Session Block 6

Saturday, July 24th, 3:15-4:30pm (EDT)

All of the Session Blocks will be hosted on Zoom Meeting. You will be sent an email, 24 hours prior to the next day's events, which will contain all of the log-on details for each event. As in an in-person Conference, please feel free to select whichever workshop you would like to attend in the moment.

Network: Youth Theatre

Consent and Staged Intimacy Best Practices for High School Theatre

Session Chair: Alli St. John 

In this panel, join Alli St. John as she shares her developing research around consent and staged intimacy practices in high school theatre programs. An MFA in Theatre for Youth student, Alli has spent the last two years developing best practices for high school theatre educators for navigating working with intimate moments, building a culture of consent in the rehearsal room, and breaking down traditional power dynamics. In this 75-minute panel discussion, attendees will learn about the best practices, how it was developed, and hear about the data collected from a focus group of high school theatre students discussing consent, intimacy, and their personal experiences in their theatre programs. Key questions and concepts covered will be:How do we break down traditional power dynamics in the classroom so students feel empowered to speak up for themselves?How do high school theatre students understand and practice consent in the theatre classroom?How do we create a culture of consent in rehearsals and classrooms?How can high school theatre students be co-designers in the development of best practices?What is the difference between obedience and consent?

Network: Applied Theatre 

Time Travel at Eastlake Park: Tools For Community-Based Performance

Session Chair: Claire K. Redfield and Dontá McGilvery 

Other Presenter(s): Evan LeBlanc and Alicia Johnson 

This session follows the working methodology of community-based theatre company Sleeveless Acts, as we explore and share tools from our piece "Celebration Eastlake," an original play devised for Zoom with members of Phoenix's historic Eastlake Park neighborhood. Eastlake Park is a site of justice and activism with such legendary figures speaking there as Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Cesar Chavez, and Rosa Parks (to name a few). The park was also once the only public park where African Americans could go for recreation in the city of Phoenix. In this session, we will lead participants on an interactive time travel journey through the historic and current Eastlake Park through storytelling, participant interviews, and sharing of devising techniques. Come learn about the monuments, legacy, and heritage of Eastlake Park while looking to the future of community-based theatre.

Network: College/University/Research

Reimagining and Redefining Professionalism: Finding Your Voice While Cultivating Authenticity and Agency for BIPOC youth

Session Chairs: Courtney Manning and Audrey Castaneda Walker

As educators, scholars, and pedagogical practitioners it is imperative to work towards fostering an inclusive environment for our BIPOC students. However, historically white supremacy in the form of Higher education has created a certain “status quo” of professionalism that has negatively affected BIPOC and first-generation students. As the rise of a new cultural revolution has engulfed higher educational institutions across the United States, we have to ask ourselves: What is classified as professionalism? Who are the people in power and how have we accommodated their demands? How have BIPOC individuals sacrificed their identity for more eurocentric standards within these professional settings? How does all of this trickle-down or affect youths in arts education? Through this session, fellow graduate students Courtney Manning (UT Texas) and Audrey Castañeda Walker (UHMānoa) will tackle this conversation in this workshop targeting educators and teaching artists both BIPOC and non to formulate a critical lens at three stages: introspection, the self to the world, and the self to the youth audiences we engage with.

Network: Applied Theatre

Prioritizing Impact over Intent: Teaching Artists' Role in Building an Ensemble Culture of Generosity and Accountability

Session Chair: Faith Hillis 

Other Presenter(s): Laura Epperson

When creating ensemble agreements with participants, applied theatre artists increasingly recognize the importance of naming that "intent does not equal impact." Some artists and activists go a step further to argue that “impact should be prioritized over intent. But what do these ideas actually look like in practice? What can teaching artists do to build and maintain an ensemble culture of both generosity and accountability? In this interactive workshop, participants will investigate these questions through performance-based reflection and discussion. Presenters will offer a brief overview of their recent project working with young artists to devise an original performance piece that explores racial and gender (in)justice. Building on this performing justice framework, session participants will examine various real-life scenarios in which someone's words/actions created a harmful impact on other participants, teaching artists, and/or the project focus of racial and gender justice. Together we will discuss and perform possible interventions that might honor the different lived experiences and identities of participants, while also challenging participants to expand their critical consciousness of race and gender. The session will culminate in participants and presenters sharing best practices and remaining questions about how to build an ensemble culture of both growth and accountability.

