I MADE IT TO THE SUMMIT WITH ALEXANDER

This vlog is from Marissa Byers, pictured here as Deepish in Open Dream's Big Shoes! (Be sure to click the word "vlog"in the previous sentence as it will take you to the video portion of this post.

Cameron and I decided to make a day trip up Stone Mountain, NC. There were so many parallels to Open Dream thematically that I had to link our adventure to Big Shoes and the subject content we use for our residencies as teaching artists.

IT'S BACK TO SCHOOL FOR THE OPEN DREAM ENSEMBLE!

This post is from Open Dream Ensemble artist Julianne Harper. This is Julianne's fourth season in Open Dream and as you can see from the photo, she is a pro at working with children during our residencies!


Our Teaching Artist training began this week, and let me be the first to tell you, I've had a few "Are you Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" moments while brushing up on K-5th grade science curriculum. Relearning information old and discovering information new, has my curiosity and imagination fully engaged! There are so many exciting parallels to the arts and sciences. We are hard at work developing ways to use music, theater and dance to help further the understanding of earth's life cycles, ecosystems and fossilization processes. The hope is that an observer of our class will gain new understanding of creative thought and performance art while solidifying lessons learned in this year's Science curriculum. The student will leave the class with an equally enhanced understanding of each!

Residency Assesment Report

This post is from Open Dream Ensemble's General Manager, Rebecca Nussbaum.

It’s January in North Carolina so rather than snow, we are getting grey, drippy days. These are good days for thinking and reflecting as Open Dream Ensemble gears up for an eighth season. And, as if on cue this drippy day, the final report on our residency work arrived!

One new element to Season Seven was having an outside evaluator assess our residency work. Why? Because we wanted to better understand what happens over the course of a residency and some of the whys and hows of it. In order to improve, it becomes, at some point, necessary to see what is happening through neutral eyes trained to look at and understand the goings-on.

Open Dream Ensemble Residencies include integration that connects to the essential standards in science and the performing arts. Activities are created that incorporate arts and science concepts. Each day of the residency the Open Dream artists (teamed in pairs of two, mixed by gender and primary art form where possible) go into classrooms and work with elementary students on understanding science through active arts participation.

We undertook an evaluation that would look at three prongs of the residency. The first was looking at student learning and perceived knowledge as well as their attitudes about science and theater arts. The second was looking at classroom teacher reaction to the residency work. The third, was trying to understand the impact of working in a residency situation on the artist of Open Dream Ensemble.

Having a better understanding of all these elements allows for improved residency work on all three fronts. I m learning a great deal from the report and appreciate having more information as plans for teaching artist training and residency structure are considered for the upcoming season.

Included below are the preface and Executive Summary from the report. I do want to thank Debbie Randolph for her great, through, thoughtful and thought-provoking work on this assessment! I will be spending many of my quite January hours in reflection on how to improve the important work Open Dream Ensemble does in the schools of North Carolina.


PREFACE
This evaluation of the Open Dream Ensemble is an important contribution to our understanding of the roles of the arts in learning content in other disciplines. There are simply too few studies of arts integration efforts for us to know what works best and how. This evaluation shows the success of the program in achieving its goals for student learning and in having positive effects on both the artists and the teachers. It also does so for an art form that has not had systemic study as a form of arts integration. The fact that an ensemble art form generated these effects is a testimony to the promise of this approach to arts integration. It is also notable that Open Dream Ensemble built an evaluation into its efforts. Open Dream now knows more about its work but as importantly Open Dream Ensemble also has something to say more broadly because it sought a rigorous evaluation. Open Dream Ensemble has proven itself and challenges other arts integration efforts to do likewise. This challenge needs to be met. We can thank the UNC School for the Arts and the Open Dream Ensemble for issuing it.

