Quarterly Magazine
Issue 15 - SPRING 2019
IN THIS ISSUE:
Professional Development, Credentials & Training for Teaching Artists
Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly: Issue 15
Quarterly Magazine Staff:
TAG Executive Director: Jean Johnstone
TAG Membership Director: Kenny Allen
TAG Quarterly Magazine Design Associate: Wendy Shiraki
National Advisory Committee:
Glenna Avila (Los Angeles, CA)* Eric Booth (Hudson River Valley, NY) Lindsey Buller Maliekel (New York, NY) Christina Farrell (Cedar Rapids, IA) Kai Fierle-Hedrick (Denver, CO)* Nas Khan (Toronto, Canada) Tina LaPadula (Seattle, WA) Miko Lee (San Francisco Bay Area, CA) Louise Music (San Francisco Bay Area, CA) Maura O’Malley (New Rochelle, NY) Amalia Ortiz (San Antonio, TX) Nicole Ripley (Chicago, IL) Victor Sawyer (Memphis, TN) Jean E. Taylor (New York, NY) *Co-Chairs of National Advisory Committee
Teaching Artists Guild is a fiscally sponsored project of Community Initiatives.
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Teaching Artists Guild is also made possible through the generous support of our members.
Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly: Issue 15
Professional Development - MAY 2019 Wow people. Just, wow. I’m so proud and enthused by all the work teaching artists are doing. In my 5 years at the helm of Teaching Artists Guild, we have seen this field grow and become more cohesive, driven, excellent, and thoughtful. Organizations are sharing about their work, and slowly moving to develop systems of shared support for teaching artists. Teaching Artists are plugging in deeper, with more opportunities for professional development and the recognition that their work as artists is essential to education. Laws are changing, affording more protections to gig-workers, and the work around equity and our role in the social justice movement abounds, moving from just conversations, to becoming a driving factor in work at major cultural institutions. There is so. much. going. on. This issue, our 15th, highlights some of best teaching artists training programs available in the United States, including one online! If you think great teaching artist professional development has to all be in person, wait til you see what this dynamic team has been up to (page 10). We also bring you time management tips from Angela Beeching. These are so good, I can’t believe this is a free resource, honestly. I am going to be buying her forthcoming book! Read up! And finally, we visit San Antonio, where Guillermina Zabala takes us through some incredible highlights of her international digital media work with youth at Say Si, and reveals the most critical component of teaching and creating with young people. All said, another juicy issue, which I hope you will read cover to cover. Get in touch, share what you’re doing, make sure you’re on the map. With affection and pride,
Jean Johnstone Executive Director Teaching Artists Guild
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Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly: Issue 15
CONTENTS Page 4
Photo by Olga Guryanova on Unsplash
Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly: Issue 15
THe online frontier Brad Haseman introduces us to the world of online learning and the possibilities it holds for teaching artist professional development. p.10
ACTIVATING ARTISTRY AT THE LINCOLN CENTER An exlcusive peek into the world of Lincoln Center Education’s Teaching Artist Development Labs. p. 16
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The f - word Benjamin Hom reflects on his experience as a participant in the groundbreaking Teaching Artist Project training program. p. 20
Seven Time management strategies FOR BUSY TEACHING ARTISTS Excerpted from the forthcoming 3rd edition of “Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music” by Angela Beeching p. 26
THE POWER OF “WHAT IF”
Stacie Evans contemplates the world of possibilities awaiting the field if we embrace a national teaching artist residency credential. p. 32
REVOLUTIONIZING YOUTH THROUGH DIGITAL MEDIA Guillermina Zabala gives a glimpse into the impact that a thoughtful and well-run digital media program can have on young people. p. 36
44 SO YOU THINK YOU CAN TEACH DANCE?
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People who have never worked as a teaching artist sometimes have a hard time understanding the unique challenges and rewards that the career comes with. In this article, Dance Teaching Artist Cynthia Pepper walks us through a week of work - in all it’s guts and glory. p.44
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Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly: Issue 15
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Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly: Issue 15
BECOME A MEMBER OF TEACHING ARTISTS GUILD TODAY LEARN MORE MEMBER BENEFITS INCLUDE: Asset Map Profile + Premium Map Features Access to TAG Job Board Access to TAG Resource Center Free and discounted online and in-person events Early access to TAG Quarterly Magazine TAG Careington Card* For many users, the TAG Careington card is the most useful & valuable offering of TAG membership. The Careington card provides access to discounted or free services in the areas of health & wellness (discounts on Dental work, Lasik eye surgery, etc…), legal and financial services, and travel & leisure. See the full list of services included here: http://teachingartistsguild.org/careington/ THANK YOU TO THE AMERICAN ALLIANCE FOR THEATRE & EDUCATION FOR SPONSORING THIS ISSUE OF THE TAG QUARTERLY
FOR INFORMATION ABOUT BECOMING A SPONSOR OF FUTURE ISSUES, VISIT:
https://teachingartistsguild.org/quarterly-sponsorship
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Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly: Issue 15
BECOME A MEMBER OF THE NYC ARTS IN EDUCATION ROUNDTABLE As a Roundtable member, you’ll enjoy: • • • • •
Discounts on events including the Face to Face conference and the Day of Learning Networking with arts in education practitioners Access to member-only events Opportunities to join one of our nine working committees Potential Board of Directors Membership
Roundtable membership runs for a full year from July 1 through June 30. Visit our website for more information: http://nycaieroundtable.org THANK YOU TO TEACHING ARTIST PROJECT, THE NYC ARTS IN EDUCATION ROUNDTABLE, & THE ASSOCIATION OF TEACHING ARTISTS FOR SPONSORING THIS ISSUE OF THEPage TAG 8 QUARTERLY
FOR INFORMATION ABOUT BECOMING A SPONSOR OF FUTURE ISSUES, VISIT:
https://teachingartistsguild.org/quarterly-sponsorship
Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly: Issue 15
GET YOUR TICKETS TODAY AT WWW.TEACHINGARTISTS.COM
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THE BASICS OF TEACHING ARTISTRY AND EDUCATIONAL INNOVATION
T
by Brad Hasemen
he online program The Basics of Teaching Artistry was launched just two weeks before teaching artists from across the world gathered in New York City for the Fourth International Teaching Artist Conference. News spread quickly about the course last September; presenting partners led a session at ITAC 4, and colleagues from the Korea Arts & Culture Education Service (KACES) were quick to begin translating the program into Korean. Hyejin Yang, from their International Affairs Team wrote: “I believe this course champions and supports professional learning for not only Teaching Artists but also the researcher, administrator, and even policy makers; it is a “must-see” for anyone in teaching artistry field. What an enlightening and inspiring opportunity. How was it that the world’s leading quality courses were so easy to offer online?” That is a cracker of a question: How was it that the world’s leading quality courses were so easy to offer online? Well…actually…was it so easy? This article considers that question by outlining how this program came about, what content it addressed and the challenges partners faced in devising the program.
Where did the idea for The Basics of Teaching Artistry come from? The story began back in 2014. I was a co-convenor of the Second International Teaching Artist Conference (ITAC2) in Brisbane Australia. In the final session it was carried from the floor of the conference that a priority for the field ‘was to develop an online, accredited program for those wanting to become teaching artists’. Boldly, three major international arts organizations stepped up to the challenge – to design and deliver an introductory program for new teaching artists, for those choosing to work in the participatory arts and in community arts and cultural development. For the three major arts organisations the aspirations were high. How best could they design and present a coherent, entry-level program which would be open to learners from
Photo by Reuben Redding anywhere in the world, and give unprecedented reach to educational resources most would never have dreamed they’d be able to access? Lincoln Center Education (LCE) in NYC, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) in Brisbane Australia, and the Sydney Opera House (SOH) in Sydney Australia were the three organizations with the commitment, international track record and expertise to collaborate on the program. My role was to help curate and integrate the many threads of possibility into a coherent program.
What is included in The Basics of Teaching Artistry?
