Dollie McLean
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| Founding Executive Director of the Artists Collective
Dollie McLean is Founding Executive Director of the Artists Collective, Inc. With her husband, Jackie McLean, she spearheaded the founding of this organization n 1970, together with three other local artists. Incorporated in 1972, the Collective is a community based multi-arts cultural institution serving the Greater Hartford area. Under Mrs. McLean's direction, the Collective has grown into Connecticut 's premier multi-arts cultural institution, emphasizing the arts and culture of the African Diaspora.
Mrs. McLean, of Caribbean heritage, was raised in New York City . As a scholarship student, she studied at the Katherine Dunham School of Dance; The New Dance Group with Haitian Master Jon Leone Destine; Asadata Defora, the father of African dance in America; and Martha Graham; and was affiliated with a number of other outstanding dance companies in New York City. She later pursued a career in theater and was accepted into the famed Negro Ensemble Company. She appeared in many off-Broadway productions as a dancer and actress. She was an artists' model for several years for the Arts Student League, the School of Visual Arts , Brooklyn Museum and Pratt Institute, among others. In 1984, under Mrs. McLean's direction, the Collective began a capital campaign to construct a new, 40,000 square foot state-of-the-art multi-arts cultural center including practice studios, dance studios, a library, small store, administrative and faculty offices, as well as a multi-purpose theater space in which to present the Collective's extensive special events presentations. McLean successfully raised over $8 million and reached an 80% hiring rate of minority sub-contractors and City of Hartford residents. The cultural center, which has been designated as the economic development anchor of the revitalization of the Albany Avenue area, opened in 1999. | |||||||||||
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