Open Hand Theater, Syracuse Stage, and Imagining America present a free spectacular performance on September 11th at 2:00 PM on the green in front of the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology (MOST) in downtown Syracuse. Entitled “Art-in-Motion,” this giant puppet performance created about the City of Syracuse features the work of neighborhood activists, artists, and children from the Near West Side, the South Side, Eastwood, and the North Side. Artists as diverse as painter Juan Cruz, director Jose Miguel Hernandez, puppeteer Geoffrey Navias, and theatre artist/ clown Lauren Unbekant have worked with over 100 volunteers and children to create this remarkable city-wide performance as great entertainment for families and people of all ages.

Supported by a Syracuse University Chancellor’s Leadership Project grant and the New York Council for the Humanities, Imagining America initiated the project partnering with Open Hand, Syracuse Stage, and the SU Office of the Arts Presenter. With strong commitments from the South Side Community Coalition, the Spanish Action League in the Near West Side, Open Hand Theater on the North Side, and Eastwood community organizers, Art-in-Motion is unprecedented in Syracuse in its role of arts participation to strengthen city neighborhoods, nurture creativity in the community, and build on the city’s unique cultural heritage.

Leading up to this performance, Art-in-Motion has featured public conversations centered on activating the arts and stimulating urban redevelopment in Syracuse. On Friday September 10th at 5pm at the Warehouse, 350 W. Fayette Street in downtown Syracuse, the next in the series of conversations will feature Maria Rosario Jackson, senior researcher at the Urban Institute. This event is co-sponsored by CNYSpeaks.
According to Imagining America’s director Jan Cohen-Cruz, “Art in Motion provides a glimpse of what participatory art offers downtown revitalization. The process of creating the puppets and short scenes of neighborhood life has itself played a role in bringing residents together. Seeing a performance with people from all over the city who rarely if ever interact is valuable in itself. Add the pleasure of puppets and performance and I believe we are offering an experience that Syracuseans and visitors from outside the city may want to support as an annual event.”

On the following day, Sunday, Sept. 12, three experts in culture and urban neighborhoods, including Sandy Spieler, artistic director of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre in Minneapolis, the Urban Institute’s Maria Rosario Jackson, and Bill Aguado of the Bronx Council for the Arts, will come together for a public conversation at 2 p.m. at Syracuse University’s Warehouse, 350 W. Fayette St. in downtown Syracuse. They will reflect on the prior day’s puppet performance and will explore ways of using the experience to further opportunities for creative expression and urban revitalization in Syracuse. These activities aim to explore and leverage elements of a truly creative city.

IA is a national consortium of more than 80 colleges and universities committed to public scholarship in the arts, humanities, and design. Syracuse University is host campus of IA until 2012. For more information, call 443-8590, or email valdepra@syr.edu. In case of rain, the 2 p.m. performance will take place at Plymouth Church, 232 E. Onondaga St. in Syracuse.