"By the Seashore" opens July 13th, 2017 at The Lab at Convergence! We can't wait to share it with you.
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"By the Seashore" opens July 13th, 2017 at The Lab at Convergence! We can't wait to share it with you.
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Summer means a lot of delightful things, but chief among them, in our humble opinion, is SIDEWALK CHALK! We found some extra fun ideas for the whole family here!  And we love following this little guy's adventures!  (Also, we would love to find a river with bookfish in it!) We also came across some great recommendations for books to inspire kids to make their own art, including a sidewalk chalk story.  Keep us posted about your own sidewalk creations! You can post photos in the comments here, or hit us up on twitter - @aoth_alx!
We found some beautiful ways to foster and exercise empathy this week and just wanted to compile them all here as resource and reminder. Central to what we do is the desire to cultivate big open hearts in children, and in the grownups they'll become. We want all children to see themselves in the world, and to see the world in each other. -"Students learn struggles faced by those with disabilities" http://www.kvue.com/mb/news/local/students-learn-struggles-those-with-disabilities-face/444289512 -"Children’s books featuring kids of color being themselves. Because that’s enough." https://medium.com/embrace-race/childrens-books-featuring-kids-of-color-being-themselves-because-that-s-enough-36aa15c94d44 -"Teaching Children Empathy" https://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/teaching-children-empathy/?_r=0 Please feel free to share with us the tools that you have found, too! We make a brighter world *together.*   We have been excitedly following friends and colleagues reporting back from the ASSITEJ World Congress and International Theatre Festival for young people this week in Capetown, South Africa. There are representatives from over 100 countries, discussing ideas and practices as well as sharing performances, and over 10,000 children will get to experience plays this week! Our pal, TYA director, educator and leader Rives Collins, shared this with us from his time there:
"There is a passion here coming from around the world that asserts that young children have the right to experience the fullness of the arts. There are magical productions here celebrating artistry for early childhood. Some of the plays have no words. Others make use of beautiful puppets. Some of them feature very sophisticated musical scores. Very talented artists from around the globe are harnessing their gifts in the service of the very young. In case you know someone who needs an infusion of wonder, I don't think there's a better antidote to the boredom and cynicism of adult life then a healthy dose of theater for the very young." We could not agree more! We are handing the reins over to one of our makers this week, to get a little glimpse into the process of creation! Here we go... *** Hiya! I'm Tia, proud original AOTH company member and creator or co-creator of Out of the Box, Under the Canopy, Space-Bop, and now, Outside the Lines! (I clearly like to be inside and outside of things. And also...in space....) I was asked to share some of my Outside the Lines inspiration. This piece began like most of mine do, with a few tiny ideas. Michelle Kozlak approached me about writing a piece that would involve projections, tango music, and a celebration of bodies and lines. For those of you who know/remember Odyssey of the Mind, this puzzle delighted me and brought me back to 6th grade geekery;). Here are some of the first images I collected. I tend to work off images first:    Lines and bodies made me think of connection. We are all made up of the same basic lines....and then there is the line of distance between two bodies. I thought about how we can bridge this distance with more lines - lines of writing. I had two penpals growing up. One followed me through part of elementary school, another through junior high, high school and even into college. It is highly likely that I will never meet these ladies. But those connections we forged just through our storytelling...they meant and mean so much to me. Receiving those letters through the years was a thrill every time! So this piece became about a pair of penpals, whose lives are projected onto each other through their shared stories.
*** "Outside the Lines" had an exciting first workshop last month, and will premiere spring of next year with another of our favorite collaborators, "Point A to Point B"'s Megan Alrutz, directing! We can't wait to see what this piece becomes with the cumulative imaginations of our creator, director, actors, musicians, designers...and littles. Whew, it's been a busy (but wonderful!) few weeks here, with our Helen Hayes-recommended run of "Nutt and Bolt" and our big annual fundraiser, Spring2Action. Both went better than we could have asked for, and we are ready to kick off a new week with some MAGIC. We got interested in transformations recently...specifically, how art has transformed neglected places. There are so many beautiful examples to be found! We found a 100-year-old crumbling church that was turned into a work-of-art skate park...  Old Spanish storefronts that were suddenly blooming with embroidered flowers...   Perhaps a space or moment in your week will suddenly be turned into vibrant loveliness. It's a nice goal we might just keep for ourselves, too.... It is the first official day of spring! The first thing we thought of was this beautiful installation of illuminated daffodils, honoring nurses:  In our further search for spring-y art, another installation abroad captured our imaginations: the Serpentine Pavilion.  Don't you want to walk into that?? We would love to set a baby show there! These last artworks feel like spring underwater to us. (Maybe these would be the creatures you would meet in that Pavilion in our show!;)  Happy spring, everyone!!
For a different kind of spring, come visit our upcycled robots, "Nutt & Bolt!" We open "Nutt and Bolt" in just over a week! Hooray! So today, we celebrate the magic of ROBOTS. This fellow is referred to as a "time traveling robot" on the showeredandblueblazered tumblr. We love imagining his classy adventures...   French sculptor Gille Monte Ruici makes robot sculptures out of recycled materials. Perfect for "Nutt and Bolt," our first completely upcycled show!  We are nuts for robots! If you are local, we hope to see you in the Arts on the Horizon junkyard soon:).
This week's magic is brought to you by the fact that UNDERWATER MUSEUMS exist! Take a look:  There are a few of these dreamlike collections of sculpture by Jason DeCaires Taylor out there. This piece can be found in Lanzarote, Spain. So we went on a little search for other underwater and underwater-inspired art! This is a painting of something not necessarily *under* the water, BUT it is a painted tea bag. From a whole collection of painted tea bags by Ruby Silvious. And tea bags spend time...under water;).  A fantastical ocean-depths railway by illustrator Michael Raaflaub:   Have a magical week on dry land! It feels like an especially good time to celebrate and spread the magic of KINDNESS. We found 3 companies/individuals doing just that in especially creative ways... Doll Kind donates a doll to a less fortunate child for every doll purchased...plus each doll comes with tokens for the kiddos to pass around in an act of day-brightening!  The Magic Wand Project is a bit of "guerilla goodness" that grownups, children or the whole family can engage in!  And this Nashville art teacher had students collaborating across a few grades to create a Village of Kindness!  Thank *you* for your own acts of kindness, whatever size and shape they take. |
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