Go Girls! Afterschool Club is back on Thursday afternoons and better than ever.  The class has been increased from 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours per week.  Each girl will get snack each day, as well as her own t-shirt and journal.  Wanna know more about the Go Girls! Afterschool Clubs?  Maybe even find out how to bring a Club to your school or community? Check out the premiere of our Go Girls! video created by filmmaker, Angie Tures, and starring our very own Go Girls!, Ajna Singh and Sara Silverstein:

Itty Bitty Theater Workshops are back on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and will be taught by none other than Glitter & Razz co-founder, Allison Kenny. Allison, who is an expert in expressive arts and dramatic play for young children, has been on a hiatus from Glitter & Razz this year where she was focused on her work as a play therapist in the Floor Time method, working with children in the autism spectrum. She also started, grew, and managed a full program for children, youth, and families at a progressive church here in Oakland. I am so glad that she is back, I can hardly tell you.

Play in a Day Camps start up again with the first one of October 8 (followed by Oct 11 and Nov 11).  In Play in a Day Camps, kids ages 4-10 create, practice, and perform their very own play in just 1 day!

School Break Camps: When you just can’t the days off of work, send your children to us for creative learning and social/emotional exploration.  Our 2-Day Thanksgiving Gratitude Camp is Nov 22-33.  There will also be 2 sessions of Winter Holiday Camps – December 20-23 and December 27-30.

And the Fall is not just for kids!  This fall, we are hosting Family Workshops as well as workshops just for adults!

Family Workshops:

• Saturday, October 2 | 10:00am – 12:30pm | What’s Goin’ On Family Camp with Kelly Takunda Orphan Martinez | Spend time with your kids learning songs and dances from around the world.  Don’t tell me you don’t want to bang on a drum or 2.
• Saturday, November 6 | 10:00am – 12:30pm | Go Girls! For All with Lynn and Allison | You begged us to do it again and we are…gladly!  This Mother/Daughter event gives you the opportunity to play and create together as you explore the magic and power of being girls (and women).
• Saturday, October 23 | 10:00am – 6:00pm | BRAND NEW | Play in a Day for Adults and Kids | Have you ever wanted to be in a play but didn’t think you had the time?  Well, this in-depth theatrical experience, directed by me (co-founder, Lynn Johnson), is a rigorous and lovingly full day where we will explore an area of content, create an entire play from scratch, rehearse it, and then perform it that evening for a full audience.  We will be joined by professional actors and other artists to help us create our masterpiece.  The evening will include food, fun, and discussion and will change the way you think of “community theater.”

Adult Workshops:

• Make a Play. Change the World: A Professional Development Series for Education & Youth Work Professionals - 2 Sessions, Saturday August 21 and Saturday September 18 – Learn more about how to use theater and the arts to enhance students learning, build peaceful classroom, and make positive change in your communities and beyond.*The 10% Off Summer Sale does not apply to this Series.  However, the price is very right.  Just $6o for each 3 hour session or $100 when you register for both.
• Acting Class for the Wayward Revolutionary – 6 week session begins September 22 – You know you have an itch that needs to be scratched.  You are feeling less than creative.  Less than connected.  It’s time to take an Acting Class and learn the skills to change yourself and the world.  Yes, I am teaching it!

Dinner & A Show: A Parent’s Night Out | For those times when you just want a Saturday nigh (for once) to have a romantic dinner or drinks with friends.  Drop your kids off with us!  We’ll stuff ‘em full of Zachary’s Pizza and make up a play that we will perform for you when you come back to pick them up (please, don’t forget to come back and pick them up).  The second Saturday of the month beginning September 11.

And finally, we will soon announce 3 events for the Fall.  Here is the sneak preview:

• Sunday September 26 | Free Glitter & Razz Make a Play Event | Haven’t yet experienced the magic and power of Glitter & Razz? This will be a great time to try us out.
• Sunday October 31 | 3rd Annual Halloween Concert at Glitter & Razz | Artist to be announced.  But, whoever it is, come in costume prepared to dance your buns off!
• Saturday December 11 | The Bay Area Wide Go Girls! Event | The final culmination of the Go Girls! Fall Session where all Bay Area Go Girls! Afterschool Clubs come together to share their original plays with each other and the community.

