Hell’s Kitchen, New York is a lively residential neighborhood with an abundance of community organizations to serve its diverse population.
458 West 57th Street, #4F (betw 9th & 10th)
http://www.hkculturalcenter.org
The Hell's Kitchen Cultural Center is a neighborhood-based non-profit organization that will showcase works of artists based in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood both through performances at various neighborhood venues as well as through its artist-driven CD label which will provide an outlet for Hell's Kitchen musicians who have not been able to release their work on CD.
At their concerts they plan to encourage interaction between audiences and performers by including an opportunity at each performance for both parties to speak to each other in a relaxed informal manner that encourages communication. All concerts will be presented with state of the art technology and will be recorded and videotaped to create an archive.
The Hell's Kitchen Cultural Center plans to reach out to the Hell's Kitchen community by providing youth workshops and other educational programs that will be targeted at neighborhood residents. They plan to develop an internship program with students from neighborhood schools. Where possible the Cultural Center will seek to employ Hell's Kitchen residents. A percentage of seats for some performances will be donated to Hell's Kitchen non-profit organizations (churches, schools, settlement houses, senior groups, housing groups, youth groups, etc.) to encourage neighborhood participation in their programs.
The flagship performance for the Hell's Kitchen Cultural Center will be at the Metro Baptist Church where they will present four concerts per month on Friday evenings starting in the Summer of 2006. Their inaugural program will be the first annual "Rhythm in the Kitchen" music festival (March 30 - April 1, 2006) showcasing an eclectic mix of some of the hundreds of musicians who currently live in the neighborhood. They hope that Metro Baptist Church will become recognized as a premiere venue for innovative music and arts performances just as the Judson Church played a crucial roll in the development of Modern Dance in America.
The initial focus of the Hell's Kitchen Cultural Center will be to provide a venue for the most creative and innovative music being produced by both neighborhood and international artists in the areas of free jazz, experimental, modern classical, electronica, rock, folk and other kinds of music. Eventually they will expand into other areas of art performance and presentation including painting, photography, performance art and spoken word, dance and literary, theatrical and multi-media events produced by Hell's Kitchen residents.
WilliamHooker(Artistic Director)