Before students were dismissed Friday for spring break, they got a little culture.
The school hosted its annual Cultural Arts Day, a program organized by the school’s Parent-Teacher Association. Students spent half the day with members of the Akron Symphony Orchestra and the dance company Dancing Wheels.
Principal William Kerrigan said the PTA organizes different acts every year for the students.
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Dancing Wheels was founded 30 years ago in Cleveland by Mary Verdi-Fletcher, the first professional wheelchair dancer in the U.S. The company integrates dancers with and without disabilities. Members of the company showed how different styles of dance, such as ballet pirouettes and modern dance movements translated from a standing dancer to one in a wheelchair. Members without disabilities also learned the dances as performed in chairs in case one of the disabled dancers was unable to perform due to illness.
“I thought that was inspiring,” said seventh grade student Amanda Coteat.
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Griffin Jontry, another seventh grade student, said the message of Verdi-Fletcher, who didn’t let her Spina bifida keep her away from her dream of being a dancer, was inspiring as well. “I thought they were awesome,” Griffin said.
While the dancers were in the new gym, members of the symphony and the Akron Youth Symphony talked music and performed samples of pieces. Levi Hammer, assistant conductor of the symphony and conductor of the youth symphony, spoke of Beethoven’s life before playing a sample of one of his pieces. He told the audience about how, later in life, when the composer became deaf, he sawed the legs off his piano, so he could put his ear to the floor and hear through the vibrations.
In other school news, while Copley-Fairlawn is on spring break this week, Revere students are coming back to school from their week off.
has a PTA meeting at 8:45 Wednesday at the school, 1246 Cleveland-Massillon Road. School has its PTA meeting at 2 p.m. Thursday at the school, 3080 Revere Road.
has an eighth grade scheduling meeting from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the high school, 3420 Everett Road.
Families and Community Together for Schools, or F.A.C.T.S., has a letter writing event from 6 to 10 p.m. Wednesday at Richfield Fellowship Hall, 3909 Broadview Road, to support the May 3 tax levy for the schools.