Break Arts was founded at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2005, in response to the need for dialogue and exchange among artists and teachers worldwide. We wanted to organize arts projects that illuminate, reveal, and examine the complexities of the human condition. The team was comprised of exceptional artists and educators who champion the imagination and creativity as essential forces in developing and sustaining democratic societies. Founders Rachel McIntire and Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein founded the project and included a small group of artists and educators interested in arts and literacy.
2012 — 2016
Long Live the Girls! / "Girl Manifesto" (2013)
Long Live the Girls! / "Love Rules" (2014)
Hawasa, Ethiopia
Long Live the Girls was a girls' empowerment through creative writing initiative founded in 2012 through a partnership between Action for Youth & Community Change & Break Arts: International Arts & Education Collaborative.
LONG LIVE THE GIRLS PRESS:
1. Check out LLTG poetry on Buzzfeed -- "Seven Poems that Show What it's Like to be a Woman in Ethiopia," by Jina Moore
2. Read about LLTG in Global South Magazine -- "Arts for Social Change? Creative Projects Empowering Women and Youth by Federico Busiello
3. To hear about LLTG on WBEZ 91.5 program World View, Global Activism segment, with Jerome McDonnell on 9.26.13, listen here on Sound Cloud!
4. To read more in-depth about LLTG, read our essay featured in ADDIS RUMBLE -- an awesome African arts journal.
5. See our short 2-minute GIRL MANIFESTO video, produced by Ian Martin.
Long Live the Girls! / "Girl Manifesto" (2013)
Long Live the Girls! / "Love Rules" (2014)
Hawasa, Ethiopia
Long Live the Girls was a girls' empowerment through creative writing initiative founded in 2012 through a partnership between Action for Youth & Community Change & Break Arts: International Arts & Education Collaborative.
LONG LIVE THE GIRLS PRESS:
1. Check out LLTG poetry on Buzzfeed -- "Seven Poems that Show What it's Like to be a Woman in Ethiopia," by Jina Moore
2. Read about LLTG in Global South Magazine -- "Arts for Social Change? Creative Projects Empowering Women and Youth by Federico Busiello
3. To hear about LLTG on WBEZ 91.5 program World View, Global Activism segment, with Jerome McDonnell on 9.26.13, listen here on Sound Cloud!
4. To read more in-depth about LLTG, read our essay featured in ADDIS RUMBLE -- an awesome African arts journal.
5. See our short 2-minute GIRL MANIFESTO video, produced by Ian Martin.
"GIRL MANIFESTO"
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"LOVE RULES"
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2013-2015 Maneno Express
Tanzania
Maneno Express promotes creative expression in the year leading up to Tanzania's presidential elections 2015. (Photo Credit: Pernille Baerndtsen). Recently hosted a gathering on the ARTS & SOCIAL CHANGE with guest speaker Billy Kahora, in partnership with Twaweza Tanzania and Soma: Leisure, Culture, and Learning.
Tanzania
Maneno Express promotes creative expression in the year leading up to Tanzania's presidential elections 2015. (Photo Credit: Pernille Baerndtsen). Recently hosted a gathering on the ARTS & SOCIAL CHANGE with guest speaker Billy Kahora, in partnership with Twaweza Tanzania and Soma: Leisure, Culture, and Learning.
2010-2013 Maneno: Stone Town Poetry Night
Zanzibar, Tanzania
Maneno is a monthly poetry series founded in 2011 in Stone Town, Zanzibar. It draws an eclectic group of readers and writes to share work on a common theme chosen by the group. Maneno also has led poetry workshops for teenagers at the US Embassy library with students from Ben Bella Secondary School in Zanzibar, TZ. Workshops have included close studies of Langston Huges, Maya Angelou, and Nikki Giovanni in conjunction with National Poetry Month in the USA.
