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Kennedy Plaza Is Heating Up Most people think of the beach when they think of summer, but not this city gal! Simply walking downtown on a sunny day puts me in a great mood. So it’s no surprise that I can’t wait for the Downtown Providence Parks and Conservancy (DPPC) summer series when it once again combines some of my favorite things: education, performance and food trucks! Let’s begin with Downtown Tuesdays, running July 5 – October 25 from 3 – 6pm. Downtown Tuesdays combines the Downtown Farmers Market with Farm Fresh RI, and the Kidoinfo Play in the Park. Family- friendly activities, performances and a play space truly make nutritional food fun for kids. What better way to promote healthy eating? Will this get my kid to eat his veggies? I’m not sure, but I’m willing to give it a try! What makes this year’s Downtown Tuesdays different from last is that Jennifer Smith of the DPPC upped the ante with special performances peppered into the schedule. On July 26 and August 23 there will be Open Drum Circles with Sidy Maiga, which provides not only an opportunity to see a professional musician hone their craft, but an opportunity to create with a professional musician. Of course the fun doesn’t end with Tuesdays; Kidoinfo Storytime and Art in The Park will once again run on Thursdays from July 7 – August 18 from 10am – 12:30pm. Each year, the Art in the Park theme changes to correspond with a children’s book to ensure that children will find a love for stories through art. This year, children will explore Making on the Moon: Worlds of Tomi Ungerer. And if you and your little artist find that you’re hungry after Art in the Park, have no fear the food trucks will be there! Downtown Food Trucks at Kennedy Plaza & Not Bored Games will descend on the Plaza Monday through Thursday from 11:30am – 1:30pm July 7 – August 18. At the same time the Imagination Center, which includes the Imagination Playground and the Open Air Reading Room, will be open. The Burnside Music Series and Beer Garden returns on Thursdays from 4:30 – 7:30pm, July 7 – September 8. The series has it all — live music, food trucks, family fun and beer! I dare you to find anyone more excited about this fantastic lineup than the DPPC’s program director, Jennifer C. Smith. Her enthusiasm is infectious. “I am excited about all of the artists that we’re bringing together for kids and families in the park, and how this gives people an opportunity to be close to artists, like accomplished musician Sidy Maiga and our resident artist, Ricky Cadowitz.” And then I heard the magic words any stage mama wants to hear. This year, thanks to a generous grant from Hasbro, there will be opportunities for kids to act out their stories! “We’re working on building a pop-up imagination theater, which will invite children and families to play and create and make up their own stories.” This project will have a pop-up theater front complete with props, costumes and an opportunity for kids to make their own books! Frequently we hear how children “lose” their academic knowledge over the summer. Thanks to the DPPC, parents can keep those wheels turning while their kids have fun. With all of these great events going on at Kennedy Plaza, it’s hard to imagine that anything else could fit in this schedule. However, there are also some special events taking place this summer. PVDFest at Burnside Park takes place on June 4 from Noon – 8pm (see story on page XX) where you can find Make, See, Do + Play, a participatory art event with music, dance and play! Enjoy performances by local artists and community organizations, and make some art of your own. On July 12 will be a bilingual production of Romeo and Juliet presented by Trinity Rep and RI Latino Arts. The show begins at 6:30pm. Rhode Islanders will have a chance once again to tell their own stories when the Storycorps Airstream Station returns to Washington Street by Burnside Park from June 19 – July 30. This oral history project is something every Rhode Islander should check out. Check out the DPPC’s Facebook page for more details. From a performance by the Doppleganger Dance Collective in August, to the Afrika Nyaga Drum and Dance Festival with Sidy Maiga and the DPPC in September, and the Second Annual Octoberfest Burnside Music Series and Beer Garden, there is always something happening at Kennedy Plaza! For more information visit the DPPC website at www.provparksconservancy.org, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/DowntownParksConservancyPVD or on Twitter @KennedyplazaPVD. PVDFest Updates I remember going to PVDFest way back in the day when it was still called the Providence International Arts Festival, in 2015. The festival was a marvel of positive energy, and its entertainment vibe was almost ADD, with theater skits and choreographed dance