With live performances cancelled and collaborations at a halt this past spring/summer, the Riverside Unified School District created a unique experience for performing arts students to join in a partnership project with the community. Through a series of twenty-five episodes, students, teachers, principals, board members, and professional theater and community arts members created engaging dramatic readings of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Visual arts and music students also contributed by providing drawings and original music for the videos.

Community partners included Sharron Lewis (Empower You Edutainment), Louisa Higgins (Administrator, Visual and Performing Arts, Riverside County Offifice of Education), Margie Haupt (Arts and Cultural Affairs Division, City of Riverside), Patrick Brien (Executive Director, Riverside Arts Council), Michelle Grotness (Board Member & Director, Riverside Community Players), Alastair Edmonstone (Music Director for the Opera Program, California State University, San Bernardino), and Kathy Ervin & Rick Hoglund (Theater Program, California State University, San Bernardino).

The videos were released daily throughout the month of July to the community and received tens of thousands of views on YouTube and Facebook. This wonderful project is the creation of Riverside Unified School District’s Arts Coordinator, Annemarie Guzy. She can be reached at guzy@riversideunified.org. The Riverside Unified School District is grateful for its collaborative partners and incredibly creative students and staff who participated in the project!

Here is a video that showcases a few highlights for this project.

Amplifying the Arts Volume 5

Amplifying the Arts, Volume 1

Innovative approaches for equitable and exciting opportunities in the visual and performing arts for students during school closures from Riverside County Arts leads.

Amplifying the Arts, Volume 2

Meridy Volz's "Art with Heart" program at Indio Juvenile Hall was an instant success, and she was determined to continue teaching even as COVID-19 prevented her from entering the facility.

Amplifying the Arts, Volume 3

The Our Town Cultural Arts Program brings the cultural arts into elementary school classrooms in the Murrieta Valley Unified School District, engaging students in the traditions and cultures of the citizens who make up our community and the students who sit in our classrooms.

Amplifying the Arts, Volume 4

Lady Lead (LL) was founded 5 years ago, by Louisa Higgins, Administrator, Visual and Performing Arts, and Sarah Scheideman, Artist from Palm Springs Unified School District as a way for middle school girls of promise to interact with female art mentors while doing an arts & crafts project.

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