FirstWorks Urban Carnevale Kicks Off Today

FirstWorks and the City of Providence announce the final line-up of artists from across the globe for the FirstWorks Urban Carnevale. The Urban Carnevale is a celebratory evening of music, spectacle, art, and food capping four days of activities celebrating FirstWorks 10th Anniversary. The free public celebration brings the world to Providence with awe-inspiring performances from Australia, Italy, Morocco, Mali, and Rhode Island tonight, September 20, 2014, starting at 5:00 PM in the Providence Rink and surrounding parks, Kennedy Plaza, downtown Providence.

The final lineup of FirstWorks' Urban Carnevale includes: Australia's Strange Fruit, a troupe of daredevil dancers suspended high above the crowd within illuminated globes against the night sky; ancient rhythms and wild dance byCanzoniere Grecanico Salentino, new generation masters of southern Italy; and the exotic gypsy spirit of Morocco with the funk/jazz blend of Ribab Fusion, the Berber culture's one-string answer to the legacy of Jimi Hendrix. This not-to-be-missed party also features a collaboration with Providence's Afrika Nyaga 6th Annual Festival; and 100 voices joining in a preview of RPM Voices' RI-Sounding Voices, a harmonic convergence of choruses from across Rhode Island.

"The City of Providence is proud to celebrate 10 years of partnership with FirstWorks, a leading arts organization in our state," said Providence Mayor Angel Taveras. "The FirstWorks Urban Carnevale kicks off a year-long effort that will culminate in the FirstWorks Festival On The Plaza 2015, made possible by an NEA Our Town grant that recognizes Providence's arts community as a national leader."

Other finalized events for this celebration:

• Providence's The Avenue Concept, a top emerging arts organization marrying public art and civic concerns. Collaborating with local sculptors to create a temporary sculpture park, the Avenue Concept is developing a platform to create public in public spaces that includes artwork in Biltmore Park displayed on converted pedestals from old RIPTA bus shelters removed during the current renovations. They will hand out maps to identify existing art that has been in the park and Tape Art will create a surprise installation around the Providence Rink Pavilion. This installation begins on Friday September 19th and will continue on the 20th into the evening.
• Participants can express their deepest hopes and dreams in a pre-Carnevale creative and spiritual ritual with The Providence Peace Flags Project, and marvel at FirstWorks Rising Stars, in Burnside Park. Beginning at 5pm, the young virtuosos performing their cultural traditions include dancers, drummers and musicians of Napua O' Polynesia, the creative choreography of Jump! Dance Company, master drummer Brandon Weddell, and Andean instrumental and vocal folk songs by Voces de los Andes.
• A special community engagement event has also been finalized for Friday, September 19 at 7:00 pm at RISD Market Square, as part of FirstWorks' Urban Carnevale. In a free FirstWorks/RISD "Happening", the global musical powerhouse-Italian visiting artists Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino-will play an open "Jam" session while RISD students and faculty members interact--creating paintings, video, sculpture, and other works of art inspired by the session. The public is invited to stop by and join the jam-create your own work, or simply watch it all unfold.

"This will be the birthday party of a lifetime!" said Kathleen Pletcher, executive artistic director of FirstWorks. "There is an amazing creative combustion between international artists, stellar local partners, and the arts - transforming Providence's central plaza into a vital town square for all to gather. We are grateful to the many arts, business and civic partners who have joined with us to celebrate what marks a triple 10th anniversary for FirstWorks, the Department of Art, Culture + Tourism, and a truly unique, sustained public/private partnership between our two organizations."

"The Urban Carnevale is an exemplar of the extraordinary creative collaboration that is fast becoming the hallmark and the future of Providence," said Lynne McCormack, Director, Department of Art, Culture + Tourism. "We are drawing on ten years of partnership to build the FirstWorks Festival On The Plaza as Providence's biennial, signature tourism event. We have amazing momentum and a track record of success behind using the arts as an engine for growth andgrowing the city as a creative community."

