WORKING ARTISTS LAB: Michael Mwenso

"In times of distress, like we're experiencing today, we can turn to the arts to better understand ourselves in one moment, and better ourselves in the next moment."
               -Michael Mwenso, visiting professor of the arts

The UB Arts Collaboratory's Working Artists Lab is an experimental workspace for UB students in the arts, faculty, and visiting artists to develop new work and collaborate across disciplines, thereby illuinating the process of becoming a working artist. This fall's lab centered on the magnetic impresario, Michael Mwenso, and leader of Mwenso and the Shakes, an internationally acclaimed troupe of musical artists. Mwenso collaborated with UB's departments of Music and Theatre and Dance on his curriculum, Protest, Hope and Resilience through the Black Arts. Michael Mwenso, with a coalition of leading black artists, took students on a journey that demonstrates how these forms of ultimate human expression have propelled change, currently play a role in the advancement of consciousness, and will be a guiding force to real revolution in the future.