The U.S. Department of Education’s Student Art Exhibit Program will host the opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday morning for the D.C. Public Schools’ (DCPS) student art exhibit Intersections Art Show. The exhibit showcases visual and performing arts, including music, dance, and a film project from more than a dozen partnerships among 14 D.C. public schools and D.C. arts education organizations. The exhibit will be on display at the Department’s headquarters through April.
This event will feature remarks from DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson and DCPS Arts Director Nathan Diamond. Lionell Thomas, executive director of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and Jill Levine, U.S. Department of Education principal ambassador fellow, will also speak to the importance of arts education for all students. In addition to the visual arts, the performing arts will be celebrated. Students at Stoddert Elementary at the Fillmore Arts Center will perform swing dance in the choreographic tradition of legendary swing dancer Norma Miller. John Eaton Elementary School’s Capital String Ensemble will perform pieces learned with the O’Conner String Method through the school’s partnership with Washington Performing Arts. School Without Walls Senior High School will show “Scripts and Scores,” an experimental collaboration between silent film and live music.
This DCPS exhibit also showcases its partnerships with many of the city’s cultural institutions, museums and universities, which enhance rich learning experiences across multiple art disciplines: School Without Walls Senior High School and George Washington University; King Elementary School and the National Portrait Gallery; Seaton Elementary School and the Kennedy Center Visiting Artist Program; Coolidge High School and Design District; Sharpe Health School and the Kennedy Center Visiting Artist Program; Ballou High School and Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting; J.O. Wilson Elementary School and the National Museum of Women in the Arts; Columbia Heights Educational Campus and the World Culture Catalyst Program; Columbia Heights Educational Campus and Visiting Artist; Stoddert Elementary at the Fillmore Arts Center and the National Museum of Women in the Arts; Phillips Collection Museum and Takoma Education Campus; Corcoran School of the Arts and Design and Tyler Elementary School; Smothers and Bruce Elementary Schools and the National Gallery of Art; and Life Pieces to Masterpieces and Drew Elementary School.
The Department’s Student Art Exhibit Program, now in its 12th year, features visual and performing arts created by students in U.S. and international schools, pre-k through professional art school. The program provides students and teachers an opportunity to display creative work from the classroom in a highly public place that honors their work as an effective path to learning and knowledge for all.