Intergenerational

Puppetry, Storytelling, Music

On Saturday, December 7, students from Falmouth High School (FHS) and residents of The Cedars retirement community in Portland will gather for An Intergenerational Celebration of Puppetry, Storytelling, and Music. The event will mark the culmination of a four-month long project in collaboration between FHS, The Cedars, and Figures of Speech Theatre (FST).

FST Director of Education, Ian Bannon, designed and directed the project, which began with a series of TimeSlips creative storytelling sessions at The Cedars. TimeSlips is a collaborative storytelling format designed by MacArthur Fellow Anne Basting for use by people with cognitive disabilities like dementia. Creativity is an ideal way for people with cognitive challenges to communicate. TimeSlips is developed as a ritual so people with memory loss can learn it through their subconscious or implicit memory. It is based on shifting the emphasis from memory to imagination.

FHS students took turns joining Bannon for the sessions at The Cedars, assisting with the storytelling sessions while gaining first-hand experience with TimeSlips and familiarity with the residents.

FHS Theater Teacher Dede Waite’s students from FHS then dove into the rehearsal process, learning about full-body silhouette shadow puppetry from Bannon and Devon Kelley-Yurdin, a visual artist and community organizer. Students then used the skills learned during rehearsal to adapt three of the TimeSlips-generated stories into original shadow plays. Students in FHS Music Teacher Jake Sturtevant’s music composition class created an original score for each performance, elevating and polishing their fellow students’ work.

Towards the end of the rehearsal process, Cedars residents were invited to join FHS students at the school for a hands-on shadow puppetry workshop, allowing students a chance to work side-by-side with the residents to create short vignettes using the skills they had developed.

The final performances will take place during An Intergenerational Celebration of Puppets, Storytelling, and Music at The Cedars at 1:30 PM on Saturday, December 7. Students will present their adaptations live for the residents. Following the performances, the students, residents, and audience members will be invited to join in an ice cream social designed to foster an intergenerational exchange about the process and performance. Members of the public are fully encouraged to attend.

This project was been funded in part by a Project Grant for Organizations from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Since 1982, Figures of Speech Theatre, has toured the world for more than 35 years with original works created at the intersection of drama, poetry, sculpture and dance. The company has performed in venues including the New Victory Theater, the Smithsonian Institution, the Kennedy Center, and Tokyo’s International House. Through their educational programing—which takes place in all 16 Maine counties—FST seeks to engage imaginations, impart skill-based training, awaken consciousness regarding world cultures, and expand students’ sense of life’s possibilities. We offer a range of programming and touring productions in service of that vision.

More information about Figures of Speech Theatre is available on their website: www.figures.org.

The Cedars, Maine and Northern New England’s most comprehensive, non-profit senior community was founded in 1929 as the Jewish Home for Aged. As we celebrate 90 years of innovation, The Cedars offers a full continuum of senior living options, including: Independent Living, Assisted Living, Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Care. Currently under construction is the new Sam L. Cohen Households, due to open in Fall 2020, will provide a home environment using the best practices for an enlightened, person-centered approach to care in private rooms for rehabilitation, skilled nursing care and a new, vitally-needed memory care assisted living.

More information about The Cedars is available on their website: www.thecedarsportland.org.

An Intergenerational Celebration of Puppetry, Story-Telling, and Music will be presented on Saturday, December 7 at 1:30 PM at The Cedars, 630 Ocean View Ave in Portland. The performance, which will be followed by an ice cream social, is open to the public free of charge. For more information, please contact Angie Hunt at (207) 221-7171.

Palaver Strings

Welcome Home

Welcome Home celebrates the vitality of Maine’s immigrant communities through music and storytelling. Palaver Strings will collaborate with guest artists of Franco-American, Burundian, and Iraqi heritage, sharing traditional music and personal stories of their families’ journeys to Maine. As we tour with this program around Maine, we will celebrate Maine’s cultural diversity, reflect on our own histories, and create space for dialogue between performers and listeners from different backgrounds. We believe deep listening and empathy for unfamiliar experiences is an important part of making Maine a safe and inclusive home for everyone.

