From the Executive Director

FROM ATA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DALE DAVIS

Members:

ATA will be convening the first national Teaching Artists' Congress in New York City on April 16. Save the date! Eric Booth, Richard Kessler, and Nick Rabkin will be joining us. More will be forthcoming soon. For information: ddavis@teachingartists.com.

Thank you to those of you who so generously contributed to ATA's year end campaign. Your donations make a difference!

If you blog about your work as a Teaching Artist, please let me know so we can include your blog on http://www.teachingartists.com/. Thank you to Teaching Artists organized http://www.teachingartistsorganized.org/ for mentioning ATA's Teaching Artists' blogs in your last newsletter.

If there is a Youtube video of you working as a Teaching Artist, please let me know so we can include it on ATA's website.

ATA will be presenting "Creating a Positive Work Environment and Community with Teaching Artists" at The New York City Arts In Education Roundtable's Face To Face on February 24. We hope to see many of you at Face to Face.   

Happy 2011!

Dale

Location, Location

Sometimes you wake up and you ask the universe, where in the world can I find a community of teaching artists?

The answer depends on where you are on the map.

The Bay Area: Teaching Artists Organized has a new website.

New York: The Association of Teaching Artists is on Facebook.

Chicago: Chicago Teaching Artist Collective is on Yahoo.

School Day

A thrilling missive from teaching artists Cassie Thornton and Chris Kennedy of the School of the Future arrived in the mailbox today about an event that happens tomorrow, which, depending upon where you are geographically, might be today.

Here is the news flash:

We greet you this Fall from islands of schooling in the South and from the West! Although our student faculties have left the asphalt land of NYC, we still think about the achievement and scholarship that took place this summer.


This Friday to celebrate you and all that you have contributed as both students and teachers, you are cordially invited to join us for an Opening Reception of a show organized by Trust Art and Kidd Yellin called '5 Social Victories', an exhibition dedicated to charting the evidence, processes, communities, and achievements surrounding five visionary public art projects, including the School of the Future by Cassie Thornton and Chris Kennedy, Wildness by Seth Aylmer, Humanity by Anne McClain, Dreamers by Justin Tellian, and Vulture by Dave Olsen.


The Opening Reception will be held on Friday, September 17th at 7:00 pm with the exhibition on view from September 17th-26th, 2010. Kidd Yellin is located in Red Hook at 133 Imlay St. Brooklyn, NY 11231 ( Directions: 4/5 to Borough Hall or A/C/F to Jay St. to B61 Bus (to Van Brunt & Verona St.)


Remember that the future is always in the past as we share our continuing knowledge of a better education in the present.
Please keep in touch.


Still building the school,
Chris + Cassie

Also: The Jackson Five - Medley 1972

Future Perfect

In case you failed to notice, the School of the Future is now, and, as usual, there is no time like the present. It's in Brooklyn and all the details of this exciting project are below.


Catch!

SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE

Upcoming Classes | July 29-31

Details about classes are on the website, at http://schoolofthefuture.org/classes/ .   Click on the class name to look at the description. All classes are held, or will meet at Sgt. Dougherty Park in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  

A Note about the Weather: Looks like no rain or just a scattered storms predicted this weekend! Scattered is our middle names, so come on down to Sgt. Dougherty Park!  If you are suspicious of the weather, check our website for updates the morning of the event you plan to attend!  We will keep you posted.

July 29th, Thursday

9:30am - Monitor School 

12:30pm - ReBuilding the City

6pm - Text Performance Creation

7pm - Illustration from Inside

July 30th, Friday

9:30am - Print in the Park

6:30pm - Conviction Fiction: Flight or Invisibility

July 31st, Saturday

12pm - Irish Ceili Dancing

1pm - Interactive Hegelian Lordship and Bondage

2pm - How to Say Goodbye: Hair Extension

2pm - Ballet

2pm - THE DEBT LAYERCAKE: WHO OWES WHO WHAT AND WHY

2:30pm - Learning Language Guerilla Style

3pm - Human Size Chess

4pm - Easy-to-Draw Dictators

4:30pm - Ticking Time Capsules

5pm - Movement for Seniors

7pm - Graduation Ceremonies and Potluck

School of the Future is a collaborative project by Student Body Cassie Thornton, Head Librarian Christopher Kennedy and an array of community partners and supporters including: Solar One, AlphaOne Labs, Flux Factory, Association of Teaching Artists, Trust Art, Buckminster Fuller Institute, NYC Parks Department, Open Space Alliance of North Brooklyn, St. Nicks Alliance, St. Cecilias, Neighbors Allied for Good Growth and our wonderful Bored of Education.

