2017–2018 Grant Recipients
2017 - 2018 Grant Recipients
MUSIC
Boston Opera Collaborative
Boston Premiere of As One
In its twelfth season, Boston Opera Collaborative will present the Boston premiere of As One (music and concept by Laura Kaminsky, libretto by Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed). Performances took place Jan. 25 – 28, 2018, at Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge. In this chamber opera for two singers and string quartet, a mezzo-soprano and a baritone depict the experiences of its sole transgender protagonist, Hannah, as she endeavors to resolve the discord between herself and the outside world. In partnership with Longy, a program of audience talk-backs and educational outreach performances for this work will help to promote understanding, awareness, and empathy of the experiences and challenges of the transgender community.
www.bostonoperacollaborative.org
Cambridge Children's Chorus, division of Boston City Singers
Youth Music and Performance Training
Cambridge Children's Chorus, a division of Boston City Singers, provides a sequential music programming pathway for 120 children age 4 through 6th grade that includes Cambridge-based teen mentors working with younger singers. No child is denied access to due to an inability to pay tuition nor a lack of previous musical training. The program’s inclusive culture instills in each singer the belief that they can succeed with dedication and hard work. Support from Cambridge Arts Council allows the program to continue to have the capacity to build the unique components of the programming that include expectations of working toward arts mastery, life-skills training and OperaKids performance opportunities.
www.bostoncitysingers.org
Cambridge Community Center
The Hip Hop Transformation
The Hip Hop Transformation is a program that teaches urban youth the history of hip hop culture, the role it plays in their lives and in society as a whole, and equips them with the skill set to write, record, and perform their own pro-social hip hop music. The program has been offered for teens at the Cambridge Community Center since the summer of 2013. Due to increased demand for the program in the community, Cambridge Community Center will now be offering Hip Hop Transformation to children in grades 5 to 8 through their After School Program. The program launched on Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, and met weekly for the remainder of the 2017-18 school year.
www.thehiphoptransformation.org
Emeric Viani
Cambridge Youth Gamelan
The Cambridge Youth Gamelan offers youth in Grades 3 to 9 the chance to discover Balinese music and culture through a hands-on program emphasizing aural learning, community-building, teamwork, and equality. Students meet weekly in MIT's Endicott World Music Room and learn how to play Balinese music on traditional gamelan instruments with experienced teachers and musicians. The ensemble features a variety of percussive instruments and requires the students to work as a team to play complex, interlocking rhythms. Students are taught by ear, without notation, allowing them to develop listening and communication skills and a deep internal sense of rhythm. Cambridge Youth Gamelan performs twice per year at Kresge Auditorium alongside MIT's Gamelan Galak Tika. Each session concludes with a performance at the MIT Museum open to family, friends and members of the Cambridge community.
www.cambridgeyouthgamelan.com
Fletcher Maynard Academy PTO
Mariachi Demonstration and Workshop
A two-hour after school workshop by the Mariachi Veritas de Harvard on mariachi heritage, instruments, and performance will be offered as part of Fletcher Maynard Academy’s annual celebration of Latinx heritage. Its main learning points and video highlights will be recapitulated in one of the learning centers featured in Fletcher Maynard Academy’s in-school Latinx Heritage Day celebration. This is an early release day that Fletcher Maynard Academy dedicates to embracing and appreciating Latinx heritage. The event is inspired by a 30-minute performance by Mariachi Veritas de Harvard in 2016. Beyond the mariachi performance that the 2016 event offered, the 2018 event will offer the transformative opportunities to interact with performers and learn about their instruments, traditions, and performance preparations and routines. The event will be open to the community.
http://fma.cpsd.us
Kadence Arts
Make Music Boston at Magazine Beach
Make Music Day is an annual outdoor music festival on June 21, the summer solstice. Beginning in Paris in 1982, Make Music Day is now celebrated in over 750 cities around the world. The festival celebrates all types of music from indie bands to Latin ensembles to hip-hop artists. It is free and open to anyone who would like to participate—any genre, any level. A program of Kadence Arts, Make Music Boston began in 2014 and has now spread into Cambridge and Somerville. In 2018, Kadence Arts will bring free, participatory, and diverse music happenings to Magazine Beach. The group will work with a roster of over 450 musicians to host four bands and two open "mass appeals". Through these "mass appeals" Make Music Boston will offer 100 free harmonicas and lessons, and 30 buckets drums from the "Beat Bus" for community members to use. Magazine Beach will be a premiere venue for the day's activities.
www.makemusicboston.org
Morgan Evans-Weiler
Standing Waves in conjunction with Mobius at EMW Bookstore
Standing Waves is a concert series presented by Morgan Evans-Weiler in conjunction with Mobius. The concert series will consist of the presentation of five concerts in 2018. All concerts will be presented at EMW Bookstore in Cambridge. Each concert will be given over to a single artist; that artist has the freedom to present two sets of music and give a talk, lecture, interview or presentation on some aspect of their artistic research.
