MASON/ RHYNES PRODUCTIONS INC. (M/RP), with Gesel Mason as Artistic Director and Cheles Rhynes as Managing and Technical Director, has emerged as a prolific and innovative, African-American, arts organization in the Metropolitan DC area. Based in Prince Georges County, MD, the company has made an impact on Metropolitan DC’s arts community with several productions including…
• Metro DC Dance Awards and Metro DC Dances, two events to showcase and recognize the diversity of DC's finest in dance. The Metro DC Dance Awards starts the season at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Metro DC Dances, a free event at the Carter Barron Amphitheater, with the support of the National Park Service, presents past Metro DC Dance Award nominees, finalists and winners.
• The Expressions Series, which features dance, music, spoken word, and most recently Expressions Series: Late Night!!!, has been presented in partnership with the Historic Lincoln Theatre, George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium, Howard University’s Cramton Auditorium, Joy of Motion Dance Centers and Dance Place. The series highlights local and national performing artists of color, including Grammy award-winning artist Erykah Badu, The Last Poets, and Urban Bush Women.
Founded in 1998 and incorporated as a 501 (c) 3 in 2001, M/RP's mission is to provide quality performing arts workshops, residencies, projects and performances designed to challenge, enlighten and entertain diverse populations.
M/RP assists independent artists and emerging performing arts groups by creating performance opportunities and providing administrative, artistic and technical theatre support for many national, regional and local DC area groups including the all male EDGEWORKS Dance Theater, performance artists Holly Bass, folk-hop group PS24, NYC-based INSPIRIT, internationally renown Nejla Yatkin, hip-hop dancer/choreographer Jennifer Archibald, award-winning teacher Lynn Welters and her New School of Dance Arts, and “DC’s preeminent modern dance company”, CityDance Ensemble.
MRP Management, a division within the organization, is employed by professional artists to act as a booking agent and help with career management. Some of our clients include: internationally-known story teller Arianna Ross/Story Tapestries, jazz singer Tamara Wellons and up-&-coming television and movie actress Yesenia Garcia.
M/RP cultivates partnerships to help artists and organizations do what they cannot do alone. M/RP has partnered with Joy of Motion Dance Centers to create The Black Expressions Master Class Series and co-produced Masters of West Coast Dance: Ito, Horton, and Lewitzky, a five-day event in Rockville, MD and Washington, DC, that illuminated the work of three seminal artists: Michio Ito, Lester Horton, and Bella Lewitzky, through a series of master classes, lectures, panel discussions, and performances.
As an arts facilitator, M/RP designs programs in conjunction with schools and community organizations often employing the art making process to explore issues relevant to the participants and their community. One program, Reality Check, uses dance, theatrical exercises, and participants’ real experiences with discrimination and segregation to examine the Civil Rights movement. M/RP has worked with Georgetown Day School, Caesar Chavez Public Charter School, Montgomery County’s Public Schools, Housing Opportunities Commission and Juvenile Justice System as arts facilitators for Journey's Day Treatment Program for teens on parole.
About the Co-Founders...
Photo by Enoch Chan |
GESEL MASON is Co-founder and Artistic Director for Mason/Rhynes Productions and Gesel Mason Performance Projects. Ms. Mason has performed with Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, toured Germany with the Repertory Dance Theatre of Utah, and was a member of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange from 1996-2000, where she continues to perform as a guest artist. Ms. Mason’s solo project, NO BOUNDARIES: Dancing the Visions of Contemporary Black Choreographers, includes the work of Donald McKayle, Bebe Miller, David Rousséve, Reggie Wilson, Andrea Woods, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. The project received a National Dance Project Tour Only Grant for 2008/09 season and two Metro DC Dance Awards in 2007 for Outstanding Individual Performance and Outstanding Overall Production – Small Venue. She has also worked with Alison Chase, Sardono Kusumo, Jacek Luminski, Victoria Marks, Susan Marshall, Peter Pucci, Doug Varone, and Ralph Lemon in the final installment of his Geography Trilogy: “Come home Charley Patton”.
