Pawtucket Arts Festival Celebrates 20th Anniversary in September??
Join us for a month of new and beloved events throughout the City
PAWTUCKET ??? The 20th Anniversary Pawtucket Arts Festival is ready for a month of art in the Rhode Island city known for setting an urban stage where Downtown businesses, museums, and restored mills provide the scene, and an idyllic Slater Memorial Park is waiting to take the spotlight for one of the region???s most anticipated arts fairs during the month of September.
Two decades of Pawtucket Arts Festival history catalogs the contributions made by artists, businesses, the City of Pawtucket, and the city???s cultural community. RI Chinese Dragon Boat Races, fine artists in residential studios, restaurants offering culinary creations, music in the streets and dancing by the Blackstone River have convinced a multicultural, multigenerational, and multi genre arts community that Pawtucket???s artists, audiences, and civic leaders are poised to applaud the Festival???s twenty-year run and to raise the curtain on the next decade.
Scheduled to run from September 1 through September 30, the 20th Anniversary PAF will feature debut performances and arts encores that honor the festival???s legacy, while charting its future cultural course.
Among the events slated for the September schedule that demonstrate this ???decades by design??? look-back and look ahead at Pawtucket???s arts community is Downtown Rising on Saturday, September 22 from 12 – 7 PM.
PAF and Downtown Rising welcome back an encore of the popular ???Rocktucket??? street music festival last showcased several years ago. Rebranded Rocktucket Music Invitational, the daylong event restores the innovative, multi genre and all ages music festival dedicated to celebrating the spirit of Pawtucket. RMI will include a special stage devoted to folk music.
Making its debut in collaboration with Downtown Rising is Culture Shock Block Party. Through the medium of message-positive hip hop and related performance, the Block Party, just off the downtown Main Street, will offer a multi genre, outdoor concert event aimed at bridging generations and cultures. With music as the medium to unite the city???s contemporary cultures, the producers of Culture Shock look to the vehicle of the Pawtucket Arts Festival as the driver for a city-wide ???family reunion??? with music as the main destination on the map.
Citing a range of thriving international cultural groups in the city, both new and historic, Culture Shock Block Party looks to the international language of exciting music as a ???get to know your neighbor??? great time in collaboration with Beatbox Studio, Vibe Lounge, and numerous Pawtucket civic organizations.
Another important debut during Pawtucket Arts Festival 2018 is a performance specifically designed to honor the 20th Anniversary.
Funded by Rhode Island State Council on the Arts in their most recent round of awards, LIVING: The Arts in Pawtucket, earned high marks from the grant panel for the exciting nature of the project design. Inspired by the work of TEN31 Productions, nationally known for their performance art featuring living sculpture, and their Metamorphosis Dance Company, LIVING will use the medium of dance, fashion, music, and other arts genres to reveal stories of local artists and their audiences, through live vignette performance.
PAF, TEN31 Productions, and Metamorphosis Dance Company will collaborate with the students and directors of the Annual Shea High School Fashion Show to create LIVING: The Arts of Pawtucket in performance.
Eagerly awaited each Pawtucket Arts Festival year is an encore performance that never fails to earn a standing ovation: the Slater Park Fall Festival and RI Philharmonic Orchestra???s ???Pops in the Park???, happening Saturday, September 8 and Sunday, September 9.??
Sponsored by the Pawtucket Teachers??? Alliance and Rhode Island College, with fireworks provided through the generosity of Bristol County Savings Bank, the annual display of fine art, artisan work, and craft opens a weekend of art and performance where ???Pops in the Park??? takes center stage as a gift from Pawtucket???s education community to the city and its guests.
The 20th Anniversary Pawtucket Arts Festival is made possible by the City of Pawtucket, its Department of Planning and Redevelopment, Departments of Public Works and Public Safety, the Arts Grant Review Panel. Funding is provided by Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. Major sponsors such as Collette Travel, Hasbro, Navigant Bank, Partridge, Snow, and Hahn, Pawtucket Credit Union, Rhode Island College, and Tufts Health Plan ??make PAF possible. Partial list of PAF-20th Anniversary events is as follows with further listings, dates, times and locations available at pawtucketartsfestival.org.
91st Annual Grecian Festival
SAM???s Mill Fest
Pawtucket City Hall Gallery Retrospective Exhibit
Pawtucket Summer Series
Pawtucket Arts Festival Celebrates 20th Anniversary in September??
Join us for a month of new and beloved events throughout the City
PAWTUCKET ??? The 20th Anniversary Pawtucket Arts Festival is ready for a month of art in the Rhode Island city known for setting an urban stage where Downtown businesses, museums, and restored mills provide the scene, and an idyllic Slater Memorial Park is waiting to take the spotlight for one of the region???s most anticipated arts fairs during the month of September.
Two decades of Pawtucket Arts Festival history catalogs the contributions made by artists, businesses, the City of Pawtucket, and the city???s cultural community. RI Chinese Dragon Boat Races, fine artists in residential studios, restaurants offering culinary creations, music in the streets and dancing by the Blackstone River have convinced a multicultural, multigenerational, and multi genre arts community that Pawtucket???s artists, audiences, and civic leaders are poised to applaud the Festival???s twenty-year run and to raise the curtain on the next decade.