Network: College/University/Research

Creating Reality; Critical Performative Pedagogy as Inquiry

Session Chair: Gustave Weltsek 

Other Presenter(s): Calre Hammoor 

This panel shares the ways in which emergent youth identity may be observed and articulated through the use of a critical performative pedagogical lens where classrooms are perceived as spaces where students and teachers perform and imagine multiple social realities and texts addressing political issues, moving beyond superficial understandings of difference, the other, or assumed nave notions of empowerment and instead explore the embedded multiplicity of discourses (Weltsek & Medina, 2007: 8). Using data drawn over six years across three IRB approved devised theatre projects the scholars use Critical Discourse Analysis (Gee, 2017), Emergent Literacy theory (Leander & Boldt, 2016), and aspects of Postcolonial (Fitzpatrick, 2017) and Posthumanism (Barard, 2017) theory as a means to identify moments of participant agency.

Network: K-8

Make It Count!: Teaching Math & Science Through Theatre

Session Chair: Kendra Kahl 

Join us for a deep dive into activities that bridge the divide between the arts and sciences. This workshop will have participants on their feet with percentages, geometry, energy waves, and more! Come with your creative toolbox and be prepared to participate in movement exercises. Kendra Kahl will share activities and games, unit lesson plans, and role drama ideas for classroom use in arts integration lessons with math and science core curriculum. Content will be drawn from PreK and elementary grades standards with some application and modification possible for middle grades. If you are an educator looking for activities to extend a particular math or science standard or learning outcome, bring your questions!

Network: K-8

Demystifying Arts Integration: An Opening Minds through the Arts (OMA) Model

Session Chair: Robin Cannon Colwell 

Other Presenter(s): Chiara Lovio and Kimberly Chaffin 

In an ever-changing educational climate, how can we connect and strengthen the expertise of classroom teachers, principals, teaching artists, and arts integration specialists to best serve students through arts integration? How can we spark curiosity through inquiry-based learning? What is our responsibility as arts educators to the tested subjects? How can a focus on mindfulness, cultural awareness, and multicultural programs influence integration lessons? In this hands-on session, participants will explore the different roles educators play in arts integration more deeply through the lens of the Opening Minds through the Arts (OMA) model. Through extensive brain-based research, OMA has successfully implemented an arts integration platform for the Tucson Unified School District. Participants will have the opportunity to learn more about OMA's model as they navigate questions from the field and explore successful activities linked directly to tested standards. Join OMA Arts Integration Specialists and Teaching Artists as they share best practices and ignite conversation about the future of arts integration.

Network: Professional Theatre

Sparking a Monumental Shift, the decolonization of Fuse

Session Chair: Stacey Ardelean 

Other Presenter(s): Haleyann Hart, Armando Torres-Dahan, Nick Malakhow, and Hedvig Flores

It started with a spark . . . an idea fueled and inspired by the recent racial reckoning and a vision of a more inclusive, connected, and equitable artistic landscape. The SPARKS Artistic Circle is a cohort of artists from multidisciplinary backgrounds who serve as the new creative compass for Fuse Theatre and help direct the artistic activities and goals of the organization. This panel session focuses on the creation of this new group - from initial idea to member recruitment and actualization - in an effort to deconstruct the traditional hierarchical structures of theatre/arts-based organizations to one focused on higher transparency and artist engagement. In an effort to decolonize the traditional structure of the company, Fuse is moving towards becoming an artist-driven and directed organization.  By taking small collective actions such as transitioning decision-making to artists, dividing budgetary control, and creating resource equity for artists, Fuse hopes to realize a monumental shift in the organizational model of the company.  Like our national monuments create space for reflection and remembrance, the Sparks collective creates space to reflect, challenge and shift our traditional administrative structure.   We capture this moment in Fuse's history where institutions are reconciling with entrenched, oppressive, and unquestioned practices.  Sparks members will share their personal stories and reflections on the process of initiating this work.  Small and large group discussions will follow a short presentation.