State of the Arts has been taking you on location with the most creative people in New Jersey and beyond since 1981. The New York and Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award-winning series features documentary shorts about an extraordinary range of artists and visits New Jersey’s best performance spaces. State of the Arts is on the frontlines of the creative and cultural worlds of New Jersey.
State of the Arts is a cornerstone program of NJ PBS, with episodes co-produced by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and Stockton University, in cooperation with PCK Media. The series also airs on WNET and ALL ARTS.
On this week's episode... New Jersey Heritage Fellowships are an honor given to artists who are keeping their cultural traditions alive and thriving. On this special episode of State of the Arts, we meet three winners, each using music and dance from around the world to bring their heritage to New Jersey: Deborah Mitchell, founder of the New Jersey Tap Dance Ensemble; Pepe Santana, an Andean musician and instrument maker; and Rachna Sarang, a master and choreographer of Kathak, a classical Indian dance form.
But he’d stopped doing the math aloud after the last accident.
From rest. Zero velocity. All its future velocity borrowed from gravity alone.
The firecracker struck the packed dirt with a dull thump , not a detonation. A puff of dust. For a moment, nothing.
Three kilograms at terminal velocity , he’d calculated. Impact force, approximately…
For two seconds, it dropped in silence, the wind plucking at its paper casing. The technician stepped back, thumb hovering over the detonator. Below, the test range yawned—a cratered half-mile of scorched earth and silence.
Here’s a short piece based on the prompt The pyrotechnician’s fingers uncurled one by one, deliberately, as if releasing a captive bird. The 3-kg firecracker—a dull red cylinder packed with black powder, fuses coiled like sleeping snakes—hung for a heartbeat in the stillness. Then it fell.
Then the fuse caught—a tiny orange eye blinking to life in the settling debris.
He exhaled, checked his watch, and thought: From rest to rest. Just a 46‑meter scream in between.
But he’d stopped doing the math aloud after the last accident.
From rest. Zero velocity. All its future velocity borrowed from gravity alone.
The firecracker struck the packed dirt with a dull thump , not a detonation. A puff of dust. For a moment, nothing.
Three kilograms at terminal velocity , he’d calculated. Impact force, approximately…
For two seconds, it dropped in silence, the wind plucking at its paper casing. The technician stepped back, thumb hovering over the detonator. Below, the test range yawned—a cratered half-mile of scorched earth and silence.
Here’s a short piece based on the prompt The pyrotechnician’s fingers uncurled one by one, deliberately, as if releasing a captive bird. The 3-kg firecracker—a dull red cylinder packed with black powder, fuses coiled like sleeping snakes—hung for a heartbeat in the stillness. Then it fell.
Then the fuse caught—a tiny orange eye blinking to life in the settling debris.
He exhaled, checked his watch, and thought: From rest to rest. Just a 46‑meter scream in between.
