Arts Learning

ARENA DANCES conducted residencies at 4 schools linking students with professional artists and area senior citizens as students explored through movement how technology has changed our culture. These outcomes were achieved through intergenerational classes and/or elderly interview processes, depending on the schools involved. Pre-residency homework of viewing Sherry Turkle's Ted Talk on the subject as well as Douglas Rushkoff's PBS Frontline program called Generation Like were viewed as a jumping off point for the dialog, asking the question does Main Street still exist? In order to understand what main street is in present society the past observations of the elders aided in giving perspective. Social dances of the past were shared by the elders and present day social dances were shared by the youth. Evaluations were handed out for feedback at the end of each session. Daily feedback was received and utilized as well. 2: Intergenerational outreach arts learning opportunities are extremely rare and our topic of wanting to share the past before technology (even before the TV), present of how we are living with technology, and of how we can make a more neighborly future by bringing aspects of the past into present day to utilize and integrate technology- not let it use us. With this program we were able to engage more Minnesotans in arts learning, majority of them being exposed to dance for the very first time, let alone, the 1940s and 50s style of social dancing. This was all evaluated through final day printed answers as well as hand written short stories, drawings or reflections about the weeks residency activities.