A distinguishing element of the series will also be a document in the form of a book that includes but is not limited to transcript excerpts from the talks, critical writing and photographs. This comprehensive approach will elucidate the music, sound art and electroacoustic practices that overlap and comprise the artists' works. The series will be dedicated to the memory of Jed Speare, a stalwart of the Boston experimental arts community.
http://www.me-w.org/2016/12/12/standing-waves/
New Gallery Concert Series
Identity
New Gallery Concert Series presents new pieces of music and visual art, along with their creators, committed to building community that encourages interactive collaborations between participants and members of the audience. New Gallery Concert Series and Castle of Our Skins jointly presented a program of works and visual art in conversation with race and the African American struggle for equity. Both the musical compositions and the featured visual art explored the complicated subjects of race and identity. Featuring visual artist Taryn Wells, composer Jonathan Bailey Holland, and seven performers, the program explored the systemic racism facing African Americans through art, music, and dialogue. The featured artist and composers had the opportunity to discuss their work before, during, and after its performance/exhibition, to collaborate directly with the performers in preparations for its presentation, and to interact with audience members at intermission and the reception. Identity took place at the Cambridge Art Association/New School of Music’s shared building in Cambridge on Nov. 4, 2017.
www.newgalleryconcertseries.org
Shelter Music Boston
Interactive Concerts at CASPAR Emergency Shelter
Shelter Music Boston will perform 10 interactive classical chamber music concerts at CASPAR Emergency Shelter in 2018. Concerts will provide shelter guests with access to the dignity, creativity, passion, respect, and community that art delivers, all while listening to, talking about, and learning about music that may be entirely new to them. Concerts will be performed by professional musicians and to the highest artistic standards. As a result of Shelter Music Boston concerts there is an immediate and documented mood improvement among listeners, inspiring them take positive steps to improve their lives and learn to use music as a tool to address some of the stress of homelessness. Shelter guests and staff report that Shelter Music Boston concerts bring calm to an often chaotic environment, reduce conflict in the shelters, and help shelter guests sleep better.
www.sheltermusicboston.org
THEATER, LITERATURE & MULTIDISCIPLINARY
Cambridge Wildlife Puppetry Project
Animal Celebrities
The Cambridge Wildlife Puppet Project’s Animal Celebrities arts campaign will enable 100 individuals, primarily Cambridge families and children, to deepen their knowledge and experience of the wild animal species and habitats of our city through puppetry arts, music, and visual arts during the period January to December 2018. The Cambridge Wildlife Puppet Project proposes a roster of arts activities including: 1) “Things That Fly” finger puppet workshop at Fresh Pond Reservation; 2) Wildlife Ambassadors training and performance puppetry program for Cambridge high schoolers; 3) the Third Annual Fly, Buzz, and Honk! Festival, a collaborative animal-centered STEAM festival; and 4) production and distribution of trading cards depicting wild animals that live in Cambridge.
www.cambridgeoutdoors.org/cwpp
Charity Everett
Go Back Fetch It
“Go Back Fetch It” is an augmented reality project about the origins of humanity and how we all exist today because of what our shared ancestry was able to accomplish long ago. The project embodies the spirit of the West African Adinkra symbol called Sankofa, which means “Go Back and Fetch It.” It tells us the importance of working through our collective past so that we can move into the future. The presentation will be through wall decals arranged in a timeline of events from the moment that humans discovered how to make fire, leading up to present day. It will be broken up into three sections: the beginning, the middle, and the now. When scanned, the decals will look like charcoal cave drawings come to life and they will act out the story on the wall in a kind of shadow play. The project will be released episodically with events planned at different locations throughout Cambridge when each episode is released.
