“Tell your Truth” returns to India Point Park to provide space where folks can speak candidly on the mic about trauma, injustice, connection, love and other topics. Anyone who has something important to say and wants their voice to be heard, be sure to join us for this special event. Orange Live will be the host of the evening.
Performer: Orange Live
Damont Combs is a poet from Southside Jamaica Queens and a graduate with a degree in Computer Technology Service from Johnson and Wales University. Mr. Combs, otherwise known as Mr. Orange Live, has released two books of poetry: My Poem… My Riddle, (Prysmatic Dreams Publishing, 2015) and Damont Combs presents A Touch of Orange (Kingdom Enterprise LLC, 2016).
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Performer: Magnolia
A spoken word tribute to the city of Providence.
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Performer: Jaychele Nicole
Jaychele is a 16 year old student activist. She is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the national youth organization Gen Z: We Want To Live. She has been involved in social justice work for over three years, speaking at rallies, meeting with government officials, and testifying at the Rhode Island Statehouse. She has contributed to many organizations such as Young Voices, Sunrise Providence, Zero Hour, Planned Parenthood, March for Our Lives, Rhode Island Coalition and Against Gun Violence.
Expanding the Biennial legacy by cultivating capacity for its sustainability, Providence Curates informs and strengthens curatorial practice. Three exhorting verbs rally partners and audience growth, summon change by igniting collaboration, and invite an emerging generation to realize its social justice commitments through dynamic art encounters.
Rather than being lost due to generational change, how can the spirit of earlier urban initiatives become building opportunities for what’s to come? What is the art of curating and how may it cultivate and inflect Providence’s legacy of art and experimentation? This public podcast features invigorated hands-on board members and commentators engaging in dialogue about how the capacity of contemporary art, when curated to explore compelling social quandaries, can provoke transformative experiences. It’s a spirited call to action and a commitment of Providence Curates to support contemporary art engagement across all borders, identities, and circumstances.
We collaborate with Trending Globally, Brown’s social sciences-oriented Watson Institute for International + Public Affairs. EXPAND – IGNITE – INVITE is hosted and posted by exceptional Sarah Baldwin whose serial podcasts offer keen insights on critical societal challenges, politics and policy; Board members Spencer Evans, Jonny Skye, Judith Tolnick Champa, and Melaine Ferdinand-King, Brown doctoral, Africana Studies.
You’ll be able to hear this podcast on 9/22 and following at this link or on your favorite podcast app by subscribing to “Trending Globally.”
Event image: Margery Winter, Detail, Mend a City, 2019, knitted and felted wool and acrylic wall hanging, Courtesy of the artist
Gallery Night Providence will host Family Friendly Walking tour of Public Art in the Providence Downcity leaving from URI Providence Campus 80 Washington Street at 11am , 1pm and 3pm. The tours will feature public art and highlight significant architecture in the down city and lower Eastside of Providence. PVDFest Ideas walking tours will focus especially on the architecture and public art in the downcity area with special note of BIPOC artworks and the tremendous contributions made by those who built this city and this state whose hands and labor filled in the water to create the land, drove the pilings and built the buildings that comprise the landscape of Providence from the Native peoples forward to the present.
The tours are free and will be advertised by Gallery Night Providence with reservations on Eventbrite.
Shake off those blues and celebrate with the sounds, ideas and spirit of Carnival right here in Providence! Joyful sounds + smoking rhythm section + hot horns = all the ingredients to ignite a dance party at the height of summer.
Special guest artist Etienne Charles
FirstWorks Live—Music at Roger Williams Park is presented by FirstWorks in partnership with Roger Williams Park Conservancy and Providence Parks Department. A PVDFest Summer Happening
FirstWorks’ Carnival! funded in part by the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies.
Special thanks to Providence Tourism Council for generous support of FirstWorks Live—Music at Roger Williams Park
Event Time: 1:30-6pm, see below for individual events, times, and locations.
Headliner Etienne Charles, Creole Soul, Roger Williams Park Bandstand
Event Time: 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
If any single musical artist today can embody the rich spectrum of Caribbean musical traditions, it is Etienne Charles. This Trinidad-born jazz trumpet master defies easy categorization. The New York Times hailed him as “an auteur” and JazzTimes described him as “a daring improviser who delivers with heart-wrenching lyricism.” Charles is a student of pan-Caribbean music, as fluent in the riffs of New Orleans second-line brass as he is in the many rhythms of the islands.