How the challenges and opportunities of going online were addressed in The Basics of Teaching Artistry Challenge 1: Infusing an arts-led approach to learning into all aspects of the Program. While it was obvious that the content of the course was arts-related, all partners wanted the principles of arts-led learning to infuse everything we did. This meant we needed to identify an online platform which could accommodate the kinds of interactivity and sharing the arts demand. A search led us to Kadenze, a smart young educational technology company in Los Angeles who are driven by their passion for the arts and arts learning online (rather than Business, IT or Science learning online). In addition the company has serious technical
capabilities underpinned by strong computer and data science. Not surprisingly, Kadenze, Inc. has become the global leader in bringing the arts and creative education online using their suite of creative technologies and has built a formidable reputation for offering high quality courses at affordable costs. We were particularly taken by their cutting-edge forum and gallery spaces for arts sharing. These technical capabilities and tools allowed partners to approach their courses as arts educators, incorporating learning strategies familiar to teaching artists. These include the use of narrative, actively making artistic works for sharing, reflective practice and valuing both emergence and coherence in acts of meaning making.
A Teaching Artist was here!
Challenge 2: What can be learned best online? All partners recognized early that we should not attempt to replicate live workshops with online versions of them. At the same time we acknowledged that not everything about becoming a teaching artist must be learned in a live workshop. LCE for instance developed a model of detailed observation and analysis which involves looking repeatedly at critical moments of TA practice. Referred to as “zooming in�, LCE took video segments of workshops led by their signature teaching artists which illustrated particular skills, then framed and reframed them for deep and multiple viewings. In this way fundamental teaching artist skills, such as listening and questioning skills or managing space in a workshop were made visible in a fine-grained way, practiced offline and shared with peers online. By way of contrast QPAC focused on the organisational practices and policies which frame the working circumstances of teaching artists in communities. Using online case studies and interviews with experienced administrators and practitioners they were able to interrogate, critique and reassess principles of practice, participation and ethics. By so doing they reset the study of these organisational dynamics for the digital training environment.
Challenge 3: Keeping it real. The passionate commitment shared by all partners to ground the work in the practicalities of teaching artistry was captured in the mantra “keep it real”. We felt that by keeping it real we would avoid the trap of making the program overly theoretical (there are plenty of examples of online courses stuffed with theoretical readings) or the trap of obsessively attending to the atomized sub-skills of the practitioner/instructor. This meant that one of the first principles of the SOH course was to privilege and build on and from ‘the artist’ in every ‘teaching artist’. So their approach to explicating ‘How teaching artists might use place in their work?’ was to set up a number of exercises in creative place-making for students to experience first as artists, and then apply those understandings and opportunities to their own teaching artist practice. In this way learning is grounded in the reality of artistic and creative discovery and only then used to serve their growth as teaching artists.
Teaching Artistry in Action
Conclusion Not all of our colleagues have been enthusiastic about this experiment, with some holding firmly to the belief that only live workshops can prepare truly skilled teaching artists. Well, Yes (some skills are best learned and applied in the heat of the studio) and No (other capabilities are best understood by reflecting on the cool screen). First user feedback affirms this and all partners have learned much and been tested by this educational innovation. Looking forward though it is clear the most important outcomes of this work are yet to be tested. Will it improve accessibility to high quality resources globally, especially in parts of the world where the benefits of teaching artistry are yet to be grasped? Will this program give access to numbers of learners (potentially in the thousands), greater than the handful who win scholarships to fund the journey to drink from the TA fountains in NYC, Brisbane and Sydney… or London, Edinburgh, Oslo, Seoul, Chicago and Los Angeles? How might our learning analytics improve
future online courses and maybe even influence the design of live, face2face workshops? How might arts organisations everywhere blend this program to complement and strengthen the heft of its learning and recognition programs for their own teaching artists? How will they blend the local live with this global online? Finally will this program be among the first to start asserting and projecting the diversity of teaching artist practice around the world? And at this point we have to say “Welcome KACES and all Korean Teaching Artists”. We look forward to you sharing the distinctive insights of your practice online throughout 2019 and live, in September 2020, in Seoul at ITAC 5.
Teaching Artistry
Brad Haseman is Professor Emeritus with the Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Over his 30 year career at QUT he has been a pioneer of arts education, and is known internationally as a teacher and workshop leader (Process Drama), arts researcher (Performative Research) and community engagement practitioner (applied theatre and teaching-artistry). Brad has been an invited keynote speaker and workshop leader across Australia and in the UK, Scandinavia, Papua New Guinea, the US and South Korea. In 2014 he co-convened the 2nd International Teaching Artist Conference in Brisbane, Australia and last year was the lead designer and curator of ‘The Basics of Teaching Artistry’ hosted by kadenze.com. In January 2019 Brad joined Kadenze, Inc. as Executive Vice President and a member of the Managing Committee overseeing arts-led pedagogies for their global online courses. Brad can be contacted at Brad@kadenze.com
LET TEACHING ARTISTS LEAD THE WAY. Professional learning in Teaching Artistry from experts in the field and for our field, right across the globe.
`Global experts from Lincoln Center Education, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, and the Sydney Opera House Bring you Professional learning in Teaching Artistry`
Kadenze, Inc. (“Kadenze”) is the global leader in bringing the creative arts and design online using our suite of creative technologies. kadenze.com is proud to offer affordable high-quality courses and programs to a global community of curious minds, from the world’s leading universities and industry experts. Today thousands of artists and creatives use kadenze.com as part of their professional learning and career management. Our recently launched 4-course program ‘The Basics of Teaching Artistry’ is just the first step in developing a range of programs to support teaching artists as they transform their communities and thrive in diverse professional environments. Kadenze’s next step has us developing a range of Micro-Courses. To be created by leading teaching artists, Micro-courses are short, condensed sessions consisting primarily of video tutorials with bite-sized projects and supplemental learning activities. If you have an idea for such a course, especially around the themes of creative youth development and the arts and activism, we would love to hear from you. For an Information Sheet on Kadenze’s Micro-courses or to chat about possibilities, please contact Harmony Jiroudek (harmony@kadenze.com). Let’s see what we might do together!
THANK YOU TO KADENZE, INC. FOR SPONSORING THIS ISSUE OF THE TAG QUARTERLY FOR INFORMATION ABOUT BECOMING A SPONSOR OF FUTURE ISSUES, VISIT: https://teachingartistsguild.org/quarterly-sponsorship
Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly: Issue 15
ACTIVATING ARTISTRY at the LincolN Center
by Jean E. Taylor and Laurel Toyofuku “THE ARTS SHOULD BE AN INTEGRAL PART OF EVERY CHILD’S LIFE.” -- Lincoln Center Education Resources
On any given day of the year, Lincoln Center presents performances ranging
from ballet to Afropop to jazz to Noh theater. At Lincoln Center Education (LCE) our goal is not only to ensure access to these performances, but also to foster meaningful, personal engagements. Through our teaching artists, exposure to the arts is transformed into engagement with the arts. Comprised of 35 artists in the disciplines of visual art, music, dance, and theater, our teaching artist faculty is committed to the belief that the arts should be an integral part of every child’s life. Our faculty works across New York, guiding Pre-K-12 students, principals, teachers, and community activists in experiential workshops woven with art-making, questioning, reflection, and context. Leveraging an inquiry-based approach, our teaching artists aim to activate the artistry of our students and community members and encourage them to imagine the world as if it could be otherwise. LCE has also applied the inquiry-based process to our own practice: we question ourselves. As we’ve continued LCE’s work throughout New York’s five boroughs, we have evolved our approach to respond to our changing world. At least six times a year, we bring our faculty together, in small and large groups, to share learnings from the field and to workshop individual and collective practices. As our professional development trainings have grown, we also recognized
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that LCE has the unique opportunity to connect with the broader teaching artist community. We saw a need for networks and resources for teaching artists to share best practices. For this reason, we created the Teaching Artist Development Labs. Currently in their sixth year, the Labs offer professional development training to local, national, and international teaching artists at all stages of their careers. Rooted in LCE’s core values of equity, engagement, creativity, integrity, and joy, the Labs are based on four decades of experience and are widely recognized as providing the only intensive training for teaching artists at advanced levels. Bringing together participants of all disciplines, practices, and nationalities, the Labs foster common language and community, equipping teaching artists with essential skills for translating their artistry into a variety of educational and community-based settings. This past summer we welcomed over 65 teaching artists from all corners of the world. We hosted four Labs for participants from beginner to leader. Across the Lincoln Center campus, teaching artists viewed performances ranging from a Japanese production of Macbeth to a multimedia retrospective of the Black experience in America to a Leonard Bernstein musical theater work, which collectively fostered discussions around strategies for responsive facilitation and engagement. From its beginning, LCE has been an advocate for teaching artistry. We are dedicated to bringing teaching artists together to share expertise and innovation,
“OUR VIEW IS THAT UNDERSTANDING CAN ONLY BE ENRICHED WHEN WE ACTUALLY WORK WITH THE RAW MATERIALS OF MUSIC, DANCE, AND DRAMA.” - Dr. Maxine Greene, American educational philosopher, author, social activist, and teacher. Page 17
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Particpants exploring movement in a workshop group.
