This Giving Tuesday - VOCA Makes A Difference!

VOCA has had an incredible 2025!  We jumpstarted the year with vibrant weekly dance class offerings to the Community, led by the amazing Deaf dance instructors Ronnie Bradley, Tara Miles, and Nicholaus Nero. February found VOCA being invited to lead the “DASL (Directors of Artistic Sign Language) for the Reading Room” festival at the Folger Shakespeare Library. In June, members of the VOCA ensemble were given the honor of conducting performances for the nationally-acclaimed National Theatre Foundation.

The summer started off with VOCA providing leadership and advocacy training for young Deaf and Hard of Hearing students in a summer program hosted by the Family of Color Learning Vacation. Then came the highlight of our year - A Strange Loop! This co-production between (book and lyrics written by Pulitzer Prize & Tony Award winner, Michael R. Jackson), was directed and choreographed by VOCA’s Associate Artistic Director Alexandria Wailes, and won  universal acclaim, including a rave review by The Washington Post.

Before 2025 comes to a close, development will begin on the original new play, “The Dinner Note” by Rhonda Cochran. This all-new piece, which explores a young Deaf Black student’s journey to navigate his school’s attempt to limit his use of Black Sign Language, and his family’s fight against the school leaderships’ attempt to assimilate/white wash his cultural and linguistic expression, will have its World Premiere in the spring of 2026, in collaboration with the Gallaudet Theatre & Dance department.

We at VOCA believe in the immense power of the arts in community. We believe in holding space for creativity and discourse. We believe in creating a steady pipeline of multigenerational artists who strive to work, learn, and grow, leading the way in creating a robust and thriving future for/of BIPOC & D, DB, D+, HoH theatre, and dance makers.

This vision includes you!  Your tax-deductible donation is vital in supporting these endeavors.  As we all know, it has been an extremely challenging year for many non-profit organizations with federal grants being abruptly rescinded or cut all together. Because of these cuts, we have been forced to put a pause on several projects whose goals were to foster community enrichment and engagement through the theatre arts.  Please consider donating to VOCA to help keep our vital and much-needed programming going. Your tax-deductible donation, whether it is $25, $50, $75, $250, or $10,000 goes towards paying artists and increasing the administrative and organizational support we need to provide the robust programming for which VOCA is known and loved. Make a donation at https://www.vocarts.org/donation.

We thank you for your contributions to VOCA over the last few years. Your unwavering support, investment, and belief in the VOCA community goes a long way, and has meant a tremendous amount to our company and community. 

In solidarity with immense gratitude,

Michelle Banks                                                                     Alexandria Wailes

Artistic Director                                                                    Assoc. Artistic Director