from Raleigh. DBR is at the forefront of discovery of knowledge and innovation in the arts, in keeping with NC State’s commitment to research and innovation. In addition, the process of creating this new work was rooted in community engagement, with many high-impact workshops and conversations for students and community members.

DBR’s residency concluded with new work titled Home, Migrations, and Our Imaginary Daughter for the Raleigh Civic Symphony, under the direction of conductor Peter Askim, which had its world premiere (a free, sold out concert) in Stewart Theatre on April 15, 2023. The piece featured NC State students, community musicians, local artists Bernadette Allen, Felicia Adizue, Tristen Johnson, Shana Tucker, United Strings of Color, and a solo by DBR.

2019 | Contra Tiempo

Los Angeles-based Latinx dance company CONTRA-TIEMPO was in residence with NC State LIVE from October 18-25, 2019. The week of high-impact public events resulted from intense collaboration between over fifteen community and campus partners. Events included pop-up performances in Transfer Co. Food Hall and downtown in Moore Square, a hip hop grooves class for local dancers, a performance and dance class at St. Ambrose Church, dance workshops for youth in Raleigh’s community centers, a leadership workshop for El Pueblo’s Youth Council, and more. The week concluded with a performance of joyUS justUS, an exploration of radical joy, performed by CONTRA-TIEMPO, the indie-Latinx band Las Cafeteras, and a local cast ages 8-80 who worked with CONTRA-TIEMPO to create their own movement for the piece. The performance was particularly notable for meeting our revenue goal even with over 200 complementary tickets given out during the week at community events.

2018 | Marc Bamuthi Joseph

In March of 2018, NC State LIVE brought world-renowned artist and educator Marc Bamuthi Joseph to campus for a week-long residency, which concluded with /peh-LO-tah/, a powerful theatre performance that uses soccer as a lens for examining issues facing communities of color. The residency was anchored by Joseph’s youth educational program Moving and Passing, which utilizes soccer as a pedagogical device to encourage young immigrants to consider the American promise differently. We partnered with Futbol 4 All, Wake Futbol Club, and the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants to engage over 50 immigrant youth (ages 8-16) in a day of soccer drills, art-making and performance at St. David’s soccer fields in Raleigh. Marc (and his company) also led discussions and workshops on campus including: A Conversation with the Black Male Initiative Village; a Creation and Movement workshop hosted by the Theatre Department; and, “The Arts and Sports as a Vehicle for Activism in Education” a lunch discussion hosted by the NC State College of Education.

2017 | Nile Project

The Nile Project was in residence with NC State LIVE March 15-21, 2017. Hailing from countries across the Nile River basin, this group of masterful musicians and educators connected deeply with our campus and community partners, opening a dialogue on water sustainability, and environmental and social justice issues by using music as a catalyst. After two years of planning, NC State LIVE hosted the Nile Project for a week-long residency to serve NC State and the broader community with a powerful artist-based project that supported our community’s deep commitment to sustainable practices. Over the week we collaborated with nearly 30 community and campus groups to create and produce a residency that included two successful public performances, a Student Leadership Summit, a community-created mural designed by local artist Dare Coulter, a panel discussion and pop up performance at the Walnut Creek Wetlands Center, and the keynote address at the statewide Annual Water Conference of the Water Resources Research Institute held at NC State.

Nile Project Aswan, Egypt, 8 March, 2014. The Nile Project was founded in August 2011 by Egyptian ethnomusicologist Mina Girgis and Ethiopian-American singer Meklit Hadero to address the Nile basin’s cultural and environmental challenges using an innovative approach that combines music, education and an enterprise platform. www.nileproject.org