Glitter & Razz Blog

What's Goin' On Campers at Frog Park

Week 2 feels different than Week 1.  We are all closer than we were last week at this time.  With that closeness comes more trust, more kind words, more comfort sharing our voices, our art, our stories.

The closeness also brings more giggles when we teachers may not think they are totally appropriate, more arguments over who gets to sit next to whom, and generally more distractions that make it a little more challenging to prepare for the big show.

But, it all comes with the territory.  And, for better or for worse, we have kicked into a higher gear as we rehearse, refine, and put ourselves in the same position that every other type of artist does when they are doing the hard work of making the best possible art for an audience.

FROM KELLY:

African dance is such a beautiful expression of humanity! I love to watch Masankho work with the students, teaching them about weight exchange, expression, intention and how we honor our ancestors through the dance.

Last week, I told the kids about my own personal experience with African Dancing and Drumming:

I moved to Zimbabwe in 1994 to study ethnomusicology at the University of Zimbabwe. I wanted to study drumming, and my professor took me to the home of Irene Chigamba, one of the few professional female drummers, who also had her own dance company in Zimbabwe.  I told her I wanted to study drumming. She replied, “Great, but I want you to dance before you play the drum.”

“Dance? I am dyslexic, I am chubby, I don’t want to study dance,” I thought to myself.

I replied, “I am not a dancer. I am a musician.” She said, “NO! You are an artist. In Zimbabwe, the Shona word “kutamba” means to drum, dance and sing.” There is no separation; these are the art forms we have been given at birth.

For sixth months, I did nothing but dance and sing. I didn’t drum for a long time. She would train me fairly aggressively (throwing sticks towards my direction if I failed-and that happened often!); I would end up in tears and want to give up. Often, the local women of the village knew the “Murungu” (white woman) was coming to learn dance, and they would often bring their knitting, and watch me and laugh! It was one of the most humbling, but one of the most healing experiences of my life.

Now I am still a bit shy dancing, but I know that it changed my life (I’m not nearly as dyslexic in my dancing!), and I learned the drumming for those Zimbabwean dances in just a few days, because I already had the rhythm inside my body!

With the inspiration of KUTAMBA, we asked our students to choose which song they will drum, dance and sing. We have three African dances and songs they will perform. All the students are dancing, drumming and singing. It’s inspiring to see them move, then drum and sing! I am looking forward to the concert this Friday!

On Friday of last week, we all had the opportunity to meet with muralist and Glitter & Razz teaching artist, Martin Brecht, to start creating our altar.  Inspired by the song, Ancestor’s Breath, he gave each kid a long strip of paper and asked them to think about the people, animals, and places that came before them.  They used pencil, crayon, oil pastel, paint, even glue and collage to represent a variety of images.  The kids have been working on it all week so far and it is going to be beautiful when it’s done.

This week, our staff gained Tacuma King, who is back again at What’s Goin’ On.  He is definitely a camp favorite as he teaches kids drumming with rigor, enthusiasm, and lots and lots of humor.  I haven’t gotten a video of his class yet, but I will, I promise.

Here are some more pics from our trip to Frog Park last week…

Monday is our first Play in a Day Camp in honor of the life and work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  I decided that the theme of the day will be peace and freedom.  We haven’t done this particular theme yet so I am up this morning doing some research.  I, of course, first went to the Teaching Tolerance website.  Their stuff is an amazing resource to teachers and us teaching artists.  They are high quality teaching materials that they provide mostly for free.  Any of you who are exploring issues of diversity with your work will definitely want the get connected to these folks.

So, I am definitely inspired.  Here is an activity I am looking at called Freedom Flag.  What I like about it is that it uses multiple art forms – music, words, and collage.  The purpose of the activity is to engage kids in a discussion of freedom to get to heart of what it actually means.  I was challenged by figuring out how to do this so this is is good start.  However, I will have to adapt the activity…here’s why…

“Using red, white and blue construction paper, create a class “Freedom Flag,” by writing the key words for freedom on strips of red and white paper…”

Using red, white and blue construction paper?!?  How are kids supposed to learn about freedom if we tell them they can only use 3 colors in their flag?  Actually, limiting it to 3 colors is not the problem.  That’s actually a nice parameter.  The problem is that we are telling them which 3 colors they can use.  I understand that these are the colors of the US flag as it currently exists but the purpose of teaching kids art is teaching them how to notice things that exist and comment on it in their own way.

To me, freedom is being able to be and create your true self without anyone else imposing on you what they think that is.  I might say to the group, “we are going to create our own flag that represents our own freedom here in Oakland at Glitter & Razz.  Our flag should have 3 colors.  What 3 colors should we use to create this flag.  What 3 colors would represent us?”  And then take them through a process of voting as a group.  Now, the activity is teaching democracy in action through a creative process.  It is also helping them build their identity as part of a community.  It even provides a fertile ground to discuss dissent (”yuck, I don’t like pink!”) and how important it is to freedom.

I will run it by Martin, our art teacher, and see what he says.  And I will keep researching to figure out how to take this same idea into our creative movement and drama classes.  Either way, I am very excited about this.

Oh, another little criticism about Teaching Tolerance…they do not seem too friendly to those of us who work for ourselves…their free materials go to classroom teachers, administrators, church leaders, and employees of non-profits.  You even need a signature from some boss.  Maybe I will contact them and let them know about us small business artists who are doing important work with kids too.

Maybe we’ll see you Monday.

Itty Bitty Quote of the Day: “Why is there so much having fun here?!?”

We have reached our last week of Glitter & Razz camp for the summer.  It’s been a long and GREAT summer and we are wrapping it up with our final Itty Bitty Arts Camp.  The theme…”Onceuponatime & Ever After.”  This is a fun one.  It’s a week where we are inspired by our favorite stories and books to create stories of our own.  As the week goes on, we will talk about what stories are, how they are structured, why they important, and what we learn from them.