Also: Oleta Adams - Get Here

Arts and Sciences

Teaching artists who have ever wanted to learn how to "Build and Surf an Origami Hang Glider on a Wave of Air"  are in luck!

Via BoingBoing, the editors at Make Magazine have published this exciting video of a classroom teacher guiding students through the construction of paper airplanes made out of phone book paper. Science teacher Slater Harrison's terrific website  is a generous work of art.

Also: It's Friday, and ATA is on Facebook, now and forever.

The Great Work

Here are three upcoming theater events produced by Brooklyn-based theater companies. In each of these grassroots organizations, teaching artists play a significant role; using their professional expertise in theater arts to help educate young people, and create positive social change in our communities.

Go see.

REDBULL THEATER COMPANY

RUNNING OF THE BULLS

Monday June 7, 6:30pm

Only 10 "Young Buck" Super-Discount Tickets Available
for the second annual

 honoring F. MURRAY ABRAHAM • MICHAEL STUHLBARG •  THE HOWARD AND MARCIA OWENS CHARITABLE TRUST and THE ANGELO PATRI MIDDLE SCHOOL with MATADOR AWARDS FOR CLASSICAL THEATER 


Join host Michael Cerveris and special guests Robert Cuccioli, Paige Davis, Roberta Maxwell, Patrick Page, Laila Robins, and more for an evening featuring fun entertainment including flamenco dancing, special guest performer Malcolm Gets, fine dining, great company, and spectacular views.  Celebrate Red Bull Theater, honor four contributors to classical theater, and be the first to hear about our 2010-2011 Season.



RED BULLET DISCOUNT


Limited Number of "Young Buck" Seats for Only $100
Buy Tickets Now
 

www.redbulltheater.com


212.352.3101 


Use Discount Code "YB"

The Performance Project @ University Settlement Presents


IMPOSSIBLE COUNTRY


Conceived & created by THE MUD/BONE COLLECTIVE




FIVE PERFORMANCES ONLY!


June 2-5 @ 7:30pm, and June 5th @ 4pm

When life is no longer possible in your own country, when you are forced to flee and begin again, how do memories of the past influence your present?  Inspired by the true stories of refugees living In New York City, Impossible Country explores the conflict between honoring the past and embracing the present.  



Directed by:
Mahayana Landowne**



The Performance Project @ University Settlement


184 Eldridge Street, NYC
 (corner of Rivington - 2 blks south of Houston)



Advance tickets at 
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/98447
 or call 800-838-3006



Join Us for an Evening of Food, Wine and Theater


Benefit Performance and Celebration
 

Thursday, June 3rd



Text Architecture by:
Sandi Carroll & Jordan Dann
Performed by:
Christopher Burris*, Sandi Carroll*,
 
Sarah Douglas*, W. Kerry Huang, &
 



Jennifer Kidwell*






SARAH RUHL’S PASSION PLAY

 

Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play 

Directed by Mark Wing-Davey
EXTENDED TO JUNE 5th!

 Hailed by the New Yorker’s John Lahr as “extraordinary”, “bold”, and “inventive”, Sarah Ruhl’s PASSION PLAY takes us behind the scenes of three communities attempting to stage the death and resurrection of Christ. From Queen Elizabeth’s England to Hitler’s Germany to Reagan’s America, Ruhl’s exploration of devotion takes us on a humorous yet unsettling journey filled with lust, whimsy, and a lot of fish. (3.5 hours with 2 intermissions)

The PRESS has faith in PASSION PLAY. Read the raves from The New York Times, Time Out New York, Associated Press, and more!

Read the April 18th New York Times feature on PASSION PLAY: Sarah Ruhl’s Sunday School

PASSION PLAY is staged at the Irondale Center inside the historic Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, as the centerpiece of a community FESTIVAL highlighting the intersection of religion, art, sexuality, and politics. This festival is produced by a COALITION of artists, arts groups, academic institutions, and local community members.

Frozen

The scary headline in the New York Times reads "Teachers Facing Weakest Market in Years." After saying such an awful thing, they then go on to prove it with terrifying anecdotes and numbers. Have you heard  the one about the school district in Long Island that got 3620 applicants for 8 available teaching jobs?

With hiring freezes and layoffs, recent graduates who can't find work as classroom teachers may find themselves asking the age-old question: "How To Become a Teaching Artist?"

Join the crowd!

What Can I Do?

Teaching artists can look forward to attending The School of the Future (SOTF). 

