The Kenan Fellowship at Lincoln Center Institute

Hannah Emerson: Reflections on Phase II of the Fellowship

2012-01-25T10:00:00.001-05:00

As they neared the completion of Phase II of the Kenan Fellowship, each Fellow was posed three questions by their teaching artist mentor. Here, Hannah responds to the questions from her mentor, Lynn.

How has your understanding of Aesthetic Education changed from your first introduction to the Lincoln Center Institute’s methodologies during Summer Season, through the planning processes and observing teaching in the classroom in a variety of settings, to leading activities in the classroom? How has this impacted your understanding of arts education?

Before the Fellowship, if terribly persistent, I could speak, with a bit of hesitation, as you might expect, a probable maximum of five minutes about Aesthetic Education, and that’s only due to my awfully proficient researching skills. However, at the same time, I did speak with confident ease on the subject of learning about Aesthetic Education, specifically my thriving curiosity in the practices of Lincoln Center Institute.

I distinctly remember my introduction to the Capacities for Imaginative Learning, all ten of them. The words were familiar; although, at the moment, comprehending how to create the concepts of Questioning, Living with Ambiguity, and Creating Meaning into active forms appeared foreign. Each Capacity is intricate on its own, and when attempted as a group, I found myself up a creek with many paddles to keep track of. Needing to swim a few strokes back and direct my focus on a couple at a time, I realized I already practiced numerous, if not all, Capacities in some form or another.

While assisting and observing Lynn, both in the planning sessions and classroom lessons, I began formulating a clearer idea of why Lincoln Center Institute is confident in their methodology. I never saw LCI’s philosophy as fabricated; nonetheless, while reflecting I find a bit of under-confidence in its affluence. Spending time in the classrooms, watching the students and the teachers unfasten their imaginations, I experienced the benefits first-hand and grew an affection for this practice.

Just last week, I took my first stab at facilitating parts of the classroom lesson. I appreciated jumping into the mix, steering the wagon for a bit. The control was both exhilarating and frightening at the same time, and when I itched for a bit of guidance, I managed to send visual cues in Lynn’s direction. Needless to say, she was consistently there to give support.

Do I feel leading parts of the activities increases my understanding of Lincoln Center Institute’s philosophy? Undoubtedly. Actively involved, with an emphasis on active, is where my learning thrives. Would I say I completely understand every element of the Lincoln Center Institute’s philosophy on aesthetic education? No, I would not. But I will and can say I am a work-in-understanding-process. I am in-process of meditating over the means of LCI-land, watching my knowledge and understanding bloom. Captivated by just how captivating the experience can be impacts my understanding of arts education. Overall, I am noticing how much I yearn to understand education, how much I want to absorb, how many inquiries I continue to have. I understand my understanding of arts education is minimal and I understand I never want to stop growing the minimal until it reaches its absolute maximum.

What are you discovering about your own artistic process, the collaborative process, and the business of producing your own work through your sponsored artistic project?

At this point in time, my sponsored artistic project has more than graciously provided me with newfangled information. Not only re-acknowledging my ever-present particular appreciation for the “process”, I managed to conveniently uncover what I am currently referring to as, my formidable fear of the “product”.

Smashingly impassioned, the rehearsals are always a merriment. I am constantly re-learning how to trust myself, to let things unfold, and accept the reason behind not staying bound to unhealthy forecasts of predefined products. I am noticing how instantaneously I embody stress due to distorted perceptions of expectations. Even if it’s relatively different from my initial hypothesis, I’m learning to discern what is not working so I can take action and move in a more satisfying direction. I also find it interesting how very much I benefit from the constant support available when collaborating. Instead of feeling hindered, frustrated, bound, or restrained by my inability to control all aspects of the piece, I’m surprising myself and am actually finding more breath, recognizing I have the pleasure of another equally invested and intrigued artist beside me. Incessantly sharing my excitement with Lizzy is fulfilling and when I am having a down day; she provides the support I need, and I am always more than willing to return the solace.

In terms of producing my own work, I am realizing how I do adore it. Overall, this experience is a first on many levels. First co-production, first artistic proposal, first press release, first postcard, first scheduling, first budget, first piece much longer than 6 minutes. Other than unceasingly familiarizing myself with the grounds I need to cover when producing work, I’m re-recognizing my love for creating which managed to slither away so quickly after turning my head for just a moment in a different direction. Thank goodness my internal compass re-calibrated without delay.

During the Fellowship, you’ve been exploring and learning about the dance community in New York City through attending performances in a wide array of venues, attending The Bessie Awards, taking classes at various studios, connecting with other UNCSA alumnae and meeting new people. What is your current view of yourself within this community, and how do you envision yourself within this community in several years? If you decide to remain in New York, what would you like to achieve in, say, 5 years, and what steps might you need to take to do so?

