Community Cultural Video Project Coming to the Schools
With the Covid-19 virus very active in the USVI, we are unable to hold any rehearsals for the in-school St. John All-Island Children’s Choir Program. In order to keep the children engaged and building on aspects of the Children's Choir experience, we have planned a community cultural video project instead.
October -May, children from pre-k – grade 5 on St. John will receive weekly 5-10 minute videos of storytelling, teaching dances, games, drumming patterns and more - all made by ancestral Virgin Islanders and Caribbean-born community members. These videos will provide enjoyment and study breaks, but they will also be preserving some of the old ways, and teaching them to the young, who are the ones that will carry them forward.
This material will inspire our future on-site programming, and we will do our part to help keep those stories, games, dances and rhythms a salient childhood experience for all of St. John’s young people. We could very well have a lot of percussionists and dancers in our concerts, perhaps a story being told between songs…so many possibilities!
October -May, children from pre-k – grade 5 on St. John will receive weekly 5-10 minute videos of storytelling, teaching dances, games, drumming patterns and more - all made by ancestral Virgin Islanders and Caribbean-born community members. These videos will provide enjoyment and study breaks, but they will also be preserving some of the old ways, and teaching them to the young, who are the ones that will carry them forward.
This material will inspire our future on-site programming, and we will do our part to help keep those stories, games, dances and rhythms a salient childhood experience for all of St. John’s young people. We could very well have a lot of percussionists and dancers in our concerts, perhaps a story being told between songs…so many possibilities!
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"Singing makes me excited and happy.
Performing makes me a little scared but it makes me more strong." LeShaun, grade 5 |
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The St. John All-Island Children’s Choir is an in-school program that involves 260 St. John Children
in Kindergarten through Fifth grade, from the island's three elementary schools: Julius E. Sprauve School St. John Christian Academy Gifft Hill School and the island's homeschooling community. |
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"Choir is so much fun. We learn new songs and we can sing them to other people and that will interest them to go into choir too!"
Jayla, grade 2 |
For these children, choir is a place to sing and play with all of their island peers. Transcending the usual socio-economic and cultural barriers, they create something inspiring beautiful and hopeful for themselves and their audience.
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"Miss Kristen is the best singing teacher and she
gives us special ice cream points. How I feel in choir is happy." Ari Ella, grade 2 |
The St. John All-Island Children’s Choir presents formal concerts, and performs at other community gatherings such as the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration, St. John Arts Festival, and Light up the Night, among others.
Gallery
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