www.gobackfetchit.com
Erich Hagan
CHEAP SEATS
CHEAP SEATS is a variety show featuring five minute performances from over two dozen acts of all genres of live art: musicians, poets, comedians, dancers, visual & conceptual artists. It is staged at the YMCA Theater in Central Square, immersing the audience as performances happen all around stage, balconies and floor in rapid succession. CHEAP SEATS is a deliberately anti-oppressive, all ages, and accessible space, featuring wheelchair access and pay-what-you-can ticket prices. As part of this proposal, producer/performer Erich Hagan will partner with the YMCA and Books Of Hope, a Massachusetts Cultural Council-funded youth poetry slam program, to not only highlight young poets and performers in Cambridge, but show them the ropes of putting on a show of their own.
www.cheapseats.info
Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild
Boston Theater Celebration
The Boston Theater Celebration is a day-long festival of student work from schools around the Boston area. Conceived in 2013 as an end-of-year opportunity for students to share work, the Boston Theater Celebration has become a unique venue for historically underserved schools to collaborate and build community. Produced by the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild, the BTC gathers 8 schools together every year (several of which have theater programs started, funded and administered by the guild). Each school presents a play of their own creation, usually around 45 minutes in length. After each show, students are given live, in-the-moment feedback by some of Boston's most highly regarded theater artists. These artists also teach hourlong workshops during the day in specialized subjects. This combination of performance, instruction, and fellowship validates students and their schools. Cambridge Rindge and Latin School's offer to host this event is a testament to Cambridge's position as a compassionate community, and an opportunity to strengthen bonds between the young people who will grow up to become our next generation of diverse artists and audiences.
www.metg.org
MireliBooks
Art in Support of Diversity in Amazing Cambridge
“Art in Support of Diversity in Amazing Cambridge” is a series of events that combine art making with a lecture series about Cambridge’s diversity. The City’s diversity as a broader overarching theme includes its many architectural styles, its neighborhoods, and the multitude of peoples residing in Cambridge. As an experimental approach to promote interaction, coloring and printmaking workshops will be paired with lectures about Cambridge’s architecture, the history of Cambridge, and readings from Cambridge poets.
www.mirelibooks.com
New Repertory Theatre
Classic Repertory Company
The award-winning New Repertory Theatre's flagship educational outreach program, Classic Repertory Company (CRC), will perform "To Kill A Mockingbird" at Matignon High School on Nov. 17, 2017, and at Farr Academy in the spring 2018. The proven successful tour, now in its 18th season, includes study guides for teachers and an artist-led discussion. The productions meet the highest standard of excellence, honoring the playwrights and bringing clarity to the language. Classic Repertory Company was created in 2001 to address the issues of cost and scheduling faced by teachers who utilize the performing arts as an enhancement to their curricula. Classic Repertory Company has grown to serve over 15,000 students at more than 50 New England schools each season.
www.newrep.org
North Cambridge Family Opera
Weedpatch
North Cambridge Family Opera will produce and perform the world premiere of a full-length, fully-sung opera for audiences of all ages, with a cast of approximately 150 adults and children from the community. “Weedpatch,” the first opera ever commissioned by North Cambridge Family Opera, is an uplifting story of marginalized and impoverished migrants from the Oklahoma dust bowl, set in the historical Arvin Federal Government Camp near Bakersfield, California, in 1940. (Weedpatch was the school built by the Okies when their children were not allowed to attend the local public schools.) Everyone who auditions is accepted, and participation by whole families is encouraged. Participants contribute to all aspects of the production. There will be eight performances in late March 2018.
www.familyopera.org
Studio REV-
Build-Your-Own-Bibliobandido
Initiated by artist Marisa Morán Jahn (Studio REV-), “Build-Your-Own-Bibliobandido” is an art and storytelling project that centers around a masked character who EATS stories and pesters little kids until they offer him stories they’ve created. In partnership with Hildebrand foster homes, adult volunteers at Horizons for Homeless Children who provide play-based activities to youth, and the Peabody Essex Museum, Marisa will develop a Bibliobandido (“BB”) Toolkit (colorful posters, activity guide) to train/equip adult mentors with 1 to 20 craft, literary, or dramatic play activities. Sample activities include: a pop-up book made from to sheets of paper, a haiku paper-helicopter, a pattern-based activity for toddlers, dressing up as BB in front of youth then growling for stories. Kids laugh and pretend to be scared. Everyone gets to work right away creating the juiciest of stories!
