Join us for the culminating performance of the 8th Annual RHAPSODY Hip-Hop Summer Arts Camp. The dynamic performance will feature original music, rhyme, dance, and visual art created by our students during this year’s camp.

The event will be held at 3 pm, Friday, August 14, 2009 at the Idea Center at Playhouse Square, 1375 Euclid Avenue, at the corner of East 14th and Euclid in downtown Cleveland.

by Andre Clayton  

On May Day in Canterbury Elementary School’s gymnasium, half of its fourth grade class danced in front of their parents and peers instead of around a maypole and the rest of the fourth grade class rapped, creating a festive new twist to the centuries old tradition.  

Canterbury’s rap and break dance performances were a part of a PAA arts-in-education residency program in Cleveland Heights schools that the Ohio Arts Council helped fund with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.  (more…)

Progressive Arts Alliance is pleased to announce that the Eighth Annual RHAPSODY Hip-Hop Summer Arts Camp will be held this year at the Idea Center at Playhouse Square, Monday-Friday, August 3-14, 2009, 9am-5pm.

During this two-week intensive camp, students will work with PAA’s professional artist-educators to learn more about the history and art forms of hip-hop culture and how hip-hop can be a positive form of creative self-expression.  Students will also learn more about professional careers in the arts.

Camp activities will include hands-on workshops in DJing, MCing (rapping), dance, and graffiti art.  For more information about the camp, click here.

Sample the Hip-Hop Camp for Free! 

Join PAA and Playhouse Square for FREE DJ workshops after-school from 4-6pm on the following Tuesdays and Thursdays:

February 10, 12, 17, 19, 24, 26

March 3, 5, 10, 12, 17, 19, 24, 26

No pre-registration is required for DJ classes – come to one or come to them all!

The Hip-Hop Summer Arts Camp and After-School DJ Workshops are held at:

Idea Center at Playhouse Square

1375 Euclid Avenue (at E. 14th St)

Downtown Cleveland

Interested in helping a student in need attend summer camp this year? To make a tax-deductible donation to sponsor a student scholarship, click here to donate securely online. It costs just $200 to sponsor a student, but donations in any amount will be gladly accepted. Be sure to designate your donation for “Hip-Hop Camp Scholarship.” Donations can also be mailed to PAA, 2310 Superior Avenue Ste 280, Cleveland, OH 44114

To get the latest updates about this year’s hip-hop camp, join the PAA email list by clicking here.

Don’t Miss the Excitement!

Progressive Arts Alliance is please to announce that registration is now open for the Seventh Annual RHAPSODY Hip-Hop Summer Arts Camp, which will be held Monday-Friday, August 4-15, 2008 at the Idea Center at Playhouse Square in Downtown Cleveland.  The camp is open to students age 11 and up.

The RHAPSODY Hip-Hop Summer Arts Camp is truly an experience like no other.  Students engage in dynamic hands-on workshops in music, visual art, dance, and poetry while learning more about about how hip-hop can be a positive and productive form of creative self-expression.

For more information about registration, please download the camp brochure below.  If you are in need of financial assistance, please download the Financial Assistance Application below.

If your student is in need of transportation to/from camp each day, click here to send us an email and PLEASE indicate your transportation needs, including where you live and your nearest RTA bus or rapid stop.

Stay tuned for more news!  This year’s visiting guest artist will be announced soon.

To join the PAA email list, click here. 

Click Here to Download the Hip-Hop Camp Brochure and Registration Form.

Click here to Download the Hip-Hop Camp Financial Assistance Form.

As we complete our fall semester in-school programming, we’d like to share images of some of the hands that have been at work this semester …

Among our programming during this semester has been a dynamic mural installation at Lincoln-West High School; printmaking, filmmaking, creative writing, and drumming at Charles Lake; web site design at George Washington Carver; after-school programming at the CHAMPS program at Noble, Wiley, Roxboro, and Monticello schools in Cleveland Hts.; and hip-hop music writing and production workshops at Upward Bound at Cuyahoga Community College’s Metro Campus.

Looking forward to creating more exciting opportunities to see hands at work from students of all ages in 2008!

For immediate release:

(Cleveland, Ohio – October 2, 2007) Students at Lincoln-West High School, a part of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD), will participate in the collaborative creation of a mural to be painted on the south side of the school together with internationally-acclaimed painter and pop culture icon Lee Quiñones, October 3 through October 13. The mural will be unveiled in a public, outdoor event Saturday, October 13 at 2:30 pm at Lincoln-West High School, 3202 West 30th Street, Cleveland.

Quiñones is also scheduled to speak at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio where he will present slides of his work this Friday, October 5 at 4:30 pm in the West Lecture Hall of The Oberlin Science Center, 119 Woodland St. at Lorain (OH-511), on the Oberlin campus. This free event is open to the public.

Lee Quiñones (b. 1960, Ponce de Leon, Puerto Rico) has been painting since the 1970s, first on New York City’s streets and subway cars, and then shifting to a studio-based practice. Along with Keith Harring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Quiñones was one of the key innovators during the early days of New York’s street-art movement. In keeping with his tradition of innovation, Quiñones was also one of the first street artists to transition away from creating murals on trains and begin creating canvas-based paintings. The 1979 exhibition of his canvases at Claudio Bruni’s Galleria La Medusa in Rome introduced street art to the rest of the world. In 1981 he starred in the influential hip-hop film Wild Style and helped introduce the burgeoning New York hip-hop scene to the world. He was also featured in Blondie’s “Rapture” music video. He was a 2004 VH1 Hip-Hop Honors honoree and co-presenter with Debbie Harry of Blondie and Fab 5 Freddy.

He has had numerous solo shows and has exhibited internationally. Quiñones is an inductee of the permanent collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC). His work has been featured in world-renowned venues including The New Museum Of Contemporary Art (NYC), Museum of National Monuments (Paris, France), Museum of Modern Art (NYC), and the Institute for North American Studies (Barcelona, Spain). All of the paintings in his recent show at the famed P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York were purchased by legendary musician Eric Clapton, a long-time fan of Quiñones’ work.

In 2005, he took a 1,500 mile bike trip from New York City to Miami, Florida to raise money for Hurricane Katrina victims through the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Artwork he created during his journey was featured in a Miami exhibit that donated the proceeds to Katrina relief.

The Lincoln-West mural project is a part of Progressive Arts Alliance’s Murals in the Schools program that conducts in-school residencies that work with students of all ages to create a mural for their school. Students and their teachers engage in a dynamic group project that creates a mural collaboratively with a professional mural artist from Progressive Arts Alliance (PAA). Mural-making allows students to learn about teamwork, problem solving, mathematics, and art through experiential learning. Students learn about the powerful impact of community revitalization through the arts. Other CMSD schools that have PAA murals include Orchard School, Michael R. White School, and George Washington Carver School.

“I think it’s great that someone is finally coming to fix our mural on the outside of our building,” explained Jose Pagañ, 11th grader at Lincoln-West, referring to a peeling, dilapidated mural that will be replaced by the project. He added, “It’s also great that Lee Quiñones is coming to work with us.”

Support for the Lincoln-West mural project has been provided by The Thomas H. White Foundation, The Abington Foundation, and Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, Case Western Reserve University.