guaranteeing a dynamic field of teaching artistry for many years to come. Our belief in the power of arts education is perhaps best summarized by this quote by Dr. Maxine Greene, whose philosophy provides both a foundation and aspiration for LCE’s work, “Our view is that understanding can only be enriched when we actually work with the raw materials of music, dance, and drama: the medium of sound; the medium that is the body in motion; the medium of language or gesture or movement in space. You are going to discover, sometimes with a veritable shock of awareness, the degree to which such understanding enables you to move out toward, to be present at performances and created works, the degree to which knowing can open perceptual possibilities and, indeed, enable us to feel more, to sense more, to be more consciously in the world.”
“WE ARE DEDICATED TO BRINGING TEACHING ARTISTS TOGETHER TO SHARE EXPERTISE AND INNOVATION, GUARANTEEING A DYNAMIC FIELD OF TEACHING ARTISTRY FOR MANY YEARS TO COME.” - Jean E. Taylor and Laurel Toyofuku
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Jean E. Taylor Assistant Director of Curriculum and Instruction Teaching Artist Development Labs Lincoln Center Education Jean works extensively with Lincoln Center Education’s local programs, Teaching Artist Development Labs, and international consultancies. She is a recipient of Lincoln Center’s Directors Emeriti Award, Carnegie Corporation’s Giving Hero Award. She represented LCE at ITAC in Oslo, Brisbane, Edinburgh, and is on the planning committee for ITAC5 in Seoul. Jean also teaches Theatrical Clown and Aesthetic Inquiry for The New School and has taught Theatrical Clown for The Barrow Group for over 15 years. Her approach to theatrical clown has been published in Movement for Actors, Allworth Press. She is a board member for The Maxine Greene Institute for Aesthetic Education and Social Imagination. Laurel Toyofuku Manager of Global Partnerships Lincoln Center Education Laurel Toyofuku is Manager of Global Partnerships, guiding business development strategy within Lincoln Center Education. She manages the department’s advisory services, cultivating and expanding relationships with national and international cultural and educational institutions, government agencies, and corporate entities in countries including China, Singapore, South Korea, Mexico, and Canada. She also stewards the Lincoln Center Cultural Innovation Fund, the institution’s first grant-making program in partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation. Previously, Laurel was Assistant Manager of Lincoln Center International, focused on amplifying Lincoln Center’s impact across cultural and geographic borders.
To learn more about Lincoln Center Education’s partnership with the Queensland Performing Arts Centre and the Syndney Opera House, please see Brad Haseman’s article “The Online Frontier: The Basics of Teaching Artistry and Educational Innovation” on page 10 which details our collective online program: The Basics of Teaching Artistry. https://lincolncentereducation.org/ https://www.facebook.com/LincolnCenterEducation @LincolnCenterEd
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THE F-WORD On Teaching, Practice, and Conquering Fear By Benjamin Hom and M.K. Rainey
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very year, in New York City, thirty-something new and advanced teaching artists are chosen to participate in Community-Word Project’s Teaching Artist Project (TAP), a comprehensive training and internship program designed to prepare practicing artists to bring their craft to the classroom. These teaching artists come from all over the city and wildly range in backgrounds, ages, and art forms. The program entails a rigorous, 8-month curriculum, rich in social justice-based pedagogy that also provides supervised on-the-job experience. However, TAP is more than a training program. For many participants, it becomes and strives to be the thoughtful, active community of educators that many teaching artists seek in their work. This community cares for its participants and pushes them to grow in both their artistry and teaching. Rather than have an article written by the Director of the program (myself, M.K. Rainey), I asked one of our participants if he would reflect on his experience in the program and share some insight into the community it creates and how that work has pushed him to grow. The following is an article by theatre and media-maker, Benjamin Hom.
Benjamin Hom Page 20
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Since opening night of the 2018-19 Teaching Artist Project, I have been mesmerized about what takes place every time we gather for a Saturday workshop. These workshops, which clock in at about 6 hours each week, are designed to help us develop as teaching artists and always feel like they could and should be longer. Every workshop is an opportunity to delve deeper. They are an opportunity to discuss ideas and critical subject matter and build upon our teaching philosophies. They are an opportunity for fun and play, and the most surprising of all, our workshops often serve as catharsis for troubling times. Every workshop, led by our fantastic facilitators, had a knack of pushing us to reveal things about ourselves that weren’t always conscious of. In one of our earliest Saturday workshops, we participated in an activity where we had to use our bodies to convey emotions. One of them was fear. I remember distinctly laying down flat on my back, arms and legs pinned down to ground, completely immobilized. I’ve never been pushed to express that, nor have I ever really thought of what my fear would look like when put into flesh. Another activity was “My people are…” statements. We divided up into groups of three and each took a 60 second turn listing statements that began with “my people are.” If we weren’t the person speaking, then we were specifically instructed to make eye contact and be the best listeners we could be. What followed were proclamations of one’s history and identity. We named what made us great and what emboldened us, as well as the trauma we’ve inherited through our lineages.
“I’VE NEVER BEEN PUSHED TO EXPRESS THAT, NOR HAVE I EVER REALLY THOUGHT OF WHAT MY FEAR WOULD LOOK LIKE WHEN PUT INTO FLESH.” - Benjamin Hom
Some activities were a lot lighter. One highlight was a game called Cowboy, Bear, Ninja. Essentially, the game is a variation of Rock, Paper, Scissors, but with our bodies. Before the game started, we would come to a consensus about what each pose would look like. Then we would divide up into two teams and decide as a group which pose to throw out. Ninja beats Cowboy, Cowboy beats Bear, and Bear beats Ninja. We played this game one Saturday after our lunch break as an energizer and it did just that. The activity helped us beat the post meal grogginess and remain on task. It was clear that every activity was designed with a different purpose in mind, but the one constant was reflection. Like we do in the classroom at CWP, we build in reflection to all our activities. We talk about what it means to build community, what we can do to better create compassionate and accessible spaces, and how we can make an efficient impact on our students during the limited time we get to spend with them. Page 21
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Recently, I was approached to lead the opening activity for a salon. It wasn’t the first time I had been asked and in truth, I was putting it off. Teaching Artist Project is my first experience in the Art-in-Education space, and the idea of leading my more experienced peers in an activity had given me pause. Given all that we’ve done in the last several months, what could I possibly offer to the group that hasn’t been explored elsewhere?
