♪ Hi, everybody.

I'm Felicia Curry, and welcome to "WETA Arts," the place to discover what's going on in the creative and performing arts in and around D.C.

In this episode... an after-school program hosts a steelpan concert.

Maureen Clement: Steelpan is an instrument that can play any genre of music.

Everybody's style is so unique.

Curry: The Washington Glass School marks its 25th anniversary.

Tim Tate: One way that we are different than other schools in glass is that we teach storytelling.

It's all ahead on "WETA Arts."

♪ At Prince George's Community College in Largo, Maryland, preparations are underway for an unusual concert.

That's a double tenor, and that's for here.

Oh, that's the one from the school.

Curry: The performance will feature several steelpan orchestras.

Steelpan is a percussion instrument that is tuned to play notes.

Smaller pans play higher notes.

Bigger pans play lower notes.

Malika Green: It's very easy to learn.

I think that's what attracts so many people of different ages to it.

You can start to teach them pretty quickly the hierarchy of an ensemble.

You have melody, you have accompaniment part, you have a bass part and a groove.

Because it's percussion and you don't have to worry about your tuning, you can teach them improvisation really early on.

Clement: Yeah.

That's good.

That's good.

Let's do that a few more times, so we can feel that.

Curry: The instrument is most associated with calypso and soca, styles of music from Trinidad and Tobago, where the instrument was invented.

But the goal of this performance is to upend expectations.

Clement: OK, not no slow tempo neither.

Steelpan is an instrument that can play any genre of music and play it properly.

♪ I want the audience to understand the range of pan and still enjoy the intensity that it provides.

[Rhythmic clapping] Good, good, good.

So we good on that?

Curry: The concert also celebrates the 30th anniversary of a Mount Rainier, Maryland-based student enrichment program tied to learning steelpan... Instructor: C, A, A... Curry: the Cultural Academy for Excellence, CAFE for short.

Lorna Green: The mission is to enhance academics through arts and education and to build future leaders.

Education is not putting into kids.

Education is drawing out of kids, making them understand themselves.

You have to understand what is the best way for you to learn.

[Indistinct chatter] Christian Nanton: I started playing steelpan when I was, like, seven.

My mom knew somebody who was involved with this group CAFE, so she just decided to put me in, and here I am.

Clement: This is the last group, so get ready.

So tomorrow, make sure it's faster, right?

Nanton: It's hard to keep up because my bandmates are really good, so I feel like it's good.

I like for them to challenge me and, like, inspire me to, like, do better myself.

Bryce Collins: I started playing the steelpan when I was five.

CAFE isn't just steelpan.

The group is just, like, very encouraging on different aspects of life.

All right, so we can start in.

Collins: My mom started playing after I joined CAFE.

The parents just wanted to play because they liked it.

But it's exercise, it's mental, but it's also good for the kids to work with the adults in respect building relationships, and that's what we do.

Curry: Steelpan is one of a handful of musical instruments invented in the 20th century, but its roots go back to the transatlantic slave trade.

Malika Green: Trinidad was one of the places where Christopher Columbus landed upon.

Slaves that were eventually brought to the island were not allowed to play drums.

Colonizers quickly found out wherever slaves were in the Americas, they used percussion and drums to communicate.

Curry: Prevented from making drums, they invented an instrument they called tamboo bamboo.

Malika Green: They would cut these bamboo stalks to different lengths and hit them on the side and sing traditional call and response.

Because of the fragility of these percussion instruments, they started integrating other objects.

So this is early 1900s, so pieces off of cars, biscuit tins, trash lids.

Trinidad is an oil-producing country and one of the largely discarded items is an oil drum.

By the late 1930s, you had a lot of people who were realizing that they could get different tones out of this oil barrel.

♪ By the forties, there was a band on Carnival, and by the late fifties, you had full ensembles.

1962 was when Trinidad gained its independence.

And in 1963 was the first Panorama, which was huge, because that's a island-wide competition.

In less than 30 years, this thing went from some young men playing on the street to being recognized internationally.

But also the government is supporting it and saying, "This is something that we want to represent our arts."

♪ And now it's in schools.

[Chuckling] So it's come a long way.

That's a double stand.

Just take your pan.

Curry: Before there was a Cultural Academy For Excellence, there was a steelpan summer camp in Trinidad run by musician Maureen Clement.

My sister was working with Mrs.

Green, and she said, "My sister has a camp "and your daughter is very musical.

So why don't you send her?"

You know.

And she did.

Malika Green: I was a very quiet child.

I was very shy.

I was doing very traditional piano lessons, so everything was like Mozart, Bach, Debussy.

But in steel band, I was playing R&B, I was playing Latin music, it was like a whole new world of social connections... a whole new world of music.

