A month after the launch held at the Italian Embassy of the two-year Italy-US Twinning Project with the theme, “Can Science, Sport and Art Dialog? A Challenge or a Wager,” the second meeting of the Partnership Project was held on November 16th at the Falcone Room of the Italian American Museum in Washington DC between students from the two U.S. schools Oxon Hill High School who participated remotely and from Jackson Reed in Washington who participated in person with students from the Cambi-Serrani Institutes in Falconara and Capellini-Sauro in La Spezia who participated remotely from Italy.
As was already pointed out during the first meeting, as part of the priority objectives of the Strategic Plan for the Promotion of the Italian Language, the Italian Embassy advocates and encourages exchange and twinning projects between schools aimed at enhancing students’ language skills in both Italian and English, especially in oral communication. The discussion on the three themes that will be addressed during the two-year period will enable students to expand their vocabulary also through approaching the technical language of the various disciplines, in this first phase the language of art.
Participation in the presence of a special guest speaker, Maestro Dionisio Cimarelli, an internationally renowned sculptor from the Marche region, enabled the students to explore the theme of the role of art and its language. Maestro Cimarelli covered the main stages of his artistic journey from his youthful experience in China, the restoration of the Court Napoléon of the Louvre Museum in Paris and among others the restoration of the Stockholm Palace and the House of Nobility in Stockholm to his current teaching at the Fashion Institute Technology in New York at the New York Academy of Art. His famous sculpture of Matteo Ricci, made in China and exhibited at the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, consecrated him to world-class levels. Maestro Cimarelli’s personal testimony has been an inspiration for young learners to follow their dreams through knowledge including languages, engagement and cross-cultural experiences such as those offered by this Project.