As an educator she has taught all ages and abilities and has been invited as artist in residence at schools and universities across the country including Texas Women’s University, University of Utah, Columbia College, University of Maryland, University of Maryland at Baltimore County, and Virginia Commonwealth University. Ms. Mason received a Maryland State Arts Council Award in 2001, 2004 and 2005, an Arts Council of Montgomery County Artist Fellowship in 1999 and 2005, was selected Emerging Choreographer by the Bates Dance Festival in 2000, and received 2007 Millennium Stage Local Dance Commissioning Project from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Dallas Black Dance Theater, Eisenhower Dance Ensemble and Sandra Organ Dance Company have commissioned Ms. Mason’s award winning choreography, among others, and her work has been presented at Joyce SoHo, the Fort Wayne Performing Arts Center, Diverse Works in Houston, 651 Arts in Brooklyn, Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts in College Park, MD, as part of the International Contemporary Dance Conference and Performance Festival in Bytom, Poland, DanceAfrica, and the International Association of Blacks in Dance. For more information visit gmasonprojects.com.
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Photo by Paul Emerson |
CHELES RHYNESis co-founder and Managing Director for Mason/Rhynes Productions, a prolific African-American arts service organization located in the Washington, DC area. Mr. Rhynes' multifaceted experience in technical theater has brought him across the nation and around the globe, including Brazil, Lithuania, Croatia, Poland, Bosnia, and Serbia. For the past six years, Mr. Rhynes has worked as a contract consultant with the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), and for the last three he has been the Conference Production Manager. His job is to oversee all aspects of special events and showcases presented at the base hotel for the entire conference. Mr. Rhynes also provides artists assistance with booking management, tour coordination, and representation at regional and national conferences, including Performing Arts Exchange (PAE) and National Performing Network (NPN), through Mason/Rhynes Productions. In 2008, his company presented a showcase featuring six artists at the Alvin Ailey studios to a standing-room only crowd of over 200.
Mr. Rhynes' extensive career in production has brought him to many different cities and in contact with a multitude of established organizations. He has worked with the Dallas Children's Theatre, and Pocket Sandwich Theatre (Dallas, TX), Mixed Blood Theater (Minneapolis, MN), and toured with the Flying Karamozov Brothers (Seattle, WA). He has worked in many theaters in the DC area including Howard University Cramton Auditorium, George Washington University Lisner Auditorium, Living Stage Theatre, the Shakespeare Theatre, and Dance Place. He was Technical Director for Joy of Motion Dance Center's Jack Guidone Theater, Production Coordinator, Company Manager and Stage Manager for Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, and was the Production Stage Manager for the annual Mayor's Arts Awards and the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts where his duties included announcing the President of the United States.
Mr. Rhynes' award winning technical direction, stage management and lighting designs have been sought by numerous artists, companies, universities and organizations including Andrea E. Woods and Dancers/ Souloworks, Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group, International Association of Blacks in Dance, hjw/EDGEWORKS Dance Theater, Morgan State University, Coppin State University, Nejla Yatkin, US Hip-Hop Ambassador Toni Blackman, Gesel Mason Performance Projects, CityDance Ensemble, performance artist Holly Bass and musician/spoken word artist Psalmayene 24. He was Production Stage Manager for Alvin Ailey II and worked for four years as the Production Stage Manager of the E-Moves showcase presented annually at Aaron Davis Hall in NYC.
Mr. Rhynes is the Producer of the Expressions Series, a national showcase based in the DC area, for the next generation of artists of color. He is also Founder of the Metro DC Dance Awards (www.mdcda.org), an annual event that takes place at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Metro DC Dances; two galvanizing events celebrating the metropolitan DC/MD/VA dance community. |
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Gesel Mason
Co-Founder, Artistic Director
Cheles Rhynes
Co-Founder, Technical/Managing Director
Elizabeth Eastman Winheld,
Spark & Flourish Creative – Design
Paul Gordon Emerson, Enoch Chan
Photographers
Sarah Levitt
Administrative Assistant
Reggie Cole
Production Coordinator, Expressions Series
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