Monday Morning Pic

Via "Here in Red Hook"

“Here in Red Hook” is a photoblog run by South Brooklyn Community High School’s own Andy Vernon-Jones.  It looks like the blog is coming to an end, but not before a final month of pictures.

South Brooklyn Does Soho

Check out students from Justin Wedes’s Digital Expressions music class, along with their collaborators from PS 15 in Red Hook, next Wednesday at the Apple Store in Soho. Students will be sharing their original beats and talking about the process of creating them.  Special Guest- Percussionist, DTE Teaching Artist (and recent recipient of the nickname “The Godfather”) Angel Rodriguez.

Digital Expressions @ Apple

One of the classes Dance Theatre Etcetera teaching artists are working in this fall is a “Digital Expressions” class at the South Brooklyn Community High School in Red Hook.  The class, led by teacher Justin Wedes & teaching artist Jive Poetic, gives students an introduction to computer & software literacy through project-based work from the students’ unique perspectives.

The class recently made a trip to the Apple Store in SoHo for a little fun mixed with a little work as they showed off assignments from the class.  Check out some of the pics from their visit (all photos:  Wilfred Cameron).

Painting With Eduardo

Visual artist Eduardo Rabel will begin teaching at two of DTE’s in-school programs in the fall, lending his talents to the South Brooklyn Community High School in Red Hook and a school founded on its model, the East Brooklyn Community High School in Canarsie.

While his summer winds down, though, Eduardo isn’t just planning for the fall.  He recently sent us an update on a project he has in progress in Teaneck, NJ.  Check out the Flickr stream to see the process unfold before your eyes.

Photo: Devery Volpe

ER reports that the project is moving along nicely, but that they still need volunteers- YOU- to help finish up by the end of the month.  They’ll be out there every day the sun shines except tomorrow (the 25th).

If you’re interested in helping out on a cool project and getting paint on some old pants, leave a comment and we’ll hook you up with Eduardo.

Congrats Grads!

Dance Theatre Etcetera would like to congratulate all of the graduates from Brooklyn International High School, South Brooklyn Community High School, and all other graduating students who have worked with us.

Way to go! Stay in touch!

Amayo Performs at CASA

Students had a blast last Friday at Good Shepherd Services Creative After-School Adventures Program at P.S. 27 when Amayo’s Fu-Arkist-Ra performed.Amayo worked with the young people after the performance to create original beats and movement.
Assistant facilitators from DTE and South Brooklyn Community High School kept an eye on things.Check out Amayo at the Red Hook Fest this June!

TheaterWorks Working Hard

Bob and TheaterWorks spent Friday working hard at DTE.

They took a moment to pose with Martha and the dog.

A Day with Akil Dasan

On Friday March 14th, teens from DTE’s TheaterWorks program at SBCHS went to P.S. 27 to watch Akil Dasan perform for elementary and junior high students. He performed songs that he had written and produced.

One thing I liked about his performance was his beat boxing skills. He would beat box a famous song and all the children in the auditorium would start to sing the song. It was a nice sight to see. After the beat boxing, he rapped things he had written while playing the guitar. The only problem was that the kids started to lose attention during the more serious songs.

After performing, he took questions from the kids in the audience. All of his answers had a positive message. One of the kids asked him how he learned to break dance. He said he learned it from youtube, and at first it was hard, but if you keep trying you can do anything. I appreciated how he was trying to encourage kids to follow their dreams and never give up.

When the questions were over, the audience left and a group of kids stayed for a workshop. The purpose of the workshop was for the students to learn some of the skills Akil uses when he performs. TheaterWorks was asked to participate to act as role models. At first, many of the kids didn’t want to participate, but once we stepped up many of the kids did as well. After Akil shared his skills, we put on a little show which we only had fifteen minutes to put together. We were split into three groups: music, dance, and vocal. The performance was very powerful and we all had a great time.

– by Daesan Lassiter, photos by David Etienne

A Trip To Remember

On Friday, February 29, TheaterWorks went to see the play Gone To Look For America. It was held at Arron Davis hall located at City College. The Creative Arts Team Youth Theater performed the play. Our reason for going was to pick out what kind of acting techniques we would like to use for our work.

The play was about the past and present problems of America. It included things like drugs, segregation, spending more than you have, and how the war in Iraq is affecting families. I loved watching it. I had never been to anything like it. It was short, but it really touched me in an emotional way. Especially when they talked about segregation and how black people were being lynched. They used so much creativity in that scene. It was inspiring. I would like to use the same creativity they used in our performances.

I saw a couple of techniques I would like to use. One technique was the way the actors signaled each other. They would stomp on the ground to signal when to fall when actors were hit or shot. Another thing I would like to take from the performance was how even though there wasn’t anything on the stage, the actors created imaginary environments. In one scene, a mother was in the kitchen cooking a Thanksgiving dinner. Even though there wasn’t really a kitchen on the stage, I could see it.

Overall, I enjoyed the play and have been inspired to do something similar in my own work.

– Daesean Lassiter

Pictures of DTE Youth Performances!

Take a look at the beautiful pictures of DTE’s Performing Arts Program at BIHS (aka Drama Club) and SBCHS and Bailey’s Cafe taken by Ally!

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