Arts Learning

The student community we served was very diverse (Karen, African American students, Asian). In our final performance we had 8 students, but over the course of the program we involved 18 students. We did reach the community but it was difficult to keep them involved due to a variety of things. We did new things to increase involvement, and are getting better at knowing how to talk to kids about participating and where to reach them. Our performances over-reached our expectations. We performed three times- first for a VERY Diverse student summer school audience (which was also recruiting for future programs) which was very receptive and responsive; a "Rosetown audience" which was a performance advertised to our database and was very well attended with a variety of ages; and a performance at Woodbridge Apartments, which brought in many diverse community members and families of students. The audience reactions and anecdotal comments after seeing the show were very positive. The Karen traditional song and dance, hearing Dah Salween play an instrument which was built in a refugee camp and brought with to the US was amazing, and the stories shared about what was "in their bag" and how it got there were moving and funny. In the three performances we probably reached. Locating the project at the school where kids were attending morning summer school was huge in making it accessible. Embedding the project/program into an existing program would even further increase participation and accessibility. Eighteen students chose and performed their own stories and found an increase in performance skills, confidence, agency, cultural sensitivity, and cultural understanding.