A unique point of access for community-driven expression, healing, & togetherness!
Videos
An uplifting portrait of how our community came together to keep the arts accessible by celebrating local emerging music talent of all ages at the first-ever Upper West Side Talent Show. The featured contestants were selected during open auditions at the Bernie Wohl Center. In this BTS documentary, hear original songs and witness the local artists “share their shine” with our Community Arts program staff and crew.
93-year-old artist Nancy Brandon is a lifelong New Yorker and a frequent presence in the streets of the Upper West Side. She is often seen strolling on her way to an event at our Bernie Wohl Center (BWC), a multi-use space that houses our Community Arts Program, the Westside NORC program, and Youth Programming.
Nancy’s career retrospective solo exhibition was on view at BWC all of March 2024, as part of the Community Arts Program’s annual W.H.A.M. Festival celebrating the female visionaries in our local arts scene throughout International Women’s Month.
As 2023-2024 Artists in Residence at Goddard Riverside’s Community Arts Program, Good Light Productions conducted the Real Life Writers Poetry Project (RLWPP), a multi-session spoken word poetry workshop for young adults addressing Goddard’s program values to inspire and heal. Crafted through a social justice lens, RLWPP is a series of poetry writing projects designed for participants to learn the craft, styles, and methods of creating award-winning spoken word by professional spoken word artists. RLWPP purposefully sets out to de-center the notion that poetry is an elite, inaccessible, art form and inspires participants to develop and perform poetry reflecting their ideas, thoughts, and lived experiences. The culminating performances covered difficult and important topics such as breast cancer, fatphobia, gun violence, economic injustice, and misogyny.
“When I reflect on 2023/2024 in the coming years, I will fondly recall how a small group of us decided together to create more beauty in the world by telling stories that needed to be told.” – Season Artist in Residence Carolyn Harrison “I am forever moved by the lives we’ve been able to touch with this project.” – Lyrical Faith