Benjamin Teaching Like the activity I mentioned earlier, I was motionless, paralyzed with fear. I felt a serious case of imposter syndrome and my fear of being revealed as a fraud was sidelining me and preventing me from the one thing that all educators and creatives need to do: practice. I entered the Teaching Artist Project not to observe from a distance, but to learn, grow, and challenge myself. I asked for this and it was up to me to go all the way. As an educator, nothing beats experience. If you are a writer, you write. If you are a musician, you make music. And if you are an educator, quite simply, you need to stand up in the front of a classroom and teach. Education is, much of the time, trial by fire. You can walk into a classroom battle ready with all of your plans, ideas, and your preconceived notions, but you will inevitably be confronted by students deciding whether or not you are worthy of their attention. Nevertheless, we plan. We practice. We borrow from other teachers. We try things out, discard them, and start from scratch. We recycle old bits and mix them with new ones. We get into Page 22
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a room with other teachers and make discoveries. Many times during my internship, I encountered students who were hesitant to participate in an activity or share something they had written. There were times where it was due to typical middle school disinterest or apathy, but more often than I could’ve imagined, it was due to fear. And every time I encountered a student who was generally afraid to be open or to try something they didn’t feel they were intrinsically good at, like a reflex, I would push them to go further. Who says you can’t do this? Who says you can’t do anything you want? Eventually, I gathered the nerve to follow my own advice. On the day of the salon, I got up and led the opening activity. I decided on using this theater game called Wink Detective, where one player
Friendship in learning
“I CHOSE THIS GAME BECAUSE IT HIGHLIGHTS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TRUTHS ABOUT THEATER, AND IN MANY WAYS LIFE.” - Benjamin Hom is assigned the role of detective and has to figure out who the murderer is before all the players fall victim to her murderous wink. If you’re winked at, you must plummet to the ground and act out your death in the most outrageous way you can think of. I chose this game because it highlights one of the most important truths about theater, and in many ways life. You are not up there alone, and by extension, you are accountable for each and every one of the players on stage with you. Your failures, as well as your successes, are shared. When push comes to shove and you are compelled make a choice, that action or inaction could mean the difference between life or death. Often the consequences are much less severe, but ny case, as I watched my friends and colleagues throw themselves onto the floor in glorious fashion and enact their own demises, I thought to myself, “I’m really on to something here.” Page 23
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About Community-Word Project (CWP) CWP is a New York City based 501(c)(3) arts-in-education organization that inspires children in underserved communities to read, interpret, and respond to their world and to become active citizens through collaborative arts residencies and teacher training programs. Teaching Artist Project was the first of its kind and remains today the only comprehensive training program for working Teaching Artists. Teaching Artist Project alums have gone on to serve over 250,000 students throughout the world. Currently, Teaching Artist Project is open for applications to its Summer Institute program. Summer Institute is a three-day intensive workshop for creative writers, visual artists, musicians, dancers, and theater artists with 2+ years teaching artist experience.
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Benjamin Hom is a filmmaker and photographer based in the Bronx and Queens. A lifelong New Yorker, Benji honed his craft at Hunter College, where he studied the ins and outs of film production. An avid supporter of visual literacy, Benji believes in the importance of learning and teaching how ideas and emotions are expressed through a visual form. Benji Hom wrote, directed, and edited several short films including “Vecinos,� a film about two strangers who live in the same walk-up and make a connection over their shared heartbreak. As a photographer, Benji specializes in portraiture and travel photography. He has done product work for up and coming streetwear brand Herb N Fresh and has shot in cities all over the world including Havana, Hong Kong, and Rome. M.K. Rainey is a writer, teacher, and editor from Little Rock, Arkansas, and is the Director of the Teaching Artist Project at Community-Word Project. She is the winner of the 2017 Bechtel Prize at Teachers & Writers Magazine, the 2017 Lazuli Literary Group Writing Contest and the 2018 Montana Award for Fiction from Whitefish Review. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Collagist, 3AM Magazine, Atticus Review, Fiction Southeast, and more. She co-hosts the Dead Rabbits Reading Series, and is the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Dead Rabbits, a literary press that strives to collaborate with writers to create work that matters. You can find out more about her at mkraineywriter.com. Page 25
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SEVEN TIME MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR BUSY TEACHING ARTISTS by Angela Myles Beeching This article contains material excerpted from forthcoming 3rd edition of “Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music” by Angela Myles Beeching, published by Oxford University Press.
F
or busy teaching artists, there are never enough hours in the day. We live in a distracted culture with competing demands on our time. Most artists struggle to make room in the week for their artistic practice, for planning their teaching artist work, and for taking care of business — the managing, promoting, scheduling, and getting paid. Not to mention finding time for family and friends. There’s a high price we pay for living like this. It takes its toll on every aspect of our lives: from our health and peace of mind, to our creative productivity, our reputation, relationships, and our life satisfaction. Ultimately, being time-stressed can prevent you from fulfilling your artistic potential. The truth is, time is your most precious commodity. You will never have this year, this day, or this moment again. How well you manage your time determines what you can accomplish in your life. To take charge of your time and your career, below are my 7 time management tips for busy teaching artists. If you want to become more resilient, more artistically productive, and more effective in managing the business of your art, these are for you.
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ONE.
Find out where your time goes.
Try this: for the next seven days, keep a running log in your calendar of how you actually use your time. Use your online calendar or a small notebook you can carry with you. Write down all your activities and when you do them. Keep notes throughout the day (if you wait until the end of the day, chances are you won’t remember events accurately). Record in half-hour segments for the entire day, say 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Record simply the activity you engaged in: commuting, teaching, performing, Facebooking, cooking, socializing, rehearsing, surfing online, exercising, and watching TV. There’s no judgment here, we’re simply finding out how we actual use our time. I find I regularly underestimate how much time I need to write blog posts, answer email, plan workshops or projects, and promote events. A time log can clarify what exactly you need more time for and where you might be able to adjust your scheduling to allow for it.
Analyze the results of your timelog. Calculate how much time you actually spend per day and week on your own art and then how much time you spend preparing meals, taking care of email, and any other regularly occurring activities. Add up the hours. Once you know how you’re spending your time, examine your priorities. Based on your time log results, answer the following: • On what or who do you spend too little time? • On what or whom do you spend too much time? • Can you schedule any rehearsals, practice times, or private teaching differently to consolidate travel time? • Have you over- committed yourself -- do you have enough time for meals, exercise, rest in order to be re-charged for your work?
TWO.
Managing time isn’t about keeping a rigid schedule; it’s about making consistent choices based on your priorities — so that you can be more effective as an artist, as an educator, and as a human. “The most important thing is the clarity of intention. What do you want to accomplish and how are you going to do it—clear intentions are needed for both.” —John Steinmetz, composer
Use time blocks. Time blocks are designated times you make in your weekly and daily schedule for doing specific work. Try this out using any of the free blank weekly schedule templates you can find online.
First, designate the time blocks needed for your “fixed” commitments (the ones scheduled at times you can’t change). These may include rehearsals, classes you teach, and other work hours. Also schedule in the travel time needed for each. By scheduling your regularly recurring activities (practicing, rehearsals, work), you’ll be able to have free time that’s actually free from guilt and worries over what you’re not doing. Page 27
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Now look at the remaining time available. Think about your highest priority. Most likely it’s your studio or practice time. Schedule in daily time blocks for this work. Choose the optimal hours of the day when you’ll be least distracted. For many of us, it’s first thing in the morning. Schedule realistically for the minimum time needed every day for your creative work so you can keep it as an absolute commitment. If this means a scheduled 45 minutes each day for your writing, painting, or composition, before the rest of the household is up, so be it. Make it a real commitment — a sacrosanct appointment you make with yourself. This means you’ll need to “just say no” when tempted to schedule in something else during your priority time. Maybe you’re thinking, “But I like to have a more flexible schedule. I’m an artist — not a machine.” Here’s what I tell clients: flexible scheduling is a luxury for people with few responsibilities. The more you need to get done, the more important scheduling becomes. Why not experiment? Try scheduling your most important work for a week and just see what happens. For me, just knowing my top priority work is scheduled is a relief. I don’t have to make a choice or negotiate with myself. Instead I get to work. But this isn’t just about putting in the hours. It’s about using your time well. So this next tip is essential.
THREE.
Make your priority time blocks distraction free.
