BLACK ARTS RESEARCH CENTER

 

                           
Director, John Gray

                            
30 Marion Street

                             
Nyack, NY 10960

 

 

     "Don't expect the answers to come to you. 
Don't wait for a leader to rise

     up and take you someplace.  If you want
information, and we have plenty,

     come and take it from us.  It's on you. 
If you want to go out and begin

     something, you have to organize and study. 
You have to try many things

     before you may find some success.  We
are here to give you the help of

     our experience and knowledge, but now is the
time of your generation and

     only you can make the choices."

                                
CLEVELAND SELLERS - SNCC

 

THE CENTER: Founded in 1989, the Black Arts Research Center is an archival

resource center dedicated to the documentation, preservation and dissemination

of the African cultural legacy. Resources include some 2300 recordings,
cassettes

and videotapes, 1300 books and journals, 500 clippings files and a
bibliographic

database with more than 50,000 entries.  These materials now offer
one of the richest

resources ever on the Black presence in the performing arts.

BLACK ARTS DATABASE: Unique among all existing computer resources this
database

offers the first comprehensive coverage ever of Black activities in,
and

contributions to, music, dance, theatre, film, and traditional religion/healing.

Whether the searcher is interested in works on John Coltrane or Juju
Music, Malawian

malipenga dances or break dance, Ousmane Sembene or Spike Lee, Wole
Soyinka

or Ntozake Shange, Santeria or Vodun, they will be able to find it
here.

The product of more than a decade of research in standard and not so
standard

indexes, encyclopedias, dictionary catalogues, computer databases and
more, the

Black Arts Database is proof positive of the richness of the Black
experience.

For those involved in cross-cultural or inter-disciplinary studies
this is

both an invaluable reference tool and a major time saver.

SERVICES: In addition to its research and publication activities, the
Black

Arts Research Center also offers personalized computer services, tailored
to

meet the needs of individual scholars, students and librarians. 
Costs for

the service vary according to the complexity of the search request
and

the number of citations located, and consist of an initial search fee
plus

a small printing charge.

THE DIRECTOR: John Gray is a cultural historian specializing in Black

culture and the performing arts.  His writings include Fire Music:
A Bibliography

of the New Jazz, 1959-1990 (1991), African Music (1991), Blacks in
Film and

Television (1990), Black Theatre and Performance (1990), Ashe, Traditional

Religion and Healing in sub-Saharan Africa and the Diaspora (1989)
and Blacks

in Classical Music (1988), all published by Greenwood Press. 
Mr. Gray's

current project is a multi-volume bibliography on sacred, folk and
popular

music idioms of the African Diaspora.