Curry: Malika Green returned to the U.S.

with a pair of pans and an obsession that started to affect her grades.

Malika Green: I was playing with a local band called Pan Masters.

And I remember being in tears.

Like, "This is not fair that "I can't go to steel band rehearsal just 'cause, you know, I got a bad progress report."

I think that's what it was, like.

It definitely pushed me to do what I needed to do to make sure that I could be a part of that environment.

Lorna Green: The student that left me was very different from the student that came back to me.

And that's what made me think that if it worked for her, it could work for other kids.

All of a sudden... [Chuckles] there was an after-school program.

The music was in our home, but then we would go to another neighbor's house for art.

We would go to another neighbor's house for dance.

We also had history.

It was like outside, just outside in the backyard.

The community part wasn't so much about the music, but it was about the learning.

I have you in check.

Malika Green: It was also about Black heritage, Black legacy, Black history, and most of the students were of Afro-Caribbean descent.

And so all of us were getting this education that we weren't necessarily getting in school or maybe not even in our homes either.

What did you play... Malika Green: CAFE is more diverse now, but all of the students are receiving this information that is not available in other spaces.

Here you are.

[Indistinct conversations] Nanton: That's really spiffy.

That's the word of the day, guys, spiffy.

Curry: To showcase the instrument's potential, CAFE students and alumni are performing an overture by the 19th-century Italian opera composer Gioachino Rossini.

The stakes are high because classical music is Mrs.

Green's favorite, and this concert is also a tribute to her.

I don't have a lot of time onstage today to say thank you to everybody.

[Chokes up] [Chuckling] Lorna Green: It's a tough time for me.

I'm retiring.

I cannot run day to day, but just want everybody to enjoy what it is we're trying to tell them and the experience.

I love you all, and thank you.

Don't cry for now.

I want to get it out.

You're never gonna get it out.

You've gonna have more.

This is one of the legs of the stools of this organization.

This is the woman here.

You're going to have more days.

Before this I was in Trinidad with her, looking at how to do this program.

[Cheering] Thank you all.

Thank you, thank you.

Students: Thank you.

There comes a time when you have to step back and so on.

And this is her time.

And I am pleased that I'm here to honor her by just assisting her.

I can honor her with my labor.

[Chuckles] Now, what you're singing don't have to be in tune.

It just has to be rhythmically correct, OK?

1, 2.

[Students vocalizing] Nanton: I like our chemistry.

I like how we just, like, know each other very well and we're not just bandmates.

We're, like, really close friends, and you don't feel judged if you're, like, doing terribly, like I think I'm doing sometimes.

[Student vocalizes loudly] [Laughter] Clement: All right.

So now we're ready.

Now we're ready.

♪ Nanton: It's very technically demanding because, like, of the tempo changes.

We have the conductor, so we have to actually look up and not just at our music.

So it's like you have to focus on both.

It's a lot to go through.

And, like, actually, you have to be very present for that type of song.

♪ Shiloh Browne: They told us, "You guys need to, like, look a little happy," 'cause sometimes I am a little too focused to the point where I don't smile.

Like, it's just, I'm in the zone.

I don't smile, I don't think about smile.

I'm just playing the music.

♪ [Piece ends, cheering and applause] I am an alumni of CAFE, so, you know, this concert was just a blast from the past.

There's no telling what I would have been into without CAFE on a Saturday.

[Applause] Browne: "Soca Warriors" is the last song of the show.

It's very high energy.

It's very technical.

I definitely think everybody's about to be out their seat.

I don't think nobody's really going to be in their seat for that.

♪ Collins: We usually end with "Pandemonium," but now that we ended with "Soca Warriors," I had to find some energy left in the tank.

Gotta go to reserves.

♪ Malika Green: I know my mom had a great time.

To be honored but also to see all the kids come back--alums and having parents give testimonies.

You know, people took the time to show her that her work mattered in their life.

So it's a good day for sure.

♪ Clement: It's never perfect.

But it can be exhilarating, and that's what I wanted for the performers.

♪ Nanton: I love just the way we play together, and I feel like we just did our best.

We just get to have these amazing moments and memories forever.

So I really appreciate CAFE and Ms.

Green for all this.

♪ Lorna Green: My last words are to enjoy themselves and show them what you can do, to embrace it as their music and their instrument.

And I have no doubt CAFE's legacy will continue.

♪ [Piece ends, crowd cheering] Curry: For more about the Cultural Academy For Excellence's steelpan classes, academic enrichment programs, volunteer opportunities, and upcoming performances, go to cafeyouth.org.

In Prince George's County, just past the northeast border of Washington D.C., lies a neighborhood known as the Gateway Arts District, with over 65 art studios and galleries.

Tim Tate: We call ourselves the breadbasket of Washington D.C.