Doing creative work requires focused concentration. We need to be able to work without distractions in order to solve complex problems, interpret and analyze works, and build our artistic skills. Whether you’re performing, painting, writing, or teaching, if you want to work up to your potential, you need to be fully present and focused. Effective use of a time block means turning your phone — and all your devices — completely OFF and putting them away. Not on vibrate, not in a pocket or strapped to your wrist, but OFF and out of sight — preferably in another room. No messaging, texting, emailing, or extra-curricular surfing during a designated time block. If needed, disconnect your computer from the internet. Real work requires being unplugged. Page 28
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Don’t fall for the multi-tasking myth.
FOUR.
Science clearly shows that humans can only concentrate on one thing at a time. A University of California Irvine study found that after a distraction “it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task.” This means that you lose the time of the interruption itself and an additional 23 minutes of quality time. Imagine getting twice as much done in any studio session. What would that be worth to you? If you get in the habit of working distraction free, you will accomplish much more than you can imagine. You may be thinking, “I like to take a breaks from my artistic work and check my messages— what’s wrong with that? Breaks are important, but the kind of break matters. Get some fresh air, take a walk, stretch. Just don’t clutter your mind by going online. Because after that social media break, after we resume practice, we’re still thinking about it wondering who responded to our latest post, what friends are saying about us, and what we may be missing out on. Bottom line: unless you’re an emergency room doctor, everything can wait until your designated time block is over. Nothing is going to explode if you don’t respond immediately. Take charge to your time: don’t be a slave to your devices.
TIP:
How you start the day matters. Don’t use your phone as your alarm clock. Starting the day by checking messages feeds your addiction: it sets you up to crave constant distraction. If instead, you use an old school alarm clock you can start your day with less stress and begin your day with a relaxed and focused mind. Designate specific times in later in the day to check messages and stick to that. Try this for a week and see what happens.
FIVE.
Take care of business.
With the weekly schedule you started, you should now have two sets of commitments: your fixed commitments and your studio time blocks. Take a look at the remaining time available. Now schedule in time for your other commitments. Your project work might be booking a tour for your band, promoting your teaching studio, or fundraising for your next solo show. Many artists need to block off at least an hour per day for this kind of work, depending on their current projects and deadlines. Page 29
You may also want to add in designated times for regular “life management” activities—laundry, grocery shopping, and exercise. Having regularly scheduled times for these reduces daily decision-making stress. Schedule to simplify your life. Make sure your schedule also allows for free time. The idea is if the essentials are covered in your designated time blocks, then when you are free you can truly feel free, instead of worried or guilty over what you haven’t gotten done that day.
Six.
Manage projects: plan your work and work your plan.
One of the biggest challenges for artists is finding time for longer-term projects. We’re so busy putting out fires and responding to immediate needs, that we may never get to the big ambitious projects that can most advance our artistic careers.Here’s the dirty little secret: successful artists have good project management skills. They know how to make and use plans to get projects done. You may still be thinking, “I hate planning. I’m more of the ‘let life happen’ kind of person.” Here’s what Andrew Simonet writes in his terrific book, “Making Your Life as an Artist”: “Most artists spend the vast majority of their time dealing with immediate problems. The PR package that was supposed to go out two days ago. The grant that’s due Friday. The communications that stream in all day every day.” Planning lets us spend a small amount of time on the big, long-term things that are most important to us. And that means those big things will actually happen. Planning shifts artists from reactive to proactive. Planning a large project can be intimidating. Instead of being overwhelmed by the pressure of a looming deadline, the trick is to break the large goal down into manageable daily and weekly tasks. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — Mary Oliver, poet I recommend adding a designated weekly hour for longer-term projects. This is time to brainstorm, research, and set in motion future projects: to dream bigger and make the plans needed to achieve your goals.
SEVEN.
Bookend each day with mini-planning.
To stay organized and to manage big projects that you fear, my best tip is to use the first five minutes and the last five minutes of your day for daily planning. This small investment of time can pay off in reducing your stress and helping make sure your priority work gets done. At the beginning of each day, review your scheduled time blocks, looking ahead at upcoming deadlines, and making sure key to-do items are also scheduled. Then, at the end of each day, review what got done and what you need to do tomorrow. Give yourself credit for your accomplishments and give yourself a chance to consider what needs to be changed. This “bookending” of your day will help you feel in charge and on track. In sum, if you want to lead a more fulfilling career and life, you need to take charge and manage your time. Clarify your goals, take a hard look at what’s working and consider options for changing your habits. While we can’t make more hours in the day, we CAN be intentional about how we use our most precious resource — our time.
The author of “Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music,” Angela Beeching is the former director of career and entrepreneurship programs at Manhattan School of Music, Indiana University, and New England Conservatory. She maintains a thriving career coaching practice, helping artists get more of their best work out into the world. For more information, see http://BeyondTalentConsulting.com
https://www.facebook.com/BeyondTalentConsulting/ @AngelaBeeching https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelabeeching/ https://BeyondTalentConsulting.com/blog
The Power of What If? A National Residency Teaching Artist Credential By Stacie Sanders Evans Chair, Young Audiences National Residency Teaching Artist Credential President & CEO, Young Audiences of Maryland
Members of the National Residency Teaching Artist Credential effort: Top Row from left: Brian Scheller, David Dik, Marsha Dobrzynski, Jeni Siepierski, Julie Lister, Jenny James, Sheila Womble, Ivy Bennett, Dick Deasy, Hana Morford, Chris Sheard. Bottom Row from left: Valerie Branch, JoEllen Florio Rossebo, Susan Oetgen, Stacie Sanders Evans
One of the things I admire about many of the artists I encounter is their ability to envision and create without constraint. Most of the time, I feel my ability to dream is tethered to my day to day constraints. Fortunately, I have the rare board of directors at Young Audiences of Maryland (YAMD) that isn’t asking me why our copying budget is over by 10%. Instead, they are encouraging me to dream bigger dreams and actually discouraging me from worrying about how to pay for it. They want to help shoulder the burden of these constraints so I have enough moments to live in the delicious “what if” space.
envision &without create constraint “What if” moments have gotten Young Audiences to where it is today both locally and nationally. One “what if” moment just recently led to a successful pilot of the Young Audiences National Residency Teaching Artist Credential for exceptional teaching artists. Unlike almost all other professions within education, there has been no nationally recognized credential for the field of teaching artistry.
Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly: Issue 15
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Twelve artists (featured below) from seven different states have completed a very rigorous application process and earned the National Residency Teaching Artist Credential to date. Let’s applaud these amazing artists who took a chance with us and contributed to the larger idea of “what if” in an effort to help us test and refine a credentialing system. Young Audiences formed in 1950 in Baltimore because of our founder Nina Collier’s “what if” moment. Nina’s question, “What if we bring musicians into our schools to perform?” ultimately led to the movement that created 29 Young Audiences affiliates across the United States and now benefits five million students annually. She had no idea the impact that question would have on children and artists.
W A
T H
FI I H
T A W T
In the ’90s, YAMD’s first paid executive director, Patricia Thomas, had another important “what if” moment: “What if artists are no longer limited to the auditoriums of our schools? What if they go into classrooms to give kids a chance to create in an art form?” Today, artists in partnership with Young Audiences, impact 230,000 hours of classroom learning in the arts every year, creating powerful moments for young people. Thank goodness there were Nina Colliers in communities across our country who were creating the same kind of opportunities.
what if what if what if what if
Once Young Audiences saw the transformative power of our artists in classroom settings to inspire kids and we saw how high stakes testing was narrowing the curriculum and negatively impacting student engagement in the classroom, we asked another “what if.”
“What if Young Audiences played a larger role in education and in our communities to bridge the gap between what we know the best conditions are for learning and what children actually receive in school? I call this the inspiration gap.
