is a multiracial coalition of rural and urban communities
working through culture to build power and wealth.
Our goal is a future where everyone belongs and everyone's contribution matters -- where together, we own what we make.
working through culture to build power and wealth.
Our goal is a future where everyone belongs and everyone's contribution matters -- where together, we own what we make.
WHO WE ARE
Performing Our Future is a coalition of community-led organizations representing communities from across the country. We began in 2015 in the coalfields of east Kentucky and have been growing ever since. Though our communities are diverse and far-flung, we continue to find common ground: in the ways we work, the challenges we face, and the undervalued assets we are working to develop together.
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The Arch Social Community Network works to enrich the neighborhoods of West Baltimore by providing an outlet for cultural expression through arts, entertainment and social dialogue.
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Black Belt Citizens Fighting for Health and Justice works towards a Uniontown, Alabama and Black Belt region where all people will unite to act in love for shared liberty and justice for all.
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The Letcher County Culture Hub is a growing network of community-led organizations in the coalfields of East Kentucky, working to build a culture and economy where we own what we make.
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Rural/Urban Flow brings together producers of art, culture, and agriculture to harness, share, and grow community wealth across the rural-urban continuum in Milwaukee and Sauk Counties, Wisconsin.
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Performing Our Future was started by Roadside Theater, a division of the east Kentucky-based arts and humanities center Appalshop. Performing Our Future emerged out of decades of Roadside/Appalshop community cultural development residencies, working with communities across the country and internationally to tell their own stories and create their own future. Roadside/Appalshop provides ongoing staff and financial support to the Performing Our Future national coalition.
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HOW WE WORK
OUR METHOD is based in flow and synergy between grassroots cultural work, broad-based community organizing, and community wealth creation, where each of these practices grounds, focuses, and grows the power of the others.
OUR WORK is planned, led, and owned by communities’ centers of power, or free spaces, which are controlled by communities themselves, and where everyone in the community is welcome as a leader. The work is an expression of communities in their full diversity, as we collaborate to free our collective imaginations, discover the assets latent in our culture, and work together to activate those assets.
OUR ROOTS are in our communities' long histories of speaking and acting for ourselves, including the traditions of self-determination, community governance, and democratic populism. We work across regional, racial, ideological, and class lines to build an inclusive community -- including all human and non-human beings and the land itself -- with the power to create our world together and own what we make.
For more information on how we work -- including guides to theory and practice, articles, video, podcasts, and photos -- visit the Performing Our Future page on Roadside Theater's website.
OUR WORK is planned, led, and owned by communities’ centers of power, or free spaces, which are controlled by communities themselves, and where everyone in the community is welcome as a leader. The work is an expression of communities in their full diversity, as we collaborate to free our collective imaginations, discover the assets latent in our culture, and work together to activate those assets.
OUR ROOTS are in our communities' long histories of speaking and acting for ourselves, including the traditions of self-determination, community governance, and democratic populism. We work across regional, racial, ideological, and class lines to build an inclusive community -- including all human and non-human beings and the land itself -- with the power to create our world together and own what we make.
For more information on how we work -- including guides to theory and practice, articles, video, podcasts, and photos -- visit the Performing Our Future page on Roadside Theater's website.
WHAT WE DO
To learn more about Performing Our Future's current work, take a look at our strategy for 2019-2021.
To learn more about Performing Our Future's origins, check out our archive from 2015-2017.
To learn more about Performing Our Future's origins, check out our archive from 2015-2017.
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JOIN IN
Want to learn more about Performing Our Future, and join in?
To find lots more information about who we are, what we do, and how you and your community can get involved, you are welcome to contact any of our coalition delegations directly (see links above), or get in touch with Performing Our Future's lead organizer Tiffany Turner at tiffany@appalshop.org.
To find lots more information about who we are, what we do, and how you and your community can get involved, you are welcome to contact any of our coalition delegations directly (see links above), or get in touch with Performing Our Future's lead organizer Tiffany Turner at tiffany@appalshop.org.
