Young Audiences's blog

Buffalo mirthmaster Nels Cremean has brought laughter to the schools of Western New York for many years. We're pleased to announce that "In Jest" is now available at rates that reflect the tightening budgets throughout New York State. Nels' programs are now available for as little as $600.

Also new for this year, his juggling workshop is available as a residency of one to five days.

With degrees in education and mathematics, Nels often ties his programs to curriculum. Here are some examples:

Math & Science: Science Circus

ELA: Read to Achieve

Character Education: Possibilities

Health: High on Life

On October 15, three Young Audiences teaching artists joined a group of grade school students, parents and teachers at H.O. Brumsted Elementary in Holland, NY to live it up 1950's style. Raising funds for their portion of our NYSCA partnership, the school hosted a spaghetti dinner, Chinese Auction, and a dance in the gym.

John Lombardo and Joe Rozler performed classic oldies. A festive Macarena brought everyone together for a more modern spin around the gym. Sarah Hooper, teaching period and contemporary dance steps, mixed things up with a little break dancing.

The Center for Arts Education (CAE) has recently published "Staying in School: Arts Education and New York City High School Graduation Rates." The report presents strong statistical support of quality arts education in public schools. Surveying two hundred-plus schools over two years, CAE found that high graduation rates were directly linked to the access students had to the arts. As Rachel Lee Harris wrote in an October 19, 2009 New York Times article, "schools ranked in the top third by graduation rates offered students the most access to arts education and resources, while schools in the bottom third offered the least access and fewest resources." The number of certified arts teachers and art classrooms also affected graduation rates considerably.

You can download the full report here.

The deadline for Arts-2-gether applications is now only two weeks away- don't miss this amazing professional development opportunity!

The New York State Alliance for Arts Education is currently accepting applications from Master Level (five years + experience) and New to the Field (less than three years experience)Teaching Artists to participate in the Arts-2-gether: The Big Brothers Big Sisters Program, a Visual Arts mentoring program for students with special needs.

Arts-2-gether: Big Brothers Big Sisters  (BBBS) marks a new partnership between NYSAAE/VSAarts and NYS Big Brothers Big Sisters Affiliates. This program is designed for those students with disabilities (developmental and physical), ages 7-18, who are enrolled in a NYS Big Brothers Big Sisters Program. (Arts-2gether was formally named Side by Side). Once enrolled in the Arts-2-gether program each BBBS student-adult match will engage in a collaborative, cumulative, and expressive visual arts-making activity. Matches will meet after school hours, in a pre-determined location, once a week, for a period of six weeks.

Each Arts-2-gether program will be taught by a professional Master Level Teaching Artist, with teaching assistance from a New to the Field Teaching Artist (see links below for Teaching Artist Requirements).

Deadline: November 1, 2009

Sounds reverberated from downtown Buffalo's Alleyway Theater last Monday as local educators and art education professionals attended a workshop hosted by the Western New York Regional Leadership Network that demonstrated how the ancient ryhthms of Taiko drumming may be integrated into the classroom.

Master drummer Alan Núñez, has been a musician for over 30 years and is touring upstate New York to share his love of the Taiko drum with local educators and students. Trained originally as a pianist, he discovered world percussion and the cross-curricular links that can be made between drumming and other subjects. He has worked for New York City Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the Julliard School, as well as various other arts-in-education organizations and is founder of the ducational drumming group, Boundless Percussion.

Núñez demonstrated how Taiko drums, a regal and thusly costly investment for most schools, could be created at low-cost from everyday materials found at Home Depot. Participants used "kuchi showa", the mnemonic syllables that correspond with each sound/note of an instrument, to learn and perform a traditional, five-part drum circle song.

Maria Hager, music teacher from Young Audiences partner school, H.O. Brumsted, was in attendance (her second workshop with Núñez) and was excited to bring Alan's unique drumming methods back to her students. Young Audiences teaching artist, Miriam Minkoff, participated and spoke of the "empowering feeling" she experienced while working with the large-scale Taiko drum.

Alan emphasized that the drum is not only a musical intrument, but a basic means of communication. Rhythm exists within all of us and the ancient art of Taiko proves to be an inspirational tool for group cooperation and learning.

Lights! Camera! Documentation!

Using Video to Document Your Arts-in-Education Program

A workshop for educators, teaching artists, and other arts related professionals
 
Workshop Description
Video is an increasingly important way of showing the power of arts-in-education programs, allowing participants to to show student, TA and teacher progress in action. By effectively using video to aid in the documentation process, participants will learn how technology can 'build a bridge' to help participants chronicle their own best practices, and formulate a clear strategy for sharing those strategies with others.
 
November 5, 2009 - 9:30 - 4:30
The presenter is Nelle Stokes, and the workshop is taking place at Cepa Gallery.
 
Here is the link to complete details.

