Now in its third year of programming, Embrace the Dream brings together many institutions throughout the Grand Traverse region to provide free or low-cost programming for the public to experience in early 2015. As its mission, Embrace the Dream is a collaboration founded upon the values of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., engaging the whole of our community through programming that inspires social justice and equality for all people. This year’s partners include Dennos Museum Center; Northwestern Michigan College Student Life; Habitat for Humanity – Grand Traverse Region; Building Bridges With Music; Great Lakes Children’s Museum; State Theatre; Traverse Area District Library; and the Traverse City Human Rights Commission. More info at embracethedream.org and Facebook.com/embracethedream.
Contacts: Jason Dake, Curator of Education, 231-995-1029 jdake@nmc.edu
State Theatre – statetheatretc.org, 231-947-4800
Great Lakes Children’s Museum – greatlakeskids.org, 231-932-4526
Building Bridges with Music – buildingbridgeswithmusic.org, 231-943-1225
History Center Traverse City – traversehistory.org, 231-995-0313
Traverse Area District Library – tadl.org, 231-932-8500
Embrace the Dream features films, exhibitions, lectures, music, and hands-on art programs throughout Traverse City. The keystone event will be the annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Day Celebration at the State Theatre, where Building Bridges With Music, the Traverse City Human Rights Commission, and the State Theatre will present live in concert the renowned Motown Legends Gospel Choir, with the NMCCC Cantus Choir. For their appearance at the 2015 MLK event, the Motown Legends Gospel Choir will present an evening of gospel, civil rights era music, and Motown favorites.
In addition, Embrace the Dream welcomes new partner, Habitat for Humanity-Grand Traverse Region, who will present a series of programs in conjunction with the exhibition, ReTooled: Highlights from the Hechinger Collection, at the Dennos Museum Center, January 25-May17, 2015. Habitat, GTR will share their important work in the community with the public and Habitat families on three dates: February 28, March 28, and April 18. The Dennos Museum Center will also accept tool donations for the Habitat ReStore on those dates.
Additional highlights include a performance from Kinetic Affect about experiences with stereotypes, at the Milliken Auditorium on February 11; The Dennos Museum Center’s Community Cinema program in partnership with WCMU; Great Lakes Children’s Museum’s annual MLK Peace Day on January 19; The State Theatre’s February 25-cent matinees; and the Traverse Area District Library’s workshops during the month of February.
Embrace the Dream 2015 Programs
Embrace the Dream is a collaboration founded upon the values of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., engaging the whole of our community through programming that inspires social justice and equality for all people.
Partners: Dennos Museum Center; Northwestern Michigan College Student Life; Habitat for Humanity – Grand Traverse Region; Building Bridges With Music; Great Lakes Children’s Museum; State Theatre; Traverse Area District Library; Traverse City Human Rights Commission
Thursday, January 8, 2015 – 7:00pm
Dennos Museum Center
Community Cinema: A Path Appears
Free film and discussion
A Path Appears investigates young women in America forced into a life of prostitution and the innovative programs that have evolved to achieve remarkable results in empowering their lives. Sex trafficking and prostitution. Domestic slavery. Teen pregnancy. The devastation of poverty. These troubling situations are happening not just halfway across the world, but also in our own backyards — in Chicago and Nashville and Boston.
From the creative team that brought you the groundbreaking Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, the full four-hour series A Path Appears will air on PBS as a special presentation of Independent Lens in early 2015 as part of the Women and Girls Lead initiative.
Monday, January 19, 2015 – 10:00am-5:00pm
Great Lakes Children’s Museum
Peace Day 2015! Celebrate our Differences
Admission: $6/person ages 3+
Come to the Great Lakes Children’s Museum on Martin Luther King Day to explore and celebrate Peace. Hands-on peace and cultural diversity exploration stations will be set up in the Great Lakes Activity Room from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm. There will be special story times at 11:00 am, Noon, 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm featuring the books “My Brother Martin” by Christine King-Farris, and “The Skin You Live In”, by Michael Tyler.
Activities will include: Learning stations from 3 different cultures; Wear a new face! (Exploring what it would be like to look like someone else); Peace Words: (Learning the word for Peace in many different languages); “I Have a Dream” Imagination Station.
Monday, January 19, 2015 – 11:00am-3:00pm
Traverse Area District Library, Main Branch
Martin Luther King, Jr Day Drop-in Craft
Free
Stop by the Youth Services Room to create & share what your dream is on your very own “Dream Cloud” to be displayed throughout February.
Monday, January 19, 2015 – 5:30pm
State Theatre
Martin Luther King, Jr. Remembrance Day Celebration
Live in Concert: Motown Legends Gospel Choir
Free, ticketed event
Building Bridges with Music, the Traverse City Human Rights Commission, and the State Theatre present live in concert the renowned Motown Legends Gospel Choir, with the NMCCC Cantus Choir. Sponsored by Golden Fowler Home Furnishings, Traverse City State Bank, the City of Traverse City and the State Theatre.
Motown Legends Gospel Choir is one of the preeminent gospel choirs in the Midwest. The Choir consists of many past and present Motown artists, including members of the famed Contours (“Do You Love Me”) and the Vandella’s (“Dancing in the Street”). Director and founder Albert Chisholm, of the Contours, created this amazing ensemble of angelic voices to touch the hearts and spirits of people across the world.