PROGRAM
Iraqi Folk Songs arranged for Strings and Oud
Burundian Traditional Songs arranged for Strings, Drums and Voice
Franco-American Tunes arranged for Strings, Solo Fiddle and Piano

 

DATES

Thursday, Nov 7 – 7:00pm – Denmark Arts Center – Denmark, ME
Friday, Nov 8 – 7:00pm – Crosby Center – Belfast, ME
Saturday, Nov 9 – 7:00pm – Criterion Theatre – Bar Harbor, ME
Sunday, Nov 10 – 3:00pm – Eastport Arts Center – Eastport, ME
Thursday, Nov 14 – 7:00pm – Port City Music Hall – Portland, ME
Friday, Nov 15 – 7:30pm – Johnson Hall – Gardiner, ME
Saturday, Nov 16 – 7:00pm – Centre Theatre – Dover-Foxcroft, MEPRE-CONCERT EVENT
Sunday, Nov 3 – 4:00pm Welcome Home Pre-Concert Panel & Conversation | Indigo Arts Alliance, 60 Cove Street Portland, ME

Come join Palaver Strings, the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center, and Portland Ovations to hear stories of courage, resilience, travel, and transition from three of Maine’s immigrant communities. Facilitated by Marty Pottenger, guests will be invited to share their own experiences and how and why they call Portland home.  Attendees will also be encouraged to add their stories and reflections to the Welcome Home participatory art installation created by Portland-based artist, Titi de Baccarat. Featuring Welcome Home speakers Kifah Abdulla, Alain Iginareza, and Rhea Côté-Robbins, as well as musicians from Palaver Strings. 

Story Slam

Hope Orchards

Story Slam, What could possibly go wrong?, 5 tellers. Saturday, 19 October, 7:00 p.m., doors open 6:30, Hope Orchards barn. The event is a fund raiser for Sweet Tree Arts scholarships. $15 includes coffee and desserts. 

Pecha Kucha

Call for proposals – deadline April 1

Storytelling

Everyone can tell a story

What place does storytelling have in your classroom. This isn’t just about a personal story but perhaps another persons story that is expressed through an artwork, music piece, dance or theater. Then there is the reciting of poetry or existing stories. Comedian, John Branyan tells the story of The Three Little Pigs as it would have sounded if written by Shakespeare. Consider how this idea might be used in your class.

Warning: This video isn’t for every audiences.

Storytelling in the Arts Classroom

How might you use storytelling?

At the Maine Arts Leadership Initiative (MALI) Summer Institute “Storytelling” was the overarching theme. It was interwoven in many aspects of the 3 days.

Storytelling session led by Jake Sturtevant and Lindsay Pinchbeck

Falmouth High School and MALI Design Team member Jake Sturtevant and Sweetland School founder and director and MALI Design Team member Lindsay Pinchbeck provided a workshop on Storytelling and they set up a Story Corps tent where teachers could visit during the institute and have a conversation, similar to the National Public Broadcasting Story Corps.

We listened to musician and MALI Teaching Artist Leader Tom Luther tell his story of the stroke he had almost a year ago. He worked his way back and to almost full recovery using a ‘beginner’s mind’ and his music.

Brian Evans-Jones and Kris Bisson

MALI Teaching Artist Leader Brian Evans-Jones and Marshwood Middle School music educator and MALI Teacher Leader Kris Bisson shared their story of their incredible collaboration during the 2017-18 school year where they composed a song about an all but forgotten bridge in South Berwick.

Elementary visual art teacher and MALI Teacher Leader Elise Bothel shared her story and research on self-care tools and how they are enriching her life and positively impacting her teaching.

A panel on Leadership included stories from Catherine Ring, co-founder of MALI and art educator, teaching artist and MALI Design Team member John Morris, MALI Teacher Leaders: music from York Middle School Jen Etter, visual art from Brunswick High School Jenni Driscoll, and music from SeDoMoCha school and Maine’s 2018 Teacher of the Year Kaitlin Young. All unique!

Stories in the Leadership session

In a recent edition of the eSchoolNews from NAfME music educator Lori Schwartz Reichi reflects on her college wind ensemble rehearsal when her conductor would pause to tell a story. She wondered why he would take time out of rehearsal to share details of his personal life.

Years later when she started teaching it made perfect sense to her. The stories her professor told were intentional ‘pauses’ in the rehearsal. READ the entire article and learn more about the power of storytelling in the music classroom. (Storytelling has potential in any classroom)!

Tell The Story

Consider this project

In a recent newsletter from the National Endowment for the Arts there was a feature article on a 7th grade photography student from Detroit. What would it take for you to consider doing something like this? Perhaps select one student to highlight, work with the technology yourself or team up with other staff to facilitate. Better yet, look to your students to take the lead and create similar documentation. Have your students help tell each others stories. DonRico Hawkins, Jr. story might inspire you. DonRico’s story and others are pat of a program funded by the NEA called Focus: HOPE Excel Photography program. The video is featured in the new issue of NEA Arts.