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RMSC, RCSD collaborate on African-American history initiative
RMSC, RCSD collaborate on African-American history initiative
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The Rochester Museum & Science Center will offer a new program aimed at Rochester City School District kids to immerse them in African and African-American culture and history.
The collaboration, “A Journey Through Time in African-American History,” will take place Feb. 27 and includes six artists chosen by RMSC and RCSD who will share their particular art as a strand of the African and African-American experience. Artists include:
• AKOMA, the African-American Women’s Gospel Choir
• Bradford Britton, visual artist
• Yahaya Alhassan, Ghanaian drummer and instrumentalist who also crafts glass bead necklaces, which benefits a school he founded in Ghana
• DJ C-Melz, sound artist
• Alfred St. John, Trinidadian steel pan drummer and founder of the Trinidad and Tobago Steelband
• The Baobab Cultural Center
The goal of the program is for students to learn about each of the artists and their art, how they came to it and what they try to communicate through it, officials said. The collaboration is designed as a celebration of the contributions Africans and African-Americans have and continue to make to the American culture.
RMSC for several years has hosted Haudenosaunee Days, in which students come to the museum and rotate through a set of sessions with artists and storytellers to learn about Native American culture and its ongoing traditions. In November, a project funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, “Learning Local-The National Network for Folkarts in Education,” held its culminating event at RMSC.
The project matched local artists with local teachers and provided both with professional development on how to have the artists come into school classrooms and share their art and their culture. Three of those artists were asked to participate in an event structured around African and African-American culture targeted at RCSD students.
The first program was held on Feb 10 with four artists and some 70 students. Both RCSD and RMSC are financially supporting the program, and a grant proposal has been submitted to host the event next year.
[email protected] / 585-653-4021
Follow Velvet Spicer on Twitter: @Velvet_Spicer