www.bibliobandido.org
Valery Lyman
Breaking Ground
Breaking Ground is a photo-phono installation in which photographs artist Valery Lyman has taken in the Bakken region of North Dakota over the last five years will be projected directly onto the Foundry factory walls while audio compositions emanate from different areas of the site. This project seeks to connect our industrial past to our present. Seven discreet points of projection will illuminate different scenes from Bakken life: man camps, strip clubs, oil rig work, abandonment, fracking, migration, Standing Rock, industrial landscape, etc., allowing the viewer to explore at their own pace. The live foreground/background audio mix will be determined by the viewer's movement. The work blends past and present into visceral imagery using the Foundry's own walls, creating a meditation on the cyclical nature of industrial booms and an immersive opportunity to explore what is occurring in North Dakota now.
www.valerylymanphotos.format.com/4390269-force-of-place
Yara Liceaga-Rojas
Poetry Is Busy: Visible Caribe
“Poetry Is Busy: Visible Caribe Series” is a series of multidisciplinary multilanguage on-going presentations running from March to August 2018 on the third Friday of each month. Presented at the Democracy Center in Cambridge, the series will feature 10- to 25-minute performances by four to eight artists from the Caribbean region.
DANCE
Capoeira and Arts Association of New England
Capoeira Cultural Exchange Batizado and Workshops
The Capoeira Cultural Exchange Batizado and Workshops will bring instructors from around the world to teach Capoeira to residents of the greater Boston area. While Capoeira is a martial art, it also incorporates elements of African and Brazilian music, dance, history and language. Thus in order to appreciate the complete art form, it is important that students be exposed to these cultural components in addition to the basic movements of the art. The focus of Capoeira Cultural Exchange is to use Capoeira to foster mentorship, education and cultural exchange, thus they have partnered with the Cambridge-based organization Mandingueiros dos Palmares to arrange this four-day series of workshops taught by experienced visiting instructors that residents otherwise would not have access to. Additionally this year marks the 40th anniversary of Mandingueiros dos Palmares's work improving communities around the world through the practice of Capoeira.
www.caane.org
Gowri Vijayakumar
Trishul
Trishul is a collaborative Bharatanatyam project drawing together 5-7 experienced adult dancers from the greater Boston area to create an evening-length work of five dances exploring the symbol of the trident or trishul, a prevalent symbol in many religious traditions. Three original pieces will be developed around the figures of Shiva, Durga, and Poseidon, all deities for whom the trident comprises a key part of their identity. These dance-based reflections on the trident invite audiences to consider continuities between diverse religious traditions with regard to the concepts of the trinity, the triumph of good over evil, and the relationship between the self, the divine, and the Other. Trishul will be the third annual Open Studio performance of NATyA Dance Studio (Dr. Smitha Radhakrishnan, artistic director).
https://natyadancestudio.weebly.com
Jean Appolon Expressions
Teen Apprenticeship Program
Jean Appolon Expressions seeks to create a Teen Apprenticeship Program to provide advanced education in the art of dance (specifically Folkloric Haitian and Modern) and to foster resilient character traits through social connections and movement. The Teen Apprenticeship will compliment JAE’s Teen Intensive program, offering a pathway for students to deepen their engagement outside of school breaks when intensive trainings are offered by JAE and at BU REACH! (a program administered and taught by JAE dancer, Meghan Riley). This comprehensive, accelerated program will provide professional dance training to young people so they may develop the grit, self-confidence, and experience to advance in their careers.
www.jeanappolonexpressions.org
José Mateo Ballet Theatre
Dance for World Community Festival Day
José Mateo Ballet Theatre (JMBT) produces its annual Dance for World Community Festival Day, a day of over 90 free dance performances, 30 classes, broad community advocacy, and a celebratory dance party in the street. Hosted on Saturday, June 9, 2018 in Harvard Square, Festival Day is the culmination of the Dance for World Community Festival Week, an annual week-long dance festival in Cambridge that harnesses the power of dance to improve the social and environmental health of our communities. The week of activity dedicated to demonstrating how dance can play a larger role in promoting social change includes panel discussions, expert speakers, a Dance on Film Series, and workshops for artists and audience about environmental advocacy and environmental justice.
