Students tap into jazz during interactive field trip at the Kimmel Center
PHILADELPHIA - In honor of Black History Month, students of all ages attended a field trip at the Kimmel Center of Performing Arts that was hosted by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Ensemble Arts program Jazz for Freedom.
The interactive program gave students a chance to experience music from a live jazz band, scatting, spoken word poetry and tap dancing.
"I was in awe because it was so beautiful inside of here," said student Alana Louison. "Everything that happened in there, really happened. It was beautiful to see."
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"I liked the tap dancing and the scatting, and it really gave me a relaxing, cool vibe," said student Lenny Washington.
The Vice President of Education Dani Allen said Jazz for Freedom is a three-part program.
It starts with experienced teaching artists going into schools to introduce students to jazz and the history behind it.
The field trip to the Kimmel Center is the highlight. Then, in the coming weeks, the teaching artists will go back into the classrooms for a post-show workshop when students will be encouraged to apply what they’ve learned and write their own songs about social change through the art form of jazz.
"If you think about the Civil Rights Movement, there are all these great spirituals that people would sing as they were marching, and you’d see R&B artists and jazz artists writing these amazing songs that really spoke to what they were going through at the time," said Allen. "It really touches your heart and your spirit in a different way, and it can be a mix of emotions. Sometimes you feel happiness and you feel joy, but sometimes you feel sadness and often times, for me, I feel moved to do something. These artists who put their music and themselves on the line to make a statement about justice, it makes me feel like all of those emotions come together."
Allen hopes the program teaches students how to advocate and speak up for themselves.
It’s a lesson teachers are also on board with.
"The legacy goes on. Seeing that the next generation, even the youth they showed in that video when they were just having their voice, that’s so important, they understand it started, but it has to keep going with them," said Thilana Bennett, teacher at Woodbury Junior-Senior High School.