For their appearance at the 2015 MLK event, the Motown Legends Gospel Choir will present an evening of gospel, civil rights era music and Motown favorites. The event opens with a mayoral proclamation, an invocation by area clergy, and a performance by the Northwestern Michigan College Children’s Choir Cantus ensemble under the direction of Jeffrey Cobb.
Film – 9:00am – To Kill a Mockingbird
Performance – 5:30pm – Mowtown Legends Gospel Choir / Building Bridges with Music
Wednesday, February 4, 2015 – 10:30am
State Theatre
25-cent Matinee
Imitation of Life
Wednesday, February 11, 2015 – 10:30am
State Theatre
25-cent Matinee
Ghosts of Mississippi
Wednesday, February 11, 2015 – 7:00pm
Dennos Museum Center, Milliken Auditorium
“Slamming Stereotypes” with Kinetic Affect
Free Admission
Two very different men, Kirk Latimer and Gabriel Giron of Kalamazoo, MI, combine their voices as Kinetic Affect, to give life to their difficult histories through the expressive medium of spoken word poetry. Utilizing the lessons they have learned from surviving past traumatic experiences, Kinetic Affect will challenge students, educators and the community to break out of the ethnic, socio-economic, gender and racial stereotypes that burden so many lives. Please join for this unique event of creative expression with one of the truest forms of social advocacy. This event is sponsored by NMC’s Office of Student Life and Traverse City High School.
Thursday, February 12, 2015 – 7:00pm
Dennos Museum Center
Community Cinema: American Denial
Free film and discussion
Follow the story of foreign researcher and Nobel Laureate Gunnar Myrdal whose study, An American Dilemma (1944), provided a provocative inquiry into the dissonance between stated beliefs as a society and what is perpetuated and allowed in the name of those beliefs. His inquiry into the United States’ racial psyche becomes a lens for modern inquiry into how denial, cognitive dissonance, and unrecognized, unconscious attitudes continue to dominate racial dynamics in American life. The film’s unusual narrative sheds a unique light on the unconscious political and moral world of modern Americans. Archival footage, newsreels, nightly news reports, and rare southern home movies from the ’30s and ’40s thread through the story, as well as psychological testing into racial attitudes from research footage, websites, and YouTube films.
Hear from experts — historians, psychologists, sociologists and Myrdal’s daughters — all filmed directly to camera. Witnesses work to exhume unconscious feelings Americans have about themselves and others — fascinated by the Myrdal question, and by how much true thinking and feeling unfolds in social contexts in an unconscious mode. What are the implications for individual responsibility and social justice in democracies like America’s?
Monday, February 16, 2015 – 11:00am
Traverse Area District Library, Main Branch
African American Tales with Brenda Harris
Free
Journey through African American History with professional storyteller Brenda Harris. Families and school groups welcome. Space is limited, so groups of more than 10 please call to register; 231-932-8503.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015 – 10:30am
State Theatre
25-cent Matinee
Driving Miss Daisy
Wednesday, February 25, 2015 – 10:30am
State Theatre
25-cent Matinee
Mississippi Burning
Saturday, February 28th, 2015 – 10:00am – 4:00pm
Dennos Museum Center
Homes Filled with Hearts
Free admission to the event
Habitat for Humanity, GTR presents an exhibit featuring artwork from Habitat families, and a tool craft project 1-3 pm.
Thursday, March 12, 2015 – 7:00pm
Dennos Museum Center
Community Cinema: The Homestretch
Free film and discussion
The Homestretch follows three homeless teens as they fight to stay in school, graduate, and build a future. Each of these smart, ambitious youths — Roque, Kasey, and Anthony — will surprise, inspire, and challenge audiences to rethink stereotypes of homelessness as they work to complete their education while facing the trauma of being alone and abandoned at an early age. While told through a personal perspective, their stories connect with larger issues of poverty, race, juvenile justice, immigration, foster care, and LGBTQ rights.
With unprecedented access into Chicago public schools, The Night Ministry “Crib” emergency youth shelter, and Teen Living Programs’ Belfort House, The Homestretch follows these kids as they move through the milestones of high school while navigating a landscape of couch hopping, emergency shelters, transitional homes, street families, and a school system on the front lines of the homelessness crisis. The Homestretch examines the struggles these youth face in obtaining a high school level education, and then follows them beyond graduation to focus on the crucial transition when the structure of school vanishes, and homeless youth often struggle to find the support and community they need to survive and be independent. A powerful, original perspective on what it means to be young and homeless in America today, while building a future.
Saturday, March 28th, 2015 – 10:00am – 4:00pm
Dennos Museum Center
Upscale Art
Free Admission to the event
Habitat for Humanity, GTR presents a salvage art exhibit and silent auction featuring ReStore wooden chairs that have been re-imagined and restored. Concept: Take a chair and bring it to life!
Saturday, April 18th, 2015 – 10:00am – 4:00pm
Dennos Museum Center
Net Zero Housing Presentation
Free Admission to the event
Habitat for Humanity, GTR presents an exhibit on energy use with a special guest speaker on reusable energy, net zero housing, and the benefits of recycling.