MUSE Musicians United for Superior Education by Al Riess Cultural traditions cease to be viable if they are no longer passed from person to person, from generation to generation. Someone has to make a special effort to keep the flame alive and encourage others to carry the torch, as well. In Buffalo, New York, the non-profit organization Musicians United for Superior Education, Inc. (MUSE) is championing the cause and is bringing multi-cultural traditional arts to children in some of the Buffalo public schools. MUSE was established in 1990 by ethnomusicologist Charles Keil, a professor of American Studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo. According to MUSE's mission statement, the organization is "dedicated to building music/ dance traditions in schools and community centers and increasing children's access to culturally diverse performing arts instruction." One of the main programs of the organization is MUSE in the Schools. Through community networking and touching base with their own contacts, MUSE's board of directors identified drummers and dancers from Buffalo's African, African-American, and Puerto Rican communities to serve as artists-in-residence in schools located in neighborhoods throughout the city. On May 9th, 1998, the fifth annual MUSE-Fest Children's Drum and Dance Festival was held in the 800-seat Rockwell Hall Performing Arts Center at Buffalo State College, where the performing groups from MUSE in the Schools did two or three numbers in a presentation that lasted between 10 and 20 minutes. MUSE-Fest is not a competitive event, it's a celebration of the culture. A new twist was added to MUSE-Fest this year that provided an opportunity for the children to make a connection between contemporary African-American music and its African roots. MUSE has plans to expand MUSE in the Schools' artist-in-residence program to include more schools, as well as artists in residence from Native American, Irish, Southeast Asian, and Eastern European cultures. MUSE, 81 Crescent Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14214 www.musekids.org This is an excerpt from Dirty Linen #78 To read the entire article, Subscribe! © 1998 Dirty Linen, Ltd., Baltimore MD No reproduction in any form is permitted without written permission from the editors.