The March of Makeshift

On July 23, 2011, the students of YPT’s Young Playwrights’ Workshop stopped by the Capital Fringe Festival to perform Out of the Shadow, their original play tackling the issue of bullying. You can read more about the Workshop here, and check out stories about the Fringe performance on WAMU 88.5 and ABC7/WJLA-TV.

In the powerful poem below, YPT student Josie Torres describes her experience collaborating with her fellow Workshop students over the past year to create Out of the Shadow.

The March of Makeshift

A place to those
who look for an existence
outside the normal.
These turquoise hearts
compliment the very sunset
that gave birth to us.
There was no sacrifice.
There was no agony.
There was no fallen hope.
In this atmosphere
of a lucid moon
only imagination can grow.
These wooden creaks
are the very sounds
of past wandering spirits.
An abundance of
philosophical and
embarrassing moments
is a method of how we stand strong
together on this stage.
The shadow
will not bare us down!
The passions of the sea
which is a representation
of our trustworthy bond,
grows into a tidal wave and
hits the shores of ignorance.
The souls that lingered on
these streets will not suffer
bitterness of others.
We dance uncaged.
We chose to be untamed
in dignity.
We do not know the
meaning of limits.
We thrive in beauty
and we murdered the beast!
I am marked
by a rose.
I have been signed
by a thread.
I have the emblem
of a long forgotten crest
of creativity,
of flare,
of intellect,
of eccentricity
and of love.
The cavern of skulls,
the brick wall,
and the barbed wires
will crumble down
and the sunlight
will show our path.

Josie Torres
YPT Young Playwright

Holly Taylor Petty: It Matters

Jen’s Story
*Student’s name changed to protect privacy

School can be a difficult place for students who don’t learn in the same way as the majority of their peers. I saw the pain first-hand when Jen, one of my sophomore dance students walked into my classroom. She was not physically handicapped, but I could see that she was so afraid to participate that she could hardly move at all. She would stand there paralyzed. Jen struggled in many of her regular education classes. I knew that school was a miserable experience for her, and I had a hard time knowing how to help her feel comfortable enough to participate. I began to see Jen open up a little bit when I assigned her and a couple of other classmates to work with a severe special needs student. She was so caring and gentle. Through helping someone else discover the art of dance, Jen realized that she had something to offer the world. When I talked to her at the end of the year she was so excited about her plans for registering for more dance classes her junior year. I heard later from her resource specialist that dance had made all the difference for Jen’s confidence. I saw first-hand how the arts helped Jen recognize that she had worth and that is more rewarding than all of the perfect test scores I graded combined.

Click here to learn how you can help keep the arts in DC schools.

Holly Taylor Petty with Her Daughter

Holly Taylor Petty
YPT Community Member

Holly Taylor Petty focused her arts education on dance and violin. She earned a BA in Dance Education and is a certified Suzuki violin instructor. Holly taught dance I, dance II and dance company at Payson High School in Utah until last year, when she moved to Washington DC. She became a mommy 9 months ago and is loving staying at home with her daughter, while teaching private violin lessons part-time, as well as taking dance lessons. She is currently involved with a nonprofit organization called Artist Interrupted, which helps female artists balance the performing arts with everyday family demands.

Does our education system kill creativity?

In this highly amusing Ted Talk Sir Ken Robinson makes the case for creativity in the classroom.  He says, “My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status.”

He goes on to say “There isn’t an education system on the planet that teaches dance as rigorously as we teach mathematics.” He goes on to tell of the famous choreographer, Gillian Lynne, who discovered her talent because she couldn’t sit still in class. The school administrator recommended to her mother that they enroll her in dance school.  Sir Robinson posits that if she were a student today, she’d be medicated for ADHD.

Do you agree with Sir Robinson’s points? Do we need to revolutionize our education system to include more creative opportunities? Where did you learn to be creative?

Interview with Katherine Latterner

Theater Educates interviews a different arts educator each month, to get his or her take on our field. This month we talk to Katherine Latterner of Fillmore Arts Center.

What is your current position?

Katherine: I am currently Principal of the Fillmore Arts Center, a District of Columbia Public School.  Fillmore provides the arts education to 12 DCPS elementary schools and serves 2,600 students at two sites.  Artist teachers provide visual arts, music (including strings and band), dance and drama instruction.

How did you become an arts educator?

Katherine: I began studying piano and voice at an early age and began my college career as a music performance major.  I realized that I would not become a concert pianist and switched my major to English.  After college I worked at a non-profit but continued my involvement in music.  When my children were very young, I discovered they had minimal music instruction in school and I began volunteering as a music teacher.  I studied Orff and Kodaly and became a music teacher at Fillmore where I taught music (and creative writing for 14 years).  I obtained a masters in educational leadership and became the Director of Education for the Musical Theater Center, returning to Fillmore as the principal five years ago.

Did you have any mentors in the field? If so, how did they influence you?

Katherine: My family was always involved in music (mother and grandmothers).  My first real mentor was my piano and voice teacher, Lewis Grubb.  We lived in a small town in Delaware, but he had performed in Philadelphia and New York and exposed me to a wealth of literature and experiences (singing with adult groups in Wilmington and Philadelphia).

There is a lot of debate among educators, administrators and policymakers about arts integration vs. art for arts sake. What is your opinion of this debate? Do you favor one side over the other?

Katherine: I think it makes perfect sense to make connections between the arts and other disciplines.  Using the arts to teach numeracy, literacy, social and physical sciences allows children with varying learning styles to more easily access this information and to use both right and left brain modalities.  However, the push has been to have arts education focus in Arts Integration to the exclusion of the arts as important disciplines.  I am a strong proponent of having a high quality arts education for arts sake.

What advice do you give young people who want to make a career in the arts?

Katherine: Pursuing the arts as a career may not be the most financially rewarding choice (except for a very few people), but it is certainly a personally rewarding choice.  If you have a passion for the arts,  you should pursue it.  Examine the multiple ways you can work in the arts (performer, teacher, production, etc.) .

What advice do you give early-career arts educators?

Katherine: Do not neglect the impact of technology on the students of today.  Explore ways you can incorporate technology and please keep your activities interesting and “fun” for your young students.  You job is to foster a love of the arts in your students so they can not only be participants, but also arts audience members and supporters.

Every educator has a different definition of success. Can you tell us about a time when you felt successful as an arts educator?

Katherine: I have had students go on to great commercial success, but it is the everyday successes (the shy child who performs a dance or sings a solo on stage, the class cut-up who really shines as the “king” in the drama performance, the beautiful ceramic bowl made by a child who said he was “no good” in art) that make me feel most successful as an arts educator.