Second Day of the Arts Schools Network Conference

A Passionate Second Day of the Arts Schools Network Conference

Today began with an awards ceremony. The speeches given were surprisingly good; I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised – performing arts people, after all. 

 A common theme today was that when you are teaching the arts, you aren’t simply teaching technique but helping students to express themselves. “Technical perfection with nothing to say has no value,” said Kevin Moriarity, the Artistic Director of the Dallas Theatre Center.  He stated that you need to provide students the opportunity to create, to take risks. And to do that, you need to have faith in them.

First up: Integration of Abilities Workshop

Dr. Paul Baker was a theatre artist who put the Dallas Theatre on the world stage. His influential book Integration of Abilities  is used as the basis for a class at Booker T. Washington School of the Visual and Performing Arts.

"The core of Dr. Baker's process is an exploration of the elements of form: space, movement, line, color, sound/silence, rhythm, silhouette, shape, and texture. The elements of form serve as a connecting force for Baker's Integration of Abilities and are referred to and used as a common language. The primary goal of the Baker method is to enhance individual creativity."

In today's first workshop we followed one of the integration exercises in which you start writing from any early memory. You just start describing it and see where it takes you. I began with the memory of an iron clothesline. I was too chicken to share it out in the workshop, but I’m copying it here.

"The iron pole held the giant stretch of clotheslines and separated our apartment building from the one below down the hill. Under it the old ladies sat on folding chairs whose latticed plastic left patterns on their thighs. Then snow covered it all. We rode our sleds straight down. Down straight through the enemy territory of the "lowers" to the railroad track that stopped us hard. Only now do I really see the danger, but we must have known, our movements were so furtive. My brothers were shouting at me to go home. It was their constant refrain. Three hundred feet always separated us as I followed them everywhere. The snowballs had rocks in the middle. We did not play. Between the Uppers and the Lowers it was war.

I think this is a great exercise. It is really about having faith  if you try something of value will emerge. People are always too quick to say they can’t sing, dance, or do math.

Takeaway: Do this in PD with the teachers. Study Dr. Baker's book closely and consider if it is something we are interested in using at our school.

The most exciting part of today is a project that I would really like to  duplicate in some way. It is, again, a project that integrates the arts by design. Groups of students separated by art forms - musicians, writers, technical theatre people, dancers - work together to create a performance. They do not need to stay within their wheelhouse. Tech people can dance, dancers can create a lighting design but all help each other. They are limited to no more than 500 words; the piece must have a narrative drive (the audience needs to able to follow it and it should be cohesive). All the groups are given the same theme. At Booker T. Washington some past themes were symbiosis, weird science, and I can’t remember the others. They give the students about six weeks and about two days a week, and then one full day for a tech rehearsal. Then they all perform the pieces one after another. Though entirely student directed but the groups do have deadlines along the way. Teachers do not interfere, even though there is always the possibility of disaster and embarrassment. I absolutely want to do this; I don’t know if it is possible. At Booker T. High School every student is required to do this process at least once. The materials for this are online and I will present this project to my faculty and see if we can do some sort of beta version. The project is calling "Telling Stories."

It can be very difficult to give up control and only guide students by giving strict parameters, but that is what work in my film classes. You just have to have faith and you teach them skills  but collaboration, the give and take, the openness, these they can only learn by doing. However,  I’m not sure how they stop super strong personalities from taking over.

The meeting was at the Nash Sculpture Museum. Outside, I thought that one sculpture looked like Picasso. And it was! ( I had never seen a cement and gravel Picasso.)