SOTF, not be confused with the School of the Future, is a month-long art project in Bushwick, that invites teaching artists, and everyone else, to answer the question of a lifetime: 

"What do you want to learn?"

The question links to information about upcoming classes, and forums on their website, along with an invitation to "share your idea here."

Also: The weekend is now, and teaching artists are invited to join ATA on Facebook to talk about jobs and things like the terrifying budget proposal just put forth by mayor Michael Bloomberg. The New York Times says the mayor's plan, which even he admits is a nightmare, will "reduce the city’s teaching force by 6,700, and close 50 senior centers, 16 day care centers and perhaps 10 libraries."

Finally: Xanadu - ONJ

Face Time

Most of the teaching artists are at the Park Avenue Armory on 67th Street and Park Avenue, attending the annual Face to Face Conference, which starts today!

If I ever manage to get there, I'll post updates on Twitter.

We Do the Work

On ATA's Yahoo Forum, a member mentions A Teaching Artist at Work by Barbara McKean.

It's a terrific book. For example, in an excerpt posted on ATA's website, the author gives some useful background and context for the term Teaching Artist:

"The term teaching artist first appeared in the 1970s through the work at the Lincoln Center Institute and its arts education programs. I began working in classrooms and in education programs with professional theatres, the term artist-in-residence or artist-teacher was used to set us apart from the arts specialists employed by school districts or artists who did not participate in teaching. Today teaching artist has be come the term to used to describe the wide range of activities for those individuals who both practice their art form and engage in teaching others the knowledge and processes they employ as artists.

Teaching artists are distinguished from those who dedicate most of their time to teaching the arts in schools and are licensed teachers and from master-teachers who share specific knowledge and techniques from their won work in a limited workshop-type environment.

Teaching artists in education are expected to work as artists as well as invest themselves in the creation and implementation of project in collaboration with other teachers or education staff. The modifier—teaching—highlights the pedagogical nature of the work. It helps the individual conceive of teaching as the activity that modifies and drives the education approach of the art form."

From Barbara McKean, A Teaching Artist At Work: Theater with Young People In Educational Settings, Heinemann, 2006.

Finally, it is Friday and ATA is on Facebook. That's 800 teaching artists who have information, knowledge and resources for teaching artists.

Share.

Also: The People In Your Neighborhood - Sesame Street

Adult Education

Teaching Artists who work with adults with developmental disabilities may be interested in joining the ATA Yahoo Forum to find ways to:

(1) network with others who are doing or are interested in similar activities;

(2) facilitate more opportunities for the individuals that they work with to be active creatively in the community;

(3) affect the public's perceptions of people with disabilities;

(4) affect policy makers/voters/legislators whose actions affect the lives of members of the disabled community

If you have an interest in working around these issues with other teaching artists, click through to join the conversation on the ATA Yahoo Forum.

Also: An excerpt from FIRST LOVE a duet by Charles L. Mee. This play is available, along with Mr. Mee's other works, online at the (re)making project. The website invites visitors to "feel free to take the plays from this website and use them freely as a resource for your own work", which is kind of spectacular.

FIRST LOVE by Charles L. Mee

EDITH
Shove up.

HAROLD [awakened from sleeping--still half-asleep, disoriented]
What?

EDITH
Shove up I said shove up.

HAROLD
What what?

EDITH
I want to sit down here.

Click through to continue reading...

Infinite Support

The Teaching Artist Union is on a serious mission. The School of the Future is in full swing, and Brooklyn is the place to be tonight if you are an emerging TA, or a veteran.

Details below:

INFINITE SUPPORT
This Wednesday, please join us for our first EVER
|| INFINITE SUPPORT SESSION || 7-9PM UNION HALL ||
Please RSVP || Union Hall || 1013 Grand St., 4th Floor || L Train to Grand

Come with a pencil, leave with a treasure map.

Led by Phoebe Zinman Winters, we will lay out all the nuts and bolts we have gathered about working in alternative spaces in NYC as a teaching artist.

Are you interested in becoming a Teaching Artist in NYC, but you don't know where to start? Are you an experienced Teaching Artist in NYC, but you want to know what the rest of us are doing? Let's get together, pool our resources and experiences and get our open source on! We will eventually use the information we collect in a Teaching Artist Manual. In the process, you can come experience the information waterfall.

We will discuss:

-What types of jobs are available to teaching artists

-Organization models

-Application Procedures

-Where to look for jobs

-Experiences within different types of institutions and organizations

Plus: West Side Story - Something's Coming

Futurists

From the Teaching Artists Union, we have received word that the School of the Future is now.

Cool. Why wait?

