FirstWorks, National Grid exposing students to arts

STUDENTS FROM Toll Gate High School in Warwick perform with Jazz at Lincoln Center musicians for an audience of their peers and special guests at a FirstWorks Arts Learning showcase on June 3 at the Providence Career and Technical Academy. / COURTESY LUCIA LOPEZ
STUDENTS FROM Toll Gate High School in Warwick perform with Jazz at Lincoln Center musicians for an audience of their peers and special guests at a FirstWorks Arts Learning showcase on June 3 at the Providence Career and Technical Academy. / COURTESY LUCIA LOPEZ

PROVIDENCE – An arts learning collaboration by FirstWorks and National Grid to expose students to the arts recently culminated in a June 3 student performance.
FirstWorks is a nonprofit arts organization. National Grid is an electricity and natural gas provider.
Now in its second year, this affiliation between the two organizations included a workshop for more than 480 students by Broadway tap dancer Savion Glover . Glover shared thoughts about music, tap dance, and life-long learning.
More than 900 students from schools in Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls, Barrington, and Warwick also worked with Jazz at Lincoln Center musicians and local teaching artists to develop their own projects using music, dance, theatre, art, and literature.
Built around the theme of “The Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance,” the collaboration has evolved as Jazz at Lincoln Center musicians visited Providence in January in several mini-concerts and workshops that led to the June 3 performance.
Overall, more than 2,600 students participated this year.
Kathleen Pletcher, FirstWorks’ executive artistic director, called National Grid’s participation “instrumental.”
“For many of the students who are participating, this represents their first opportunity to experience performing arts and to engage with artists through workshops, conversations, and online experiences,” Pletcher said.
“We are honored to continue our support of FirstWorks’ programming and to help fuel cultural conversation, intelligent discussions and lively interactions with world-class performing artists,” said Timothy F. Horan, president of National Grid in Rhode Island.

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