Scheduled to run from September 1 through September 30, the 20th Anniversary PAF will feature debut performances and arts encores that honor the festival???s legacy, while charting its future cultural course.
Among the events slated for the September schedule that demonstrate this ???decades by design??? look-back and look ahead at Pawtucket???s arts community is Downtown Rising on Saturday, September 22 from 12 – 7 PM.
PAF and Downtown Rising welcome back an encore of the popular ???Rocktucket??? street music festival last showcased several years ago. Rebranded Rocktucket Music Invitational, the daylong event restores the innovative, multi genre and all ages music festival dedicated to celebrating the spirit of Pawtucket. RMI will include a special stage devoted to folk music.
Making its debut in collaboration with Downtown Rising is Culture Shock Block Party. Through the medium of message-positive hip hop and related performance, the Block Party, just off the downtown Main Street, will offer a multi genre, outdoor concert event aimed at bridging generations and cultures. With music as the medium to unite the city???s contemporary cultures, the producers of Culture Shock look to the vehicle of the Pawtucket Arts Festival as the driver for a city-wide ???family reunion??? with music as the main destination on the map.
Citing a range of thriving international cultural groups in the city, both new and historic, Culture Shock Block Party looks to the international language of exciting music as a ???get to know your neighbor??? great time in collaboration with Beatbox Studio, Vibe Lounge, and numerous Pawtucket civic organizations.
Another important debut during Pawtucket Arts Festival 2018 is a performance specifically designed to honor the 20th Anniversary.
Funded by Rhode Island State Council on the Arts in their most recent round of awards, LIVING: The Arts in Pawtucket, earned high marks from the grant panel for the exciting nature of the project design. Inspired by the work of TEN31 Productions, nationally known for their performance art featuring living sculpture, and their Metamorphosis Dance Company, LIVING will use the medium of dance, fashion, music, and other arts genres to reveal stories of local artists and their audiences, through live vignette performance.
PAF, TEN31 Productions, and Metamorphosis Dance Company will collaborate with the students and directors of the Annual Shea High School Fashion Show to create LIVING: The Arts of Pawtucket in performance.
Eagerly awaited each Pawtucket Arts Festival year is an encore performance that never fails to earn a standing ovation: the Slater Park Fall Festival and RI Philharmonic Orchestra???s ???Pops in the Park???, happening Saturday, September 8 and Sunday, September 9.??
Sponsored by the Pawtucket Teachers??? Alliance and Rhode Island College, with fireworks provided through the generosity of Bristol County Savings Bank, the annual display of fine art, artisan work, and craft opens a weekend of art and performance where ???Pops in the Park??? takes center stage as a gift from Pawtucket???s education community to the city and its guests.
The 20th Anniversary Pawtucket Arts Festival is made possible by the City of Pawtucket, its Department of Planning and Redevelopment, Departments of Public Works and Public Safety, the Arts Grant Review Panel. Funding is provided by Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. Major sponsors such as Collette Travel, Hasbro, Navigant Bank, Partridge, Snow, and Hahn, Pawtucket Credit Union, Rhode Island College, and Tufts Health Plan ??make PAF possible. Partial list of PAF-20th Anniversary events is as follows with further listings, dates, times and locations available at
91st Annual Grecian Festival
SAM???s Mill Fest
Pawtucket City Hall Gallery Retrospective Exhibit
Pawtucket Summer Series
Aurea Performance of Darwin at Sea
19th Annual Rhode Island Chinese Dragon Boat Races
Slater Park Fall Festival including:
Collective PVD Skate Pop-up
Harvest Kitchen Market with a Mission
Ocean State Maker Mill Print Shop
Rhode Island Philharmonic
Level Exchange Showcase
New England Afrofest
Galway Kinnell Poetry Festival
Community Player???s performance of Social Security
JMW Visual and Performing Arts School Family Arts Day
PawSox Food Truck and Craft Beer Festival
Gallery 175 Exhibition: Veterans Experience in Art and Words
Downtown Rising including:
Culture Shock Block Party
Rocktucket Music Invitational
Mixed Magic Theatre 2nd Annual Concert for Peace
Speakeasy After Party with ALIEN Entertainment
Aurea Performance of Darwin at Sea
19th Annual Rhode Island Chinese Dragon Boat Races
Slater Park Fall Festival including:
Collective PVD Skate Pop-up
Harvest Kitchen Market with a Mission
Ocean State Maker Mill Print Shop
Rhode Island Philharmonic
Level Exchange Showcase
New England Afrofest
Galway Kinnell Poetry Festival
Community Player???s performance of Social Security
JMW Visual and Performing Arts School Family Arts Day
PawSox Food Truck and Craft Beer Festival
Gallery 175 Exhibition: Veterans Experience in Art and Words
Downtown Rising including:
??Culture Shock Block Party
??Rocktucket Music Invitational
Mixed Magic Theatre 2nd Annual Concert for Peace
Speakeasy After Party with ALIEN Entertainment