This playlist is meant to serve as an introduction to the Educational Power of the Arts resources that ArtsU has provided over the past few years. We hope you will continue to explore our archives for more useful content! Check out the content tab for more information on each activity. If you have any questions please reach out to ArtsU@artsusa.org.
How can we use arts to create a world without youth prisons? Performing Statistics is a cultural organizing project that uses art to model, imagine, and advocate for alternatives to youth incarceration. In this webinar, participants will learn how Performing Statistics is using art to center youth impacted by the juvenile justice system in the movement to close youth prisons and invest in communities. The Performing Statistics Co-Directors will explain their process of art-making with youth and how they partner with organizers and advocates to ensure that young people most impacted by the juvenile justice system are connected to policymakers.
About this Webinar
How can we use arts to create a world without youth prisons? Performing Statistics is a cultural organizing project that uses art to model, imagine, and advocate for alternatives to youth incarceration. In this webinar, participants will learn how Performing Statistics is using art to center youth impacted by the juvenile justice system in the movement to close youth prisons and invest in communities. The Performing Statistics Co-Directors will explain their process of art-making with youth and how they partner with organizers and advocates to ensure that young people most impacted by the juvenile justice system are connected to policymakers.
Learning Objectives
To learn more about the Performing Statistics project and the urgency of the youth justice movement
To learn about strategies for using art to affect systems change
To discuss the importance of centering impacted populations in policy change work
To gather tools for working with system-involved youth
Trey Hartt
Project Director, Performing Statistics
Project Director Trey Hartt is part of the team of co-directors for Performing Statistics who guide the project’s direction. As Project Director he ensures that the project’s operations are consistent with its values and creative processes, that people are cared for and properly resourced, and that the young people in the project have the resources they need to stay resilient. In 2006, he began working with The Conciliation Project, a Richmond-based social justice theatre company that ignites dialogue about racism in America. From there he worked at Virginians for the Arts advocating for state funding for the arts, Alternate ROOTS as the Resources for Social Change program coordinator, and then at the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities leading their fundraising efforts and programs for schools on issues of diversity and inclusion. Most recently, he was ART 180’s Deputy Director where he managed all administrative staff, led all fund development efforts, and supported special projects like Performing Statistics. Trey is Past President of Alternate ROOTS, a regional organization in the
Southeast US that supports the creation and presentation of original art to eliminate oppression.
Creative Director Mark Strandquist is part of the team of co-directors for Performing Statistics who guide the project’s direction. He ensures that the Performing Statistics creative processes are ethical, equitable, and rooted in radical imagination. A photographer and filmmaker by training, his work has received numerous awards, fellowships, national residencies, and reached wide audiences through The New York Times, The Guardian, NPR, The Washington Post, PBS Newshour, VICE, and a multitude of other news outlets. At the core of his practice is the belief that those most impacted by the criminal justice system are the experts society needs to listen to, and that by connecting those directly affected with a multitude of community experts and political stakeholders, change can be created on personal and systemic levels. In 2016, he and his partner Courtney Bowles were awarded A Blade of Grass fellowship for Socially Engaged Art to begin the Philadelphia Reentry Think Tank. Mark continues to co-direct the Reentry Think Tank in Philly in addition to the People’s Paper Co-Op.
Engagement Director Gina Lyles is part of the team of co-directors for Performing Statistics who guide the project’s direction. She supports the human-to-human connections that ground Performing Statistics in authentic relationships with youth, credible messenger mentors, and partners. Gina leverages her own life experiences as a self-described, “school-to-prison pipeline survivor” in and out of the foster care and juvenile justice systems since the age of eight, to navigate and empower youth caught in the school-to-prison pipeline. She began her journey with Performing Statistics at ART 180 as a program assistant for a hip hop class using her skills as an emcee and rapper to support kids at the middle school level. She soon was leading her own hip hop music and writing programs. When Performing Statistics was founded in 2014, Gina was the first program leader assisting in the implementation of the earliest creative programs and was promoted to Program Coordinator in 2015 after the project received its first major grant. After just a year, Gina became Program Manager and helped grow the project with a particular emphasis on the youth development and credible messenger mentoring aspects. Gina left ART 180 in 2019 to launch her own business, So Focused Consulting, LLC, before becoming the Performing Statistics Engagement Director.