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In Maryland this “what if” led us to invest heavily in artist training to equip artists in work in classroom settings (far beyond even our own roster of artists) and to create many more opportunities for artists to partner with teachers. Now school districts and foundations see us in a broader light, as an organization that can help improve educational outcomes for kids. These groups are investing nearly three million dollars in YAMD this year so we can address stubborn problems in education: preventing summer loss, increasing school readiness, and improving teacher practice. Across the country, we have artists who are ready to bridge the inspiration gap, and there are even more who, with the right training and support, will soon be ready to join them. We believe the National Residency Teaching Artist Credential, along with a network of coordinated, affordable professional development opportunities, could lead to kids in all communities having greater access to a quality education, which includes arts education and opportunities to learn in, through, and about the arts from the best professional artists in their community (even where there is no local Young Audiences affiliate).
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Imagine a society where teaching artists are recognized for the valuable role they play in breathing creativity and possibility into our schools. Work which, in turn, draws kids back into learning. Imagine how many more kids would benefit if artists were able to choose teaching artistry as a profession because it was treated like other professions. Many, many things are needed to realize this vision, and I believe a credentialing system–one that is developed in partnership with artists and educators with students at the center–is one important component in a larger ecosystem that needs attention. And I’m not alone. A national survey revealed that 94% of teaching artists want a credential like the one we are designing for the field. One reason artists support this idea is that now, because our field lacks a credential, there is no unified way for that expertise to be recognized or validated.
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For example, dance and teaching artist Valerie Branch has performed with over 10 dance companies, choreographed over 100 dance works, has a Bachelors degree in Dance (Magna Cum Laude), and has led artist-in-residence programs in 150 schools. But as a teaching artist, she had no signifier of her expertise, excellence or the value she brings to the classroom. The National Residency Teaching Artist Credential solves this problem. We are still early in this “What if we created a National Residency Teaching Artist Credential?” moment. And we hope one day, after thoughtful adjustment and many discussions with different stakeholders (that includes you!), and in partnership with the many other national and local organizations that care about education, that this credential could be something that the broader field will welcome. Was there ever a time an artist closed the “inspiration gap” for you, or a young person you love? Let’s make more moments like that for our young people. Wanna “what if” with Young Audiences around this idea? Let me know because it will take all of us – you, me, our friends, and our friends’ friends – to turn this new “what if” into a reality.
2018 Young Audience National Residency Teaching Artist Credential Recipients: Valerie Branch, Young Audiences of Maryland Melli Hoppe, Arts for Learning, the Indiana Affiliate of Young Audiences Molly Johnson, Young Audiences of New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania Laura Marchese, Young Audiences of New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania Ray McNiece, Center for Arts-Inspired Learning, the NE Ohio Affiliate of Young Audiences Emma Parker, Center for Arts-Inspired Learning, the NE Ohio Affiliate of Young Audiences Malke Rosenfeld, Arts for Learning, the Indiana Affiliate of Young Audiences Chris Sheard, Young Audiences of Louisiana
2019 Young Audience National Residency Teaching Artist Credential Recipients: Carrie Sue Ayvar, Arts for Learning / Miami Harlan Brownlee, Kansas City Young Audiences Quynn Johnson, Young Audiences of Maryland Brittany Roger, Young Audiences of Maryland
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Revolutionizing
Youth
through Digital Media Written by Guillermina Zabala
For the past 14 years, I’ve been leading the Media Arts studio at SAY Sí (San Antonio Youth, Yes), a creative youth development program based in San Antonio, Texas. The media arts program focuses on developing youth voices through digital storytelling and encouraging youth to analyze mainstream media with a critical eye. Through the learning process and experimental practice, these young artists have discovered the power of digital media and they’re putting it into practice. Incorporating social justice issues in SAY Sí’s media arts literacy has been a long-standing and intentional process. It required collaboration with teaching artists, youth, and other visiting professionals as well as alliances with individuals and organizations that aligned with our vision. Since 2005, when I started my job as Media Arts Director at SAY Sí, I’ve produced over 200 youth digital media exhibits and film productions. The one aspect all these artworks have in common is their unique and innovative youth voice. In an attempt to summarize the sociopolitical and cultural impact of this collection of works, this article highlights just few of these digital media collaborations. An important distinction to include in this report is that my job as Media Arts Director when working in youth media film productions is twofold: First, a mentor who instructs, guides and inspires students throughout the technical and theoretical aspects of the filmmaking process; secondly, a film producer who oversees all facets of the production and is responsible for the overall concept and quality of the film.
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Beyond Green Series: The Image of Contamination
In 2007, Listen Up (a former network for media art programs across the nation) put out a call for proposals for their documentary series Beyond Green. Sponsored by Adobe Youth Voices, Beyond Green is a collection of documentaries produced by youth from different countries focusing on local stories about environmental issues affecting their communities. Our media arts studio examined the negative effects of the San Antonio’s Toxic Triangle, which is the areas surrounded by Port San Antonio, formerly known as Kelly Air Force Base. The proposal got selected and the media arts studio received a Grant from Adobe Youth Voices to produce a short documentary. Youth filmmakers Antonio Rodríguez and Liz González collaborated with Diana López from Southwest Workers Union to tell her story as an environmental activist who advocates for cancer victims affected by the toxins from the military bases. The film The Image of Contamination was shown at neighborhood screenings in order to create awareness of the repercussions the SA military base has on the health of the neighbors. It was shown at several film festivals, including the 16th Hamptons International Film Festival where it received the Golden Starfish Award and the NY Human Rights Watch Film Festival in the Youth Producing
Change category. Rodríguez attended the festival and was able to speak with audience members about the Toxic Triangle, a health and environmental issue that has been ignored for years.
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PROJECT Voicescape: THE DREAMER In June 2011, the Adobe and PBS Foundations, in collaboration with POV, launched Project VoiceScape, a program that encourages middle and high school students nationwide to use digital media tools to create compelling stories about issues and concerns important to them. Around that time, the DREAM Act was being re-introduced in the Senate and there were a series of public manifestations in support of the act. In San Antonio, hundreds of students and families supported the bill in hopes to stabilize their immigration status. This was a perfect opportunity to lead a group of students from the media program into writing a proposal about this pressing issue and submit it to this new initiative. And that’s exactly what project director Emileigh Potter did. Few months later, we were astonished by the news: our project The Dreamer was selected to be one of 15 Project VoiceScape documentaries. The winning projects were awarded a cash prize in completion funds, and the students were mentored by award-winning documentary filmmakers. The Dreamer tells the story of Benita Véliz, a Mexican immigrant who came to San Antonio as a child with her family. Because of her story, her resiliency and advocacy, Benita has become the poster child of the DREAM Act. This was the second documentary for youth director Potter. Her first documentary was We March, about the history and repercussions of the annual César Chávez march in San Antonio. The Dreamer received Best Inspirational Documentary Award and marked a catalyst moment for Emileigh Potter who expressed her love for filmmaking and her strong commitment to immigrant and minorities rights.
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Project Papalote:
Crossing Borders & Breaking Boundaries In 2015, SAY Sí was one of seven organizations to receive the Creative Catalyst Award from Adobe Project 1324, a global initiative that supported emerging young artists with social impact. This recognition gave us the opportunity to expand our projects and resources, develop our social-justice focus even further and put us on the global map of community arts organizations. As a creative catalyst organization, SAY Sí was eligible to apply for several grants and scholarship opportunities for our students and alumni. In 2016 we received Adobe Project’s Innovation Grant. Along SAY Sí’s studio staff, I co-developed Project Papalote, a national and international initiative that facilitates youth art collaborations under the theme of Crossing Borders and Breaking Boundaries. As creative lead, I coordinated the first four collaborations with programs from Salt Lake City, Boston, Mexico City, and Kolkata, India. Each of these experiences begin with selecting a group of participants from each organization connected via Google Hangout. During the initial meeting, youth shared thoughts about their physical borders and personal boundaries, such as gender inequality, immigration, racial and cultural discrimination, etc. Based on these responses and over the course
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of several online conversations, the collaborators decided on an issue or series of issues, a specific media (documentary, experimental, animation, video game, interactive art, etc.), and the overall aesthetic approach.