www.ballettheatre.org
Marissa Molinar
Midday Movement Series - Year Three
Midday Movement Series (MMS) is a program bolstering the future of contemporary dance in Cambridge by 1) supporting and empowering emerging teachers to craft their movement style, hone their teaching skills, build a following, and gain skills in entrepreneurship and leadership; and 2) promoting a culture of artistic rigor and investigation among dance professionals by offering affordable, innovative weekly classes with a faculty of dedicated artists. Last year, MMS offered three ongoing classes and various additional classes (short series, occasional hosted master classes). This year's program is restructured to usher in a new wave of teachers: our 2 ongoing teachers will transition out of MMS while mentoring new teachers to take on short series, and one day a week will be rotating one-time workshops with teaching novices.
www.middaymovement.org
MetaMovements
Seasoned Salseros at MFNH
As an entrepreneurial artist collective MetaMovements is dedicated to using the arts as a tool for positive transformation of self and community, creating bonds, fostering meaningful relationships, and creating lasting social change. In 2018 in partnership with the Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House, MetaMovements will offer “Seasoned Salseros,” a free program for elders in the community to share space and build community through Salsa dance and hand percussion instruction and story sharing. A full hour of fun per lesson per week, Seasoned Salseros will focus on dynamic cardiovascular exercise, balance, creativity and stimulation — everything older adults need to maintain health and function as they age. Youth, working alongside Professional Teaching artists, will assist in the Seasoned Salseros program creating a natural inter-generational bridge between the elders and the youth in the community.
www.metamovements.com
Papa Sy
Kanassu - The Crazy One
"Kanassu," or, "The Crazy One," is a 45-minute performance piece choreographed and directed by Senegal-born, US-based artistic director Papy Sy in the original style of West African contemporary dance. Papa Sy brings decades of expertise in contemporary/ modern dance, diversifying the West African dance of his youth. The result is the creation of an imaginative, hybrid that combines dance, song and poetry, reminiscent of 1980s French opera. Through multiple manifestations of "crazy" - from denunciations of greed, corruption, colonization, catastrophe, urgency - the performance explores these questions of craziness and belonging - what do we name as crazy, and what kind of everyday crazy do we accept without question? The performance will be featured in The Dance Complex Spring 2018 in repertory with artists' works. Master classes and dialogues will be included in the project.
Ramon de los Reyes
Ramon de los Reyes Living Legacy Concert and Class Experience
At the invitation of The Dance Complex, and its designation of flamenco patriarch Ramon de los Reyes as a “Living Legacy Artist”, Ramon and his Spanish Dance Theatre will present three performances at The Complex’s spaces in spring of 2018, as well as a series of master classes. Three formal performances are planned in the theatre at the Complex, and an informal performance in the Complex’s Studio 7, staged to replicate the participatory flamenco saloons of Spain. Guests in performance and master classes will include Ramon’s son, Nino de los Reyes, internationally renowned in his own right, musicians from NYC and the region, and additional local artists. within and beyond flamenco, to extend to other percussive dance.
http://ramondelosreyes.wixsite.com/flamenco
Rebecca McGowan
Migration Dance Film Screening
Internationally renowned, Montreal-based percussive dance artist Sandy Silva is visiting the Cambridge area during the 2017/2018 winter to teach and perform. Her series of short dance films, Migration, made in collaboration with award-winning director Marlene Millar, explores human themes of migration. Migration will be screened and followed by a Q&A with Sandy facilitated by a local artist knowledgeable about dance and film. Sandy will lead a body percussion workshop accessible to community members of all backgrounds and levels including beginners. The program will take place at the Dance Complex on February 7, 2018. Although the films of Migration have been shown at many festivals worldwide, they have not been publicly shown in the Cambridge area.
VISUAL ARTS, FILM & VIDEO
Agassiz Baldwin Community - Maud Morgan Arts
Creating Access Through Collaboration: Youth Ceramics Series
This Youth Ceramics Series is designed for youth that attend the Gately Youth Center (GYC) to participate in afterschool ceramic art classes in the specialized workspace at Maud Morgan Arts (MMA). GYC is a North Cambridge community after-school program for low-income youth. GYC youth do not have access to a ceramics studio. MMA has a strong focus on equitable access to the arts. Working with local organizations and creating partnerships to expand their programming to a broader audience is a top priority. The program will run in 5-week sessions, once per week, through June 2018, and will introduce students to ceramics techniques and processes as a fine art form. Finished artwork will be shared at Gately and through pop-up exhibitions at MMA for Gately’s ‘Field Trip Friday’ programming, where friends of participants can visit MMA to see the finished artwork.
