The African American Arts Alliance, which has been fostering the creativity of Black artists in Chicago for decades, has a new name and a new president who’s aiming to expand its mission.
Charlique C. Rolle has taken the reins at the nonprofit, which has been renamed the Black Arts & Culture Alliance of Chicago, or BACA.
Rolle, 32, said she plans to boost fundraising and marketing to inform Black artists about resources available through the organization, which range from workshops to mentorship in in theater, dance, music, literature, technology, film and visual arts.
“A lot of people haven’t engaged with us because they haven’t known about us,” said Rolle, who took on the unpaid position after three years on the group’s board. “So many artists have said we didn’t even know the Alliance existed.”
The Alliance has office space at the Black Ensemble Theater, 4450 N. Clark St., but runs programming at community spaces around the city.
“One of our long-term visions is to become a physical hub for the arts with a space and a home,” Rolle said. ”It’s not an immediate thing but part of the future vision.”
Rolle is moving away from offering free memberships and switching to only paid memberships for individuals and organizations but said she’ll work to keep the cost low.
Rolle, who was born and grew up in the Bahamas, is also the executive director of Chicago’s Congo Square Theatre and has an artistic background that includes modeling, dance, poetry, writing, acting and composing music.
Rolle studied dance and theater at Missouri Valley College before coming to Chicago. She’s been involved in dance as a performer, choreographer and instructor and was a business manager at different Chicago dance companies.
“I’m passionate about creating structure that allows the community to thrive,” she said.
At the Alliance, she took over as president earlier this year, succeeding Black Ensemble Theater founder and CEO Jackie Taylor, who cofounded the Alliance in 1997. The organization was born out of the Black Theater Alliance, a group started by Black artists in the 1970s. Taylor was a member of the original group.
Taylor, who grew up in the Cabrini-Green public housing project and lives in Uptown, said she saw the need for other artists to benefit as she did from working with the Alliance.
“I greatly benefited from being part of that supportive community in not only physical ways but in mental and spiritual ways and also in understanding that my art was a business,” Taylor said.
Taylor stepped down from her role at the Alliance after 25 years at the helm but will remain head of the Black Ensemble Theater, which she founded 47 years ago. The Alliance has a strong membership base and is on strong financial footing, she said.
“It was time for the Alliance to take that next step in terms of joining the tech age and reaching more artists,” Taylor said. “And I’m confident we’ll be in good hands going forward with Charlique Rolle. Besides the high intelligence that she has, she brings a freshness, she brings a youthful passion, and she has the pulse of the community.”
The Alliance has hosted a series of performances and workshops in October for Black Arts Month. The final Black Arts Month event takes place at 7 p.m. Monday. at the Muse Coffee Studio, 747 S. Western Ave., celebrating Black storytelling through theater, poetry, film, and dance that’s free and open to the public. Registration is available online at bacachi.org.
The Alliance’s 23rd annual Black Excellence Awards ceremony will be held on Nov. 6, to recognized outstanding achievement by artists and organizations in Chicago’s cultural arts scene.