In the October 2 edition of the Buffalo News, Colin Dabkowski describes part of the appeal of our upcoming Gusto at the Gallery event, "Young Audiences Travel the Erie Canal":

"For the typical fidgeting sixth-grader, learning about the history of the Erie Canal from the pages of a textbook or the monotonous drone of a teacher’s voice holds all the appeal of a trip to the dentist. That’s something Gretchen Murray Sepik, a storyteller, playwright and actress from Rochester, knows well. So she wraps up the dates, facts and stories about the canal’s history in a palatable package that’s hard for kids to ignore."

On October 9th, The Stringmen, Melissa Kate, Gerald Mead and Helga MacKinnon will join Gretchen Sepik to explore the era through music, creative writing, collage art, and our Traveling Museum of period artifacts. You can explore our other Erie Canal-focused programs and residencies to help bring the Canal's history to life for your students.

Event details: 4:30-8:30 at the Albright-Knox Gallery, 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo NY, on October 9th, 2009. This is a free event.

This month, YA-WNY is beginning a long-term residency at Heritage Centers After School Program with funding from the Children’s Guild Foundation.

A Rhythm Runs Through It is a long-term arts integration program incorporating dance, music, yoga, and visual arts for young people throughout the year, in a 33-visit residency at the Heritage Centers After School Program.  A Rhythm Runs Through It includes multi-session residencies with YA-WNY Teaching Artists — Sarah Hooper, Miriam Minkoff and Jen Russo.  The program builds sequential skills that develop physical coordination, visual communication abilities, and confidence, using rhythm as the unifying element.  As multiple artists introduce participants to their art forms, the program progresses through a variety of skills.

A Rhythm Runs Through It is a unique program because it leverages kinesthetic activities, literacy skills and creative expression to help participants develop comprehensive coordination and communication abilities.  The program uses the arts to apply the findings of current research on how kinesthetic activities enhance brain development, physical and mental coordination, and language processing.

A Rhythm Runs Through It is also unique because of the unusual partnership between an arts organization like YA-WNY and a human service agency such as Heritage Centers.  The program provides a learning opportunity for all stakeholders that builds capacity for long-term partnerships between YA-WNY and special needs educators.

The ultimate objective of A Rhythm Runs Through It is to help young people with special needs become more independent, confident, and productive.  Young people who have special needs often find success through the arts, leading to greater confidence in all academic subjects. 

We rebuilt our website over the past three months.  We think you'll love what it looks like and what it will do for you.  The new site is entirely searchable, and you may create specialized reports and save them to share with your colleagues when selecting programs.  The site also looks great.  We made use of some terrific talent to make this site happen. Read more about that below.

You may still look up artists by art form or kind of program, but you may now also search by curriculum ties, grade level, or special programmatic goals.  To look up assembly performances by art form, click through here.  To look up workshops by art form, click through here.  To get some iddeas for a special community event or after school program, check out our Beyond the Classroom page.

To learn more about how to build and refine searches and produce a fact filled report for yourself, check out our Search our Catalog page.  To scroll through our teaching artist biographies, check out Our Artists page.   If you already know the program you would like to book, use our Schedule a Program page.  You will here back from us within 2 school days.

You may have also received our colorful fold out poster-mailer.  We are not producing a print catalog this year.  This allows us to be kind to the environment and reallocate our spending to keeping in touch with you throughout the year.

We know not everyone is in love with using the Internet, so if you would like us to create a report of programs, please do not hesitate to contact us by phone any time, at 716-881-0917.

With partial support from the Arts Council for Buffalo and Erie County in the form of a KeyArts grant, we were able to enlist the assistance of the talents of Chris Buryta, web developer, Jim Charlier, Graphic Designer, and Jana Eisenberg, writer to bring our site together.  This was all orgainzed and masterminded by our talented Program Director, Palmer Davis.  Our site could also not look so great without the help of Marten Czamanske and Verve Studio.  Marten took beautiful photographs of some of our new artists in the gorgeous setting of the Verve Studio.  Both were generously provided in kind. The image at right is of Verve Studio leader and owner, Shane "B-boy" Depree, who is also a member of our new hip hop dance group, Differential Flavor Crew.  The image at left is of John & Mary, another new addition to our roster.  Read more about Marten's contribution here.

Mentoring Opportunity

The New York State Alliance for Arts Education is currently accepting applications from Master Level and New to the Field Teaching Artists to participate in the Arts-2-gether: The Big Brothers Big Sisters Program, a Visual Arts mentoring program for students with special needs.

Arts-2-gether (formally named Side by Side) is an art mentoring program uniquely designed for students with special needs, ages 7-21, who have been recommended by their school or organization as having an interest in participating in an expressive art-making experience.

In response to input from a group of beginning, mid-career, and experienced Teaching Artists, ATA's focus in this survey is Teaching Artists' experiential knowledge. We ask you to share your knowledge, your stories, and what your experience has taught you.  This image is Kris Crosson working at the Salvation Army After School Program.  Photo copyright Greg W. Losins.