All five of the organizations involved in this project are small, grassroots 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations, homegrown and based in Austin, Texas. They operate on shoestring budgets to produce and offer the arts programming and services that enrich Austin’s cultural landscape.
Blue Lapis Light
Blue Lapis Light’s mission is to create transcendent works of beauty that are offered as prayers for the planet by creating site-specific aerial dance works that align with our times and encompass our human experience.
Productions transform urban spaces and engage the environment and architecture with movement and music, and Blue Lapis Light is committed to providing opportunities for artists, teachers, students, and the community.
Executive Director: Jessica Nero-McArthur
Groundwork Music Project
Groundwork Music Project’s mission is to provide free and low cost music lessons to young children regardless of means.
Through its programs, children learn to sing, dance, keep a beat, carry a tune, play an instrument, create arrangements, perform for an audience, and collaborate on a creative endeavor.
Executive Director: Neal Kassanoff
Leap of Joy
Leap of Joy offers dance and theater arts after school and summer camp enrichment programs to at-risk youth in underserved schools in Austin,Texas.
Leap of Joy is moving to give at-risk youth empowerment and self-acceptance through dance and performance arts.
Executive Director: Nina Shaw
Rancho Alegre
Rancho Alegre’s mission is to preserve and promote Conjunto music.
Projects include a nonprofit record label, a podcast, recording and collecting oral histories, digitizing analog recordings, connecting artists with professional and business resources, speaking to schools and universities, and presenting events like Conjunto dances for Seniors, the Rancho Alegre Conjunto Music Festival and other events throughout the year.
Executive Director: Baldomero Cuellar
SteelRadio
SteelRadio is a non-profit radio station that presents, preserves and promotes steel guitar music in various genres like Hawaiian, country and western, and steel guitar jazz.
SteelRadio also presents the many ways steel guitar, dobro and slide guitar are being used today. By building a legacy of high-quality, diverse and inclusive programming, we are creating the foundation for SteelRadio to exist for years to come.
Program Director: Ted Smouse