The International Teaching Artist Collaborative (ITAC) is forging important pathways for teaching artists, schools, community leaders, and funders who share concerns about climate crises as they escalate locally and globally. In this session, learn from ITAC’s Aislinn Ryan about its groundbreaking initiative, ITAC IMPACT: Climate, which provides a framework through which teaching artists can design and lead projects in their local communities to positively impact climate issues using teaching artistry. Gain an overview of the impetus for this initiative, its intents, program design, funding, and multi-year evolution. Most specifically, participants will gain insight into how Animating Democracy’s Continuum of IMPACT is being applied as an integral tool for evaluating the range of teaching artist-led projects and the initiative on the whole and, of course, what has been learned about impacts. Teaching artist Katie Basile will discuss her in-progress project using photography and drones with students in Napakiak, AK, concerning permafrost melt, flooding, and rapid erosion and her experience using the Continuum.
About this Webinar
Part 1 Big Picture: Evaluating Initiative & Ground Level Impact of ITAC IMPACT
September 14, 12:00 noon - 1:15 ET
The International Teaching Artist Collaborative (ITAC) is forging important pathways for teaching artists, schools, community leaders, and funders who share concerns about climate crises as they escalate locally and globally. In this session, learn from ITAC’s Aislinn Ryan about its groundbreaking initiative, ITAC IMPACT: Climate, which provides a framework through which teaching artists can design and lead projects in their local communities to positively impact climate issues using teaching artistry. Gain an overview of the impetus for this initiative, its intents, program design, funding, and multi-year evolution. Most specifically, participants will gain insight into how Animating Democracy’s Continuum of IMPACT is being applied as an integral tool for evaluating the range of teaching artist-led projects and the initiative on the whole and, of course, what has been learned about impacts. Teaching artist Katie Basile will discuss her in-progress project using photography and drones with students in Napakiak, AK, concerning permafrost melt, flooding, and rapid erosion and her experience using the Continuum.
Learning Objectives:
Learn ways to apply the Continuum of IMPACT to define and evaluate initiative level and project level outcomes and indicators for creative issue-based projects, as artists, partners, and funders.
Learn how this initiative is building teaching artists’ capacity in evaluation through cohort orientation and exchange, connection with local climate experts, an online curriculum, and the ITAC Climate Collective.
Gain deeper understanding of the role teaching artists and their partners can play to engage students and community members regarding local climate change concerns.
Students in Napakiak, AK using drones to capture shoreline erosion as part of Katie Basile’s teaching artist residency project with ITAC’s IMPACT: Climate initiative. Photo: Courtesy Katie Basile
Aislinn Ryan
Project Manager, ITAC Impact: Climate
International Teaching Artist
Aislinn Ryan is Project Manager for ITAC’s pioneering initiative, ITAC IMPACT: Climate. Working alongside a climate expert, a curriculum designer, and partner networks, Aislinn coordinates the activities of the Climate Collective: an international cohort of teaching artists commissioned to design and deliver community-engagement projects that combat climate change. Prior to joining ITAC, Aislinn worked in the Tours and Projects department at Askonas Holt, managing international tours for major orchestras and dance companies. She has worked for English Touring Opera, where she managed relationships with trusts and foundations, brokered creative partnerships, and expanded the membership scheme. Aislinn also previously served on the Board of OYAP (Oxfordshire Youth Arts Partnership). Aislinn is a former professional dancer; she toured the world as the principal dancer of Riverdance and is a qualified Irish dance teacher. She has a BA (Hons) in English Literature and History from Victoria University in her hometown of Wellington, New Zealand.
