JCC Association Unveils Plans for 1st
Annual JCC Maccabi Artsfest™
Week-Long Teen Program in Fine &
Performing Arts to Include Professional Workshops/Master Classes,
Performances/Exhibitions & Community-Service Project
Sunday- Friday, August 20-25
Hosted by the JCC Of Greater Baltimore
NEW YORK, NY, MARCH 2, 2006 – How do
teens shape their personal and Jewish identities? Connect
with their inner muses and with community? Measure their worth
as human beings? Many do so through the arts, in disciplines
as diverse as the teens themselves.
In an attempt to engage creative teens in Jewish community,
JCC Association has initiated a spectacular week-long summer
program for boys and girls, 13-16 years old, modeled after
its successful JCC Maccabi Games®. The Games, which now
attract 6,000 teens from around the world, are entering their
twenty-fourth season of competition this year. The inaugural
JCC Maccabi ArtsFest™ will be held in Baltimore, Maryland,
from Sunday, August 20-Friday, August 25. Hosted by the JCC
of Greater Baltimore, the festival will utilize the entire
facility, including the JCC’s spacious art gallery and
Gordon Center for Performing Arts, along with a black box
theater for film screenings. Area families are being recruited
to provide home hospitality for the up to 500 teens expected
to descend on the city and its surrounding suburbs.
A Multi-Faceted Endeavor to Appeal to Broad
Interests
There will be something exciting for everyone at ArtsFest,
predicted Arlene Sorkin, the program’s continental director.
She urged all those with interest and experience in the following
to apply:
• Digital Video
• Instrumental Music (jazz, pop/rock)
• Musical Theater
• Star Reporting (news and feature writing, photography)
• Techies (sound, lighting, stage management)
• Visual arts (painting, drawing, cartooning)
• Vocal Music
(Go to http://www.jccmaccabiartsfest.org/artsfest_2006_host.htm
for tentative program schedule, requirements for participation
in each discipline, and a list of the artists-in-residence.)
The week’s highlights include:
• Daily master classes, workshops and mentoring of works-in-progress
with professional artists-in-residence
• Publication of ArtsFest highlights in the Baltimore
Jewish Times, through Star Reporter participant-produced stories
and pictures
• Instrumental and vocal ensemble performances, with
exceptional talent showcased
• Art exhibitions
• Film screenings
• Evening DJ Party at American Visionary Art Museum
on Baltimore’s famed Inner Harbor
• Pool party/BBQ with local bands
• Jewish learning and Israel awareness
• Community service project with Baltimore’s Department
of Social Services Foster Care Division
• Gala finale Art Festival, open to the public
(Please see tentative program schedule, below.)
Twenty-nine JCCs around North America have
already made the commitment to send delegations of teens representing
different artistic fields, said Sorkin. The formal planning
predates Sorkin’s arrival a year ago. Patricia Cippi
Harte, JCC Association’s assistant vice-president of
program services, began organizing input as early as 2003
from JCC executive directors and teen and arts & culture
programming directors. JCC Association leaders have long sought
ways to reach out to Jewish youngsters not interested in participating
in an athletic competition.
A generous grant from JCC Association’s New Initiatives
Fund, established by Edward H. Kaplan, chair of JCC Association,
seeded ArtsFest. The Coca-Cola Company®, long a sponsor
of the JCC Maccabi Games, is now the continental sponsor of
JCC Maccabi ArtsFest as well.
Jewish Content Takes Center Stage
Days of Caring and Sharing will foster the teens’ involvement
in tikkun olam, repairing the world, another key element of
the ArtsFest mission. An afternoon of community service has
been arranged through Baltimore’s Department of Social
Services Foster Care Division. Teens will be asked to bring
toiletries and other personal care items to assemble into
packets for needy youngsters under the city’s care and
learn about their plight from an agency official.
ArtsFest will also include substantive, hands-on Jewish learning
and identity-community building experiences. During Hang Time,
designated free periods during each day, there will be values-oriented
discussions, games, songs and crafts, led by four Israeli
shlichim.
Hang Time will also serve to nurture social ties among Jewish
teens with shared interests, said Sorkin. ArtsFest will emphasize
connections to Israel with other activities such as Israeli
dancing and through the participation of Israeli peers through
UJA-Federation’s Partnership 2000. The Baltimore JCC,
for example, will be hosting 10 young Israeli artists from
its sister city, Ashkelon. The Israeli youngsters will arrive
a week in advance of ArtsFest, spending time with their host
families and seeing the sights in and around the nation’s
capital.
The program will also inject Jewish content into the study
and performance of the arts themselves. “This will be
handled in a sophisticated fashion by the individual artists-in-residence,”
explained Sorkin. For example, one of the artists, a musician,
is an Israeli and will bring in the entire dimension of Israeli
repertoire, she said. Elizabeth Swados, the musical theater
director, intends to produce a musical theater piece around
issues of concern to teens, incorporating Jewish values into
the script.
Two Ways to Participate
Teens can sign up for ArtsFest by auditioning to join a local
JCC delegation. Teens living in a community without a participating
JCC are invited to sign up directly through JCC Association
and be part of the agency’s Continental Delegation.
JCCs interested in learning how to organize a delegation and
teens without a local participating JCC should contact Arlene
Sorkin, continental director, as soon as possible, at (212)
786-5089 • e-mail: arlene@jcca.org.
###
JCC Association
is the leadership network of, and central agency for the Jewish
Community Center Movement, which is comprised of 350 JCC,
YM-YWHA and camp sites in the U. S. and Canada. JCC Association
offers a wide range of services and resources to strengthen
the capacity of its affiliates to provide educational, cultural,
social, Jewish identity-building, and recreational programs
to enhance the lives of North American Jews of all ages and
backgrounds. Additionally, the movement fosters and strengthens
connections between North American Jews and Israel as well
as with world Jewry. JCC Association is also the U.S. government
accredited agency for serving the religious and social needs
of Jewish military personnel, their families, and patients
in VA hospitals through JWB Jewish Chaplains Council.
Miriam
Rinn
Communications Manager
JCC Association
15 E. 26 St., NY, NY 10010
212-786-5092
fax: 212-481-4174
send an e-mail
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