Not to be confused with that other school of the future, TAU's SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE is an art project and the "launching pad for the art movement of education."

More information is below, and on the group's website:

THE SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE
The School of the Future is an artist-run school for teaching artists. The school focuses on teaching artists as experts in the study of information through performing and visual arts; it serves as the first site devoted to the resourcefulness and adaptability of teaching artists. Each curriculum developed for the school is an art project, making the school a group show. The projects will be designed to use art as a learning process that activates and considers the site of the school.

The portable school building is fit with movable walls, so no barriers will remain between after school educators, professors, and substitute public school teachers. The school term is a process of discovery where the students and teachers refine this model of school from within the transparent school walls, engaging in a large collaborative artwork that analyzes, critiques, and pushes school out of its big brick buildings.

School of the Future opens this July in Bushwick’s Sgt. Dougherty Park for a month of programming. Starting in February, an open call for curriculum asks artists to consider the site of the school as an art project that they can engage a specific student body to perform.

The School of the Future is a project of the Teaching Artist Union—a group of NYC artists who consider teaching a part of their art practice. Principal Cassandra Thornton and Head Librarian Christopher Kennedy (Institute of Applied Aesthetics) are also supported by TrustArt, OpenSpaceAlliance, NYC Parks Department and the Association of Teaching Artists.

Site Visit Sunday January 24, 1pm
Join us on Sunday for a site visit to Sgt. Dougherty Park, the site for the SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE. The park is located on the corner of Meeker Ave. and Vandevoort Avenue. It is bordered by the BQE, Staples, and Con Ed property, in a wonderful industrial wasteland. Since projects at the school will respond to the site, please attend a group site visit or go solo, but please feel obliged to learn the park.

Also: Tron - Light Bikes w/ Jeff Bridges

To the Choir

The Bruce High Quality Foundation would like to remind you that "the $200,000-debt-model of art education is simply untenable." Instead, BHQF proposes exciting free alternatives, and encourages prospective students to Build Your Own University. Teaching artists who crave continuing education without the side effects, such as the strangled feeling that can come from being mired hopelessly in debt, might want to check it out.

Learning opportunities are listed below. I didn't make them up.

Bruce High Quality Foundation University is:

A university, a space for higher education and research, a community of scholars; an expansion of the BHQF practice to include more participants (that's where U come in); and a "fuck you"* to the hegemony of critical solemnity and market-mediocre despair.

To join a class, check their website or send an email to the listed address. Or come to Build Your Own University (BYOU) to find out more.

WRITING GROUP

Sundays, 12-4pm
chateauxmargo@gmail.com

OCCULT SHENANIGANS IN 20TH/21ST CENTURY ART
Sundays, 3-6pm
occultshenanigans@gmail.com

THE ARTIST AT WORK
Sundays, 6-9pm
Website

NASA (THE NATURAL ASSOCIATION OF STUDENTS OF ART)
Mondays, 12-4pm

Webpage

WHAT’S A METAPHOR?
Mondays, 6-8pm

Website

BHQFU DETECTIVE AGENCY

Mondays, 7:30pm

Website

eliascotez@googlemail.com

BYOU (BUILD YOUR OWN UNIVERSITY)

Jan 12, Feb 9, March 9, April 6, May 4, June 1, all at 7pm

Webpage

OPEN CRITIQUE

All the Tuesdays when BYOU is not scheduled. 7pm

Webpage

PHILOSOPHY OF MOTION PICTURES

Wednesdays, 7:30-10:30pm

Webpage

DRAMA

adrearose@gmail.com

MUSIC IN SPACE

Saturdays, 3-6pm

Website

Why I Support ATA

Why I Support ATA

By Phil Alexander

The soloist enchants us, while the choir provides us with incomparable depth and richness.

The poem delights us, while the book creates an entirely new universe for us.

The sculpture engages us, while the museum opens us up to brand new understandings.

The lesson teaches us, while the whole course transforms us.

Simply put, collective action reaches us deeper and lasts longer than individual experiences.

ATA is the embodiment of collective action, it's a collective voice, a unified chorus of individuals who often cannot be heard. The incomparable listserve , the ATA website, and the blog are just a few of the most obvious tools in which ATA collects and shares the voices of teaching artists. The
board and staff of ATA are committed to hearing the needs of teaching artists, and sharing your concerns with the world at large. We have plans to provide more opportunities and events for teaching artists in the future, such as the first Teaching Artists conference, but with assorted financial challenges, everything must be reconsidered and no opportunity is secure.

