DOWAGIAC — Friday afternoon, silent film actress Colleen Moore danced across a screen at Dowagiac Middle School.

Local students in the crowd, who were attending an annual event, watched closely as Moore’s feet, showing in black and white, moved and tapped along to an organ’s tune at an almost impossibly fast pace. Soon, Moore’s dance ended, and the screen faded to black, eliciting a round of applause from the student audience.

The Dogwood Fine Arts Festival welcomed Jay Warren, photoplay organist for the Silent Film Society of Chicago, to present on the topic of silent films to Dowagiac Middle School students as part of the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival’s annual Klassics for Kids event. The bulk of Warren’s presentation focused on showing students silent films from a variety of years and discussing the history and importance of silent cinema. Warren also hosted a community presentation Friday evening at Southwestern Michigan College.

“This is an introduction more or less to silent cinema that we have geared toward kids, so they can know what we are doing and go back to the roots of our cinema,” Warren said. “We follow that [silent film] era and how it became an art form unto itself.”

Though Warren offers performances for audiences of all ages, he said he was happy to perform for young students during the Dogwood Festival’s Klassics for Kids event, adding that he believes he can teach students through entertainment.

“My philosophy always is that we educate a little and entertain a lot,” he said.

According to Dogwood Festival Chair Jim Benedix, Klassics for Kids is meant to broaden students’ horizons and teach them about forms of art they do not get to learn about through a standard curriculum.

“Every year, we try to bring in to expose kids to something that is not part their typical routine,” Benedix said.

Benedix said he enjoyed Warren’s presentation and that he believed it fulfilled the goal of Klassics for Kids by exposing them to a topic through silent films they had not learned about before.   

“[The program] was interesting, and I think the kids enjoyed it,” he said. “It was something they had never experienced before to be sure. … It was a historical lesson as well as lots of fun.”

The Dogwood Fine Arts festival continues tonight with a storytelling masterclass by Anne Rutherford at 7 p.m. at the Cass County Council on Aging Front Street Crossing. Tickets are $10. Rutherford will also take the stage at SMC at 7:30 Wednesday for a performance. Tickets for that show are $8.