Today has been a day a day of introductions.  In our Move & Groove (creative movement class) with the extraordinary teacher, Spring Berlandt, we played a lot of games that helped us learn each other’s names and explore different storybook characters with our bodies including Pegasus and Darth Vader.

Our Drama Classes with Cassie Powell are already beginning to create the plays they will perform at the end of the week.  Each creative kid was asked to think about their favorite stories and where those stories take place.  Then, they gave each other “tours” of those places on stage.  This was a great way to practice leading and following at the same time teaching young actors what a set is and how they are created on stage to help the enhance the story they are acting out.

Just a brief word about Cassie.  Cassie has been teaching with us since Dec 09 and she truly is a “creative genius.”  She is very successful in giving each kid an opportunity to contribute their own creative voice while at the same time, always insisting on a high standard of collaborative skills.  This is not an easy feat with this age group as they are just beginning to learn the skills associated with generosity, forgiveness, and peaceful conflict resolution.  Cassie will be moving down to San Mateo in the fall to be a full-time drama teacher during the school day (lucky them).  But she will be back for some of our Play in a Day Camps.  (If you know anyone in San Mateo, let us know.  We are working to hook up an afterschool class down there.)

In Magic Messes (our art class), Martin Brecht dove right in with having each kid create their own story books.  They talked about how books contain both words and stories and each kid, even the ones who can’t yet write, were supported to add at least some words to their books.  And there were, of course, lots of pictures.  Cool ones.  Today, they started with pencil but, knowing Martin, I am sure there is lots of color in store for tomorrow.

I definitely want to celebrate Sara, our Junior Junior Youth Intern today.  Sara might win the award for most Glitter & Razz camps attended (if we had that award).  She is almost 9 and was most recently in our Go Girls! Theater Camp.  Her moms really needed a place for her to be this week before school starts next week and asked of if we could take her.  We are so glad that we said yes.  Sara has been one of the best helpers we have had.  She knows exactly what her role is this week as she plays with the kids and helps the teachers hand out materials.  At Kids Choice, she was even witnessed coaching a couple of Itty Bitties through a dispute.  One of the kids even called her “teacher.”  Very cool.

Sara and Martin in conference during Magic Messes class

In addition to our classes, we were very lucky to be able to use the playground of our good neighbor, Rockridge Little School.  The school is on a break so our after lunch Kids Choice will be outside all week!  Hooray!

Another favorite time of day is storytime with our Assistant Teaching Artist, Cinda.  Today’s story was the very popular, “The Patch.” By the way, if parents ever want to come in and read a story to us during this time, you are very welcome.  Sign-ups are at the sign in/out desk when you come in.

"Please use nice words about your art because art has feelings too." -Martin to a 6 year old boy

I am delighted and honored to introduce you to our new visual art teacher, Martin Brecht.  Martin is an experienced educator, artist, and soccer fanatic originating from Pittsburgh, PA.  He began working with us for our summer camps 2009 after relocating from Brooklyn, NY.  He completed a New York City Teaching Fellowship in 2006, earning a master’s degree in Urban Education while teaching art at Public School 94 in the Lower East Side to students with autism and emotional disabilities. Currently, Martin works at Malcolm X Elementary School in Berkeley and volunteers any spare time coaching soccer at Oakland International High School with Soccer Without Borders.

Martin is a priceless addition to our Glitter & Razz family!   He will be teaching our first ever Magic Messes classes (for ages 4-10) on Saturday mornings at Glitter & Razz starting Oct 3.  He will also be leading a special 2-day workshop called Living Murals where elementary school-aged kids will tell their own visual stories of the Bay Area on the back wall of the Glitter & Razz stage!

What does Martin have to say for himself?

What made you want to become an artist?
In college I had to choose a major and my favorite class was art history. The next semester I signed up for Studio Art 101, declared my major, and committed to living the life of an artist. Additionally, my father was an art major in college but couldn’t finish and in some ways I felt like I was picking up where he left off.

Describe your art.
My paintings, printmaking, drawings, and murals are inspired by my work in arts education. I had little training before college so in many ways I learned about art by teaching it. After four years of teaching children with autism and emotional disabilities in one of New York City’s “persistently dangerous schools”, my art became chaotic, abstract, and colorfully obsessive. I feel I am at my best when I creatively combine a variety of mediums with the help of collage or digital technology.

Why is it important to you to work with children doing art?
I am lost as an artist without an art teaching gig. Most of my inspiration comes from working with children. Their experience of art is so raw and uncorrupted. Giving up on their dreams hasn’t even occurred to them yet and I make it habit to surround myself with people like this, no matter the age!

What made you want to work for Glitter & Razz?
I am learning to design and paint murals so making set designs for plays seemed like good practice. I also never went to summer camp as a child because my mom is a teacher and my sisters, brother, and I spent the summer with her at home. Part of me thought it would be fun to finally go!

Why do you like working as a teaching artist at Glitter & Razz?
I enjoy the endless creativity that comes with each group of campers. I also value the supportive, collaborative work environment that exists at Glitter & Razz. I am thrilled to be around such positive energy on a daily basis.

What’s next on your journey as a teaching artist?
First, I plan on formalizing our individual Magic Messes projects into more of a comprehensive curriculum for Glitter & Razz- oh and did I mention- I plan on teaching it! Next, I am coordinating a trip to Guatemala for the Spring to teach art and soccer to an indigenous Mayan community through a non-profit I volunteer with, Soccer Without Borders.

Anything else we should know?
Believe me (I am a teacher), I could go on and on….

Sign your kid up now>>>