Summer Rising finishes with a bang, the back-to-school event you can’t miss… August in review!

Students ring in the end of Summer Rising with a series of pop-up performances across NYC! 

Students of International HS @ Prospect Heights pose with a puppet they conceived, designed and operated.

It was very hot day on August 18th, when the students of International High School at Prospect Heights marched into Dr. Ronald McNair Park. Onlookers began to gather as the high schoolers—dressed in bright colors with some holding drums, others massive puppets—circled the courtyard and danced. It was Carnival in summer…just one of many pop-up performances held across the city to celebrate the finale of Summer Rising.

Over the past six weeks, students in all five boroughs participated in the innovative multi-arts program, which saw K-12 students learn through music, dance, theater, puppetry, media and visual arts. ArtsConnection hosted such residencies at 17 schools this summer, culminating in pop-up performances across New York City.

Not every student at the International High School initially connected with the theme of Carnival—a celebration which is traditionally held before Lent, but has since enjoyed a cultural life well beyond its religious roots—puppeteer and teaching artist Sara Jane Munford told us. But this served as an entry point for the group to discuss what parades looked like in different parts of the world. “[The puppets] were a little bit of everybody’s idea,” she explained, “we laid out all of the students’ sketches next to each other, and we talked about what we liked the most about each one.” The final puppets were an amalgamation of all the students’ designs, an exercise in collaboration which continued on the day of the performance when the students moved 8-foot puppetsin unison.

The students were all smiles as passersby stared in awe at their creations. Faculty and family cheered as the puppets and dancers rounded the park, only a few hundred yards from the steps of the Brooklyn Museum.

Meanwhile, students of P396K in Brownsville also embraced summer themes. Since the school specializes in providing dynamic education for students with disabilities, ArtsConnection teaching artists found creative ways to translate traditional summer experiences to the classroom: students swam in fabric of the “ocean,” and touched beach balls and kinetic sand. Program Manager Daniel Levin sums it up best: “When teaching artists, school administration and staff team up at a place like 396K, there are really no limits to what students can experience through the arts and through the contours of their own imagination.”

Student rides a “wave” at P396K. 

Teaching Artist Spotlight: Dionne Kamara

9/18: ArtsConnection to celebrate the
start of the new school year in the Bronx!