As both a bandleader and sideman Charles has worked with some of the finest talents in jazz today, and played with legends like Roberta Flack, Wynton Marsalis, and “the grand master of calypso” Lord Kitchener.
Charles and his band bring “Creole Soul” and the sounds of his newest album “Carnival: The Sound of a People Vol. 1” to the FirstWorks Live stage, leading an excursion into the varied acoustic sounds, grooves, chants and rituals of his native Trinidad & Tobago Carnival.
Providence Drum Troupe, Roger Williams Park, near the Bandstand
Event Time: 4:00-5:00 PM
Born from the pandemic, this troupe of acrobats, fire-arts, stilt-walkers, hoopers, lasers and dancers from near and far create funky beats with positive interactive energy demonstrating that living in harmony with one another is not an antiquated notion.
Photo credit: Erin X. Smithers
Workshop, Carnival Music, Roger Williams Park Bandstand
Event Time: 2:15 PM – 3:00 PM
Join Etienne Charles and his band to explore the music of Carnival. Take the time to learn about instruments, rhythms, and how it all works together to have a more immersive and informed listening (and dancing) experience during the band’s performance at 5:00 PM!
Photo credit: Erin X. Smithers
Workshop, The Steel Pan from J’ouvert to Carnival, Roger Williams Park, outside of the Casino
Event Time: 4:00-4:45 PM
Two-time New England Urban Music Award winner Becky Bass (St. Croix / Providence) is known for her euphoric steel pan playing, soulful voice, and powerful stage presence. Bass will discuss and demonstrate the journey of the steel pan and its place in J’ouvert celebrations to the modern Carnival. Attendees are welcome to bring their percussion instruments to participate in this interactive workshop.
One of the most prolific and enduring artists on the local hip-hop scene, the positive messages and everyday struggles reflected in Chachi’s lyrics have earned him a loyal fan following. Rooted in classic hip-hop, Chachi’s sound is constantly evolving, seamlessly incorporating both live instrumentation and his Cape Verdean roots. This repeat PVDFest headliner can be relied on to uplift the party with beats, rhymes, and life wherever—and with whomever—he takes the stage.
Rhode Island Philharmonic will perform their annual concert again this year! This concert is free and open to the public.
The Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra & Music School is committed to engaging people of Southern New England as lifelong music listeners, teachers, learners, creators and performers. They are the only professional orchestra in the country to officially designate music education and performance as equal priorities.
This event is presented and made possible by the Rhode Island Foundation, TACO/ The White Family Foundation, Papitto Opportunity Connection, the City of Providence, the Roger Williams Park Conservancy, and PVDFest.
Join Councilman John Goncalves for a Ward 1 Movie Night featuring the movie, The Secret Life of Pets 2 (rated PG)! The story of Max and his pet friends continues, as we follow the animals after their owners leave for work and school each day. Be sure to bring a chair or picnic blanket!
For more information, please visit the Facebook event here.
Prof. Loretta Ross (Smith College) to deliver the keynote lecture “Calling In the Calling Out Culture: A Pathway Forward”
Wednesday, July 21, 2021, 5:30 PM reception; 6:30 PM lecture;
followed by a community discussion on a pathway forward,
moderated by Sterling Clinton-Spellman
Presented by WaterFire Providence as part of the Mary Beth Meehan exhibition EYE TO EYE and the Mary Beth Meehan and Jonathan Pitts-Wiley exhibition WITNESS June 30 to August 22, 2021.
Open: Wednesday thru Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and until 9:00 p.m. on Thursdays
The lecture is funded in part by the Rhode Island Foundation
Presented in cooperation with Leadership Rhode Island
August 23rd is International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. On this date, TWPEF will project imagery and stage dramatic readings about the history and legacy of slavery in Rhode Island at sites where slavery and the struggle for abolition took place. With support from RICH, scholars and artists are working together to craft texts and create original imagery for projections. In Providence, we will illuminate Brown’s University Hall, built in 1770 by four known slave laborers. Projection/performance events in Providence, Woonsocket and Cranston will be live streamed as three chapters in one statewide performance.
This event was postponed until August 26 due to inclement weather.
Join Councilman John Goncalves for a Ward 1 Movie Night featuring the movie, Aladdin (rated PG)! This movie is about the kind-hearted title character and power-hungry Jafar as they vie for a magic lamp with the power to make their wishes come true. Be sure to bring a chair or picnic blanket!
