Genesis at the Crossroads' History
Eight Years of Cross-Cultural Artistic Collaboration
Genesis at the Crossroads (GATC) began as Wendy Sternberg’s original project in Landmark Education’s 1999 Self-Expression and Leadership Program. In May of 1999 we formed our first Board of Directors and created bylaws that maintain diversity amongst our leadership, insuring each ethnic community’s voice in our projects. In August of 1999, GATC became incorporated and in May 2000, became a government-approved 501(c) (3) non-profit. Our Executive and Advisory Boards and developing Youth Board, help us with fundraising and community outreach. Our members do volunteer work for the organization.
The Illinois Arts Council awarded GATC grants in the last seven consecutive years. Additionally, Governor Blagojevich recognized our work with the Illinois Arts Council Governor’s International Arts Exchange Program Grants in both 2006 and 2007 to support our arts programs with the Casablanca Conservatory of Music as well as our Genesis World Music Ensemble. We received a grant from the US Department of State (Performing Arts Initiative Fund) for our upcoming Genesis World Music Ensemble tour to Casablanca. Co-Sponsors have included The Chicago Children’s Museum,
The Chicago Foundation for Women, Columbia College Chicago, The Chicago Park District, FuturePath Trading, Nuveen Investments, Katten Muchin Rosenman, 98.7 WFMT & The WFMT Radio Network, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Devon Bank, Pepsi, Sofitel, The Merchandise Mart Properties, Norooz Productions, and many private individuals and family foundations. The State of Illinois recognized our organization’s work by proclaiming October 2001, Genesis at the Crossroads Month in Illinois. In 2003, the Governor also awarded GATC’s Founder with a “Certificate of Appreciation for Outstanding Dedication and Commitment to the Ethnic Communities of Illinois.”
Chicago Public Radio featured GATC on Steve Edwards’ WBEZ program Eight Forty-Eight in 2001, 2003, and 2006 as well as Worldview in 2005 and Radio M in 2007. GATC has also been a featured in the Washington Post, LA Times, on the BBC, Al Jazeera TV and WCIU TV featured GATC in the 2003 program Twenty-six North Halsted, discussing the healing power of the arts in a time of world crisis. GATC provided the keynote address on cross-cultural collaboration for the Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management Summer 2004 Executive Development Program and was selected for the Kellogg Board Fellows Program for 2007-9. GATC’s Co-Presidents delivered the keynote address for the Summer 2004 Hands of Peace cross-cultural teens dialogue program and provided interactive musical and visual arts workshops. Sternberg recently presented GATC’s arts-education literary programs in a keynote address to educators through a DePaul University - National Endowment for the Humanities’ funded program.
For her work on GATC, Founder & Executive Director, Wendy Sternberg, MD was the Finalist for the 2003 Fourth Annual Susan F. Berkowitz Award for Teaching Tolerance to Children and was featured in the January 2004 issue of Today’s Chicago Women Magazine as a “Woman to Watch” in Chicago. She was the keynote speaker for The Global Abundance Alliance 2004 Chicago Forum on Global Leadership and was nominated in April 2004 for Crain’s Chicago 40 Under 40 Award. She was featured in the August 2005 issue of Chicago Magazine and was also featured on United Nations’ Radio in August 2005. She received an Award of Excellence by Cook County Treasurer, Maria Pappas in March 2006 and was featured in a cover story by Chicago Jewish News in June 2006 as one of the “10 Jewish Chicagoans of the Year.” GATC was the recipient of the Publicity Club of Chicago’s 2007 Silver Trumpet Ward in Issues Management. She is the recipient of the Wilmette Rotary Club’s 2007 Frankel Award for her work in the social justice arena.
Genesis at the Crossroads made history in the Summer of 2005 by taking our cross-cultural Israeli-Palestinian performance to audiences at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., The Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York City and The Skirball Center in Los Angeles. This performance was an integral part of the United Nations’ 60th Anniversary Celebration, A Time for Renewal.
In August 2006, GATC was awarded a Governor’s International Arts-Exchange Program Grant through the Illinois Arts Council to begin Phase I of ARTSLINK Casablanca. GATC presented concerts at both The Kennedy Center in DC and HotHouse Chicago exploring cross-cultural influences in music from Andalucia.
Tapestry of Story & Sound (November 2006) was a GATC creation commissioned by the Chicago Children’s Humanities Festival. Playful Irish storytelling and folk music woven with that of Persian tales, perfumed with sounds of the santur contrast with the magical kora musicianship and Senegalese folk stories. Riveting storytelling and stirring music transport children to distant corners of the world while promoting cultural understanding.
Our December 2006 Concert for Peace featured Gary Sinise & the Lt. Dan Band as well as the Children’s Humanitarian Peace Quilt Exhibition, One Peace at Time. GATC’s quiltworkshops enabled Chicago area children from ethnically diverse backgrounds to both fashion a quilting square with their own creative expressions for world peace and to write about their thoughts while doing so. The individual squares were sewn together by professional seamstresses into individual quilts for Iraqi children abroad. They figured prominently on the showroom floor during the Merchandise Mart Properties’ 2006 One-of-a-Kind Show featuring our not-for-profit organization.
Displayed for four months at the Chicago Children’s Museum, the exhibition will tour the US to other museums en route to Baghdad. (LA’s Museum of Tolerance, 2007-8) Funds permitting, these quilt workshops will continue indefinitely at each destination with designated war-torn country recipients to be chosen by each American community. This program was filmed for GATC’s children’s documentary, exploring how children see themselves as part of the global challenge towards a peaceful world.
In March 2007, GATC went to Capitol Hill for the Alliance for Middle East Peace Conference (ALLMEP) to present both a live concert presentation of our cross-cultural collaborative performance model and our organization to Members of Congress,
DC-based interest groups, and the media.