Katie Basile is a photojournalist, documentary photographer, and filmmaker with a focus on her home, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region of Alaska. Katie began her career as a teaching artist and has more than a decade of experience collaborating on multimedia stories with rural Alaskan youth. From Yup’ik kayak building to the high teacher turnover rate, youth-led storytelling continues to expand Katie’s understanding of traditional and contemporary rural Alaska. Katie is a Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Awardee and the co-recipient of a National Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in video through her work at KYUK Public Media. She recently directed the award-winning short film “To Keep as One” in collaboration with the Newtok Village Council which premiered at the 2020 Big Sky Film Festival. Katie lives in Bethel, Alaska with her husband and two young sons.
In this workshop, teaching artists Raz Salvarita (Philippines) and Francine Kliemann (Brazil) share their respective creative practices and projects as well as their evaluation efforts and learning using the Continuum of IMPACT. Raz’s project, Unmasking Climate Injustices: Voices from the Past, Present, and Emerging Generations, aims to magnify citizens’ and students’ roles individually and collectively as activators, facilitators, and educators toward shifting community consciousness about climate change. Francine’s project, The School of the (Im)Possible, engaged eight- to 10-year-olds to give voice to the meaningful perspectives and expectations that youth bring regarding the future and issues of climate change. This workshop delves into the nitty gritty of how the Continuum was adopted and applied in each project to help specify desired outcomes and indicators and formulate a logic model and evaluation plan. Raz and Francine will share what data they collected, how they approached data analysis, and what outcomes they were able to gauge. As teaching artists who are receiving continued support through the ITAC IMPACT: Climate initiative, they will talk about what that extended support is enabling toward policy and systems change. ITAC’s Aislinn Ryan provides a preview of a 20-hour online curriculum that ITAC will offer for teaching artists and their allies to develop their own climate change projects, including a look at the evaluation curriculum.
About this Webinar
Part 2 Deep Dive: Teaching Artists Unpack Using the Continuum to Understand Impact
September 21, 12:00 noon - 1:15 ET
In this workshop, teaching artists Raz Salvarita (Philippines) and Francine Kliemann (Brazil) share their respective creative practices and projects as well as their evaluation efforts and learning using the Continuum of IMPACT. Raz’s project, Unmasking Climate Injustices: Voices from the Past, Present, and Emerging Generations, aims to magnify citizens’ and students’ roles individually and collectively as activators, facilitators, and educators toward shifting community consciousness about climate change. Francine’s project, The School of the (Im)Possible, engaged eight- to 10-year-olds to give voice to the meaningful perspectives and expectations that youth bring regarding the future and issues of climate change. This workshop delves into the nitty gritty of how the Continuum was adopted and applied in each project to help specify desired outcomes and indicators and formulate a logic model and evaluation plan. Raz and Francine will share what data they collected, how they approached data analysis, and what outcomes they were able to gauge. As teaching artists who are receiving continued support through the ITAC IMPACT: Climate initiative, they will talk about what that extended support is enabling toward policy and systems change. ITAC’s Aislinn Ryan provides a preview of a 20-hour online curriculum that ITAC will offer for teaching artists and their allies to develop their own climate change projects, including a look at the evaluation curriculum.
Learning Objectives:
Gain practical evaluation know-how through these artists’ adoption and practical application of the Continuum of IMPACT.
Learn how the Continuum can help understand multiple layers of impact from individual to the collective.
Consider program design measures such as duration and multi-year funding to ensure sustainability of efforts that can further structural and systemic changes.
Consider how sharpened attention to civic or social outcomes may influence aesthetic choices and/or creative practice.
Students and community members engage with public artwork installation from Raz Salvarita’s Unmasking Climate Injustices project. Photo: Courtesy of Raz Salvarita
Francine Kliemann
teaching artist
Platô Cultural
Francine Kliemann is an interdisciplinary artist and theatre maker. She holds a BA in Theatre at UFRGS (BR, 2011) and a MA in Performance Making at Goldsmiths University of London(2017). She is the founder and artistic director of Platô Cultural, a company that creates immersive experiences in Education. Her work explores new ways of learning and connecting to the world through imagination and play. Platô Cultural combines design, immersive art and new technologies to create playful experiences that nurture the individual and the collective learning, looking for new relationships between people and places. Francine founded Plato Cultural in 2018 with support from Goldsmiths University of London. Since 2020, Platô Cultural has been based in Florianópolis, Brazil. Platô’s current project is “School of the Impossible” is an immersive education experience for 8 to 10 year old. The pilot project of School of the (Im)Possible was commissioned by the International Teaching Artists Collaborative (ITAC) as part of the ITAC IMPACT: Climate in 2021 in a a co-creation process between my company Platô Cultural, Santa Terezinha School(São José, Brazil), the Environmental School (São José, Brazil), and the Secretariat of Education of São José. (Brazil). They are now partnering with The Necessary Space (Scotland) and the International Teaching Artist Collaborative (ITAC) to deliver this project to more schools in Brazil and Scotland in 2022, funded by the British Council International Collaboration Grant.