Today, I bought and read Eve Ensler’s I Am An Emotional Creature from cover to cover.  It is her “manifesta” to girls all over the world to say what they want and don’t want, to resist a world that exploits them, to dance, to be their true selves, and to fight back.  It’s a book of monologues representing the voices of teenage girls from all over the world.  I read the whole thing aloud.  With a box of tissue very close by.  Here she is talking about it:

As a theater artist who believes in the power of stronger emotional connectedness to  change the world.  This book was a easy sell for me.  I am already someone who, like Ensler writes, “insists the world be theater/and loves the drama.”

But here’s the thing – and this is why I do what I do – You do not have to identify as a theater artist or an artist of any kind to “insist the world be theater.”  Theater is simply a place and space where emotions can feel safe.  Where folks can get angry and scared and dejected and elated and hopeful and brave, act on those emotions, check out the consequences, and try again.  Emotions are not only okay in the theater, they are the fuel that makes it go.  And theater allows us to look at our natural, beautiful, hideous human emotions dead in the face and say “hi, I am glad you’re here.  What do we do now?”

The world needs this.  The world needs people and places and spaces that are not afraid of human emotions but are fueled by them.  And, it doesn’t just happen in the theater.  It is happening in laboratories too.  This is why I have brought the work of Christine Carter and the Greater Good Science Center into a theater space.  Because, I think it is SO COOL that science is catching up to art and PROVING that, when we can look our emotions dead in the face and say “hi, I am glad you’re here.  What do we do next?” THEN we are stronger in making the choices that connect us to each other rather than divide us.

Christine Carter joins us tomorrow when she reads from her book.  Halfway through the book, she proclaims that parents being able to act as “emotion coaches” for their kids – teaching kids how to cope with so-called negative emotions – is “one of the most important parenting practices in the history of the universe.”

What is cool is that, she not only gives step-by-step instructions on how to do this but she also, in her scientist (not artist) way, is saying the same thing that Ensler is saying.  We have to stop telling our children, our girls AND our boys, that their emotions are wrong, unreasonable, out of control.  Our emotions, no matter how old we are, are our fuel.  They are what make us go.  Instead of trying to control our kids’ emotions, we should help them learn how to identify them, celebrate them, use them for good instead of evil.

This post is part of a series of posts as I read Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps For More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents in preparation of our event with the author, Christine Carter, PhD on March 20.  Click here for more information and to register for the event>>>

By the way, this is not me. I am WAY more beautiful.

A number of years ago, Allison and I were visiting friends in Manhattan and Allison got into a great conversation with an old college friend of hers.  They hadn’t seen each other in awhile and they were catching up on their lives since college.  They had come to learn that the world is not necessarily set up to hand happiness over to you.  Happiness is not something we are owed.  Time and experience had revealed to these post-college young women that all of us must “fight to make ourselves happy.”

In reading the 3rd and 4th Chapters of Christine Carter’s Raising Happiness, I am even more convinced of the fact that happiness is not just taught and learned, it is also actively chosen. She writes, “I have learned that throughout my day I’ll have dozens of opportunities to change direction – choose between optimism and pessimism, for example, or forgiveness and anger.  Sometimes I cruise through the intersection, missing my turn.  There are lots of possible roads, but only some of them lead to happiness.”

She writes a lot about the choices we make – the things we choose to say, do, focus, and reflect on, that make a big difference in our life and our childrens’ lives.  This is why I love using the theatrical process to teach these kinds of social/emotional skills.  The craft of making theater is all about choices.  The great actor teacher, Sanford Meisner said, “Every little moment has a meaning all its own.” An actor’s job is to be aware of every moment and recognize that she has a choice to make in that moment and that that choice will bring about a response in her fellow actors and, ultimately, with the audience.  This constant attention to these choices is what distinguishes a great actor from an okay actor.

And I believe that this constant attention to the meaning in every moment – and then making an intentional choice towards gratitude, forgiveness, passion, learning. etc. – is what distinguishes happy people from the rest.

This post is part of a series of posts as I read Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps For More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents in preparation of our event with the author, Christine Carter, PhD on March 20.  Click here for more information and to register for the event>>>

Allison and I are so excited to announce our recent membership in Cosmic Cowgirls, a woman and girl powered school based in Healdsburg, CA.  Cosmic Cowgirls is a “member owned tribe that teaches and produces educational multi-media events, books and tools that are designed to promote a vision of wellness, compassion and empowerment for women and girls.”

Our journey with Visionary Artist, Shiloh McCloud, the founder of Cosmic Cowgirls, has been one for legend.  Back in 2005, Allison and I took a road trip up the California Coast that ended in our first trip to the magical Mendocino where we stumbled upon an art gallery there and completely fell in love with the spiritual and empowering images of women in the paintings.  We left feeling as inspired by Shiloh’s art as we felt about the misty shore of the coastline.

