DDOA to Host Annual Poetry Out Loud State Final Competition

This post content courtesy of a press release from the Delaware Division of the Arts...

From a competitive field of 20 Delaware high school students, 12 remain to compete at the statewide recitation competition that will be held at Dover High School on Tuesday, February 27, at 7:00pm.

The finalists will compete for the opportunity to represent Delaware and advance to the National Finals in Washington on April 24 & 25, where $50,000 in awards and school stipends will be distributed.

2018 Delaware State Finalists

• Chelsea Anokye-Agyei - Hodgson Vo-Tech High School
• Matthew Byer - Wilmington Friends School
• Avery Chambers - Caravel Academy
• Julian Clark - Middletown High School
• Andrew Dingwall - Wilmington Christian School
• Whitney Grinnage-Cassidy - Ursuline Academy
• Melina Hudson - Milford Senior High School
• Tyler Keeler - Laurel High School
• Giovani Malcolm - Concord High School
• Richard Matthews - Dover High School
• Samuel McGarvey - Tall Oaks Classical School
• Dounya Ramadan - Newark Charter Jr./Sr. High School

The competition encourages high school students to learn about poetry through memorization, performance and competition. Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest is sponsored by the Delaware Division of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.

The Delaware Division of the Arts sponsors the Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest program in Delaware schools and the state finals. Competition begins at the classroom level in the fall and culminates with the state finals each spring. Over twenty schools and more than 2,000 Delaware students participated in the Poetry Out Loud program in the current academic year. The Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest competition is presented in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. 

New Partnership Enriches Curricula, Arts District

This post content courtesy of a press release from the Delaware College of Art & Design...

A recently launched collaboration between the Delaware College of Art and Design (DCAD) and NextFab makerspaces aims to enhance DCAD’s programs of study, increase NextFab’s footprint on Wilmington’s Creative District and further the redevelopment of the city's downtown.

DCAD, the Mid-Atlantic Region’s only two-year professional art and design college, offers the associate of fine arts degree in animation, fine arts, graphic design, illustration and photography and has served as an anchor institution in the revitalization of Wilmington since its founding in 1997. NextFab, which has three locations in the Mid-Atlantic, provides access to tools, technology, training, events, consulting and capital for creatives of any skill level.

The first phase of the partnership, already under way, provides NextFab memberships to all DCAD faculty to help them develop ways of integrating the latest in traditional and digital technology and artistic innovation into DCAD’s curricula while furthering their own development as artists. Subsequent phases will include field trips to NextFab for students to use the state‐of‐the‐art equipment, software and instruction for class assignments and provision of NextFab memberships to all degree-program students for use in completing coursework and for creating extracurricular art and design projects.

DCAD President John Hawkins noted that today’s creatives are highly multi-disciplinary – experts in one or two mediums yet familiar with and possessing a facility with many others. The NextFab collaboration increases DCAD’s ability to further student development in this direction while also giving students the chance to work in an environment characteristic of a contemporary art and design practice; gain exposure to new and evolving mediums and technologies; and connect with a wider network of professional artists and designers.

According to NextFab sales and marketing director Eric Kaplan, the makerspace is eager to play this role.

“Our Wilmington location has been open over six months now, and we’ve been steadily reaching more local creatives,” Kaplan said. “We are incredibly excited to have an official partnership with DCAD that will benefit both students and faculty, and we’re hopeful we can continue to explore ways of integrating technology and innovation into DCAD’s creative curriculum in the future.”

Mayor Michael Purzycki and managing director Carrie W. Gray of the Wilmington Renaissance Corp./Creative District Wilmington recently joined DCAD and NextFab representatives to officially celebrate the launch of the partnership. The event held at NextFab’s Wilmington headquarters including tours of the site and souvenir picture frames designed and crafted by NextFab and filled with artwork created by DCAD students.

“We have the richness of the arts with the richness of technology and the creativity of what is demonstrated right here,” Purzycki said. “I can’t imagine anything better for our city.”

Gray agreed. “WRC helped drive the founding of DCAD, and we led the recruitment of NextFab to Wilmington,” she said. “So now to have a partnership between these organizations is helping to realize the vision for a robust creative community and economy in Wilmington.”

See www.dcad.edu. 

Two Delaware Organizations Receive NEA Grant Awards

This post content courtesy of a press release from Delaware Division of the Arts...

Each year, more than 4,500 communities large and small throughout the United States benefit from National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants to nonprofits. 

For the NEA’s first of two major grant announcements of fiscal year 2018, more than $25 million in grants across all artistic disciplines will be awarded to nonprofit organizations in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. These grants are for specific projects and range from performances and exhibitions, to healing arts and arts education programs, to festivals and artist residencies. 

Congratulations are in order to two distinctive Delaware organizations, both of whom will benefit from this round of NEA grants — OperaDelaware and Wilmington Renaissance Corporation.

OperaDelaware will receive an Art Works grant of $10,000 to support new productions of Puccini’s Il Trittico (The Triptych) and composer Michael Ching’s Buoso’s Ghost.

"We're delighted that the NEA has chosen to support our work for the third season in a row,” said OperaDelaware General Director, Brendan Cooke. “This grant will allow us to return to Wilmington’s Grand Opera House (which received a 2017 NEA Art Works grant) for the 2018 Spring Opera Festival which will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the premiere of Puccini’s Il Trittico (The Triptych) and feature seven one-act operas over two weekends.”

The Wilmington Renaissance Corporation will receive a Challenge America grant of $10,000 to support the artist-led creation of a community public artwork.

“To receive this recognition and award from the NEA is an honor,” said Dr. Carrie W. Gray, managing director of Wilmington Renaissance Corporation. “We truly believe that the arts are an engine for community and neighborhood development. This is at the core of our Creative District initiative. Thanks to the NEA’s help, we will be able to continue to provide access to arts and culture programming to neighborhoods that will benefit from it. We look forward to sharing the details of our project with everyone soon.”