Tag: schools

Fela! and Student Performances

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This is actually from late December.  I apparently forgot to click “publish.”  Oops.

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I was thinking to myself today, walking to the last day of a residency around Fela! at a school in the Bronx, that I am am so lucky.  It was 7:25 in the morning and I had woken up at 5:45 am to get there in time, it was about 15 degrees outside with the wind chill factor.  But, I got to watch Fela! with an entire theater full of NYC Public School students and it was one of the most joyous theatrical experiences I’ve ever been a part of.  I looked down the row about 15 minutes into the show and saw faces filled with wonder.  During the Q&A, Sahr, who played Fela, told the audience that they were the very best audience they had ever had.  I had seen this in his eyes when at the top of the show, he says to the crowd, “Everybody say, ‘Yea, yea” and hundreds of high school students thundered back, “YEA, YEA!”  He had to turn away, smiling at the wonder of all those voices who wanted to go on this journey with him.

But, I’m getting away from myself.  I’ve had to be part of a number of student cumulative performances in the last week or two.  Residencies wrapping up, school administrators, parents and teachers often like to see a product, a piece of theater that students make to show what they can do.  Now, unlike creating paintings or sculpture or performing songs on musical instruments, theater is a bit tricker to have a final showing.  Many students feel extremely naked onstage.  And you have to push all you know, all your energy and guts and feeling into this one moment when you perform, instead of showing a painting you’ve been working on for weeks.  Or being able to play in a student band with 35 other students.

What I witnessed today was this:

Being an extremely short residency (4 workshops taught by me, 4 by the classroom teacher), there really isn’t time to build a culminating performance.

In this, my fourth session with them, I went in thinking that I would help to take their writing into performance, emphasizing that it was an experiment, a rehearsal, a work in progress.  We had 45 minutes, really 30 when most folks had trickled in.  It was an impossibly short period of time to make anything, but we had to try.

I scaffolded with them a bit, reminded them of what we did with beats and call and response during our first session with wonderful TA percussionist and hoofer LeeAnet Noble.  And I had them look at letters I’d had them generate last time, writing to someone who they would fight for and telling them why, inspired by the songs in Fela!  (Everyone who had been in class wrote a letter, even if they showed up to class late, because somehow, everyone wants to tell the people that they love the most, who they would fight for the most, why they are beloved.)

I then put them into groups and asked them to choose their two favorite lines, add percussion, add call and response and create a piece to share.  The piece had between 2-5 other students letters represented.

They rehearsed.

They shared and their pieces were touching and ambitious.  Dense, rich, dangerous.

And it reminded me, art can be made.  It can be made quickly with decent scaffolding.  And most importantly, the best art is made when it comes out of what the young people have to say.  This sounds obvious.   But I think that we forget this all the time.  I have to remember this and make it the root of what I do.

And yeah, I’m lucky because I got to see Fela! twice in order to make this residency happen.  But I’m also lucky because everything I learned in that theater and then in the classroom, stays with me.  And if I do anything right, it’ll show up in my work.

Classroom Theater

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Imagine for a second that you were rehearsing whatever show it is that you are currently working on, with a group of 4-5 collaborators. So, you are in your rehearsal room, hammering it out, working on the script, figuring out the blocking, etc.

And then, in walk 4 other groups, to share your room. They are also rehearsing with their props, costumes, text, choreographed fight sequences, etc. This is the situation in the typical NYC public school classroom that I walk into. There will be 30 students, rehearsing simultaneously in a space the size of your living room. If you have a big living room. I could probably only fit 4 students in my living room. But, you get the picture.  This was the situation yesterday at an International High School in Queens where I was doing some residency culminating performances.

“What?” you say.

“How do you hear yourself above the din?”

“Aren’t you tripping over each other?”

The answer is that in working in schools, doing drama, this is the way it is. We make it work, somehow. But, unlike the fine arts, or perhaps even dance, this means a lot of chaos, more chaos than people are used to seeing in classrooms.

I taught with two guest teachers as my primary colleague was out. Part way through the first class, the two guest teachers shot some looks over, like, “are you mad?” The noise.  The questions.  The fact that students were using broomsticks as faux swords.  This is not what English class normally looks like.  But today, it is okay and I must also make them comfortable in the room.  I ask one teacher to model an activity with me to draw her in.  Show the students that she too will take the risk to get up and work in front of them.

I was to teach around the question, “What is point of view? And how does a story change depending on who’s telling it?”  And I ended up needing to teach each class very differently depending on the student group dynamics and language comfort.  While I came in with a plan, I ended up changing things on the fly, in order to better have them understand POV and be able to tell a story from a different character’s point of view.

When it came time to show the pieces the students magically whizzed together in a few minutes, the teachers seemed to enjoy them and were impressed with how much the students showed that they knew about the play, how inventive they were, how they moved through their shyness and varying levels of language acquisition challenges to create a moment of theater.

And perhaps I re-learned, we are always in process as teachers and artists and teaching artists. And we have to change things on the fly sometimes, because what we’re doing is not working. Or could work better. Our instincts are usually right. And momentary chaos is often okay. As long as we are seeking the answer to the driving question. Instincts are right. Chaos is good. This will be my mantra.

Uniforms

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I grew up wearing them.  Green jumper in grade school.  Herringbone skirt and a blue blazer in high school.  I really kind of hated it at the time, because it’s hard to feel like an individual.  But it might explain my penchant for blazers and structured clothing now.

Sheena Mathieken is wearing the same dress for a whole year.

It’s an exercise in sustainable fashion and she is donating the proceeds to the Akanksha Project, a non-profit in Mumbai that uses volunteer college students to help educate children who live in the slums.