SAY Sí’s collaboration with Spy Hop, a digital media arts program in Salt Lake City, consisted on the production of digital media content that included a documentary about a young transgender who struggled to find their identity while having to hide their true feelings in an extremely conservative Mormon family, and a podcast about growing up as a Caucasian female in a city influenced by Mexican and South Texas cultures. The collaboration with Raw Art Works, a multidisciplinary arts program in Lynn, Massachusetts, begin with youth questioning their environment, personal barriers, and the state of “real” justice in the US. They decided on digital illustration and printmaking as the medium for the project and the results were stunning. A power-
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ful series of graphic posters playing with the word jUStice, Us and the US. Each youth participant explored an issue that was relevant to them and created an illustration utilizing photography, illustration and then
transferring to linoleum sheets for the carving and printmaking process. With a powerful edition of 12 posters depicting images and words such as Gender Justice, Education Justice, Speak Up for Justice, youth and teaching artists took to the streets of Lynn and pasted the posters in several locations while filming a short experimental film in the process. The collaborations in Mexico City with El Faro de Oriente and in India with Prayasam were culturally driven, transformative and the first time SAY Sí travelled internationally with students and alumni. For the three SAY Sí youth participants Elías Flores III, Sarah Ramírez and Mónica Guzmán, going to Mexico City was a journey that
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re-connected them with their Mexican roots and put them directly in touch with their indigenous origins and their connection with today’s mestizaje (mix of indigenous and Spanish). Through their collaboration with filmmakers from El Faro de Oriente, a multidisciplinary arts center located in Iztapalapa — a marginal neighborhood south of Mexico City — the youth participants produced a short documentary titled La cultura perdida (Lost Culture). The film explored the ongoing disappearance of indigenous traditions, beliefs, and cultural icons and how these aspects of Mexican culture that once were very vivid and present are now blending with the aggressive invasion of consumerism of manufactured cultures. “The Papalote residency in Mexico was one of the most important experiences of my life,” Elias Flores III said. “Through my time spent working with the artists at Faro de Oriente, my entire view of culture, heritage, and identity was changed forever. I came to understand that our stories and histories are much more complex than I ever could have imagined. We documented this journey every step of the way, and art became the language that we used to express this journey.” Visiting and collaborating with Prayasam, a community arts center in Kolkata, India, was the highlight of Project Papalote, a vibrant and awakening experience. Everything, absolutely everything is different in India in comparison with western cultures, but there is some sort of universal magic everywhere you go that makes you feel so at home. Page 42
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One of Prayasam’s mission is to empower young people in impoverished areas so that they can become leaders in their communities and be the ones who will keep moving the cycle of empowerment and enlightenment. One of the projects we collaborated with was the painting of murals in one of the local slums for The Bad & the Beautiful, their upcoming film festival. I vividly remember meeting a young girl who was looking at us painting from the distance. Several times I waved her and invited her to join us but she resisted. When she finally took the courage to start painting, two younger boys started to discourage her and said that she was not good. But I insisted her to stay and moved her to another area where she could be by herself, and she painted beautifully. Small gestures like that go a long way and help spread confidence and inclusion, which is part of Prayasam and SAY Sí’s vision: Transforming young people’s lives through art and advocacy. In retrospective, the key component for successful youth art and media collaborations is that they start and maintain a youth voice-centered approach throughout the entire process. Listening and understanding youth perspectives is essential for the development of their artistic vision and social impact.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Argentine-born Guillermina Zabala is a multidisciplinary artist and educator whose artworks examine the intersection between the individual and their sociopolitical and cultural environment. She graduated from Columbia College Hollywood with a B.A. of Arts in Cinema and has been the Media Arts Director and Teaching Artist at San Antonio’s SAY Sí for the past 14 years. She’s the recipient of UTSA’s 25Veinticinco Award, the SA Artist Foundation Award and the NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant. She is a Mentor for the 2019 NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program and was a member of the 2018 Luminaria Artistic Advisory Committee; she served as Curator for numerous film festivals, including the 9th LA Freewaves; and she is an alumni of the 2017 Community Arts Education Leadership Institute, 2008 Creative Capital Artist Retreat, and the 2007 NALAC Leadership Institute. Because of her recurrent use of text in her art, she was invited as a Guest Artist at the talk Language is a Virus at SA’s McNay Art Museum, in 2014, where she had a solo exhibit showcasing I, Me, Light, which depicts a series of video portraits exploring notions of identity and culture. Her artworks have been exhibited in museums and art galleries in Los Angeles, New York, Texas, Miami, and San Francisco; and internationally in Germany, Latin America and Spain. Several of her photographs are part of the UTSA Art Collection and have been published in several books and publications. Page 43
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So, You Think You C
A week in the Life of a Bay A Dance Teaching Artist Written by Cynthia Pepper www.cynthiapepper.com
I am a dance teaching artist who works for many arts presenting organizations throughout the Bay Area. I have been teaching dance in the schools for over 3 decades collaborating with organizations that have annual operating budgets from 5K to 52 million. I started two Northern California outreach programs that are still in existence. I have worked as an Supervisor/Director in Community Outreach for many organizations both in San Francisco and Marin County. I have taught contemporary dance at Marin, Oakland, and Berkeley Ballet Schools. I have made award-winning dance films for Sesame Street, HBO and Nickelodeon. I ran my own dance non-profit for 29 years and decided to switch gears to laser focus on teaching and making dances and films. Bringing all types of cultural, ethnic, world, ballet and contemporary dance forms to all ages and abilities has brought me tremendous joy. I guesstimate I have taught over 35,000 people. I am now teaching in second generations of families. I see the sweet eyes of parents from 20 plus years ago walk up to me and tell me so often, “Mrs. Pepper you taught my mom or my dad�. Every school, student, and class are unique and wild adventures. In any given week I teach up to 28 dance movement based classes of varying lengths, drive to 4 counties and sometimes Page 44
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Can Teach Dance
Area
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6 different cities, fill out multiple payroll time sheets, collaborate with both clear-headed and hungover musicians, share dance to students who are paraplegics, quadriplegics, autistic, non-verbal, using wheelchairs and are hearing challenged and/or blind. I have broken up fights between parents, cared for bleeding students and even had to wrestle apart two dogs. I wrote out 66 name tags happily dined on $3.00 school lunches and cried for no reason in the middle of a class. If I find a discreet place to cry I consider myself lucky. Sometimes I cannot tell if it is the students are dancing so well or I feel so much pain in the room. Here is a taste of one of my adventurous weeks here in the Bay Area saving our world with dance.
MONDAY. I wake up abruptly at 5:15 am knowing it was going to be a fiercely rainy day. I had to check my GPS as early as possible so I could plan the driving. It is a new school and I want to arrive early. I check my phone and it is a solid 43-minute drive. I am good to go on schedule, and as always I eat breakfast in the car. I teach 8 classes of multicultural dance at this public school from Pre-K through 6th grade to not-so-eager students. Luckily, the classes are only 30-minutes
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each, yet I still have to shape a beginning, middle and an end, which is a challenge. I use rubber dots on the floor to separate the lines and it helps tremendously to keep kids in their own space. I was hired because the school heard I added cultural context to the dances I bring to the classrooms. I agreed to take this gig for the opportunity to turn what would otherwise be an exercise class into a meaningful dance unit. Before I started, I asked to get a roster of the different countries the kids come from so I could prepare dances that align with their cultural traditions. The kids love the international music, scarves and pictures that I bring to their classrooms. I tell them it is proven that dance makes you smarter which doesn’t matter to any of them. Today, the students are enjoying the chance to move their bodies and laugh. The overworked teachers get a break to watch their students express themselves in new ways. Watching them move through space brings grins and giggles to many of the teachers. One “former” dancer/ teacher attempts to help me teach my class, which is quite disruptive. I stay calm and let her help out. Two kids who never dance decided to try it out. They squealed as they leapt through the sky. The classroom teacher was shocked they were cooperating. I wasn’t. One boy stayed under a table the entire class tapping the floor with his foot. I teach two Special Day Classes (SDC) as well, which includes both the younger set and the older population. In the younger set we started doing swinging in a circle. A circle gives everyone an equal chance. We are all front and center. An 8-year old boy kicked me in the thigh, threatened to “break” me, and then jumped out a ground floor open window. I kept teaching and did not stop the music just to hold the room together. A retired agile 73-year old aid to the boy ran out the door and chased the “runner” as they are aptly called. I never saw either one of them for the rest of the week. I asked if I had done anything to provoke this behavior and the classroom teacher said you “took a breath”. The day ended calmly at 3:17. I drove to get a coffee and some sugary carbohydrates to make me feel better. It worked.