George W. Noblit. Joseph R. Neikirk Distinguished Professor of Sociology of Education, School of Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Students: To reach students through the arts and enliven science learning. MET IN ALL SCHOOLS
Artists: To help professional artists build skills as teaching artists and impart an enthusiasm for the arts and learning on the schools where they work. MET IN ALL SCHOOLS
Teachers: To help teachers recognize that there are ways to integrate the arts into curriculum in order to make learning deeper and more active. MET IN MOST SCHOOLS


Students
1200 Students served by residencies
+35 Average point increase in 3rd grade science vocab quiz mean score
77% Teachers who agreed that students increased their interest in science because of the residency

Artists
Working across art forms increased knowledge, confidence and risk taking
Demanding pace, intellectual rigor prepared artists for careers
Collaboration provided opportunities to negotiate relationships

Teachers
92% Teachers who agreed the residencies were successful
Teachers learned strategies for integrating the arts and science
81% Teachers who plan to extend ideas generated through residencies into the classroom

Fun Times at Benton Heights

This post is from the lovely dancing robot-lady, Julianne Harper.



So...we just finished up our wonderful first week at Benton Heights Elementary! Ian & I are working with Ms. Norman's fourth grade class, Ms. Lewis' fifth grade class, Ms. Foster's fourth grade class, and I worked with Peter and Brandon in Ms. Hoover's third grade class. I want to take a moment to give all of our students a HUGE round of applause! (clap,clap,clap,clap,clap,CLAP:0)
The week was so much fun because of our students; they are all so creative, well mannered, bright, and enthusiastic. Not only did they already have a fairly comprehensive grasp on the curriculum we were covering, but every second of class time was filled with creative investigation. As as result, so many discoveries were made as well as deeper understandings of subjects that the students were not as familiar with. And bottom line...we had a lot of FUN!
Our third grade classes were able to share with each other what they had been working on during the week. We all gathered into the school's auditorium, and the kids were able to see what performing on a real stage is like. Ms. Hoover's class presented commercials that they had made up from scratch to sell soil, and let me tell you-I was ready to buy some soil!
I look forward to this week continuing with our fourth and fifth grade classes because they will have a chance to perform for each other just like the third grade. I can't wait to see what surprises each class has in store!

Benton Heights Residency Week 2!!

This post comes from Dr. Disrupto, aka Peter Shanahan. Peter is a third-year Open Dreamer and has performed various roles -- including a rapping sewage worker , tweedle-dee, Octave Chanute, Guard Robot and "Dad!" This season he has also taken on the role of our Residency Manager and Co-Tour Manager.




We've had a great first week at Benton Heights Elementary in Monroe, North Carolina; and we're ready for more! The cast returned to Benton Heights this evening and we're ready for another week. Benton Heights is an amazing school for many reasons. The arts are a core part of the school and all signs suggest they are headed in the right direction! The kids' demeanor really reflect the fact that they have plenty of creative outlets. The school offers a full spread of arts classes in drama, music, dance, and visual arts. There is a wonderful spirit of kindness and respect that seems to stem from their exposure to creativity and care. Bravo to the whole faculty at Benton Heights, an A+ school in every way!

It's also great to have the chance to really get to know the kids over a two-week residency. We're able to cover so many curriculum objectives in great detail, and it's clear the kids are really having fun and remembering what they are learning at the same time. Thanks to the amazing students and faculty at Benton Heights!

The Power of Belief

This post comes from the kind and generous-spirited Ian Antal. A recent graduate of the UNCSA School of Drama, this is Ian's first season with Open Dream Ensemble. He is pictured here as Isaac Newton in The Adventures of the Open Dream Ensemble.

If you could have a superpower, what would it be? Take a second, really think about what you might want as a skill that sets you apart from the rest of society. A certain quality of supernatural strength. Flight? Invisibility? The ability to morph into various shapes and images? Maybe you saw a power that really spoke to you in a comic book or a cartoon as a child, or something in the Harry Potter series. After thinking long enough about it and settling for a specific imaginary power, that choice reflects something special in the chooser.

Earlier this year, I finally settled on wishing I had the ability to transform into a loony-tunes-style cartoon character at will, bringing with me all the nonsensical laws of a world where logic does not rule the universe; where two plus two do not necessarily equal 4, and in fact really shouldn’t! A world where pianos and heavy-duty safes sporadically fall from the sky without causing permanent harm and damage upon landing on their victim. A world where time can be distorted and rules of nature uprooted.

