Performing Arts at Home

All kinds of opportunities 

Portland Ovations is providing arts integration resources on their website during the pandemic for students and their families. Please take time and check it out – there are outstanding resources including. Thank you to Portland Ovations for sharing the information below of shows that are available at this time. I especially love the last two!

DANCE PICK – Ovations’ RAISE THE BARRE dance series faves (they’ve been here at least three times during my tenure alone, most recently in our 2018-19 season), the ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER is rolling out full-length videos of their repertoire. From April 9 – 12, Judith Jamison’s Divining (1984) will be available on their website. CLICK HERE!

BROADWAY PICK – Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Universal Music Group are making full-length videos of his classics available on Youtube every Friday for 48 hours. This week, on April 10th, will be JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. While it won’t feature the OG JC Ted Neeley (like our last presentation of JCS back in 2007), this stage version stars multi-hyphenate Australian superstar, Tim Minchin (who wrote the music and lyrics for the hit musical Matilda, in addition to a thriving comedy career) in the role of Judas Iscariot. CLICK HERE!

CLASSICAL PICK – You may remember the METROPOLIS ENSEMBLE for their immersive concert experience BROWNSTONE, which Ovations sited in various rooms of Victoria Mansion back in 2014. The innovative ensemble – led by Maine native Andrew Cyr – has always supported contemporary composers and musicians in the creation and amplification of new work, even now. They’ve just launched an online series called HOUSE MUSIC, which features bite-sized performances of newly commissioned, classical, and contemporary works from musicians sheltering around the country. New content is released Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 10 AM ET. CLICK HERE!

MUSIC PICK – Husband and wife bluegrass phenoms, BELA FLECK and ABIGAIL WASHBURN (alums from both our 14-15 and 17-18 seasons), host a BANJO HOUSE LOCKDOWN live on Facebook every Friday night at 7 pm ET. If you can’t make it for the Facebook Live, archived lockdown performances can be accessed. CLICK HERE!

Something from the past at Ovations

NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC – Members of the NY PHIL — whose string quartet was to have joined us in Portland last weekend — come together to salute NYC’s medical professionals with this incredible social-distance rendition of Bolero. CLICK HERE!

HAMILTON – The original cast of HAMILTON serenades a young fan on John Krasinski’s new online show “Some Good News”. (Hamilton starts at the 11:39 mark, but since we could all use some good news, you might as well watch the whole thing). CLICK HERE!

Theater Opportunity for Students

Offstage Portland Ovations

Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 10am & 12pm at Hannaford Hall, Portland

Tickets available for School-Time Performance of Living Voices: Hear My Voice.

Join the 72-year battle that won half of America’s citizens the right to vote 100 years ago. This dramatization of a young woman, Jessie’s, experience as a suffragette during the World War I era brings to life the rock stars who started the movement, such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; the generation who continued the fight, like Alice Paul and Lucy Burns; as well as those who opposed it–including her own parents. Jessie soon compares the women’s fight for democracy to the one her brother stands for as a soldier in World War I. As tragedy strikes both at home and abroad and the battle for the vote continues to escalate, everyone in Jessie’s family must face their own decisions about what they believe is right and the actions they are willing to take on this pivotal issue.

As a part of our Cultivating Curiosity series, all students that attend receive a free copy of Roses and Radicals: The Epic Story of How American Women Won the Right to Vote to take home with them.

For tickets and information email offstage@portlandovations.org or call 207-773-3150.

 

Northeast Educational Theatre Festival

USM, Gorham

The Northeast Educational Theatre Festival at USM, Gorham, January 19-20, will offer a full slate of professional development workshops for teachers with some useful and exciting programs. Professional development workshops will be offered in all five sessions of the weekend, two sessions in the afternoon of Friday, January 19 and three in the morning and afternoon of Saturday, January 20.

Check out the workshop descriptions below and visit the Northeast Website for more information about the Festival, or contact Rick Osann, rosann@bonnyeagle.org for more information.. Bring your students or come on your own!

REGISTRATION DEADLINE IS 5 JANUARY!!

Teacher Professional Development Workshops

Jim Palmarini

Advocating for Advocacy: Strategies for Achieving Positive Change
Presenter: Jim Palmarini, Educational Theatre Association
Join EdTA Director of Educational Policy James Palmarini for a discussion about the state and local policies, issues, and legislation that impact theatre education in New England and how you can build relationships with the key stakeholders and organizations that can help you effect positive change. We’ll move into a roundtable dialogue in which attendees can share their specific advocacy challenges and successes and wrap up with a “next steps for change” brainstorming exercise.
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Rick Osann

Writing Meaningful Standards for Performance
Presenter: Rick Osann, Bonny Eagle High School

Having trouble writing meaningful standards that really get to the heart of what you want your students to learn? We’ll review the language in a variety of standards, performance indicators and rubrics (tasks), then observe a student performance and try to write our own language to identify what we wanted the student to learn. We’ll also try to find clear language to identify what differentiates “Meets” (3) from “Partially Meets” (the dreaded 2 or 2.5). We hope you will come out of this with some practical assessments you can use in your classroom.

