Asian American Arts Centre

The Asian American Arts Centre (AAAC) is a non-profit organization located in Chinatown in New York City. Founded in 1974, it was one of the earliest Asian-American community organizations in the United States. The Arts Centre presents the ongoing synthesis of contemporary American and Asian art forms, through the presentation of performance, exhibitions, and public education. The permanent collection contains over 400 contemporary Asian American art works and about 200 Chinese folk art pieces. The Arts Centre has accumulated work by Asian American artists through its archive since 1982. The archive documents, preserves, and promotes the presence of Asian American culture in the United States since 1945. This includes the East Coast, especially the greater New York area, some of the West Coast and some artists in Canada, Hawaii, and overseas. The artists include Asian Americans producing art, Asian artists who are active in the United States, and other Americans who are significantly influenced by Asia.

The mission of the Asian American Arts Centre is to affirm and promote the preservation and creative vitality of Asian American cultural growth through the arts, and its historical and aesthetic linkage to other communities. The Arts Centre accomplishes this by presenting contemporary and traditional art exhibitions, performances, public educational programs, publications, and the artists archive. The archive documents, preserves, and promotes the presence of Asian American culture in the United States.

Asian American Arts Centre was founded in 1974 in New York as the Asian American Dance Theatre (AADT), a not-for-profit community arts organization. It was one of the older community arts organizations in Chinatown, Manhattan.

A visual arts program was initiated in 1984 called Asian Arts Institute. The current name, the Asian American Arts Centre (AAAC), was adopted in 1987 to encompass both the dance company (AADT) and visual arts programs. Based in New York's Chinatown, the Arts Centre has held many of its programs in other sites and locations in the country.

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