www.maudmorganarts.org
Anne Plaisance
The Art's Room Project
The Art’s Room is a collaborative expressive arts space where the artist, working with residents at Transition House, a shelter for survivors of domestic violence, can visualize and share their aspirations for a better life. The goals: to offer opportunities for homeless women to express themselves through art, and make their voices heard by the public: to create photographs of masked residents - as Wonder Women - to spark public conversation about strategies to address violence against women and homelessness (masked to protect residents’ identities: the masks will be created by them). Ultimately, the Wonder Women photographs may serve as a powerful metaphor for a meta goal: a safer world for women, and the recognition of the heroic posture of homeless women, survivors of domestic violence.
www.anneplaisance.com
Boston Latino International Film Festival
BLIFF 2018
The four-day BLIFF 2018 film festival brings to Cambridge the very best films created by Spanish-speaking filmmakers telling stories that reflect Hispanic culture and community around the world. These films are award winners in international festivals and are praised by audiences and critics. The festival includes many documentary films as well, some produced by Boston-area filmmakers, that would not be screened for local audiences without their appearance at the festival. BLIFF also hosts the appearance of filmmakers and actors associated with the festival’s films, many of whom travel to engage the festival audience in question-and-answer sessions. BLIFF is led by Festival Director Sabrina Aviles, Isabel Davalos is Director of Programming, and Sandra Alvarado is Director of Community Outreach. Other volunteer staff of between 6-8 people assist with the Sept/October festival.
www.bliff.org
Cambridge Community Television
Telling Your Family Story: A Digital Storytelling Program
CCTV will implement a digital storytelling program in collaboration with the Cambridge Public Library. The City’s Archivist teaches a six-week workshop at the library to help residents discover their family's histories and organize their research. CCTV will add an optional storytelling and media-making component; participants will be introduced to digital storytelling and guided through the creation of their digital stories, using video, audio, photographs and other artifacts. The program will help Cambridge residents tell and share stories about the people, events and places that have shaped their lives and those of their families. All stories will be shared on CCTV’s three community cable channels, at a community screening, and will be included the Cambridge Public Library’s Archives and Special Collections.
www.cctvcambridge.org
Catriona Baker
Voices Unheard
The project is created to give survivors of sexual assault a voice through interactive installation. 720 hand-made books, representing a day’s worth of sexual assaults in the United States based off of the CDC statistic of "Every Two Minutes," will be created. These books will be displayed in the Roberts Gallery at Lesley Art and Design as part of a National art show and symposium titled, Violence Against Women, in November 2018. Often, sexual assault survivors are shamed into silence, perpetuating feelings of being victimized. The books have been deliberately left blank so that survivors may regain control of their story by anonymously writing in the books if they desire. In addition to potentially offering some comfort to those that are victims of this crime, this project is intended to invite discussion about the occurrence and ramifications of sexual assault in our society.
http://catriona-baker-69uj.squarespace.com
Marie Costello
Infinite Present Exhibition
A exhibition curated by Marie Costello, Infinite Present: The Revelatory Art of Islamic Design will be presented from September through November 2018 at Gallery 344, the gallery of the Cambridge Arts Council. Infinite Present will feature contemporary Islamic artists that explore Islamic design through a contemporary lens. By combining traditions of the past in calligraphy, architecture and ceramics, these artists foreground the complexity and endless variations of these designs. The edge between the literal and abstract, the concrete and mystical are continually blurred to create at times meditative and at times politically charged works. The artists and art works were chosen carefully for their relationship to the thematic content: the geometry and calligraphy of Islamic design. The concept of the infinite is seen through both the myriad interplay of patterns and the exploration of ideal shapes, leading to a sublime experience. This exhibition will offer the public the opportunity to explore the profound work of these artists, generating a deeper understanding of this rich culture with an emphasis on the aesthetic experience. The experience of this complex and compelling art will reach across current divides, combating the cultural intolerance that exists locally and nationally. A catalogue of the art in the exhibition, available online as well as in print, will enable the largest possible community access to the images, concepts and artists that are part of the exhibition.
