Queens

HeART Beat Online 2021

Stream Live 👆 Celebrate the achievements of Queens public school students who participated in Art a Catalyst for Change in 2021 with the HeART Beat Online Festival. HeART Beat provides an interactive, online arts experience featuring the five elements of hip hop. Watch live via Youtube on Thursday, June 17 at 1pm, or on replay…

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Queens HeART Beat 2019

Video produced by Tony Horn / BRIC Arts Media for NYC Council  The 2nd Annual HeART Beat Festival returned to Roy Wilkins Park in Queens on May 29, 2019. Middle school students painted murals, designed video games, break danced, freestyle rapped, competed at drama games and so much more. Thrive Collective collaborated with Museum of…

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Randy Mason rap with student

HeART Beat Queens Photo Diary (2019)

Thank you NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Majority Leader Laurie Cumbo, and Council Members Donovan Richards, Adrienne Adams, and Jimmy Van Bramer for trusting us to celebrate the Art a Catalyst for Change anti-gun violence initiative with the great students of IS 42, PS/MS 183, IS 8, IS 72, IS 111, and IS 204. On…

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“Gifts > Guns,” Song and Lyrics by PS/MS 42Q 6th Graders

“Gifts > Guns,” song and lyrics by 6th grade scholar/emcees MS/MS 42Q in The Rockaways Teaching Artist: Randy Mason Sponsored by NYC Council Member Donovan Richards / Art a Catalyst for Change Use words not weapons Shoot for the stars not at them Give kids gifts not guns Help instead of harm People instead of…

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NYC Council Feels the HeART Beat

Five hundred middle school students painted murals, designed video games, break danced, freestyle rapped, competed at tug-o-war and so much more at the HeART Beat Festival on May 30, 2018. Thrive Collective collaborated with Museum of the Moving Image, Black Spectrum Theatre, and Everybody Dance Now to produce the festival as the Queens culminating event…

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Kids laughing

NYCulture 2018

Thrive Collective proudly partnered with the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs for the third consecutive year this spring. (Read our Year 1 report here; Year 2 here.) Thanks to the ongoing support of NYC Council Members Vincent Gentile, Fernando Cabrera, Donovan Richards, and Andrew Cohen, in 2018 DCA directly invested in our work at eight schools through the…

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use paint not guns spray painting

HeART Beat Photo Diary

– Photos and commentary by Thrive Intern Chandler Simpson (UNC Chapel Hill) The 2018 Queens HeART Beat Festival was a carefully ordered sequence of frenetic rhythms set by DJ Tony Tone’s spinning onstage. The controlled chaos unleashed a torrent of energy constantly harnessed through the many creative outlets around the park, from visual arts to…

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Malala, Martin, Malcolm, Medgar & Lincoln

How do you organize 480 middle school students at the three-hour HeART Beat Festival / field day for the NYC Council Art as Catalyst for Change anti-gun violence initiative? Arrange 14 activity centers in five color coded zones named for community leaders impacted by gun violence: Malala Yousafzai, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Medgar…

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heART beat festival poster

Volunteer: Queens HeART Beat Festival

Up to six hundred students from six Queens middle schools will converge at Roy Wilkins Park for the 2018 Queens HeART Beat Festival on May 30 from 10am – 1pm. Join us to provide an interactive, arts-based field day experience celebrating the completion of the Art as Catalyst for Change anti-gun violence initiative. Sponsored by the NYC…

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Enjoy our Student Films

Thanks in part to Digital Inclusion and Art as Catalyst for Change grants from NYC City Council members Donovan Richards and Brad Lander, year 2 of our School Media program included schools in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Enjoy our catalogue of student videos here. The PS 282 students also created their own website to…

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