Look.

And there’s an interview with her on Flavorpill here.

What is the role of the teaching artist?

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Just sat in on a web symposium at the Seattle Art Museum, sponsored by the Dana Foundation and facilitated by Russell Granet.  There were 600 people listening in from across the country!

Topics included: What is the role of the teaching artist in public education?  How can schools maximize a partnership with an outside artist?  What is the artist role in the classroom, in the art room, in the school?  How can artists help build a culture in a school where creativity, innovation, and imagination are at the core of teaching and learning?

These were the panelists:

•    Lisa Fitzhugh, Founder, Former Executive Director, Arts Corps.
•    Sarah Johnson, Director, Weill Music Institute, Carnegie Hall.
•    Nick Rabkin, Researcher, Teaching Artist Research Project, University of Chicago
•    Naho Shioya. Teaching Artist.

They are going to archive the webcast on the Association of Teaching Artist’s website.  Look for it.

It is helpful to be given the opportunity to reflective about our practice and to constantly think about how we can do things better individually and systemically.   And as most of our work is done for the school year and we’re winding into summer, dreaming about next year and what’s to come.  Thanks, Dana Foundation.

Openings & Closings, Beginnings & Endings

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CLOSINGS
Yesterday, last meeting of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab’s season.  We still operate on a school year schedule/theater production company schedule, so it’s summer and school’s out.  As a kid, I was always sad when summer arrived because I’d be bored as anything.  Now, I’ll miss the company and comradeship as I soldier through these two new plays by myself during the desert of summer.

Also, today, was my last gig at a school for the year.  A meeting to debrief with the teachers after a semester long residency.  I walked up to the classroom teacher’s door and she had her wallet and keys in hand.  She locked eyes with me and said, “I forgot.”

Deep breath.  “That’s okay.”  Unlocks the door.  She seems upset.

Are you alright?  She says that she’s just got a billion things to do.  Has to prep for next class, buy supplies for a capioera workshop later that afternoon and she has ten things more to do.  She’s the team leader.  It’s the end of the year.  She says, “I’m so stressed out I’m about to start crying.  In nine years, I’ve never been so stressed out.”

I feel for her.  I ask if there is anything I can do.  She tells me about why it’s so hard right now.  End of year.  Behavioral issues.  Too many duties for too few staff.  I listen and I think she’s starting to feel better because someone hears.

I’ve been there.  Seven years ago, I was  a classroom teacher and I was there.

The other teachers filter in and we talk about our program and what worked and what could be better in our partnership next year.  And she lights up with ideas and anecdotes about our work together this year.

And I think about how all our hardworking, incredible teachers need more support, more time.  They need not to feel alone with the weight of the world on their shoulders and a classroom of students who need so much.  Students need a teacher, yes, but often they also need a mother, a father, a counselor, someone to draw a hard line, a coach, an artist, an inspiration, a citizen, a dreamer, a realist.  They need all these things.  Each teacher has 45 kids that need all these things (and it is a small ratio here, at my last teaching gig, i had 145 students).

How can we help them to stand under all that weight?
How can we hold them up?
How can we thank them for what they carry?
(Have you ever read “the things they carried?”)

They carry us all.

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OPENINGS
This opens next wednesday.  I’ve written a new 10-minute play for them called “Closing Up Shop.”  It’s a lovely evening of 7 eleven minute plays that take place in a convenience store.  Please come by if you can.  Some crackling plays, sharp direction and a fantastic cast.

Desipina & Co Logo

Desipina & Company
Rehana Mirza, Artistic Director & Rohi Mirza Pandya, Producing Director
presents
Seven.11 Convenience Theatre 2009: The Final Year

Directed by RJ Tolan, Kel Haney and Robert Ross Parker
Musical Director Samrat Chakrabarti
Only for 10 Performances
Opening Night Wednesday, June 17, 2009
At Center Stage, NY
48 W. 21St Street, 4th Floor, NYC
June 17th – June 28th, 2009
Wednesday to Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm
With: Andrew Guilarte, Kavi Ladnier, Cindy Cheung*, Sam Ghosh, Tim Cain*, Jay Lee and Christopher Larkin*

The final Seven plays:
Soonderella by Samrat Chakrabarti and Sanjiv Jhaveri
A new pop musical involving a fairy tale of a different colour.

Color Me Desi by Rishi Chowdhary
A liquor-run to the convenience store before the big desi party uncovers that there are more shades of brown than there are colors to Holi.

One Dollar Box  by Eugene Oh
A provocative tribute about anybody’s father, anybody’s son and the desperate measures that arise when life boxes you in. Working man, work it man.

A Very Desi Christmas by Samrat Chakrabarti and Sanjiv Jhaveri
An original pop musical that illuminates the true meaning of rice.

Closing Up Shop by Carla Ching
A look at what happens when it’s time to move on to the next generation.

What’s in Store by Rehana Mirza
A run-in at the convenience store leaves its manager with the keys to closing up.

Raj Against the Machine by Vishakan Jeyakumar
A Sri Lankan immigrant questions his life in the convenience store, with his best customer by his side.

Production Team
Production Stage Manager – Nick Tochelli
Assistant Stage Manager- Shannon O’Connor
Set – Jason Simms
Asst Set/Props – Amy Lee
Costumes – Jenny Fisher
Lights – Jeff McCrum
Sound – len DeNiro
Choreographer – Sandhya Jain
Graphic/website design Nilou Moochhala
Technical supervisor Enayet Rasul
Original 7-11 logo and t-shirt graphic design Atif Toor