Summit School Performing Arts Our Performing Arts program has two - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Summit School Performing Arts

What is Summit School Performing Arts?

Our Performing Arts program has two primary

• bjectives:

1) To give the students a place to develop and express their creativity. 2) To reach out to the community and introduce them to these wonderful, talented and unique individuals.

• It is a program managed by dedicated staff

members.

• We have been producing shows since 2007
• Our shows have been put up at many of

Montreal’s most celebrated stages.

Past Projects

Summit: The Documentary 2003

• Produced with the NFB
• Student’s interviewing each other.

The Forgotten Ones 2005

• Pure imagination
• Community involvement

Past Projects:

We Are Daniel 2007

• Student’s Story
• Elevating the work (Steven Atme)

Based on true Feelings 2009

• Student’s Story
• Confronting Controversy

Past Projects

Rachel At Risk 2013

• Collective Storytelling
• Powerful Points of View

Being Rachel 2013-2018

• Documenting the Process
• Giving the student’s context

Past Projects

You’ll Never Walk Alone 2015

• Gala event, Ashley’s Surprise

Outta Here 2016

• Musical, 50 Student actors, big production
• Centaur Theatre, Wildside Festival

Letter to My Disability

• Ester and the Letters
• Ten Students, Ten Staff
• Teacher’s Life
• Parent’s perspective
• Put up three times will many requests

Different Processes for Different Projects

• Forgotten Ones
• Oral
• Four Students
• Letter to My Disability
• Began with Letters
• Rachel at Risk
• Over 50 students
• Groups of 6-8
• Video Recording

Why Tell These Stories?

STUDENTS

• Self Confidence
• Processing Experiences
• Discovering Identity
• They have something to say
• People want to listen

AUDIENCE

• Redefining perceptions
• Planting the seeds inside them
• Social change (95%-5%)
• Society is apathetic (mostly)
• Hard for students to advocate

Empathy in Art

• Kathryn Petersen gave a roadmaps to how to respond with empathy

in tough situations.

• Art can be training ground to develop these muscles.
• Art expresses a unique point of view. How we understand out

students.

• Can have difficulty speaking, eye contact, etc. Artistic expression can

be a way around this to find the person within.

Working With Students

Creating Safe and Inviting Space in Group Setting

• Non judgemental, redirect criticism of good/bad. Does not exist in art.
• Art is P.O.V. Everything expressed should be looked at though the context of

personal view point (even derivative ideas, highlights what student reacts to.)

• Listen. Ask questions. Resist the urge to direct or suggest.
• If a student needs help, ask other students for suggestion
• Don’t assume anything.
• In art, relevance is also subjective. Don’t worry about ideas that seem

random… unpack them.

• Unpacking them in an exercise in COGNITIVE EMPATHY.

Example of Autistic Person’s Thinking…

• Word association:

MICROWAVE

www.wrongplanet.net

LEPRECHAUN

Thought Process… (associative thinking)

• Microwave
• Most interesting thing about a microwave is food exploding in it
• The best exploding food is a potato
• Potatoes are associated with the Irish
• The most Irish thing I can think of is…
• A LEPRECHAUN
• Good to not disregard, but to ask: How did you come to that?
• This kind of thinking may pose problems in day to day conversation, but in

Art, associative thinking can be a BIG advantage.

Student Storytellers

All students are storytellers.

• Stories about what they did last night.
• Stories about their family.
• Stories about their childhood.
• Stories about their friends.
• Stories about how they’re in love with.
• Stories about something bad that happened.

Stories are often the first way they communicate with us about their most important feelings. LISTEN. Why are they telling me this story? Why are they telling it in this way? How do they describe themselves. They are the main characters in their stories.

Impatient Listening

Modern world trains us to talk fast! As listeners we want to hear fast! Common responses to a student telling a story: “Tell me later.” Later never comes. “I’m busy right now.” You’re a teacher, when are you not busy? “Get to the point.” But it is a story, not just information.

The Brainstorm

• Most important part of the process.
• Complete freedom to express.
• Try to get at least one idea from each student.
• Freeflowing class, sometimes we don’t respect

the “raise your hand rule” because it can be a barrier to spontaneous expression.

• Students sometimes forget while the hand is

raised.

• Any idea is good. No guidelines.
• No negative reactions to the ideas of others.
• Good brainstorming is close to total chaos.

Step 3: Voting

Haunted School! Attack of the monsters

1

Documentary: Cars or School!

2

People morphing into animals!

3

Being Different! Bullying

4

Robot and Alien Invasion

5

Building Characters!

• Most independent activity.
• Often the most fun.
• Distribute character worksheet.
• Help with list of personality words.
• Try to create original characters.

Characters as Proxies

• Sometimes, characters can say or do or

admit things that the student can’t.

• Sometimes its conscious, sometimes its not.

Plot Building

• Find your theme
• Find the central conflict
• Create an outline
• Beginning: define the central conflict
• Middle: reveal how the conflict has the power to
• verwhelm
• End: Show how the main character resolves the conflict

End Product of Storytelling Project

• Short Play
• Short Movie
• Children’s Book
• Comic
• Radio Play (Podcast)
• Short Story
• News Article
• Webisode
• Song (rap, ballad)
• Oral Presentation
• Puppet Show
• Mural
• Photo collage/story

Endings …

• Find your audience
• Understand your audience
• Stagefright remedies (doing something important, group power!)
• Processing audience response
• Reaffirming confidence
• Let them tell their stories about how the project impacted them
• THANK YOU!!!