Mario E. Quiroz-Servellon
Self Reflections: Portraits of Dreamers
“Self Reflections: Portraits of Dreamers” is a photo essay and exhibition that highlights life, academic and professional achievements of a group of Lesley University’s immigrant students known as “Dreamers.” It aims to create awareness and to celebrate within the Lesley community and Cambridge residents, the stories and accomplishments of these young adults, and whose immigration status is currently at risk. The key aspect of the projects resides in using a contemporary artistic discourse to address issues of misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and passive discrimination by the lack of interest, education and activism. The artistic approach will be to invite folks who identify themselves as “dreamers” or people whose lives have been influenced by them. The final material will be edited and curated by the participants, and a 20 pieces exhibition will be showcased at Lesley.
www.marioquiroz.com
Windsor Preschool
Flowers Can Grow From Concrete
The Windsor Preschool will create a mural under the guidance of the artist Lance Johnson. The mural will be placed on concrete walls directly in front of full length windows that look out on a small outside space in front of the preschool. There is a raised bed in this space that is used for gardening. The walls in the space are concrete and completely unadorned. The mural will not only beautify this space but give children a colorful and inspiring image to look out upon throughout the entire day. One of the key elements of the project is that the children as well as their families would be involved in the creation of the mural. Under the direction of Lance Johnson, the preschool community will create a mural that will be enjoyed by the children currently enrolled in the program as well as their families.
Cambridge Arts Public Art Program
Public Art Tour Cards
As part of the Mass Cultural Council’s Local Cultural Council Project program, the Cambridge Arts Public Art Program will create a series of printed public art tour rack cards with a goal to engage the public with our public art collection. Each card will focus on a theme or location and feature four to six artworks from the Public Art Collection of 280 artworks. We will work with designer Rick Rawlins on creating the layout of each tour card. For design and printing purposes, we plan to begin with a set of five tour cards. In the future, we can use the design guide created by Rawlins to add additional tour card themes, and highlight new artworks in the collection. Possible themes include: Good for Kids, Bicycle tour, Date night, History/diversity, Mural highlights, Central Square, Literary, Mosaics, Bet you didn’t know, and Nature. The size of the rack card will be standard 4” x 9” to fit in postcard / rack card displays, and the cards will be distributed around Cambridge at libraries, schools, cafes, and near public artworks (when possible). The cards could be used by someone planning a day in Cambridge who wants to visit all five artworks, or by a family finding one artwork on the card each time they go to a different part of the City. In conjunction with the launch of the racks cards, Cambridge Arts will host educational programming and hands-on art activities at the public artworks featured on the tour cards.
FIELD TRIP GRANTS
East End House
Field Trip to Mmmmaven
East End House’s School Age and Middle School Program participants will explore their creativity at Mmmmaven. This digital music studio offers a Kids DJ program, in which students receive a hands-on lesson from an award-winning instructor and explore beat-matching, basic mixing, recording, and effects. Students will have the unique opportunity to use industry standard software and to learn from professional music artists, and they will leave the class with a 6-song mix CD of their own original productions. Youth from grades 2-5 and 6-8 will visit Mmmmaven in Summer 2018.
Jennifer Orr
Field Trip to Puppet Showplace Theater
The Martin Luther King School all of the kindergarten students on a trip to experience a puppet show at the Puppet Showplace Theater. The students will learn about the arts and appreciate going to a performance at the theater. Three of the kindergarten classrooms embarked on a new journey last year to incorporate more play and choice into the literacy and STEM part of the day. During this time, they have integrated arts through drama, story acting, and good old fashion paper and different medium expression. The trip to the Puppet Showplace Theater fits into the curriculum, giving children an authentic experience that they are able to model back in the classroom.
Outback Summer Program at Agassiz Baldwin Community
Field Trip to Puppet Showplace Theater
Each week, Agassiz Baldwin Community's Outback Summer Program offers special themed programming to offer a distinct variety of events to families interested in a select number of weeks, while also keeping students enrolled through the summer challenged and engaged. Past Outback themes have included "Mad Science" and "Collaborate and Create". To supplement the themed activities planned by Outback Staff, Outback offers special field trips to smaller learning groups each week. Taking our "Littles" (rising 1st and 2nd graders) to the Puppet Showplace Theater has become a tradition of sorts for Outback. We appreciate how the talented artists at Puppet Showplace Theater spend time at the end of each show to discuss different elements with the children, engaging them in conversations on the science behind shadows and engineering techniques to create certain puppet abilities.