In a way, I think the unconscious desire for this power during my childhood led me to the magic of the stage. Performers hold the power to create and alter life in any space they deem suitable for their work. Over the years I studied this craft with steadily increasing commitment and soon enough, I got so caught up in the technique and study of it that I ran the risk of forgetting the origin of my passion and the sense of play that initially drove me towards it.

Performing for and working with the children at various venues and schools has served as a fantastic wake-up call for my childhood connection to my profession. More specifically, the children’s ability to believe strongly in any given circumstances―whether they take place on Mars, at the center of the earth, or in a tree house―is absolutely awe-inspiring. In every venue we have performed at this season, I have observed a natural willingness from the children to be swept away by the story. And they will certainly let you know when they are not feeling quite swept away. One could not wish for more honest yet forgiving audiences.

In a conversation I had recently with Robert Beseda, the Assistant Dean of the UNCSA School of the Drama, about the beauty and ease surrounding the children’s sense of belief, he told me a wonderful story about a young boy at a performance of Peter Pan he had attended. When Peter Pan first flew into the scene, thanks to the skilled use of the theater’s fly system, the young boy sitting in front of Robert leapt and stood on his seat, grasped his head with his hands, and let out a jubilant “WwwooOOoooww!” I wouldn’t say that I have altogether lost that sense of play and drop-of-the-hat belief that this child was exemplifying so ecstatically, but I certainly remember it being MUCH more accessible to me as a child. So when did I start allowing doubt and skepticism to cloud my imagination?

During the training at UNCSA I became acquainted with a very useful tool for giving your imagination a good stretch: the red nose. The comedy associated with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton reflects the world of the red nose very well. The nose brings with it child-like openness, playful positivity, and pure innocence. When wielded appropriately, the red nose holds an immense power to captivate audiences. More often than not, a simple shift of the clown’s eyes will tell all that needs to be told. Most importantly, the nose is fueled by imagination and belief. Thus, just like in the movie “The Mask,” starring Jim Carrey, ANYTHING becomes possible in the world of the nose. The only boundaries are set by the limits of your imagination. Suddenly the rules of time and space needn’t apply, and we can waltz with Mr. Keaton and Mr. Chaplin, picnic with Roger Rabbit, glide the skies with Peter Pan, you name it!

The chance to put the nose to work in classrooms of 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th graders was IR-RE-SISTIBLE! What other way to learn more about the clown within me could possibly match the splendor of working with the world’s finest imaginarians?! The joy and commitment the children expressed while interacting with the clown―be it while tossing an invisible ball of various sizes and weights back and forth or by reacting to the imaginary smells a tissue-paper-flower might have―revitalized my visceral childhood connection to acting in the matter of a few heartbeats. Over the course of these first residencies, the class clown routines have been refined and developed further, to the point where the class is improvising together for 30 minutes with various games using no more than 5 words―andante, presto, largo, piano, and forte (grunts, squeals, and whistles not included). The nose gives everyone the chance to go somewhere extraordinary with the sheer power of belief. Julianne (my teaching artist partner) and I discovered that the clown effectively warms up the children’s bodies and imaginations, as well as their focus and attention to detail, rendering them that much more receptive to the science curriculum we cover.

When I see the children’s eyes SO engaged in the game of learning, I think back to my 3^rd grade homeroom teacher, who thought it wise to pull my head back one day and caution me very directly with the words “don’t be funny” in reference to my efforts as the class clown. Without Mrs. Geary’s advice, I may never have developed into the professional class clown I am today, and it may have taken me much longer to rediscover the play behind belief that the children demonstrate so naturally. I cannot thank the universe enough for bestowing me with this precious learning opportunity. I feel my artistry and my soul expanding consistently throughout the process of touring and teaching. It is exhausting and invigorating all at once. It is such a gift to experience something I already know I will treasure for a very long time to come….and it ain’t over yet!