Hannah Cordes

 

The Play’s The Thing: Acting Shakespeare
Presenter: Hannah Cordes, Portland Stage

The focus of this workshop will be activating Shakespeare’s language through play and on-your-feet activities. We will explore the use of language, status, group play, rhetoric, physical storytelling, and more!
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Ovations Offstage: Tableaus of Courage: How to Help Students Engage with Complex Content through Theater
Presenter: Catherine Anderson, Portland Ovations

Catherine Anderson

Ovations Offstage Director Catherine Anderson will introduce workshop participants to Ovations Dynamic School-Time Performance Series for 2018-19, and model for teachers how to help students engage with any story, or content (fictional or not) through the use of the “tableau”. Tableau is a wordless theater activity for small groups of students that can be adapted for any age group. Participants will leave with a lesson plan with clear learning targets, and assessment criteria. Most recently Catherine presented this workshop to over three hundred eight graders at Scarborough Middle School to help students integrate and grapple with concepts of discrimination and segregation as part of their unit on Japanese Internment Camps.

Day 2: Summit on Arts Ed

Another worthwhile day at the Summit provided by the Maine Arts Assessment Initiative – a program of the Maine Arts Commission

The Day 2 schedule at the Summit on Arts Education at USM, Portland allowed participants the opportunity to attend sessions on technology, integration, advocacy, and sessions with like-grade level and discipline on Proficiency and the Student-centered classroom.

In addition, throughout the morning participants had the chance to learn more about teaching artists, arts organizations and higher education.

Representatives from the following arts organizations and institutions participated: From the Bow Seat, Lesley University, Lincoln Street Center and Northland Village Foundation, Maine Department of Education, Maine Art Education Association, Maine Music Educators Association, Maine College of Art, New England Institute for Teacher Education, Portland Ovations, Portland Museum of Art, Portland Symphony Orchestra, UMaine Music Ed Department, and UMaine Art Ed Department.

Rose Kue, Director of Education & Community Engagement, Portland Symphony Orchestra

Teams and individuals started work on an Individual (or team) Action Plan so they could hit the ground running when returning to their schools/districts. The Phase 5 Maine Arts Assessment Initiative (MAAI) Teacher Leader’s Individual Action Plans focus on the workshops they plan to provide during the 2014-15 school year.

Maine Art Education Association secretary and MAAI teacher leader, Lisa Ingraham, provided the “chair” template so teachers could use their creativity to contribute to the wall of chairs. Lisa and her colleague Jim Small from Madison School District are seen in this post in front of the growing wall of chairs.

It was the second day of the Summit on Arts Education filled with high quality professional development. The 90 participants went away having learned a great deal, and with new questions about their understanding of teaching, learning, and assessment in arts education.

Participants “movin” with teaching artist, Stephanie McGary

 

Jeff Poulin, Arts Education Program Coordinator from the Americans for the Arts located in Washington, D.C. provided information on Arts Advocacy

Photos taken by Kevin Facer, Roger Fuller, and Argy Nestor

Maine Calling

Being an Artist

This week radio another show in ‘What Does It Mean’ series, this time looking at being an artist. What is the role of artists in Maine? Who are they, what do they do and how do they earn a living?

Host Keith Shortall was joined by:

• Julie Richard, Executive Director, Maine Arts Commission
• Don Tuski, President, Maine College of Art
• Aimee Petrin, Executive Director, Portland Ovations

And Suzanne Nance joined the show as well.

Listen to the archive at http://www.mpbn.net/OnDemand/AudioOnDemand/MaineCalling/tabid/288/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3682/ItemId/26755/Default.aspx

On February 26 the Maine Calling show topic was Teacher Evaluation with guests Commissioner of Education Steve Bowen, Lewiston superintendent Bill Webster, and MEA president Lois Kilby-Chesley. Learn more by listening to the podcast of the recorded show at this link: http://www.mpbn.net/OnDemand/AudioOnDemand/MaineCalling/tabid/288/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3682/ItemId/26488/Default.aspx

Dancing and Children

Sigh…

Recently Karen Montanaro sent me a photo (posted below) of a young child dancing in front of a painting by the Irish painter, John Lavery. The painting of Anna Pavlova was created in 1911. A further search lead Karen to a blog post with information about the painter and the artwork. It reminded me of a book called Dancing in the Streets by Barbara Ehrenreich that includes the traditions of dancing that are embedded in many cultures around the world. Our need as human beings to come together and celebrate through dance is a natural part of development. We can’t locate the origin of the photograph but is certainly is wonderful!

And from there another email this week from Anne Kofler with a short video of dancers who move into the shape of an elephant. Turns out it was a commercial. I sent it on to Karen Montanaro who confirmed that the dancers Pilobolus had a performance that includes the elephant. You can check it out at this blog as it was performed on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, July 2008. I know they’ve performed at Bates Dance Festival and Portland Ovations. I understand Pilobolus has other connections to Maine. The work dates back to the early 1970s. You can learn more about them in this Portland Press Herald article from 2010.

Speaking of Bates Dance Festival I just received their electronic newsletter. They’ve celebrated their 30th year and had quite a summer with wonderful performances. You can read all about it on their site. They have amazing opportunities for Maine students, along with young and veteran dancers from around the world. If you are not familiar with the program: Founded in 1982, the Bates Dance Festival is a summer program of Bates College whose mission is: to bring an artistically and ethnically diverse group of outstanding contemporary dance artists to Maine during the summer months to teach, perform, and create new work; to encourage and inspire established and emerging artists by giving them a creative, supportive place in which to work; and to actively engage people from the community and region in a full range of dance performances, workshops and discussions. Maine arts educator Nancy Salmon has been with Bates Dance Festival for many years along with dedicating many years to promoting arts education in Maine!

In Today’s News

Opportunity for 7,000 Portland students

Four of Portlands institutes: Portland Stage Company, Portland Ovations, Portland Symphony Orchestra, and the Portland Museum of Art and an anonymous Portland donor are collaborating to provide arts education opportunities for Portland students. You can read more in the newspaper article from the Portland Press Herald written by Tom Bell by clicking here.