About a year later, we walked into an Oakland church to find the same paintings gracing their walls.  “Oh my gosh…here is this Shiloh again!  We must be in the right church.”  This time, we were able to meet Shiloh in person as she, at the time, was sharing more than just her paintings with that community.  She also gave guest sermons and led these amazing groups inspiring women to fully embody our visions in the world.

We couldn’t get enough.  We then, in 2007, signed up for her Heart of the Visionary workshop that took place in Healdsburg (it’s now an online course).  This workshop was exactly what we needed at exactly the right time.  She led us through a creative process of turning our visions into business plans.  And the planning wasn’t done with spreadsheets and bar graphs.  It was done with painting and sharing conversation and chocolate cake with other women.  We took this course just a few months before we opened our Glitter & Razz Dramatic Play Space in Oakland and it was key in giving us the confidence and focus to set out on the path of making our dreams come true.

Now, here we are in 2010, 5 years after the first time we experienced the magic of Shiloh for the first time, and it’s come full circle.  We have become members of this innovative cooperative of women and girls from all over the US and Canada who are working together to empower ourselves and other women everywhere.  And, as our first collaborative project with the Cowgirls, we are bringing a week-long Go Girls! Camp up to Cosmic Cowgirls school in Healdsburg in August.

And this still feels like just the beginning.  Stay tuned…

Meanwhile, downstairs in the Glitter & Razz Dramatic Play Space, their kids will be working together to create their own original play that explores what a happy childhood means from their perspective.

Christine’s thesis is that “happiness is a skill that we can teach our children.” And this book breaks down all kinds of ways to do just that. I love everything about this because we share this same idea here at Glitter & Razz – that if we provide safe but challenging spaces for kids to learn the social and emotional skills to improve their lives now, it will serve them for life and ultimately improve the planet.

Christine says it best at the end of her introduction – “When we become better parents, our world improves measurably. In our materially rich but spiritually sparse culture, we often forget that this work we do as parents is important, essential. It matters - for our children’s well-being and for the greater good of the world.”

I am reading the book now in preparation for the event.  Get your copy now or at the event from Diesel, A Bookstore right here on College Avenue.  And please read along with me.  I will be posting stuff I find interesting as I read.  I’d love to hear your comments.

I am so proud to be part of this event.  The Make Something Party sponsored by Project Peace is all about “spending less and giving more.”

From their blog...Instead of participating in the mass buying frenzy that precedes Christmas, we’ll be providing stations where you can hand-make quality gifts for your loved ones. Give a small donation towards the cost of materials, and leave with gifts that are all the more special for the effort you’ve put into them.

I’m going to be there.  Join me.

For me, it’s dance.  I danced consistently from the time I was 4 or 5 years old all the way through high school.  In my life studying and doing theater in college and then as a professional actor in my 20’s, all of that movement training proved quite useful in all of the productions I was cast in.

Now, I am not studying dance nor am I performing in plays where I can use my dance training.  I am not even going to clubs anymore (not that I did all that much anyway).  My dancing life consists mainly of the 2 times of year when I get to go to someone’s wedding and I rock hard to The Commodores or Earth, Wind, and Fire.

But now something is shifting.  I don’t know if it’s the hundreds of hours I have spent watching So, You Think You Can Dance or it’s my approaching birthday bringing me into my late 30’s but I feel like I need to dance again.  Get back to my roots and feel good in my body again.

Roger Dillahunty shared the panel with me at last Saturday’s Teaching Artist Organized session.  Roger is a dancer and teaching artist and Executive Director of The BEAT: Berkeley Performing Arts.  He has danced all over the world, has a contagious spirit, and a strong vision for building a non-profit dance studio that serves individual dancers as well as the community.

At the end of the session, he handed me a class schedule, looked me right in the eye, and said “Please come by the studio.  I really hope to see you there!”

Maybe this is just what I need to bring myself back to life.

This post is one of the 37 I have challenged myself to post in one week (in celebration of my 37th birthday).  Join me in the challenge.

As you may or may not know, the life of the entrepreneur is quite lonely.  You spend most of your time working on your business or thinking about your business or talking to others about your business.  Most people in your life don’t get it.  So, when Rebecca called me a couple of weeks ago to introduce herself, we each knew that we had found a kindred spirit when we talked on the phone for over an hour about stuff like:

• What did you do to prepare and educate yourself when you first started your business?
• How are you using social media?
• How is it working for you?
• What are your boundaries in sharing personal information about your life when you have a business that works with kids and parents (I clearly don’t mind sharing…sorry if I have shared too much)?
• What do teaching artists just starting out need to know before entering this crazy lifestyle of the artist entrepreneur?