During this period of appeals and gift giving, it's hard to claim that one cause is more worthy than others. So I'm left asking this question: What will be heard, if ATA"s voice is silenced?

Philip A. Alexander, Ph.D.
Senior Program Officer
ESP Office of Partnership Support and Research
www.espartsed.org


Editor's Note:

Contributions to ATA are tax-deductible, and may be made here.

Thank you.

Support ATA!

A Note from ATA Board Member Georgia A. Popoff

Support ATA

The messages on the listserve are such a value to the community of teaching artists who are members of this forum. The information that ATA Executive Director Dale Davis provides daily creates a tool for constant professional development and opportunity for us all. The listserve, with the daily comprehensive blogs by Michael Wiggins, the various links to so much to support each of us in pursuit of our careers as artists who teach, all of these aspects of the service that ATA provides to each of us are extremely valuable.

If each member of the listserve donated just $10 to ATA in some way (the Pay-Pal option on line, a check sent via standard mail, etc.), ATA could increase its budget by 50%, leading to greater longevity and more that could be provided.

Please consider ATA as one of the organizations you will include on your list of gifts this season. It is a gift that will offer each of us a daily return.

Georgia A. Popoff

Poet & Teaching Artist
Board Member - Association of Teaching Artists

A Message from ATA

A Message from ATA

I'm writing to you as the Board Chair of ATA.

ATA could not work without you. At the heart of ATA's accomplishments are the ideas and efforts of Teaching Artists across the country. We need your continued help to keep ATA responsive and vital.

I encourage you to visit http://www.teachingartists.com/ and check out the comprehensive spectrum of tools for Teaching Artists we offer.

In addition to the website:

The listserv
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/associationofteachingartists/

The blog
http://www.teachingartists.blogspot.com/

ATA on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Association-of-TeachingArtists/45276461667

ATA's surveys are critical resources for communicating and supporting Teaching Artists.

We rely on you to support our efforts. Please make a donation today.

Happy Holidays!

Glenn McClure

Board Chair, The Association of Teaching Artists

Artists in Communities

The University Settlement's Performance Project cultivates new audiences for live performance by reaching out to those who have little access to the arts, and providing opportunities for community members to engage with working artists.

Teaching artists at the Settlement's relatively new Houston Street building, facilitate arts workshops in a variety of disciplines including visual arts, dance and theater.

The Performance Project also has a Curated Rental Program. Selected productions are marketed as part of the organization's season.

The application process for both the Artist-in-Residence Program and the Curated Rental Program is below:

• Mail or send an email to the arts program curator, Alison Fleminger at afleminger@universitysettlement.org
• Please include the lead artist(s) bio, resume and one page description of your current project. Highlight how you use the arts to engage with diverse communities.
• Please provide either links to performance footage or a DVD of a past performance.
• Please be sure to follow up with a phone call to Ms. Fleminger at 212.453.4532

Our America

Thanks to El Machete, I have had my awareness raised about an issue that is undoubtedly affecting young people we work with in New York City schools--deportation.

Did you know that some of our young people are considered "undocumented", and that these children face deportation the minute they turn eighteen? Teens who have spent their entire lives in the United States are subject to arrest and criminal proceedings--the purpose being to send them "home" to countries they might not even remember.

A related article in the New York Times notes that immigrant students have recently taken high profile advocacy roles around this issue, risking much.

A group of young filmmakers responding to this issue have produced a CD of topical songs, sales of which will benefit the production of their issue-oriented movie "Papers".

Finally, A recently issued report from a New York State review panel says our system of juvenile prisons is broken, with "young people battling mental illness or addiction held alongside violent offenders in abysmal facilities where they receive little counseling, can be physically abused and rarely get even a basic education..."

What To Do

The Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) has so many exciting programs and offerings, a person could literally hang out all day. Really, I bet they wouldn't mind. For example, the schedule for Saturday, December 12th basically invites patrons to have fun from 1pm onward.

• Walking Tour: Experience Chinatown

  Sat, Dec 12 from 1pm – 2:30pm

  Discover the history and experience the energy of one of New York City’s oldest neighborhoods!

  View More >
  
  
• Weekend Gallery Talks

  Sat, Dec 12 @ 2:30pm

  Introductory gallery talks highlighting the major themes in MOCA’s core exhibit, With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America.

  View More >
  
  
• Where is Home? Chinese Artists and Community

  Sat, Dec 12 from 3pm – 4:30pm

  A panel discussion held in conjunction with Here & Now: Chapter 2, Crossing Boundaries.

  View More >

Also: It's Friday and there are 670 potential colleagues on the ATA Facebook page.

Clique.