37th Annual Awards Event

Saturday, October 26, 2024

Worcester Art Museum

Register to Attend Here!

The 37^th Annual Champions of Arts Education Advocacy Awards are coming!

This year we will gather on Sat. Oct. 26 at 4:00 for a reception and start the celebration at 4:30 at the Worcester Art Museum. As in the past, the awards event is free to attend and open to the public. Please join us!

Attendees are welcome to participate in a free docent tour of the museum collection at 3:00 that day.

Here is a Spotlight on two of our 2024 Awardees: Congratulations to the Outstanding Arts Educator Advocate Award recipients Jeanne Traxler and John Provenzano!

Jeanne Traxler

to Receive

Nancy H. Moses Distinguished Dance Educator Advocate Award



Jeanne Traxler, is the director/founder of the Peanut Butter & Jelly Dance Company, which was founded to present performances and programs for children by adult professional dancer/teachers, to sponsor concerts for the public, and to teach classes and workshops for children and teachers. PB&J currently has three facets:

• PB&J Dance Co, a company of professional dancers who perform for and do workshops for children,
• PB&J Dance Classes for Kids, an after-school program of dance classes for children ages 3-8, taught from a creative movement perspective, and
• SMALL FEETS dance company, a dance company for children ages 6 and up.

The PB&J Dance Company has presented assembly programs, workshops and residencies to over 70,000 children in 300+ sites around Massachusetts.

Jeanne served for many years on the USA Chapter National Board of dance and the Child international, an organization whose mission is to increase and develop opportunities for young people to experience dance as creators, performers, and spectators. She was the USA Chapter National Treasurer and has taught for daCi at the international meeting in Finland in 1997 and at four National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) conferences. She has also been on the Board of BDA, and MaDEO and has presented workshops at several NDEO conferences. Jeanne has taught at preschools around the greater Boston area since 1980. She has been teaching for Dance in the Schools since the beginning. Jeanne was named the Boston Dance Alliance 2018 Dr. Michael Shannon Dance Champion for her years of work with young dancers.

Jeanne choreographs site-specific work and has created pieces for the Brookline 1st Light Festival, at sites as varied as a Marriott Hotel Pool, Coolidge Corner Arcade, Magic Beans Toy Store, Booksmith, Town Hall Plaza, the Sprint store window, and online. She was an original founder (in 1993!) and is still on the organizing committee of the Children’s Dance Festival, an  annual day-long event for young dancers.

John Provenzano to Receive Distinguished Media Arts Advocate Award

John Provenzano has worked with over 20,000 students and their families in Boston, MA (USA). Since 1995, he has been part of the arts program at the Boston Renaissance Charter Public School. In 2018, he was the recipient of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Living Legend Award for his contributions as an arts educator.

John has worked to create media projects incorporating work from the music, dance, library, theatre, Chinese and physical education classrooms. He is a pivotal member of the community where he teaches. John is regarded highly for his compassionate, relational and kind way of approaching both his students and the staff. He is often called upon as a pillar of our school community to share his perspective and wisdom with his school community.

John's students are held to both high expectations and high standards in his art studio where he guides them to find belief in themselves and voice in their work. His studio is filled with choices and student learning is paramount. John works across the grade levels and mediums on collaborative projects in stop-motion animation where students plan storyboards, set scenes, direct shots, work the camera, learn to edit, and work with green-screen technology.

Renaissance artists have displayed work at Fenway Park, Emerson Theater, and visited museums and studios of local artists. Over these past years, students have created an ongoing series of stop-motion animation movies which have become the identity of the program.

Arts|Learning is a nonprofit organization with a mission to transform learning experiences for children through the arts by developing partnerships to create model programs, engage in public advocacy, and advance the field of arts education.

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