's art scene, because this is where most of the artists are, because no one can afford to have a studio in D.C.

Curry: The Washington Glass School, in an industrial area converted to artists' studios, is one of the District's anchor tenants.

Erwin Timmers: The school got started as a warm glass school.

That means we're not blowing glass, which is called hot glass.

Warm glass all happens in kilns.

Curry: Tim Tate was the first of the directors of the Washington Glass School to learn glassmaking.

Tate: Years ago, when I was a wee child of like, eight, my parents took me to Corning Museum up in New York, and watched the glassblowers, and I thought it was magic.

Finally, I got old enough to actually learn something about hot glass.

Curry: Hot glass, also known as blown glass, requires temperatures of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit or higher.

Tate: But there was no blowing in D.C., so if I learned to blow glass, I had no way to utilize it.

So every year, we'd find one casting class because that was all there was.

Curry: Glass casting was a lower temperature alternative, using a kiln to melt glass in a mold.

Even at about 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit, it ran hundreds of degrees cooler than hot glass.

We decided to go into kiln casting for a variety of reasons.

One of the biggest reasons was to form a non-studio glass environment.

In other words, not a blow centric and not a vessel centric environment.

So we taught everything we could think of that wasn't traditional studio glass from the 20th century.

We thought we were going to just teach a few classes and be done with it.

We had no idea that we were gonna be here 25 years later.

Curry: To mark its 25th anniversary, Washington Glass is organizing an exhibition of works by artists affiliated with the school.

Tate: I really look forward to our 25th exhibition because we're inviting back many of the old teachers, many of the old students.

It's so nice to kind of get everybody together again.

Curry: The occasion is also an opportunity to reflect on the school's beginnings.

In 2000, Tate was showing work at a non-juried exhibition called Art-O-Matic, where he met sculptor Erwin Timmers.

Timmers: I'd been making sculptures, mostly out of metal, and glass for me was the sort of like natural addition that I just wanted to explore but never had a chance to.

I met Tim, and we started talking about the glass program that he wanted to start.

And I thought, you know, this is the perfect opportunity for me to get in.

Curry: The third director, Michael Janis, came to the school when it was just a few years old.

I was an architect for 20 years, and I shifted to being an artist.

I worked with glass as an architect, and the more I worked with glass, the more I would say I want to even do more and further, and say, how far can I take this as an expressive medium and use it to tell a story rather than to contain a story?

Tate: Michael Janis came to us because he was looking for a place to learn glass.

And when he walked through the door, I was only thinking of one question: "Can you draft?"

'Cause he was an architect.

He said yes.

Well, his fate was sealed at that moment.

We should start developing drawings for the engineer.

Tate: We really needed someone who could draft really well for public art.

So once he came on board, then we had a triumvirate of what we did.

We had classes, we had our own personal artwork, and then we had this public artwork.

Curry: Their public art projects can be found all over the DMV and beyond.

Janis: The Library of Congress was probably our first biggest project.

We have one of the panels here in our studio.

These are beefy, strong glass pieces that had very impressive technical requirements that they had to achieve.

Once you're able to say Library of Congress is one of your projects, you have doors open up for you.

Curry: Their public installations, classes, and other operations benefit from their differences.

Tate: We have many creative visions here, so everybody's work looks nothing like anyone else's, which is an important thing for us.

One way that we are different than other schools in glass is that we teach storytelling.

We're trying to tell a sculptural story.

We're trying to tell an artistic story.

We're trying to make someone who saw something feel something about their lives or our lives.

That's a very different way of looking at glass.

Another way that we are different than other schools is that we don't stick to a single medium.

We are versatile.

We are multimedia.

My own practice is very mixed media.

Stories I'm telling freely, like the ones you see on this wall behind me, are stories of LGBTQ people in this country.

And that yellow wall are the 36 points of the new LGBTQ Charter of Civil Rights.

Very few people make work about the queer culture, so I decided it was time to tell the story of those people.

Curry: While Tate experiments with mixed media, Janis pushes the boundaries with powdered glass.

Janis: I like to tell stories about identity and where we are-- the way we have a history and the stories that we choose to tell about ourselves, and that's kind of what I look to do in my own artwork.

Curry: Michael Janis' work uses an ancient technique called sgraffito, which scratches a layer to reveal the one below.

For my sgraffito, I'm actually doing kind of a drawing that's made out of crushed glass powder.

You are working in a medium that you have to know technical aspects of it, and you have to master that to use it the way you want to as an artist.

You know, people think we're teaching glass here at the Glass School, but we're not.

We're actually teaching confidence.

Curry: Many Washington Glass School projects are made with used window glass, thanks to Erwin Timmers.

