POWAY ONSTAGE OFFERS TWO MORE VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS

Following the success of its recent virtual field trips, Poway Onstage is adding to its free offerings for students throughout San Diego County.

There will be two new virtual field trips this spring, including a virtual reworking of Poway Onstage’s “Introduction to Instruments” assembly. “Introduction to Instruments” opens Monday and runs through May 28. It is intended for children in fourth and fifth grades. “Catapult Shadow Dance” opens May 3 and runs through May 28. It is for students in second through seventh grades.

Traditionally, Poway Onstage hosts Poway Unified School District’s fourthgraders at an assembly where high school band students help introduce the elementary students to the instruments they can play in fifth grade band. With in-person assemblies not possible due to the pandemic, Poway Onstage officials had to figure out something new.

“It’s a very different format, but it was a lot of fun to try and re-create (the assemblies) in a virtual format,” said Sharlene O’keefe, operations and program manager for

Poway Onstage.

O’keefe said the organization tried to hold true to the concept of fourth-graders learning about instruments they can play in fifth grade, as well as those available in high school. To do this, the virtual field trip contains a sort of “choose your own adventure” concert. Students can click on an instrument that interests them to see snippets of a performance and learn more about it. There is also an “I can’t decide” path, where students can hear snippets of five different instruments.

The virtual field trip has been well received by music and classroom teachers,

O’keefe said. PUSD will be providing access to all fourthand fifth-graders in the district. San Diego Unified and Escondido Union school districts are also making access arrangements for their students, she added.

The May field trip, “Catapult Shadow Dance,” features the Catapult Shadow Dance Company performing stories inspired by Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” O’keefe said the group was supposed to perform on the Poway Center for the Performing Arts’ stage in 2020 as part of Poway Onstage’s professional performance lineup. “They were one of the first shows we canceled,”

O’keefe said.

Students will learn about the violin concerto, the composer plus ballet and modern dance, she said. It will also include a tutorial on how to make shadow figures with their own bodies.

O’keefe said the virtual field trip series has been well received locally and several shows have drawn national interest as well. Its most successful show, “The Nutcracker,” drew more than 352,000 viewers throughout the world. Its “Jazzy Ash” virtual field trip, which celebrated Black History Month in February, had 25,055 students view it, including 14,660 locally. Others viewed from 25 U.S. states and Canada, she said.

O’keefe said Poway Onstage has been working to translate all its field trips into Spanish, including voiceovers.

Access to the virtual field trips is free for San Diego County residents and schools. For those outside the county, access is $15 per field trip for an individual or family, $25 for a single class and $100 for full school access. To sign up, visit powayonstage.org or call (858) 748-0505.