Márcia Donadel is an artist-researcher andeducator. She coordinates the pedagogical approaches, and assessment of Platô’sprojects. She holds a PhD (2019) and a MA (2012) in Performing Arts at UFRGS(Brazil). She was awarded with the CAPES-PDSE (2018) research grant for adoctoral internship at C-DaRE, Coventry University, UK. Her practice and herresearch focus on embodied methodologies and creative practices in education.
Razcel Jan Salvarita hails from the Philippines and works internationally at the intersection of arts, culture, and environmental conservation. He is a cross-disciplinary creative artist, a socially engaged community arts organizer, and staunch advocate for sustainable development. He identifies his role as an “activator, facilitator, and educator” and serves as an independent cultural bearer. Raz is a recipient of numerous international fellowship grants including: ITAC Impact: Climate and Future Arts Leaders of the Australia Council for the Arts, among others. He is a TEDx speaker on “Effecting Environmental Consciousness through Arts.” He is the founder of Baryo Balangaw Creative Initiatives: Bridging Creativity in Rural Communities in the Philippines. Raz believes in the transformative power of the arts as a centering place for healing, recovery, and renewal of courage.
Aislinn Ryan is Project Manager for ITAC’s pioneering initiative, ITAC IMPACT: Climate. Working alongside a climate expert, a curriculum designer, and partner networks, Aislinn coordinates the activities of the Climate Collective: an international cohort of teaching artists commissioned to design and deliver community-engagement projects that combat climate change. Prior to joining ITAC, Aislinn worked in the Tours and Projects department at Askonas Holt, managing international tours for major orchestras and dance companies. She has worked for English Touring Opera, where she managed relationships with trusts and foundations, brokered creative partnerships, and expanded the membership scheme. Aislinn also previously served on the Board of OYAP (Oxfordshire Youth Arts Partnership). Aislinn is a former professional dancer; she toured the world as the principal dancer of Riverdance and is a qualified Irish dance teacher. She has a BA (Hons) in English Literature and History from Victoria University in her hometown of Wellington, New Zealand.
The global pandemic upended arts education in the spring. Arts education leaders are working to adapt, innovate, and advocate for arts education in schools and communities as schools and organizations grapple with how to safely support students and educators while losing funding. As leaders seek to find answers for increasing complicated questions on how to move forward, the Arts Education Town Hall provides a space for arts education leaders to learn from one another about issues related to school reopening, funding challenges, and building equitable systems that support all students and community members.
About this Town Hall
The global pandemic upended arts education in the spring. Arts education leaders are working to adapt, innovate, and advocate for arts education in schools and communities as schools and organizations grapple with how to safely support students and educators while losing funding. As leaders seek to find answers for increasing complicated questions on how to move forward, the Arts Education Town Hall provides a space for arts education leaders to learn from one another about issues related to school reopening, funding challenges, and building equitable systems that support all students and community members.
Arts Education Network Members will identify national trends in arts education as it relates to current events, and find connections with other network members.
This town hall is open to members of Americans for the Arts. Interested in becoming a member? Click here to learn more about membership.
