from the KEY WEST ART & HISTORICAL SOCIETY 281 FRONT STREET, KEY WEST, FL 33040 295-6616 Fax: 295-6649
Attention: News editors, news directors, features editors and programming directors. Please use the following item as a news story, public service announcement or community event. Pix available. For immediate release Nov. 22, 2004.
The Key West Art & Historical Society will be able to involve local fourth and fifth grade students in a creating three puppet shows based on the works of Key West folk artist Mario Sanchez, thanks to a $10,000, Marion Stevens Diversity Grant from the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys. The grant is intended to support the objectives of the Marion Stevens Fund to abolish discrimination in all forms including sexual orientation, explained Claudia Pennington, executive director of the Society. Stevens was an avid promoter of folk art in the Keys. The Art & Historical Society's Puppet Show program will work with students at Glynn Archer, Gerald Adams and Montessori Children's Schools. Young participants will construct their own puppets and create scripts for their own plays, based on some of the painted woodcarvings of Sanchez, which colorfully depict the cultural diversity of the Key West heritage through his diverse cast of characters. In addition, the students, who already study cultural diversity in their social studies curriculum, will be able to expand on that knowledge with a field trip to the Museum of Art & History at the Custom House to visit Listening to Our Ancestors, an exhibition of early 20th Century life in Key West based on the folk art of Sanchez that opens March 19. "Each of Mario's paintings tells a story," said Jane Rohrschneider, the Society's education consultant who is working with Education Coordinator Suzanne Pereira on the project. "Through the puppet shows, we will bring these stories to life. "For example, Mario's Manungo's Backyard Rumba intaglio illustrates the lively community parade that occurred every Christmas Eve when Mario was youngster in Key West. People came from all over the island with whistles, instruments and drums that represented a variety of ethnic and geographical origins. Mario himself said, 'I made the coconut trees look like they were dancing too. Look what a good time the people were having back then.'" The students will be encouraged to research their puppet "scripts" by interviewing their parents, grand parents and community elders with knowledge of the early 20th Century Last year, Pereira and Rohrschneider worked with a class of students from Gerald Adams School to create a highly successful puppet play about Key West chickens," said Pennington. "Some of the Marion Stevens grant money will be used to improve the portable puppet theatre and to purchase better lighting and audio equipment. The plays will be presented to both student and adult audiences and possibly in a live performance on local cable television," she said. "Marion Stevens loved primitive and folk art, and she understood that a future free of discrimination and intolerance begins with education. The funds from the Marion Stevens Diversity Grant will help the Society continue its 55-year legacy of preserving and protecting the heritage of Key West and the Florida Keys. There is no better way to ensure the continuation of this rich and diverse history than to teach it to our young people," Pennington said.
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| Manungo's Backyard Rumbaby Mario Sanchez |
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| Hemingway Houseby Mario Sanchez |
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| Down By The Old Graveyardby Mario Sanchez |
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