ACT! for KIDS
A big thank you to ACT! for Kids business sponsor Hidden Automotive: Service worth finding!
For the past few years, ACT’s youth program, ACT! for Kids, has presented monthly creative workshops for kids during the school year, and one or two performances geared toward kids each year. Performances have been free, and workshops have usually cost between $3 and $5. While the children who have participated enjoy themselves, and leave with beautiful silk scarves, handmade books, or felt animals they have created, we at ACT have been concerned that we are not reaching enough of the town’s children, and in particular—in a town in which 42% of the school population qualifies for free or reduced lunch—that we are not reaching the segment of the population that may have the least access to extracurricular arts education.
This year, ACT will facilitate two substantial artist residencies a year at K. A. Brett for students and interested homeschoolers, and offer several in-school performances for the school community, homeschoolers and students at any of the local private daycare centers and schools who would like to attend. ACT’s youth committee and program committee are also working together to identify which performers booked for ACT’s performance series can also offer a short afternoon assembly performance or performance/presentation at the school. In this way, with the support of business sponsor Hidden Automotive, The Tamworth Foundation, The Rey Foundation, the K. A. Brett School, the Tamworth PTA, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the NH State Council on the Arts, and other local sponsors, ACT hopes to provide arts enrichment to nearly every child in Tamworth.
In 2010-2011 ACT will offer residencies in poetry and theater, and in dance, and tie the two together loosely through the theme of Conflict Resolution. Theater and dance are two primary art forms that are not a regular part of students’ public school arts education, in spite of national and state standards in both areas. Our town is culturally and economically diverse: the Conflict Resolution theme supports work the school is doing on a daily basis, offers students additional modes of communication and skills as they negotiate their paths in life, and helps them understand the value of the arts in their everyday lives.
In November, hiphop poet and playwright Aaron Jafferis will be in residency at the Brett School for three weeks. The residency will kick off with a performance of his play Shakespeare: The Remix for the school community and again in the evening for the general public and will culminate in a presentation/performance for the school community and others of student work and samples of Aaron’s other work. In March dance teacher and choreographer Jeanne Limmer will come for two three-day weeks culminating in a sharing of student work. The USAF Bay State Winds Quartet will perform at an assembly on November 5, and the Frank Vignola Trio, an outstanding jazz trio led by a man acclaimed for his teaching as well as his musicianship, will perform at an assembly on April 8.
We welcome community support for this project. You can donate below, sponsor ACT, or contact us if you’re interested in volunteering or serving on ACT’s youth committee.
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