Arts & Education Programming

DeWitt Fleming Jr is a educator, producer, Broadway performer, and entrepreneur. He received his Bachelor's degree in Theater Arts from Marymount Manhattan College in New York City. DeWitt has taught the performing arts all over the world. In New York City, he was taught at NYU, Pace University, Harlem School of the arts, and Queens College to name a few. International he has taught at Limerick College in Ireland, Souza Lima College and Celia Helena Conservatory in Sao Paulo Brazil, Maple Bear School in Angola, and various others. He has created arts and education programming for Kean University, Tadah children’s theater, Limitless Health Institute, New York City Library, Maple Bear School, and various other institutions. DeWitt has been teaching young people, and adults for over 25 years.

Academics & Arts Alive!

Academics and Arts Alive is an innovative arts-integrated education program designed to strengthen students’ academic proficiency, standardized testing performance, and college readiness through meaningful, arts-based learning experiences. In addition to supporting academic achievement, the program cultivates essential skills in communication, self-expression, social-emotional learning (SEL), leadership development, collaboration, and community building.

Under the guidance of trained arts and education professionals, students take an active role in the creation, production, management, and execution of a live performance. Each performance is intentionally developed around an academic or social area identified as a priority for improvement within the school community. These areas are thoughtfully integrated into the creative process, encouraging students to engage with academic concepts and social issues in ways that are relevant, experiential, and personally meaningful.

Rather than simply receiving information, students are challenged to understand, interpret, and apply what they have learned in order to transform their ideas into creative expression. Through this process, students strengthen critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, teamwork, and leadership skills while developing a deeper connection to their academic learning.

Academics and Arts Alive utilizes a combination of classes, workshops, clubs, collaborative projects, and guest artist performances to achieve its educational and developmental goals. By connecting academic learning with artistic expression, the program creates an engaging environment in which students can strengthen their academic abilities, discover their creative potential, build confidence, and develop skills that support success in school, college, and beyond.

Academics & Arts Alive!
in Angola Africa

This program brings a New York–based arts and academics program to partner with Maple Bear Angola Benfica School in Luanda, Angola. The exchange addresses a demonstrated need for arts-based youth development opportunities that foster communication skills, self-expression, SEL, cross-cultural understanding, global competitiveness, and much more. This programs seeks to use the arts to enhance academics, community growth, and global awareness. Young people in Luanda have limited access to structured arts programs that integrate, academics, and global theater practices with local cultural traditions. At the same time, arts organizations and artist in the United States are actively seeking meaningful international partnerships that promote cultural exchange, collaboration, and shared artistic growth.

This program provides students with a supportive, creative environment to not only improve their academics, but also practice communication, collaboration, leadership, and confidence-building. It will give them a competitive edge when entering the global college and business market. Meanwhile, participating

teaching artists gain exposure to new aesthetic forms, cultural perspectives, and local performance

techniques that will inform and enrich their own practice.

DeWitt partners with Bamss Non-profit organization on this project.

DeWitt's visit with Maple Bear Fall 2025

Academics & Arts Alive!
Corporate Edition

Together with public speaker and poet Mikumari Caiyhe, we have developed a series of programs designed to help corporations achieve their strategic goals through performing-arts–based practices. With extensive experience across the Arts, Education, and Corporate sectors, we bring a uniquely informed perspective that allows us to design programming that is both evidence-driven and expertly crafted.

Our approach is grounded in years of research and development in verbal and psychological communication, as well as kinesics and other forms of nonverbal communication. Mastery of these communication modalities has been shown to provide significant advantages in corporate environments. The skills gained through our programs can support successful negotiations, increase employee productivity, strengthen courtroom performance, boost confidence across departments, and much more.

Some of our workshops include:

The Law of Storytelling

Originally created for trial lawyers, then later developed for universal business practices, this workshops breaks down communication and the perception of communication.

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The Power of Why

This workshop explores how to effectively do research. What do you research and why. Researching the subject at hand is only the beginning.

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Creating a Winning Environment

This workshop explores how to create a winning environment. Our environment creates a mental and physical state of being long before a single word is spoken. How do we identify the positive and negative elements of our environment in order to create an environment conducive to the results we require.