Kelly Fey Bolender
Arts Education Program Manager
Americans for the Arts
Kelly Fey Bolender currently serves as Arts Education Program Manager for Americans for the Arts. Formerly, she held the position of Associate Director of Education at the Boch Center in Boston, MA. While serving as Associate Director, she led the Boch Center’s flagship arts-based youth leadership and employment programs, including the nationally-recognized City Spotlights Summer Leadership Program and Teen Leadership Council. Additionally at the Boch Center, she developed and facilitated arts-based literacy curriculum for the Target Arts In-School Residency Program and the Dudley Library Arts Festival. She also worked extensively in college and career readiness training for high school students, developing innovative programming for the Boch Center and the Universities at Shady Grove.
Kelly centers her work on inclusivity and expanding access in the arts. Her original research exploring best practices for inclusivity and representation of marginalized populations in theatre for young audiences (TYA) in the United States is featured in the award-winning anthology of Latinx TYA, Palabras del Cielo: An Exploration of Latin@ Theatre for Young Audiences.
She served on the Board of Directors for the American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE) and the New England Theatre Conference. She earned a Master’s in Theatre Education with a concentration in Theatre and Community from Emerson College, a Bachelor's degree in Media and Communication Studies from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a certification in the Advancing Youth Development curriculum for youth workers.
Vice President of Government Affairs and Arts Education
Americans for the Arts
Narric Rome serves as Vice President for Government Affairs and Arts Education at Americans for the Arts. In his role he manages federal, state, and local government advocacy, grassroots campaigns, policy development, and national coalition-building efforts with cultural, civic, and private sector organizations with the goal of influencing public policies that advance direct and indirect support for the arts and arts education.
Narric is responsible for promoting the Americans for the Arts’ message to Congress and the Biden Administration, and leading the policy development for the annual National Arts Action Summit, including Arts Advocacy Day, which involves coordinating over 85 arts organizations as partners. In 2019, the advocacy effort by Americans for the Arts and the Arts Action Fund to "#SaveTheNEA" was celebrated by the Public Affairs Council with their Lobbying Innovation Award.
Most recently, Narric has pursued a national campaign to boost the creative economy and workforce by building support for a trio of congressional bills including the Creative Economy Revitalization Act, the CREATE Act and PLACE Act in Congress.
Narric also oversees the Americans for the Arts education program that seeks equitable access to the arts through advocacy at the national, state and local levels. This work has included overseeing a $1.5 mil. three-year multi-state policy initiative, and successful passage of the National Arts In Education Week resolution through both bodies of Congress.
Prior to joining Americans for the Arts, Narric worked on the policy staff of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign in Vermont and served as a legislative aide to Secretary Richard Riley at the U.S. Department of Education where he received the Peer Recognition Award in 1999. Earlier in his career, Narric worked on Capitol Hill, at the Podesta Group and on several state and national political campaigns. He is the immediate past-president of the Vermont State Society.
Narric holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Vermont and a master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University.
This session will reframe the question of supporting teaching artists and provide actionable new answers to questions about ways to support them. The reframing derives from new understandings of how the field is growing in the real world, and recognition of the limitations of the ways we have traditionally worked. Too often “support” defaults to simplistic consideration of money and benefits, when a more holistic view (which includes attention to money and benefits) allows for a wider range of options and actions.
About this Webinar
This session will reframe the question of supporting teaching artists and provide actionable new answers to questions about ways to support them. The reframing derives from new understandings of how the field is growing in the real world, and recognition of the limitations of the ways we have traditionally worked. Too often “support” defaults to simplistic consideration of money and benefits, when a more holistic view (which includes attention to money and benefits) allows for a wider range of options and actions.
Learning Objectives:
Participants will rethink their understandings of the national (and international) teaching artist field.
They will encounter with a wider variety of tools to support the growth in size, diversity and quality of local teaching artist talent pools, tools they may use in their home settings.
They will discover new ways in which teaching artists are employed to accomplish seven different purposes—which invites new ways to assess impact, develop productive partnerships, and create greater visibility for the field.
