FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 11, 2008
Shakespeare Meets the Streets in Hip-Shake
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What: Performance of Len Fonte's Hip-Shake to benefit Partners for Arts Education
Where: Syracuse Stage, 820 East Genesee Street, Syracuse
When: Tuesday, July 1, 6:00 pm
Why: part of a celebration of this year's arts-in-education partnerships in Central New York
Tickets: $35, $20 for students. Call 234.9911
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Maybe you've never considered Shakespeare to be in the same league as Kanye West. But in Hip-Shake, you can hear how the linguistic and cultural odd couple of a hip-hop artist and an actor from Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre find the similarities in their language.
Long-time Syracuse theater educator Len Fonte wrote the one-act play, with the collaboration of Rochester poet and performer Reenah Golden, to help both adults and young people get past the stereotypes associated with these contrasting forms of dramatic expression and appreciate the artfulness in both. It's full of humor, surprises, and impassioned language.
Get in touch with your inner Sarah Bernhardt or 50 Cent, or maybe both, at a performance of Hip-Shake at Syracuse Stage on Tuesday, July 1st.
A benefit for Partners for Arts Education (PAE), it's part of a celebration of arts-in-education partnerships that reached hundreds of Central New York students in the 2007-08 school year. You can read about those partnerships at PAE's website, www.arts4ed.org.
The genesis of this performance will also be the topic of a workshop lead by Mr. Fonte and Syracuse Stage's Education Director Lauren Unbekant at 10:30 that morning during the Arts In Mind Institute. The institute provides training for educators and cultural partners to implement shared goals for schools.
The workshop and performance are part of The Hyphenated Artist Series, a collaboration between Partners for Arts Education and Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life. The series is supported by Enitiative, the Syracuse campus-community Entrepreneurship Initiative, funded by a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City, MO, focusing on entrepreneurship in the arts, technology, and our neighborhoods. This project is the first phase of a larger initiative to incubate new opportunities with those in the arts and cultural sector.
PAE is a Syracuse-based not-for-profit that provides grants and support to deepen and enrich educational experiences in and through the arts for students, teachers and artists. It is currently spearheading the Arts In Mind initiative, which is bringing together local cultural organizations, funders, and the Syracuse City Schools to integrate the arts into classrooms throughout the district. Arts in Mind's pilot year in four schools has been successful, and expansion to more schools is planned for 2008-09. More information is available at www.artsinmind.net.
The 6:00 pm performance will be followed by a reception. Tickets are $35 for adults, $20 for students. To make your reservations, call Kristin at PAE at 234-9911.
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