Theater Residencies Provide Student Self-Exploration Around Identity, Culture, and Movement

After years of co-facilitating artist residencies with a variety of our PS theater partners, this school year we expanded these opportunities to help partner teachers continue to provide great arts experiences within virtual and in-person classrooms. The residency program experiences can include writing, dancing, performing, presenting in-class, learning percussion, as well as engaging in other artistic activities. By the end of these educational and interactive programs, students have increased encouragement and creative tools to express themselves.

The James Sewell Ballet, Northrop, and the Ragamala Dance Company are all choreography-based residencies. High schoolers were able to come into the classroom (whether it was in-person or virtual), do some choreography exercises, and explore what their choreography voice or style is. With James Sewell Ballet in particular, South High students got to experience three different choreographers perform, and students witnessed how their movements differed, and what that could mean for their own routines they were making. A residency highlight was when James Sewell himself came into the classroom and worked directly with the students on their own routines. For Northrop and Ragamala Dance Company, students who participated in their residencies had the opportunity to watch performances from those theaters that coincided with all they learned.

Theater Mu is a returning residency partner with their Mu Stories program. For five weeks students participated in 10 sessions where they explored their own personal experiences and histories to create a script that they were able to perform for their families and peers.

Morgan, an artist partner teacher from Theater Mu, had this to say, “A lot of times, youth who don’t see themselves reflected in mainstream media can experience cultural otherness and they might come to the conclusion that their stories are not worth sharing. So, Project Success has been so valuable in bringing us into contact with a lot of youth in the cities with diverse experiences and backgrounds. So that we can work with them to build confidence in sharing their stories.”

“I was present in a classroom, a really wonderful moment, when we all went around the classroom, it was our very first time introducing ourselves and got to share our names and something that we loved about our cultures. And what was really exciting about that was that nobody seemed shy about sharing what they loved about their cultures…[what they loved] spanned a range of things from tangible items, like food or clothing, to music, to traits that they felt pride in, like working hard or remembering their elders. It was really just so wonderful to see them actually feeling proud enough to say these things about themselves and to say, ‘Yes, I love this about me.’“