Step Afrika!

When Washington, D.C.-based dance troupe Step Afrika takes the stage, sparks fly.  The company’s synchronized, syncopated moves and percussive beats are electrifying.  A high-decibel dance with roots in African traditions, Step is catching fire around the country.
Originated by Black fraternities in the early 20th Century, Step wove the American experience into the ancient art form.  In 1996, Step Afrika picked up that thread, adding new experiences to the weave. Company Founder Brian Williams was the first to recognize Step’s potential not only to entertain, but to inspire, educate and unite. Step  Afrika became the first professional dance company to devote itself entirely to Step…and the first to use it to empower its audiences. Step Afrika dazzles when it dances, and in the afterglow, reaches out to the community. 

Creating a snapshot of a brilliant culture, Step Afrika provides a key to both history and the future.  With programs such as Stepping into Schools, Step Afrika creates learning environments from kindergarten to college.  Providing mentors, and emphasizing literacy and movement, the Company carries forward the tradition of dance as communication.

Spark Media’s feature-length documentary will follow Step Afrika from auditions to the season’s final performance at DC’s own Atlas Theater. Viewers will be treated to a riveting behind-the-scenes tour that will go not only through the emotions, preparations, travels, workshops and performances of the company and its audiences, but through the historical periods and events which influenced Step. Archival footage of Step Afrika in venues ranging from Alaska to Brazil, will be intercut with current workshops with the company and the people it touches

Soul of a People

In the grip of the Great Depression, unemployed men and women joined an unlikely WPA program to document America in guidebooks and interviews. With the Federal Writers Project, the government pitted young, untested talents against the problems of everyday Americans. From that experience, some of America's great writers found their own voices.   Produced in association with the Library of Congress, Soul of the People: Voices from the Writers’ Project will look at the deeply personal stories behind the familiar images of the Great Depression and shows the vitality of a democracy built on a diverse citizenry.  For more information, please visit the Soul of the People website: www.americanvoices.tv 

This program is funded by National Endowment for the Humanities, the Illinois Humanities Councill, the Nebraska Humanities Council, the Idaho Humanities Council, the Maryland Humanities Council, Humanities Texas, and the Wisconsin Humanities Council.

Talking Through Walls:
How the Struggle to Build a Mosque United a Community

Talking Through Walls: How the Struggle to Build a Mosque United a Community, tells the story of Zia Rahman, a retired engineer and devout Muslim American who prepared to go before the Zoning Board in his hometown of Voorhees, New Jersey, in hopes of creating a mosque in his community. What Rahman didn't expect was the hostility and fierce pushback he received from his neighbors.

 

In a world fraught with religious intolerance, Talking Through Walls is the inspirational story of how interfaith leaders in South Jersey figured out a way to keep the peace and show the rest of the world what can be accomplished by the power of compromise and tolerance.

Allah Made Me Funny Live in Concert

Surprised? Then you need to check out "Allah Made Me Funny - Live in Concert", the new documentary about the comedy troupe of the same name. This groundbreaking, 90-minute concert film follows three acclaimed comedians as they travel across the country using humor to share what it’s really like to be Muslim in America.

 

1.) Preacher Moss, an African-American Muslim  and former writer for Damon Wayans, George Lopez and Darryl Hammond, quit selling his best ideas and now takes them on the comedy circuit as the funniest “poor righteous teacher” in the business.
 
2.) Mohammed Amer, a Palestinian Muslim by way of Kuwait, “You can call me Mo” has toured extensively for the USO, was featured at the Las Vegas Comedy Festival, and is still working his smart mouth and youthful looks to international acclaim. 
 
3.) Azhar Usman, the 'Ayatollah of Comedy' and 'Bin Laughin', is a Chicago born Muslim who made his Indian parents proud when he became a lawyer then defied airport security guards everywhere to perform his stand up hit the comedy road throughout the US and United Kingdom.

 

By poking fun at themselves, their communities and the tricky predicament of being Muslim in post-9/11 America, "Allah Made Me Funny  - Live in Concert" gives people of all cultural backgrounds an opportunity to laugh hard, drop their guard and open their minds.

Allah Made Me Funny - Live in Concert is slated for theatrical distribution in 2008.

If you would like to receive updates on "Allah Made Me Funny", please join our mailing list.

 

The Pact

A 90-minute, award-winning documentary and community outreach project centered on the raw, powerful and ultimately inspiring journey of the authors of "The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream", a NY Times bestseller.

The  Pact is a powerful, feature-length documentary on the lives of three African-American men from inner-city Newark, New Jersey, who vowed to become doctors and against all odds succeeded. A gritty and provocative true-life tale, The Pact chronicles the Three Doctors as they fight to spread the word to inspire other inner-city children to stay out of gangs and use education to escape from their urban nightmare. As they navigate the minefields of their community work, struggle with exhausting shifts at the hospital, and wrestle with their own painful childhood memories, The Pact speaks not only to the crisis of inner-city America, but to the power of the individual to make a difference.

Please visit The Pact website: http://www.thepactthemovie.com/

If you would like to receive updates on The Pact, please join our mailing list.

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Prince Among Slaves

1788. The slave ship Africa set sail from Gambia, West Africa, its berth laden with a profitable but highly perishable cargo-hundreds of men, women and children bound in chains--headed to American shores. Six months later, a handful of survivors would find themselves for sale in Natchez, Mississippi. One of them, a 26-year-old man named Abdul Rahman Ibrahima would make a most remarkable claim to Thomas Foster, the tobacco farmer who purchased him at auction: As an African prince, highly educated and heir to a kingdom, his father would gladly pay gold for his return.

Abdul Rahman would not return to Africa for another 40 years. In that time he would toil on the plantation to make his owner rich. He would marry and father nine children. He would also become the most famous African in America, attracting the support of such powerful men as President John Quincy Adams and Secretary of State Henry Clay. Later in life, he would travel widely throughout the northern states, speaking to huge audiences in an attempt to raise enough money to buy his children out of slavery. And finally, at the age of 67, he would return to Africa, only to fall ill and die just as word of his return reached his former kingdom. Through it all, Abdul would maintain his dignity and hope for the freedom of his people.

For more information, please see our Story Overview. If you would like to receive updates on Prince Among Slaves, please join our mailing list.

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