As a creative entrepreneur, I totally look up to Rebecca. She has a great blog that you have to follow for information and inspiration.  And, if you know how lonely it is out here, this will really help.

This post is one of the 37 I have challenged myself to post in one week (in celebration of my 37th birthday).  Join me in the challenge.

Teaching Artists Organized

This past Saturday, Oct 3rd, about 18 or so teaching artists came together at California Shakespeare Theater to discuss the business of teaching artists.  I was one of 3 on the panel who were invited to share our visions, our story of becoming artists entrepreneurs, our marketing strategies, and the professional paths that have led us to the place we are now.

Can I tell you, this was quite a cool event!  Teaching Artists Organized, led by the mighty Sabrina Klein (a friend, mentor, and supporter of mine for years), has a real passion for promoting and uplifting the field of teaching artistry with the expertise to back it up.  Much of their work is focused on the skill building and professional development of the teaching artist as teacher.  However, in this session, we examined the big picture and the nitty gritty of making a living off of this work that we all care so much about.

As the introduction to the day, Sabrina led the group through a reflective activity that was designed to illicit the underlying values that provide the foundation for why we do this work.  You may want to ask yourself these questions:

1) Describe the time in your life when you realized this would be your life’s work.

2) What is the change you are aiming to make in the world?

3) What has been your biggest surprise or discovery along your path to making this change?

4) What is your biggest joy in the work?

In a pre-session planning meeting, Sabrina, a fellow panelist, Rebecca Stees, and I talked about the difference between a self-employed teaching artist and an entrepreneur teaching artist.  The former is supporting himself to find a variety of projects that uses his expertise and fits his lifestyle.  The latter sees her business in the big picture as an entity beyond herself that makes a contribution in the community/the world.  Neither is better than the other.  The point is that, regardless how you identify, it is important to take the time and reflect of why it is you are doing this work. Create a mission statement for yourself that reflects your core values and that inspires the people you want to hire you.

Ask yourself: What is the unique contribution that you can make in the live of kids, families, and communities?

And check out this resource | The Right-Brain Business Plan

This post is one of the 37 I have challenged myself to post in one week (in celebration of my 37th birthday).  Join me in the challenge.

Gillian Laub from the New York Times

We have met and welcomed back some amazing kids this week as our Fall Afterschool Classes began.  I am very pleased by the way things went this week.  In our Itty Bitty Theater Workshops (for kids 3 1/2 – 5 years old), I showed kids that theater is about “doing stories.”  Not reading them.  Not telling them.  But, DOING them as a gift to other people.  So, we did a lot of, what I consider to be “Doing Games,” “Yes, Let’s” and “What Are You Doing” being 2 classic theater games we love for younger kids as they teach pantomime skills as well as group agreement and ensemble building.

It turns out that theater and dramatic play are also making these kids smarter.  Did you all see the article in the New York Times last week?  This article connects experience with facilitated, structured dramatic play to a young student’s ability to control their emotions, social interactions and cognitive abilities.  Here’s the quote that legitimizes everything we are doing at Glitter & Razz in the world of academe…“that the key to developing self-regulation is play, and lots of it. But not just any play. The necessary ingredient is,,, ‘mature dramatic play’: complex, extended make-believe scenarios, involving multiple children and lasting for hours, even days. If you want to succeed in school and in life…spend hour after hour dressing up in firefighter hats and wedding gowns, cooking make-believe hamburgers and pouring nonexistent tea, doing the hard, serious work of playing pretend.”

We also premiered our first ever Go Girls! Afterschool Club yesterday afternoon.  It was awesome.  7 girls between the ages of 7 and 10 came together to start learning more about themselves, each other, and the magic and power of being a girl.  We created “What Brings Us Joy” solo dances and collaged the outside of the journals we will be using during the 10-week session.  We started to talk a little about the play we will be creating together.  I explained to them that, I didn’t know what our play would be about but that it would be something “important.”

My plan is for the session to be an experience in project-based learning where the girls will create a play in response to a problem that is important to them.  Our brainstorming of problems ranged from friends getting other friends in trouble to tsunamis to smoking and drug use.  Next week, we will determine the focus of our examination and then we will do some research and engage people and resources in the community to actually use our girl power to help towards the solution of our problem.

See how we are helping make your kids smarter and more engaged in their communities?  And you thought we just did plays.