Apogee Rolls Out Innovative Fusion Program to Facilitate the Successful Emergence of Gifted Performing Artists onto the World Stage

The Apogee Foundation, an international nonprofit dedicated to the development of human excellence in the performing arts, is now implementing groundbreaking pilot programs in Boston, Philadelphia, London and Odessa to enable talented performing artists from Eastern Europe and Asia to transition to the international stage.

New York, March 7, 2006 (eMediaWire. PRWeb, PressBox) – The Apogee Foundation today announced that it will roll out its innovative Fusion Program through pilot projects to be launched this year in Boston, Philadelphia, London and Odessa. The Foundation's Fusion Program is designed to enable gifted performing artists from Eastern Europe and Asia who are transitioning to the world stage to integrate Eastern and Western forms of artistic awareness and expression into a creative whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Harvard University instructor Liz Lurie Ms. Lurie is here shown at work on developing the Bodywork component of Apogee's Fusion Program in collaboration with the Foundation's Boston representatives. Click image to enlarge

Based on grants already allocated in 2005 and 2006, the first Fusion pilot program is now underway in Boston with the assistance of faculty members from the Boston Conservatory as well as participants from other leading educational and training institutions such as Harvard University. Expanding on the successes being achieved in this first program, the Foundation is now also organizing a summer program to take place in Philadelphia with the assistance of master instructors from Pennsylvania Ballet, University of the Arts and other leading specialists. Apogee then plans to incorporate further groups of experts into the development of Fusion while making the program's benefits available to increasing numbers of beneficiaries by implementing further pilot programs in London (England) and Odessa (Ukraine) during the following academic year.

Boston Conservatory master instructor and Prometheus Dance Artistic Director Diane Arvanites-Noya. Ms. Noya is shown developing the Modern Dance component of Apogee's Fusion Program in collaboration with the Foundation's Boston representatives. Click image to enlarge

While the profound genius of the Eastern world's human and cultural resources has long been recognized, even the most gifted performing artists emerging from this background face special challenges when they seek to achieve their potential on the world stage. Many of these challenges stem from modes of education and training inherited or exported from totalitarian regimes, which inculcate methodologies based on wrote learning and which suppress individual creativity. Apogee's Fusion Program is designed to liberate the full potential of those subjected to such environments by integrating dozens of Western methodologies proven to enhance artistic and performance abilities in dynamic and empowering ways. In so doing, the Foundation achieves a fusion of creative powers, East and West, eternal and state-of-the-art, which enables its beneficiaries to attain the apogee of their human and cultural potential.

Apogee President Kenneth Schneider Mr. Schneider, a lifelong specialist in the dramatic arts, personally oversees development of the Method Acting component of Apogee's Fusion Program. Click image to enlarge

To implement this program on a worldwide basis, Apogee provides grants to leading specialists in fields ranging from contemporary expression and improvisation to musicality training and bodywork to sports nutrition and sports psychology, coordinates the delivery of these program components, and documents the evolving curriculum so that it can be replicated for the benefit of increasing numbers of gifted artists around the world.

Apogee President Kenneth Schneider said: "It is Apogee's mission to provide talented artists with the opportunity to achieve their fullest potential. We are therefore thrilled to be working with leading professionals across such a wide range of fields and regions to deliver a program enabling this in such an exciting and innovative way. The ultimate aim of the Fusion Program is not only to enable our beneficiaries to attain world best standards but to empower them to surpass these and to create new legacies for the performing arts around the world."

For more information on Apogee's Fusion Program, please see the Foundation's website: http://www.ApogeeFoundation.org/programs/fusion.php

To view this news release with full photographic content and to download printer friendly and PDF formats, as well as to obtain translations into other languages, please refer to the Foundation's website: http://www.ApogeeFoundation.org/awareness/2005-2006/fusion_program.php

About The Apogee Foundation ®

The Apogee Foundation began activities in Russia in 1997 and was incorporated in the United States in 2004 as a New York based not-for-profit corporation. Apogee is dedicated to the development of human excellence in the performing arts. It supports cultural institutions and individual artists, providing administrative, promotional, and financial support to help talented individuals achieve their full potential, and enabling this potential to be showcased to the world.

© The Apogee Foundation ® Achieving the Potential of Human Excellence in the Performing Arts

Contact:
Kenneth Schneider, Apogee President
1001 Avenue of the Americas, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10018-5460 (USA)
+1.646.233.4350 or +1.888.APOGEE.8
Fax: +1.646.292.5101
www.ApogeeFoundation.org

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Fusion_Program_to_Facilitate_the_Successful_Emergence_of_Gifted_Performi_69043.html