Description:

Explore how passionate educators are building innovative frameworks for creative education across the Southeast through two unique perspectives. Featuring Derek "Prez" Jackson on establishing a collegiate model for music entrepreneurship that treats creative development with the same seriousness as athletics, and Montgomery Davis on creating more inclusive, consent-driven spaces in performing arts training. Together, they demonstrate how lived experience can transform into sustainable systems that serve communities historically excluded from artistic career pathways.

• Creating equitable pathways to music industry careers through educational systems
• Building entrepreneurial frameworks for creative talent development
• Establishing consent-driven practices in performance education
• Making creative training accessible for diverse communities and abilities
• Developing student-led creative communities on college campuses
• Transforming personal tragedy into purpose-driven educational models
• Creating supportive networks for underrepresented creative voices
• Navigating industry transitions through community-centered approaches
• Adapting teaching methods for differently-abled performers
• Balancing creative development with business acumen

• Derek "Preez Jackson" - Founder and Executive Director of National Collegiate Entertainers Group (NSEC); Atlanta-born entrepreneur; Leader of NSEC Southern Convention initiative
• Montgomery Davis - Fight and intimacy choreographer; Teaching artist and educator; Motion capture performer; Advocate for accessible performing arts training

"We are creating essentially the NCAA of the music industry." - Derek "Prez" Jackson

"This industry is entrepreneurship. None of nobody told us that when we were falling in love with music, they just said, 'Hey, make the music, get signed.' ... And once you expose the students to the fact that this is entrepreneurship and what that means... then everything else just kind of starts to click." - Derek "Prez" Jackson

"If you are given a container by an actor based off of their abilities or their cultural identity, and you don't know how to then create choreography for them, then you're not doing your job... My job is to take the box and the container that I'm given and create the story that we're trying to tell." - Montgomery Davis

• Derek: National Collegiate Entertainers Group (nationalceg.org or nsec.org)
• Montgomery: themontgomerydavis.com

@couldbeprettycool | couldbeprettycool.com | couldbeprettycoolnews.substack.com

Keywords: Music entrepreneurship, creative education, fight choreography, intimacy direction, collegiate arts, creative entrepreneurship, consent-driven practices, accessible arts training, student organizations, industry transitions, inclusive arts education, sustainable creative careers