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TUESDAY. A Daly City day. I am required to wear a uniform for this arts group. Yippeeee, I don’t have to think about what to wear. Need to save my brain. I had powered up my two speakers and 2 iPads as insurance in case my musician didn’t show up or one of my devices breaks. I check the GPS confirming a good solid 49-minute drive. I teach 20 boys and 2 girls in one of the three classes during this day. The drums really help when teaching boys. I don’t know why drums work magic but they seem to tame testosterone. One boy in this classroom is a trans. His classmates are not aware of his journey. My musician uses very unreliable public transportation. I always offer to bring him a drum. I also bring snacks because he plays so much better with his carbohydrates as well. I always arrive early and my drummer often arrives late. We quickly discuss the dance agenda. I am teaching an Israeli folk dance and we both decide to tread lightly and not discuss any politics with the students. We call it a Mediterranean circle dance to keep it neutral. Some of these children come from Syria, Egypt, Morocco and Yemen. They have fled war torn countries escaping disease, violence and death. When the Blue Angels come soaring in the sky over San Francisco, many of these students are terribly frightened to the point they need to stay protected indoors. The noise can be detrimental to their well-being.
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Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly: Issue 15
At this school we can only use stickers for name tags. The students cannot have safety pins or recess because they both pose dangers. The pins become weapons and recess becomes a place for fighting. The dance classes go quite well. The musician helps to ward off a student who tries to steal my speaker. Two girls refuse to take off their coats on a day the temperature is in the 60’s. The classroom teacher won’t let them dance which I appreciate, because it is distracting to dance with a coat on. Only one class brings name tags which I feel are vitally important to connect authentically with the students. I quickly make personalized name-tags with my big black sharpie and large white stickers. One teacher let the students make their own name tags. I couldn’t read any of them because the students used ballpoint pen on masking tape. The students enjoyed the process of me writing their names. Two of them said they thought I “smelled nice”. One girl wearing a blue hijab told me my writing was very pretty. The teacher didn’t say hello, help at all with class management or say thank you when the class concluded. She texted the entire time. Her students are in desperate need of attention. The kids all said thank you which was enough for me. I was told one of my dance students broke a counselors’ jaw the week before. He was 9 years old. The almost retired vice-principal said he would write me a letter of support for all that I had done for his school. He wants to hold a little ceremony with chocolates and give me a certificate. This school was one of my favorite residencies in all 34 years of my teaching. The excess of trauma made the dance classes more significant for me. Page 49
WEDNESDAY. This is my San Francisco day. I always arrive early to get the room ready. I help the janitor lift the lunch tables even though I am not supposed to take the chance. I have no protection with an employer if I hurt myself. The risk of being an independent teaching artist. Thank goodness for spouses that have insurance! The amazing janitor named Chi told me she has 2 full-time jobs after she teaches me how to say good morning in both Mandarin and Cantonese. In marches a sweet new group of 22 adorable 3rd grade kids. All of them were a bit scared of me because the teachers warned them I was a “professional�. The classroom is all Chinese and Filipino. I teach them a Bollywood dance that I learned at an Indian Culture workshop in Vallejo. They snickered, smiled and diligently learned every complex step with skill. The teachers were so excited they decided they would perform this dance at the end of May. We make big signs to prompt the kids for the movement. The joy of this group makes up for the frowns and physical challenges I experienced earlier in my week. I get about 14 knee hugs since none of the kids could reach higher then my knees. Another tear filled moment saying goodbye. One boy squeezed me so hard I thought he was going to break one of my ribs. Two kids in wheelchairs watched the classes and I let the one who could use his arms run my music from the iPad. He knew exactly what to do. The
kids with Cerebral Palsy laughed so much when their aids danced with the typical classroom. The children who were dancing around the room enjoyed having an audience. I got many thank you emails that day for sharing the “typical” students with the “special day class students.” The school has limited funds and this was truly a welcomed gift for everyone. I got an $1.00/hour raise from the Arts Presenting Organization because the school was so pleased. They said they would find the money somewhere. I had a delicious school lunch which broke my bank at $3.00 for three courses. The lunch lady tossed in a free milk. She joins us in the warm up each time from her silver metal table in the back of the room.
THURSDAY. I drive 4 minutes to this local school in San Rafael. A huge relief from my usual 45-65 minute commutes. I teach 2 special day classes with teenagers. I enter this small room full of raging hormones which includes 2 students with Down syndrome, 1 blind student, 2 partially deaf children, 4 nurse/adults who scoff at my every move. These adults often roll their eyes at my dance prompts. The students include an 18-year old boy with negative and defiant disorder who refuses to do anything, 2 autistic kids on varying levels of the spectrum, a new boy who is non-verbal but always smiling, 2 16-year old girls and a classroom teacher who is a fantastic dancer. I decide today is the day for hula hoops. We need to get the arms moving and as I use the hula hoops to teach everyone the Sleeping Beauty Garland dance. We learn it as a 3/3 waltz, involving many triplets counted in 3 with a breath at the top of the phrase. The kids and cranky adults love it! They want to do it many times over. There is
nothing like a waltz to make the room a happy place. I found a link on the internet of ballet dancers from Croatia doing this section and it gets projected on the big screen. We make formations, design creative wheelchair groups, shape patterns across the floor. Every person moves. I am touched by the precision in their movements which they all exhibit each and every time we run the piece. One student said she felt like a real live dancer for the first time in her life. The aides who usually make fun of my antics seem humbled by the collaborative work. Despite the many challenges of their job, I try to make the classes enjoyable for these para-professional influencers. One student was in a portable bed the entire class watching while lying completely horizontal. Her nurse danced and she beamed while watching her “other half� move energetically through space. The student danced through her nurse. When I got to my car I cried. Grateful, I have 2 healthy daughters, Rosie who is in college and Olivia who is out of college now working in San Francisco. Teaching dance is one way I thank the universe for my good fortune.
FRIDAY. Another San Francisco day. I have to park in a very expensive hospital garage near the school. My parking is $24.00 because there is no lot at the school and the street meters only run for 2 hours. I need 2.5 hours.
I read my emails. Unfortunately, one of my 3 classes changed their schedule because they forgot it was a field trip day. Another school emailed me that I used an inappropriate word while teaching. I am not sure which word so I welcome the information. This school has a classroom of 9 boys that are all non-verbal. There are three aides in this classroom. This makes it almost a 2 to 1 ratio. The kids love the music so much it feels like I am watching a video of a rock concert with the volume turned off. I decide to use Bob Marley on this Friday of fun. As the kids dance around it is all glowing grins. A student suddenly has a melt down. The music was too loud. I lower the volume and another child has a meltdown because I lowered the music. We find a nice place in the middle. The abundance of reaching and looking up to the sky in pure joy starts up again. The boys manage moving on the dots, they go under the human tunnels, giggle silently making snake shapes, are comfortable crawling around. The colorful scarves fill the room. We take some pictures. Not all the kids can be in the photos due to privacy requests. The boys learn how to dance respectfully with a partner. Every boy patiently waits their turn. The boys cannot speak so they communicate with their bodies. They dance. After this hard week, I am both mentally and physically fatigued. I am ready to just sit and knit my scarf and watch trash television. I’ll also work on my almost completed fantasy screenplay about space bugs that eat color. I love dance. I love sharing my love of the arts with children.
Art saves lives. I can prove it. www.cynthiapepper.com
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