This project is supported in part by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Eric Booth
Teaching Artistry Specialist
In 2015 Eric Booth was given Americans for the Arts' Arts Education Leadership Award, and was named one of the 25 most influential people in the arts in the U.S. He began as a Broadway actor, and became a businessman (his company became the largest of its kind in the U.S. in 7 years), and author of seven books, the most recent are Playing for Their Lives (about the global El Sistema Movement) and Tending the Perennials: The Art and Spirit of a Personal Religion and The Music Teaching Artist's Bible. He has been on the faculty of Juilliard (12 years), Tanglewood (5 years), The Kennedy Center (20 years), and Lincoln Center Education (for 40 years, where now he is a leader of their Teaching Artist Development Labs). He serves as a consultant for many arts organizations (including seven of the ten largest U.S. orchestras), cities, states and businesses around the U.S.. A frequent keynote speaker, he gave the closing keynote to UNESCO's first world arts education conference, and he founded the International Teaching Artist Conferences, and founded the Teaching Artist Journal, and is the only recipient of an honorary doctorate for teaching artistry.
Victor Sawyer is a freelance trombonist based in Memphis, TN. Currently Sawyer serves as an Instrumental Instructor at the world famous Stax Music Academy, working with middle school and high school age musicians in a “pop” band ensemble and as the Senior Fellowship Coach for the Memphis Music Initiative, supporting a team of ten professional music Teaching Artists serving in traditionally underserved communities.
As a performer he has recorded at legendary studios such as Sun, Royal, and Ardent. Sawyer has also performed with Memphis legends such as 8Ball and MJG, Valerie June, Steve Cropper, and many more.
Victor Sawyer attended the Manhattan School of Music for a Masters Degree in Jazz Performance, While in NYC Sawyer performed at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, the Jazz Standard, the Bowery Poetry Club, etc. Abroad he has had the honor of performing at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands and the Veneto Jazz Festival in the Veneto region of Italy.
In this interactive session participants will join a lively conversation between teaching artist, Jeannette Rodriguez Pineda, and researcher-writer, Dennie Palmer Wolf. Referencing Animating Democracy’s Aesthetic Perspectives framework, these two thinkers and activists will discuss key points from the Teaching Artist Companion to the framework, which they co-authored. In the Companion, they explore how teaching artists introduce young people to the many ways in which the arts build identity, reclaim life narratives, raise questions, and speak out for social change. The session will feature visual arts work done with young women who are court involved and middle school classrooms where theater is a forum for out-loud empathy.
About this Webinar
In this interactive session, participants will join a lively conversation between teaching artist, Jeannette Rodriguez Pineda, and researcher-writer, Dennie Palmer Wolf. Referencing Animating Democracy’s Aesthetic Perspectivesframework, these two thinkers and activists will discuss key points from the Teaching Artist Companion to the framework, which they co-authored. In the Companion, they explore how teaching artists introduce young people to the many ways in which the arts build identity, reclaim life narratives, raise questions, and speak out for social change. The session will feature visual arts work done with young women who are court involved and middle school classrooms where theater is a forum for out-loud empathy.
Learning Objectives:
Get an introduction to the framework, Aesthetic Perspectives: Attributes of Excellence in Arts for Change
Learn how the framework provides a powerful language for capturing and communicating the work of teaching artists
Experience how the framework can inform teaching artistry in fields as different as visual arts and theater
Dennie Palmer Wolf
Principal Researcher, WolfBrown
Dennie Palmer Wolf is a lead researcher at WolfBrown, an international firm specializing in arts and cultural research and planning. She trained at Harvard Project Zero and has taught at Harvard and Brown Universities. Currently, her work focuses on the design, implementation, evaluation, and research on projects that help young people and their families’ gain equitable access to learning, culture, and creativity, in and outside of formal institutions. Most recently, Wolf has worked as a thought partner with organizations that work at the intersection of the arts, social justice, and community development, with the aim of ensuring that every child can learn, imagine, and contribute.
Jeannette Rodriguez Pineda is a mixed media artist and art educator living and working between Queens and Santo Domingo . She is an active book and zine artist and uses those media to explore urban communities ranging from honoring peoples’ everyday artistry to community development. She teaches for many youth-serving arts programs, including Groundswell, Queens Museum, Studio Museum of Harlem, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She founded MOVIMIENTO, a free bilingual hiking initiative that fosters inclusion and equity in the outdoors. Look for her on trails, mountains, and in streambeds any time.
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