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« The 2013 Education & Outreach projects connect and engage Luminato Festival artists with the local Toronto community beyond the annual ten-day Festival, creating multiple entry points for artistic collaboration, community participation and youth engagement through intensive workshops, artist-in-the-school visits, rehearsals and training sessions.

For the past six years, Luminato Festival has been working with local communities in the downtown Toronto core, including Regent Park and St. James Town. For 2013, the Festival has expanded both its outreach and education programs to include Scarborough and Etobicoke communities and has increased volunteer engagement opportunities.

“This year our Education and Outreach programs are much more embedded as part of the overall artistic vision for Luminato, and several projects that are being developed are actually part of the core Festival program,” said Luminato Festival Artistic Director Jorn Weisbodt. “It is important to treat the work with youth and other community groups not as an add-on to the Festival program, but instead as integral to the work Luminato is doing. All of the Education and Outreach projects are artistic projects in their own right, and receive the same attention as any other aspect of the Festival program.”

“This year we are developing four meaningful projects reflecting the Festival’s guiding principles of accessibility, diversity, transformation and collaboration,” said Jessica Dargo Caplan, Director of Education and Community Outreach for Luminato.

Follow the creative process on the Luminato Festival blog.

In the months leading up to the 2013 Festival, more than 450 participants from Luminato Festival’s partner schools and community partners have been involved in the following:

L’ALLEGRO MOVEMENT PROJECT
In collaboration with the acclaimed Mark Morris Dance Group, the Luminato Festival has created L’Allegro Movement Project, an intergenerational dance initiative where young students from Winchester Junior Public School and Nelson Mandela Park Public School, and participants with Toronto-based Dancing with Parkinson’s, explore the expressive possibilities of movement through the choreography and music from L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato. For more information, please click here.

SCHOOL DAYS
In celebration of their 10th anniversary, Toronto-based record label Arts & Crafts collaborates with the Luminato Festival and the Regent Park School of Music on a new project, resulting in two remarkable performances. Leading up to the Festival, students from the Regent Park School of Music youth band will learn favourite songs from the catalogue of select Arts & Crafts artists. During the workshop and rehearsal process, these artists will sing with and mentor the students, reinforcing their shared commitment to artistic expression and community. This will culminate in a joint concert in the Regent Park community (ticketed) and at the outdoor stage at the Festival Hub (free). “Having our kids collaborate with so many great pro artists in the city has been a goal of our organization for years, so this has been a dream project,” says Regent Park School of Music Director Richard Marsella. For more information about School Days, click here.

LUMINATO PORTRAITS: AN ART ON THE MOVE PROJECT
Based on the Art on the Move project developed by Arts Etobicoke and Lakeshore Arts over the past four years, and further inspired by the Luminato Festival’s guiding principles (collaboration, diversity, accessibility and transformation), students at the Karen Kain School of the Arts worked with artist facilitator Melissa McGrath to create a collaborative portrait design. “One of my favourite moments during this project was when one of the grade six students, reflecting on the process, told me that she really enjoyed how the collage we were making required everyone to work together closely, and because of this, no one part of the design belonged to anyone,” says Melissa McGrath. “I love that this project was such a huge collaboration and that it belongs to all 82 students from KKSA who participated in the process, as well as the many partners who worked so hard to bring it to life.” Click here for more information.

– Luminato press release, June 5th

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