~ Featured artists ~

Kent Alexander: Drama

Kent is a writer/educator, the author of five non-fiction books, several short stories and numerous plays, which have been produced throughout the Unites States. He has worked as a writer-in-residence throughout New York City schools, where he was awarded the Pathfinder Award (for Collaborative Classroom Work) and the John Stevens Activist Award. Kent also conducted theatre-related workshops for five years at the FDR VA Hospital in Montrose, NY. He has, as well, taught an online Playwriting class for the Scholarship Press Network, developed Creativity Workshops for the SONY Corporation, Outward Bound, The Studio In The School (NYC), The Catskill Arts Society, and New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). He currently lives and works in Massachusetts where he co-teaches a labor theatre class at UMASS and facilitates a First Year Seminar Class at Elms College. Kent will use theatre games, improvisation, and rudimentary character sketches to create a fun-filled theatre experience for the participating students. Through the use of lively theatre-based games and techniques, students will not only learn how to create fanciful characters, but will also have the opportunity to participate in brief improvisations that will challenge their imaginations and, in turn, become a fruitful learning experience that will carry over into other areas of their education, as well.

Ines Arrubla: Flamenco Dance

Ines is a choreographer & teacher. She trained at the world-renowned Flamenco dance academy in Madrid, Spain.  She inspires children in the summer at Luti-Arts camp in Amherst with her passion and joy of dance and movement.

Lindsay Fogg-Willits: Visual Art

Lindsay lives in Florence, MA where she works as an art educator and artist.  She is owner of Art Always, an art school for children, teenagers and adults housed in her Florence studio and is a frequent visiting artist to local schools and programs including her recent work at the Four Winds School in Gill, MA. She also teaches adult drawing classes at Hill Institute in Florence and is Administrative Director of Deerfield Academy’s Summer Arts Camp in Deerfield, MA.  Lindsay will work with Arts Adventure Day students to create abstract relief sculptures of the human face inspired by the assemblages and paintings of Pablo Picasso.

Jennifer Lee: Native American dance

Jennifer is a Narragansett/Pequot descendant and an independent student of Indian America, past and present.  In the warmer months she offers educational programs in a wigwam that she brings to schools, historic sites, & museums throughout the Northeast. For this year’s Arts Adventure Day she will be telling Native stories about the land in the Pioneer Valley, teaching a social dance and song, and familiarizing the students with our Native Neighbors: today’s Nipmuc, Mohican & Abenaki  Nations.  The lifeways of the 1700’s will be shared as students handle bark baskets, Indian tanned leather and stone tools.  Stereotypes are corrected and respect for the beauty of different cultures emphasized. Jennifer will work with Kindergarten and the 6th grade students

Linda Peck Scalise: Movement

Linda is a colorful character out of "cirque du soleil". Balancing peacock feathers, plungers , hats ,canes and more students will learn about teamwork, tenacity and tolerance. Along with entertainment faculty and students will be tickled by their own ingenuity and cleverness, while they glean skills to understand how to respond in situations and how to communicate and be a leader.

Radio Free Earth: Music

Like a pirate radio station in the sky, Radio Free Earth ignores boundaries to play the good stuff you don't ordinarily get the chance to hear. Radio Free Earth is a band that's many things — acoustic and electric, rootsy and innovative, funny and serious, political and spiritual. Most of all, however, Radio Free Earth makes good music of every kind: Rockabilly, country blues, boogie woogie, African reggae, Sixties folk revival, psychedelic rock, Texas swing, cajun, polka, art songs, soul, and more... RFE touches so many bases they had to come up with a new name for their style: “Crossover Music.” Kim and Josh Wachtel will work with our Kindergarten and 5th grade students.

Greg Ruth: Visual Art

illustrations, films, comics

Abolee Montanari: & Akshaya Tucker: Indian Dancers

Abolee Joy Montanari is of Indian heritage. She grew up in Amherst, MA where she started her dance training under Guru Ranjanaa Devi at an early age. She has performed with Nataraj Dancers in the last seven years and has assisted Ranjanaa Devi in teaching large groups of students for Residency Programs throughout New England schools. Akshaya was initiated into western music and Indian classical dance from a young age. She continues her training in the Odissi style under the guidance of Guru Ranjanaa Devi and has been performing with Nataraj Dancers in the last six years.

Natalie Sowell and Ellen Donkin with Hampshire Students: Drama

"Writing a Child's Voice," taught by Natalie Sowell and Ellen Donkin.  Twelve students will work with Pre-k through 2nd grade, focusing on theater games.

Tim Van Egmond: Music and Stories

Tim has been delighting audiences throughout the country since 1978, appearing at hundreds of schools, libraries, and community centers, various folk festivals, and on a number of television and radio programs. He has been selected by the Massachusetts Cultural Council both for its Creative Teaching Partners roster for Residency Programs in schools, and its Touring Program. He has been chosen a number of times for the Kids, Books, and the Arts Project held by the New Hampshire State Library and the Children's Librarians section of the New Hampshire Library Association for its summer reading program. Tim has presented workshops at Sharing the Fire, New England's annual storytelling conference, the Boston Regional Library System for its Youth Services Librarians, and the New England League of Middle School's United Arts Conference, among others.

5-Alone - Pioneer Valley Performing Arts School- CONCERT

The name 5-Alone comes from the five part close harmony jazz arrangements that we sing: five singers, each singing alone on a part. These days it’s become a running joke in the group that rarely are there five people on stage, but the majority of our songs are five part harmony. 5-Alone strives to reproduce the songs of our favorite groups as well as to create our own unique sound.