The FirstWorks Urban Carnevale caps a weekend of events celebrating the non-profit arts organization's 10th anniversary, and launches FirstWorks' 2014-15 season - a year of arts programming which concludes in June 2015 with the next FirstWorks Festival On The Plaza, also co-presented with the City of Providence. The Carnevale and Festival On The Plaza 2015 have received leading support from a National Endowment for the Arts "Our Town" grant, The City of Providence Department of Art, Culture + Tourism, the Rhode Island Foundation and GTECH. Additional support is provided by Bank of America and Providence Tourism Council.

About FirstWorks

FirstWorks is a non-profit arts organization that builds the cultural, educational, and economic vitality of our community through world-class performing arts and education programs. Since 2004, FirstWorks has offered Rhode Islanders access to some of the most exciting artists of our time including Yo-Yo Ma & the Silk Road Ensemble, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Wynton Marsalis, Joffrey Ballet, and the master artists of Pakistan through the Caravanserai project (2011-12). Beginning with an unprecedented collaboration with Providence's Department of Art, Culture + Tourism, FirstWorks has produced 22 groundbreaking arts festivals, attracted more than 160,000 participants, presented over 361 international artists and innovators, engaged more than 100 nonprofit community organizations and schools, and grown into a multidimensional arts organization recognized with 17 National Endowment for the Arts grants. In fall 2012, FirstWorks partnered with the City of Providence to present the inaugural FirstWorks Festival: On the Plaza, leading a consortium of 18 organizations to create an event that drew 40,000 people into downtown Providence. In July 2013, the City of Providence and FirstWorks were named recipients of a second NEA Our Town grant to support a community design effort to create a cultural corridor in downtown Providence along Washington Street, and to establish the FirstWorks Festival: On The Plaza as a biennial signature event in Providence. Visit www.first-works.org to learn more.

About The Providence Department of Art, Culture + Tourism

The Providence Department of Art, Culture + Tourism ensures the continued development of a vibrant and creative city by integrating arts and culture into community life while showcasing Providence as an international cultural destination. Since its establishment in 2003, the Department of Art, Culture + Tourism has worked to enhance Providence's civic life and promote creative placemaking by forging strong working relationships with other city departments, partner agencies, and the local creative community. AC+T aims to provide arts and cultural experiences for all through a broad range of public programming serving all city residents. The Department also coordinates creative development strategies in Providence and spearheads research studies that support investments, policies, and initiatives employing the arts as a social and economic development tool.

SCHEDULE AND ARTIST PROFILES:

SCHEDULE (SUBJECT-TO-CHANGE)

Peace Flags Project (Ongoing - Kennedy Plaza)

Avenue Concept / Tape Art (Ongoing - Biltmore Park/Providence Rink Pavilion)

3:00-5:00 PM: Sidy Maiga will host a FREE West African drum circle and dance class in Burnside Park. African arts and merchandise will also be available for sale.

5:00-5:30 PM: FirstWorks Rising Stars (youth performers from RI)

5:30-6:45 PM: Ribab Fusion (Morocco)

6:45-7:00 PM: Welcome Remarks (Mayor Angel Taveras, Congressman David Cicilline)

7:00-7:30 PM: RPM Voices' RI Sounding Voices - One Voice Preview (RI)

7:30-8:00 PM: Australia's Strange Fruit - Spheres

8:00-9:30 PM: Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino (Italy)

9:30-10:00 PM: Australia's Strange Fruit - Spheres

10:00-12:00 AM: Sidy Maiga & AfriManding (Mali) featuring Michelle Cruz & Brown African Dance Troupe

ARTIST PROFILES

Australia's Strange Fruit - aerial performances of The Spheres

Australia's Strange Fruit fuses theater, dance and circus in performances that have amazed over 5 million people at prestigious events in more than 50 countries around the world, including the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games. Suspended above the crowd on 15-foot poles, the artists in Spheres become celestial beings, emerging from and rising above giant, illuminated globes in a cosmic, whimsical, and awe-inspiring performance. Unlike anything you've ever seen before, this 25-minute nighttime performance features four daredevils telling a spectacular story of creation, life, the universe, and freedom as they bend and sway to seemingly impossible angles, creating a hypnotizing aerial dance.

Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino - trance-inducing folk traditions of Southern Italy

Exploding with energy, passion, rhythm, and mystery, the seven-piece band Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino is Italy's top act on the international world music circuit. These new-generation masters bring 21st-century life to the beautiful folk music of Italy's past, passionately performing both tender love songs and the frenzied dance, pizzica tarantata - hurtling six-beat rhythms and songs that were used in ancient, ecstatic healing rituals to cure the bite of the tarantula.

Morocco's Ribab Fusion

Joyful and magnetic, the Ribab Fusion ensemble celebrates Morocco's Amazigh (Berber) culture - flying from '70s-style funk to Afropop dance vibes, from slow jams to high-energy call-and-responses choruses. The ribab, a one-stringed bowed instrument, weaves this madcap sonic diversity together with sounds that are sometimes gritty, and sometimes soothing as a well-played saxophone. Enjoy FirstWorks' 10th anniversary with Ribab Fusion's technically superb jazzy mix and sounds from another world.

This presentation of Ribab Fusion is part of Center Stage, a public-private cultural exchange by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and produced by the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) in cooperation with the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations, with additional support from the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation and the Asian Cultural Council. General Management for Center Stage is provided by Lisa Booth Management, Inc. www.centerstageUS.org.

Sidy Maiga & AfriManding featuring Michelle Cruz and the Brown University African Dance Troupe

Sidy Maïga is a master drummer from Bamako, Mali, West Africa, who specializes in djembe and dunun. For the last seven years he has lived in Rhode Island and has performed in venues all over the East Coast and elsewhere. He performs solo or with his group, AfriManding, From 2006 through 2009, Sidy was the Master Drummer in residence at Providence's Black Rep Theater. Since 2009, Sidy has been producing the annual Afrika Nyaga Drum and Dance Festival. A gifted teacher, Sidy has taught African Drumming in schools and universities throughout New England and New York. He has taught after school programs throughout Rhode Island and in 2011 was artist in residence for Trinity Academy of the Performing Arts in Providence. In 2011, Sidy was named the 2012 Folk Arts Fellowship winner from RI State Council on the Arts. He also won the MacColl Johnson Fellowship for Music Composition. He released his debut album, Malidén, in May of 2011 and is currently working on his second CD. Sidy Magia will host a Malinese Drum circle, dance class. There will also be African arts and merchandise available for sale at Burnside Park.

RI-Sounding Voices - Creating a Statewide Chorus and New Work

RPM Voices will lead and direct RI-Sounding Voices, a statewide chorus that joins together choruses from across the Ocean State - and Rhode Islanders who just like to sing - in a unique musical melting pot of voices. RPM Voices will preview ONE VOICE, a new work to be premiered at the June festival, together as one choral unit that embodies the state's vast diversity. ONE VOICE by RI-Sounding Voices is written and directed by Dr. Clarice LaVerne Thompson (Composer & Artistic Director), Shaunne N. Thomas (Producer & Moderator) and Cheryl S. Lopes (Managing Administrative Director), all of RPM Voices of Rhode Island.

Avenue Concept

The Avenue Concept was founded by Yarrow Thorne in 2012 as a public art program that integrates distinct elements of urban arts with opportunities for artists of all ages. During its first year of programming they were recognized by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation as one of twenty emerging arts organizations to receive three years of operating support through their Seed Grant Program. The Avenue Concept produces integrated public arts programming that fosters Social, Community, and Artistic development. They collaborate with civic agencies to revitalize under-used public spaces, activate communities through public art initiatives, and facilitate forums for social interaction through innovative programming.