04/07/08

TITLE: Storyteller Animates History For County’s Fifth Graders
DESCRIPTION:
Time: 12:21:10

ARTICLE

Flemington, NJ – Storyteller Gerald Fierst of Encore Performing Arts brings The American Spirit – a lively review of U.S. history – to County fifth graders on Wednesday morning, April 23 at Central Hunterdon Regional High School. His audience will be public, parochial and home-schooled students bused there from participating schools. Schools that have not already reserved seats may call 908.788.1256.

Gerald Fierst portrays the pageant of American history with eyewitness reports from the oldest man in America, born on the Fourth of July, 1778. The values and courage of people who helped weave that history are highlighted through George Washington and the founding of our country; Chief Sequoah of the Cherokee Nation; Sojourner Truth and the Civil War; the Wright Brothers and the age of invention; and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, visionaries of democracy. His ultimate message to the students is that they, too, will make history with the same courage, idealism and spirit.

The hour-long performance is part of the Hunterdon County Cultural & Heritage Commission’s Kids Kulture program aimed at broadening the cultural awareness and understanding of students through dance, music and theater. Three programs a year are scheduled, one each for third, fifth and sixth grade students. Study guides for each concert go to participating classroom teachers. The next concerts will be in October.

Kids Kulture is made possible in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Hunterdon County Board of Chosen Freeholders, through funds administered by the Hunterdon County Cultural & Heritage Commission.

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