Arts and Culture
Creativeexpression in its various forms is a powerful aspect of community building. From visual arts and dance to music, writing, and spoken word, participants come to learn new skills, develop their own original work, and share creative accomplishments. The Dornsife Center offers a community canvas for artists, designers, writers, and dancers from both Drexel and West Philadelphia to create new projects together.
Creator’s Studio
(Drexel Westphal) – Drexel students and faculty introduce community members to modern music recording and production techniques. Offered in a lab setting, this program encourages creativity and fosters music and computer recording proficiency. Learn More.
Writers Room
Community writers come together in this program to develop, workshop, and share their original work in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Coordinated out of Drexel's Writing Center and Department of English and Philosophy, Writers Room produces an annual anthology, accompanied by a public reading event, and hosts engaging writing workshops and classes through the year. You can read about our writers and see their work at the Writers Room website here.
Writers Room was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Big Read grant in 2016. Zora Neale Hurston's celebrated novel Their Eyes Were Watching God was the focus, and the form was a seven-week celebration of Hurston's life and work, taking a cue from the notion that Hurston wrote the novel in seven weeks. The Big Read featured a launch keynote and celebration, workshops on field recording, a cooking workshop, dance and movement programming, a "'Zines for Zora" project, and a collaborative reading of this special novel.
Dance at Dornsife
Drexel's Department of Performing Arts offers free dance classes to youth and adults in West Philadelphia. Weekly dance classes are taught by Drexel dance students and mentored by Drexel dance faculty to extend the physical, intellectual, creative, and therapeutic aspects of dance to the community.
Dornsife After-School Music Program
The Department of Performing Arts offers free after school music classes to youth in the community. Classes are taught by Drexel music students and directed by Drexel faculty member Lynn Riley.
FamFrequency
Music production and entrepreneurship program for youth and young people who are interested in creative entrepreneurship.
Youth & Adult Martial Arts
Free Martial Arts classes for youth and adults taught by the Drexel University's Tae Kwon Do (TKD) Club. The program pairs community participants with Drexel student mentors who are part of the Drexel TKD club sharing their TKD skills and thus becoming responsible for their education, the Drexel students in turn broaden their own personal development.
Building a Shared Arts Community
Artists from Drexel, Mantua, Powelton Village, and West Philadelphia display their visual arts projects and perform at special events. At each monthly community dinner we share a visual arts mini-exhibit, while local musicians entertain. Events like the Big Read have brought community artists together to create exciting collaborative projects.