Timmers: It turns out that the window glass recycling aspect that I was very interested in, there's not really a school for it, there's not really a book written on it.

This is a sheet of tempered glass I got from a glass shop that was going out of business.

Window glass is traditionally very difficult to work with because it's stiff, it's hard.

So me trying it out for the first time was, yeah, big experiment.

That's how my work was categorized in the beginning-- it was very experimental.

So in this kiln, I have two pieces that were fired yesterday.

Curry: Timmers is making a new work for the 25th anniversary exhibition.

Timmers: The kiln reveal is always big, although the kiln reveal is not always the end of the story.

This one came out very nice.

I'm very happy with this one.

The color is all dark in here.

It's supposed to be sort of like a fade from darker to lighter.

It's going to be four green pieces in the center with four blue pieces around.

The whole piece, the concept of it is the encroaching water, rising water levels over land.

Often I have to decide, "OK, it's got to go back in the kiln "because this didn't fire hot enough.

I didn't get enough color on this."

And so there are multiple steps involved.

And every time you do, have to hand it over to the kiln gods.

Curry: Washington Glass School is using a space in another Gateway Arts District anchor called the Brentwood Arts Exchange for their landmark exhibition.

[Indistinct chatter] Phil Davis: If we need more space, then we'd probably pull some things out.

Janis: So it's an exciting day to put together the show at the Brentwood Arts Exchange, because you're also seeing the works in relation to each other and out of the studio, where it suddenly takes on a different meaning when you're on the walls in a nice, clean gallery.

I was thinking she would anchor that wall because it is a big piece and it's got a strength to it, and it will draw someone... Davis: Washington Glass School is a real pillar of this arts community.

It helped start this arts community.

She's gone and made this sweetest little umbrella.

Davis: It's really exciting to see what people have made and what's going on in their minds and how they're communicating it.

Janis: My agenda is always, how do I make the artist look their best?

There's always a sense of dialog between piece to piece, so one person's work next to another, suddenly they're speaking to each other in ways you never saw it.

Arden Colley: Michael has really spearheaded the organization and curation.

[Drill whirs] Herding the cats, so to speak, of getting everybody, you know, organized and on time.

Timmers: Even as the rest of the show was already being loaded and everybody was bringing their stuff here, I was still working on getting this ready.

I brought it--I think it was about 5 p.m.

last night-- and I was one of the last ones to bring it in here.

So this is as fresh as you can get.

Spencer Dormitzer: When I think of glass artworks, I think of the long tradition, the history of it, and how it progressed into what it is now.

Washington Glass School, they've kind of progressed it into a place of concepts and different types of techniques that are just amazing.

Curry: As installation wraps up, all that's left is to wait and see the results.

[Indistinct chatter] Tate: So tonight is the 25th anniversary show for our Glass School.

Tate: We've had 6,000 students in 25 years to bring this show.

That's a lot of people.

[Indistinct chatter] Timmers: It's a relief, to be honest, that everything is up.

It all looks fabulous.

A lot of these people's work I have seen as they're working on it, I've seen it come out of the kiln.

I've seen them piecing it together.

I've never seen it on the wall, and that is a big experience.

[Indistinct chatter] Colley: The Glass School prides itself on experimentation and breaking existing rules.

And you see that here tonight in abundance.

John Henderson, Jr.

: I've made this piece specifically for the show.

It's mixed medium.

I'm using other materials besides glass, but glass is the primary material.

Without WGS, artists like myself, we would not be able to work in the medium.

Alec Simpson: To keep an art studio together for 25 years, it is not an easy thing to do.

And then on top of it, to produce the quality of work... and the many lives that they've touched over the years, it's really fantastic.

Tate: 25 years ago, we had a dream in a way, right?

What could a glass school look like, and what kind of work could it produce if it was different than a regular studio glass environment?

I want to thank all of you all for everything you did and for coming tonight.

We appreciate it so much.

You've changed all of our lives and hopefully the lives of everybody at the school.

Thank you, guys.

[Applause] [Indistinct chatter] Tate: So many people have found this community to be something so important that they spend their lives centered by us, so you can't do any better than that.

Curry: Find out more about Washington Glass School's classes, exhibitions, and installations at washingtonglassschool.com.

Thank you for watching "WETA Arts."

Be well, be creative, and enjoy the art all around you.

I'm Felicia Curry.

It is a non-crystalline solid.

You see how milky it is.

That's all the crystals forming.

So you can see how much more clarity suddenly I get with the higher temperatures.

The mystery that surrounds glass, which is part of its charm and part of its attraction, right, is also part of its difficulty in working with it.

Subscribe to the CAFE YouTube channel.

Yeah, yeah.

And if you see me out in public, say hi.

Announcer: For more about the artists and institutions featured in this episode, go to weta.org/arts.