breaking out in the middle of the street, sanctioned skateboarding and blading stunt areas, food trucks and carts, a giant harp strung from the top of the Superman building, spectacular large-scale new public art executed by The Avenue Concept, and concerts that took place in parking lots throughout Downcity. Both the big lots you know and the slightly shady ones you might normally hesitate to walk through were transformed into giddy dancefloors for music of all genres. This year promises the same sense of wonder and urban transformation. Expect a massive pedestrian zone again, speckled with seemingly random outbreaks of art and music. (see story at motifri.com/pvdfest-to-transform-city-into-magical-wonderland). There will be a WaterFire, of course, with everything that entails. Expect giant Dutch flying dragons and partners from the Dean Hotel and Big Nazo to The Avenue Concept and the Southside Cultural Center, from the Providence Preservation Society to AS220, and from the Downtown Parks Conservancy to Providence Implantations. “The whole city is a stage,” says Kathleen Pletcher, executive director of event organizer FirstWorks, who mentioned that this year’s fest will also expand to Grant’s block, part of Westminster St. WBRU’s Concert Series will kick the whole thing off on Friday, June 3. There’s family programming during the day, and at night the main stage will host numerous performers, including locals like Chachi Cavallo and VulGarrity and some from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti and Mali, and the Extraordinary Rendition Band (ERB)’s planet of origin. There will be collaborations with Trinity Repertory Theater, and food trucks from across the state, coordinated by FoodTrucksIn. Eleven public art projects will manifest around Downcity. So bring an empty stomach, your dancing shoes and as many friends as you can muster! PVD Fest is June 2 – 6 throughout Kennedy Plaza and the Downcity area. PVDfest.com JMW Art Conversations & Communications in Art and Metal Communicating is a key factor in both learning about art and expressing oneself artistically. Art is a communication tool, and when artists share their art, they are trying to express fragments of their personal conversation, or their emotions, to the world around them. This week, the Senior Class of the Jaclyn M Welsh Arts High School in Pawtucket has a two-part exhibit opening in DAWN At The GRANT Gallery in which they voice their interactions with local senior citizens and give voice to the creative journey they have accomplished to-date. As expressed by one of the students, “Over the past four years at JMW Arts High School, students have been given the opportunity to further their education in visual arts. Professional artist and master sculptor Chris Kane designed a curriculum in which his students are exposed to multiple medias, practices and strategies used by artists… Students’ final year with Mr. Kane is spent in a class called Portfolio/Public Art, in which their voice and image is exposed to the public. The students this year have been working hard to create works of multiple medias, such as painting murals, figure drawing and photography, to find their voice in the world of visual art.” A major part of the exhibit at DATG Gallery, “Conversations In Metal​” includes an intergenerational art project worked on and completed over the past year. “Conversations in Metal” is an exhibit of cast metal sculpture made by senior art majors from JMW Arts High School and senior citizen participants from the Leon Mathieu Senior Center. This art project was a partnership between the Pawtucket School Department, the Leon Mathieu Senior Center, Kane Sculpture Studio and Tunstall, a world leader in elder healthcare services. The high school art students and senior citizens worked with professional sculptor Chris Kane to create a series of complex forms in wax, which were then cast in aluminum. The students and seniors began the project with a story exchange exercise that helped break the ice and led to deep conversations. Phrases from these conversations were cut into the wax bars that make up the sculptures. Legibility of the text is diminished by the many process steps involved in casting the complex knotted forms of the sculptures, leaving intriguing fragments of the conversations that began the process hidden among the drips, welds and tool marks that define the surface. This year, at least 15 students will be giving voice to their art, expressing themselves in images and creative fragments to the world. The participating artists include Madeline Duffin, Timmy Ok, Aimme Martinez, Saxante Gonzalez, Jordon Omelas, Kevin Charron, Leenda Moitoso, Tiffany Warner, Katelin Tirrel, Patience Waring, Joshua Santos, Laila Cannon, Emma White, Erin Perkins and Brendan Baker.

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