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About LTA FoundedAugust 1992 by the late Dan Jenkins and Kathy Wade, President. Learning Through Art Inc. (LTA) received certification as a not-for-profit 501(c)3 corporation in April 1993.Our MissionLearning Through Art, Inc., a 501 c (3) non-profit performing arts education organization, is dedicated to providing quality performing arts programs in support of arts education and community development encouraging multi-cultural awareness and understanding. Programs and services are reaching over 850,000 participants.Kathy Wade runs Learning Through Art, Inc. (LTA) for less than the cost of a starter home in Hyde Park. You do the math.  And if you think she should be able to do what she does for that sum, consider other of the city’s arts programs whose outreach is far stingier but whose administrations alone require that budget, and you’ll begin to get the lop-sided picture.
But no one in or near LTA’s Romper Room-like offices wants any pity; a check, maybe, but certainly not any pity. LTA is a friendly octopus, its tentacles eradicating cultural ignorance in a forward swoop and opening young minds through books, music and age-old oral traditions on their return sweep. In-School Touring Educational Programs (INSTEP) serves up Black Anthology of Music (BAM) and Rhythms…Common Bonds (RCB). Wade, who, during a decade of operating art-based programs has grown acronym-happy, knew early on she could sing—or sang, as we say in my neighborhood. But she also knew there would be few audiences who’d appreciate her music if she didn’t catch ‘em early on and teach them how to listen. So she got a master’s degree in Arts Administration from the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music and started taking her show on the road…to classrooms. Through BAM more than 400,000 people during 20 years have seen and heard Wade scat and griot-speak her way through a whirlwind tour of Jazz, making stops in Africa, Harlem, Southern plantations and Carnegie Hall along the way. Another 100,000 in nine years through RCB have caught the beat and learned that the drum was the first mode of communication for Africans packed on slave ships. And when those Africans added Caribbean and Cuban polyrhythms, America’s indigenous music was set free. Cool like that under LTA’s umbrella also is the literary performing arts program Books Alive! for Kids as well as the Grande dames of Jazz who annually highlight The ‘Hood is Bigger Than You Think Tour. If it all looks glamorous from your table, tux and gown, think again. In Mother to Son Langston Hughes yanked the covers off mid-century Negro life when he wrote, “Well, son, I’ll tell you. Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” Change “son” to “daughter,” and those Harlem Renaissance ghosts could just as easily be falling from Wade’s mouth here now in the wet-paint/new car smell stages of the 20th Century. Here, in any order you choose, is a black, woman, Jazz singer, mother, wife, barker, arts administrator, Jillito of all trades, beggar, baker and Jazz dream maker. Board Of TrusteesClick Here to see the Board of Trustees |
1420 Sycamore Street, Suite 3 Cincinnati, OH 45202 Toll Free:866.242.3252 Cincinnati:513.242.6028 Fax:513.242.6021 E-Mail:lart@cinci.rr.com