The CRS Mission

A Shared Mission for a New Millennium

CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) is a non-religious, spiritual community center, wherein individuals from all walks of life, including student and professional artists and non-artists alike, can realize their true creative potential. Located just south of Union Square in New York City's East Village, its doors are open to anyone that needs help that they may discover that they can help others. This mission is based on the principles of A Course in Miracles, and especially on the idea that we are, fundamentally, spiritual and creative beings with limitless power and limitless ways of expressing ourselves and that all of our creations are the expression of universal beauty.

About Our Programs

In keeping with this mission, CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) offers many programs designed to provide people with an opportunity to remember and experience this fundamental truth about themselves. Types of programs include meditation, counseling, mind/body/spirit healing therapies based on A Course in Miracles as well as other kinds of holistic healing practices, art/dance/drama therapies, art technique and composition training, artist residencies, mentoring, artist services, and opportunities to present, perform, exhibit or publish. The Center maintains a gallery space and boutique in its lobby and produces a performance series (contemporary dance, butoh, theatre, video, clown, puppetry. music). In 2006, CRS began producing and publishing a catalog of spiritual books, CDs, and other literature.

Looking to the Future

CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) is currently developing a plan to move to a much larger facility, probably in 2009 but possibly earlier. Ideally, we would like to stay close to Union Square, but we are also exploring opportunities in other neighborhoods in Manhattan. A larger facility will allow for:
• expanded programming and multiple simultaneous classes
• increased opportunities for interaction, community-building, artist residencies and mentoring
• better climate control
• much better sound-proofing
• more bathrooms
• more and better equipped therapy rooms with their own separate client waiting area
• a much larger main studio with state-of-the-art sprung dance floor suitable for the largest dance and movement classes
• a 70-99 seat black box theatre with lighting grid, real theatre seating, larger stage, and off-stage storage
• several meeting / class / workshop studios of different sizes
• a larger lobby with snack bar, boutique and improved gallery space
• extended business hours

With an improved facility should come increase revenues, allowing us:
• to offer scholarships to students who wish to study with the center's faculty;
• to offer free or low-cost counseling and artist services;
• to offer better funded residencies to artists and faculty wishing to create or develop their work at the Center;
• to aid in the publishing and dissemination of educational and informational materials relevant to its mission.

We envision partnering with and hosting other arts and healing groups and together creating an inspiring temple for the creative and healing arts for the 21st century. If you or your organization would like to be a part of it and help make this happen, please get in touch! We will be sharing more details as we go along.

How the Partnership Developed

CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) is made possible by an innovative partnership between CRS and Dharma Road Productions, Inc. — d/b/a the "Center for Remembering & Sharing."

Incorporated in the state of New York, the Center for Remembering & Sharing is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit company founded by an international & multi-ethnic alliance of performing artists based in NYC who came together in the aftermath of 9/11 with the intention of making it easier for emerging & foreign-born artists to participate in the NYC performing arts community. The founding artists were Harold Lehmann, Sita Mani, Jean Hughes Miredin, Christopher Pelham, Lake Simons, Guido Tuveri, and Holly Twining. Between them, they have presented more than 80 original works in New York, Europe and around the world in the fields of dance, theatre, puppetry, video art, and hybrids thereof.

In 2004 the noted Japanese writer and spiritual counselor/teacher/healer Yasuko Kasaki incorporated CRS as a for-profit company in the state of New York in order to support the teaching of A Course in Miracles, the practice of the healing and creative arts, and the sharing of miracles. The decision to incorporate as a for-profit has allowed CRS to grow much faster than it might otherwise have it had been incorporated as a not-for-profit. While its work is educational and humanitarian in nature, its for-profit status allows it to pursue its mission with flexibility and nimbleness lacking in the not-for-profit world.

Rather than depend on donations, foundation support, and public funding, Ms. Kasaki elected instead to invest the earnings from her own successful career to create a center for her students and clients to further their growth. With the assistance and partnership of Christopher Pelham and Dharma Road Productions, Inc., Ms. Kasaki and CRS opened an 1,800 sq. ft. community center near Union Square in Manhattan and CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) was born. As an extension of its mission to support the practice of the healing and creative arts, CRS has graciously allowed Dharma Road Productions, Inc. to maintain office space at its facility and to curate a performance series in the CRS Studio Theatre. CRS also provides space and financial support for Dharma Road's artists-in-residence program and general operating costs.

Today, the Center for Remembering & Sharing supports the partnership's mission by raising money to support the following projects:
• organizing educational and community-building events that encourage the exchange of ideas and experience relevant to its mission;
• providing residencies for artists;
• commissioning new artistic works;
• curating, producing and publishing exhibitions, performances, and written/recorded works;

The Center for Remembering & Sharing is a member of the Asian American Arts Alliance, A.R.T./New York, Dance Theatre Workshop (DTW), The Field, and Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York, and is a recipient of support from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Materials for the Arts, NYC Dept of Cultural Affairs/NYC Dept of Sanitation/NYC Dept of Ed., the J P Morgan Chase SOAR Program of the Asian American Arts Alliance, and CRS.