2021 Spotlight Gala @ Home Journal

spotlightgala@home
FINDING THEIR VOICES, VIRTUALLY
All year long, NJPAC brought the life-enhancing
power of the performing arts to students
From virtual band practice to online
collaborations between poets and
musicians, NJPAC’s arts education
program grew and expanded online
throughout the past year.
Saturday arts training initiatives,
including the long-running Wells
Fargo Jazz For Teens program,
Hip Hop Arts and Culture classes,
and programs in drama and
musical theater, reached students
virtually through Zoom meetings,
Google Meets and a host of
other online platforms. In the Mix,
an online gathering for students,
was developed as a free virtual
clubhouse where students of all
art forms drive conversations
about climate change, social
justice, arts activism and other
issues. The Arts Center’s new
Creative Coaching program paired
faculty with a small cohort of
students to help them achieve their
goals outside of the classroom.
City Verses, NJPAC and Rutgers-
Newark’s multi-pronged initiative in
celebration of the tradition of making
performances that blend jazz music
and poetry — supported by a grant
from the Mellon Foundation — grew
to include summer camp programs,
virtual community performances, and
in-school programs delivered as a
video content series that was created
and shared with schools, so poetry
and jazz faculty could conduct
lessons online. After about every
third lesson, a flurry of recorded
tracks — words and music —were
synchronized by NJPAC Director of
Jazz Instruction Mark Gross, Jazz
Co-Artistic Lead Alvester Garnett,
and Dr. Rigoberto González, head
of the Rutgers graduate creative
writing program, to illustrate what
a collaborative performance looks
and sounds like.
“And it worked,” Gross says of the
virtual residencies. “The schools loved
it. The students loved it. The success
of the program allowed us to grow
the program from the four schools
we began with to, in the Fall 2020
semester, six schools.”
Summer camps remained virtual
this year, and tuition was significantly
reduced.
“We didn’t want to keep families and
students from participating in the
arts because of cost, a cornerstone
of NJPAC Arts Education is to remove
as many barriers to participation as
possible” says Jennifer Tsukayama,
Vice President of Arts Education,
who adds that the morning session
of one Summer program was $75 for
a month-long camp.
In-person arts education programs
will resume in Fall 2021 — but a
handful of NJPAC’s students got
an early opportunity to return
to making art live, when those
participating in the Hip Hop
Arts and Culture and City Verses
programs were invited to perform
at NJPAC’s Horizon Foundation
Sounds of the City summer concert
series, as the opening act for hip
hop legend Rakim. It was the first
in-person event for NJPAC students
since the pandemic began.
“And it was joyous,” says Rosa
Hyde, NJPAC’s Director of Arts
Education Performances & Special
Event Operations.
“When I went to the rehearsal, all I
could think was: I am so excited to
play music with real humans again
for the first time in a year and half!”
exulted Lili M., a 14-year-old pianist
from Cranford who took part in
the City Verses summer camp and
performed at the July event.
Sheikia Norris — NJPAC’s Director
of Hip Hop Education Programs,
better known to her students by
her hip hop name, Purple Haze —
notes the rehearsals for this Sounds
of the City appearance were the first
times her students had been together
since they went on a field trip to hip
hop venues in New York City
on March 9, 2020.
“Several times [at the event] I found
myself crying, I was just so happy —
to see them all, to be alive to witness
this after last year,” she recalls.
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