Maneno poets Amanda Lichtenstein and Gerry Bukini led poetry workshops in Stone Town, Zanzibar at the U.S. Embassy Library with students from Ben Bella High School and members of the American Corners English Club. Workshops included intensive studies of Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and Nikki Giovanni.
Zanzibar, Tanzania
Maneno is a monthly poetry series founded in 2011 in Stone Town, Zanzibar. It draws an eclectic group of readers and writes to share work on a common theme chosen by the group. Maneno also has led poetry workshops for teenagers at the US Embassy library with students from Ben Bella Secondary School in Zanzibar, TZ. Workshops have included close studies of Langston Huges, Maya Angelou, and Nikki Giovanni in conjunction with National Poetry Month in the USA.
Maneno poets Amanda Lichtenstein and Gerry Bukini led poetry workshops in Stone Town, Zanzibar at the U.S. Embassy Library with students from Ben Bella High School and members of the American Corners English Club. Workshops included intensive studies of Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and Nikki Giovanni.
2010 Women on a Global Stage
Amman, Jordan
Presidents and Queens use powerful language to promote peace, but rarely do young people have an opportunity to "unpack" the language of peace. Maura Clarke, Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein, and Radhika Rao developed a month-long theater project to investigate the complex language of peace among girls and women in Amman, Jordan. Actor and Director Kate Clarke joined Maura as co-directors for this theater project that critically examined presidential and royal speeches related to peace in the Middle East and then responded through creative writing and performance. The U.S. Embassy in Amman offered partial support for this work.
Amman, Jordan
Presidents and Queens use powerful language to promote peace, but rarely do young people have an opportunity to "unpack" the language of peace. Maura Clarke, Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein, and Radhika Rao developed a month-long theater project to investigate the complex language of peace among girls and women in Amman, Jordan. Actor and Director Kate Clarke joined Maura as co-directors for this theater project that critically examined presidential and royal speeches related to peace in the Middle East and then responded through creative writing and performance. The U.S. Embassy in Amman offered partial support for this work.
2008 A Census of the Senses / La Incuesta de los Sentidos
El Pital, Honduras
When conducting an official census, what are the unofficial, unaccounted for questions of a community. Break Arts artists Rachel Mcintire and Amanda Lichtenstein worked with Un Mundo and the young people of El Pital, Honduras, in the Congrejal Valley, to conduct a sense of feelings. They asked, "how many people here believe in true love?" and collected stories door to door from their neighbors. The project was a multi-media text and image expression of one community's notions of love.
El Pital, Honduras
When conducting an official census, what are the unofficial, unaccounted for questions of a community. Break Arts artists Rachel Mcintire and Amanda Lichtenstein worked with Un Mundo and the young people of El Pital, Honduras, in the Congrejal Valley, to conduct a sense of feelings. They asked, "how many people here believe in true love?" and collected stories door to door from their neighbors. The project was a multi-media text and image expression of one community's notions of love.
2008 Speaking through the Sun
Merida, Mexico
A photography and poetry workshop with Leah Sobsey at Habla: Center for Language and Culture www.habla.org. Teachers and students learned to make the oldest form of photography - cyanotypes, and then write in response to the images they captured through sunlight. Workshops included intensives at two Mayan elementary schools.
Merida, Mexico
A photography and poetry workshop with Leah Sobsey at Habla: Center for Language and Culture www.habla.org. Teachers and students learned to make the oldest form of photography - cyanotypes, and then write in response to the images they captured through sunlight. Workshops included intensives at two Mayan elementary schools.
2005 Mapping Within
Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA
The first Break Arts collaboration with Essex Arts Center and Bread Loaf writers and Oliver Elementary students in Lawrence, Massachusetts. We used body-mapping and poetry to explore immigration, cultural crossroads, and identity.
Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA
The first Break Arts collaboration with Essex Arts Center and Bread Loaf writers and Oliver Elementary students in Lawrence, Massachusetts. We used body-mapping and poetry to explore immigration, cultural crossroads, and identity.