Elaborate puppetry, high tech musical orchestration, contemporary dance combined with inventive storytelling and plays based on classic literature are among the treats in store for primary and middle school students in Lancaster and Northumberland counties.
The Arts for Youth program of the Rappahannock Foundation for the Arts (RFA) will bring performing artists to students in the new school year to help broaden their cultural development and appreciation of the arts, said Peggy Stalnaker, RFA president.
Community support greatly enhances the quality of arts education in our schools, she said.
“We’re deeply grateful and heartened by the grant support we’ve received from the River Counties Community Foundation, specifically for Arts for Youth in the Lancaster Schools,” said Stalnaker.
“The RFA also is pleased to connect the resources of the Tidewater Foundation with the budding Arts for Youth program in the Northumberland Schools,” she said.
Schedule
The 2017-18 Arts for Youth series will include:
• September 27, Victor Haskins, Moving Sound Pictures, Lancaster Primary and Middle schools. A one-man band project where Victor Haskins creates epic music, composed spontaneously. Moving Sound Pictures utilizes voice electronic wind instruments and other music technology to create music orchestration, in a solo virtuoso performance.
• November 9, Barefoot Puppets Dreamtime: Tales from Down Under, Lancaster Primary and Northumberland Elementary schools. Barefoot Puppet Theatre celebrates natural wonder and cultural diversity. Inspired by Aboriginal folktales, this particular puppet drama features a platypus, emu, crocodile and giant ocean swallowing frog.
• January 12, Aura Curiatlas Physical Theatre, Lancaster and Northumberland Middle schools by combining acrobatics, dance and theater into physical storytelling, the company co-founders from the dance department of the College of William and Mary, have developed a genre of performance art. Their pieces “run the gamut” from abstract movement to gymnastic.
• February 20, Barter Players: Aesop’s Fables, Lancaster Primary School. The fables of Androcles and the Lion. The Oak and the Reed, The Fox Without a Tail, The Beast in Love, The Tortoise and The Hare, and The Boy Who Cried Wolf will be presented by Barter Players.
• February 20, Barter Players: The Call of the Wild, Lancaster Middle School. Considered by many to be Jack London’s greatest novel, the riveting tale of a heroic dog, thrust into the brutal life of the Alaska Gold Rush, then facing a choice between living in man’s world or returning to nature, is adapted for the stage and delivered to young audiences with the theatrical magic that is the Barter Players’ distinctive brand.
