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SPARK! Spring Showcase
First Friday, May 4th, 5:15-7:30pm
Engage with SPARK! on First Friday to celebrate another year of equitable and engaging arts education in Missoula County Public Schools with SPARK! The second annual event will include interactive dance, theatre, visual art, and music performances featuring MCPS students and local artists. Guests will also be able to dive into hands on arts activities and browse a gallery of SPARK! visual arts.
In addition to the student performances and hands-on art making, the event will include a silent auction, summer camp raffles and a drawing to win a summer camp from the Zootown Arts Community Center (ZACC) or the MCPS Fine Arts Program.
Student performances include African Music & Dance with Tarn Ream of Unity Dance and Drum, Storytelling with Marc Moss of Tell Us Something and a Historical Rap from Cold Springs & Hawthorne Students! Don't miss out on this fun night!
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How SPARK! Is Supported
People often ask how SPARK! works. Here is how our amazing arts education programs are made possible as well as how you can contribute.
Five years ago, Phyllis Washington learned about the Ensuring the Arts for Any
Given Child initiative, and she saw the enormous potential for increased arts in our schools to make a positive and lasting impact for Montana kids. The community of Missoula pulled together to meet the common goal of providing equitable arts access for Missoula students. The process entailed a Community Arts Teams comprised of leaders from many areas of the community meeting together with Kennedy Center leaders to create an action plan for achieving this lofty goal. In short, Missoula was approved as an Any Given Child community, and we are now in our third year of implementation. SPARK! increases arts learning by more than 700 hours per year through over 100 arts residencies and 9 Arts Enhancement events.
The next question we often hear is, "So how does all of this get paid for?"
The Kennedy Center supports SPARK! through training, educational resources, and a thriving national network. We do not receive finances toward our programming through the Kennedy Center. SPARK! is a non-profit under the fiscal umbrella of Arts Missoula. Part of our approval as an Any Given Child site was an agreement with Missoula County Public Schools to include arts integration residencies as a part of their educational model. Major contributions to our funding come from The Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation and Logjam Presents. We also partner with the City of Missoula and local businesses, including Allegiance, Stockman Bank, and First Interstate Bank. The Montana Arts Council helps us fund dance integration at every K-8 school. Finally, individual donations allow us to extend and improve our programming, reaching more children and offering more arts opportunities.
Support for SPARK! in Missoula County Public Schools happens through both art for art's sake and arts integrated residencies. The MCPS general fund provides for three elementary visual art teachers shared by the nine elementary schools as well as a general music teacher for every elementary school and a traveling band and orchestra teacher who work with 5
th
grade students.
In the middle schools, the general fund provides a full time band, orchestra, choir as well as an art teacher for each school.
With the amazing collaboration and passion of Missoula educators, artists, organizations, parents, and business leaders, SPARK! aims to continue bringing arts into schools indefinitely. We also aim to expand our resources to welcome additional school districts to benefit from the Initiative. In order to ensure our sustainability and allow for growth, we will need to bring in additional funding sources.
For more information and detailed descriptions of programming currently offered and specific needs we plan to meet, please follow this link to our website for the full article: Full Article!
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Coming this Summer!
Arts Transform Communities: The Montana Arts Integration Conference
June 27-29, 2018 we are hosting a state-wide conference on Arts Integration. The conference will take place on The University of Montana campus for an audience of educators, administrators, teaching artists, community leaders, creative thinkers and policy makers - people like yourself! Sponsored by UM Arts, MCPS and SPARK! Arts we are joined by our conference partners Montana Art Council and OPI.
Missoula now has more arts integration happening than ever before and we wish to share what's happening with new school teams and new teaching artists.
The conference will feature the work of Montana teachers and artists as well as arts integration experts from around the country.
We hope you will block out these dates to join us - June 27-29, 2018.
Conference Website, click Here!
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March Artist Integration!
As always, this month there have been a ton of talented teaching artist residencies in Missoula County Public Schools! Teaching Artist Alison Reintjes created clay representations of fairy tales connected with ELA Standards. Also, 5
th graders at Rattlesnake created mystery films connected with ELA standards and 1st Graders at Chief Charlo learned Drama skills with Teresa Waldorf connected to Science Standards.
To see a full schedule of teaching artist residencies, check out the SPARK!
Calendar!
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SPARK! Arts Ignite Learning |
(406) 531-1981 |
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Website
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