Dylan Fresco
On February 22, at 7 p.m., the North Shore Music Association (NSMA) presents Dylan Fresco’s The Holocaust and Me at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts. Relating through music and stories how Fresco came to realize the impact of the Holocaust on his family and his own life, the performance includes songs on guitar, sung in Ladino, the language based on medieval Spanish and Hebrew spoken by many Sephardic Jews.
After the performance, Fresco will facilitate a critical reflection period with the audience.
COMPAS Teaching Artist Dylan Fresco is a musician, theater artist, writer, and educator. A graduate of Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, Fresco has created solo performances that have been sold-out hits at Fringe Festivals across the country. He has written music and helped create plays with Upstream Arts, the Children’s Theatre Company, and multiple organizations serving people with disabilities.
Fresco recently helped lead the creation of the Guthrie-premiered original play Birds Sing Differently Here, in collaboration with a group of Iraqi-Americans and the Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project.
NSMA will also sponsor Fresco’s two-day residency at Great Expectations School, on February 20 and 21. For students in grades 5–8, Fresco will perform his piece Welcoming the Stranger, a tapestry of true stories about refugees, family, and identity in which he shares his family’s history of diaspora and immigration to the United States and links it with the stories of people he knows who have recently arrived in Minnesota.
That afternoon, Fresco will lead two songwriting workshops for students K–2, with a focus on how we share our ideas through songs. On Feb. 21, Fresco will teach morning songwriting workshops to grades 3–4, followed by afternoon poetry and songwriting workshops for grades 5–8 that integrate ideas presented in Welcoming the Stranger.
This activity is made possible in part by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
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