When I look at my relationship to the dance community of New York City, I tend to visualize myself in shoes very similar to the new kid’s at school. Still learning my way around, I am unsure where everything is, who the teachers are and how they teach. I’m observing the cliques, seeing who supports who, who I want to work with and who can help me with my work. If the dance community was a small city, I find myself currently located on the outskirts. I am habitually meeting new people, running into faces I’ve met before and re-introducing myself while engaged in a small chat about how things are going. Even though I’m constantly roaming around, I feel, possibly, until I perform and present work in February, I will still be a complete mystery in the eyes of my new comrades. After February, I hope a layer or two of abstruse will peel its way off my skin.

What do I esteem to achieve in 5 years? Personally, I think that’s a heavy question. Until recently, I found it nearly impossible to tell anyone my desired accomplishments in 5 years’ time. I was, and at times still can be, the girl who always revoked five-year plans. I saw them as unrealistic; how can I possibly know where I will be in five years?, I remarked. I change my mind daily just by gaining small doses of new knowledge; therefore, how can I say what I want to do in the coming year is what I will want to do in five years. For me, to answer this question, I am first going to notate the difference I see between five-year plans and five-year intentions. In my mind, the word plan carries more absolute in its definition when compared to intention. If I intend to do something, try my hardest, and failure comes, I have a more suitable time dealing with the emotional aftermath. Lucky for me, as I write this reflection, I’m finding the true reason why I am against five-year plans; very much related to my fear of product is my fear of not meeting expectations. I always thought, once I put my plan out there, unrolled it on the table, I set up expectations and opened possibilities of disappointing not just myself but also my companions. As I start to let go of my need to please, I am going to share my five-year intention, or at least a piece of it. I, Hannah, see myself as an active member of the dance community in New York City in the next 5 years and, among many other thrilling activities, I will be performing, choreographing, and striving to make art a more indispensable component of education. In five years, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Elizabeth Moore: Reflections on Phase II of the Fellowship

2012-01-23T10:00:00.002-05:00

As they neared the completion of Phase II of the Kenan Fellowship, each Fellow was posed three questions by their teaching artist mentor. Here, Elizabeth responds to the questions from her mentor, Lisa.

1. Describe your LCI in-school classroom presentations. Explain the challenges you faced and how you overcame some of your personal obstacles. How did your experience affect your perspective on teaching artist work, and its relation to your own future career plans?

2. In what ways has your AE experience as a Kenan Fellow changed or affected your final project and your artistic perspective? In what ways has it affected your practice as a teacher and your practice as a violist?

3. Revisit the following resources: Maxine Greene’s Variations on a Blue Guitar, John Dewey’s Art as Experience and Eric Booth’s The Music Teaching Artist’s Bible. Choose some excerpts that are meaningful as you near the completion of your LCI Fellowship and explain why they resonate with you.

I have always liked lists and always felt best with a clear plan. Life does not generally comply with my desire for order, and I find myself faced more often with options than answers. Possibilities rather than a plan. Yes, these things do have a positive ring to them, but it has taken time for them to incite hope rather than a fear of the unknown in me. What I am beginning to realize is that in every aspect of my life, planning and improvisation go hand in hand. The one supports the other. Careful planning and preparation lead to opportunities, and in the wake of opportunity come options and the necessity to think on your feet. This may seem like an observation of the obvious, but as we rush through our daily lives we often times overlook such things. It is only when taking time to reflect that we connect the dots and become conscious of certain truths. The Kenan Fellowship at LCI has not only taught me the importance of reflection but has given me the tools and opportunity to do just that.

There is a tremendous amount of planning and preparation that goes into teaching. There is also a great deal of improvisation that will inevitably occur when plans are put into action. As I began the Kenan Fellowship at LCI I was aware of both of these aspects. I was comfortable with only one. As I began working with my Teaching Artist mentor Lisa in preparation for our school visits, I learned new strategies and methods of preparing and organizing before teaching. Lisa took a hands-on approach to initiating me in the ways of lesson plan writing, and before I knew quite what I was doing I found myself creating one. There was much revision necessary. Lisa provided constant feedback and collaboration, but much faster than I anticipated, I had a good idea of what goes into planning for an in-school lesson. One way to look at it is that if you are over-planning, you are on the right track. By this I mean that you probably will not end up using the entirety of your lesson plan as inevitably things take longer than planned. As each group of students is different, this leaves room for adjustments while still remaining true to the overarching goals of the lesson plan. This has already impacted the way I think about and plan for my private students’ lessons. A great deal of learning took place for me in this first area, but it was when putting these plans into action in the classroom that I truly stepped out of my comfort zone.

Having the opportunity to observe TAs in action has been a tremendously valuable learning experience for me. My experiences with Lisa in the classroom and leading activities myself are already affecting the way I teach my private music students and will surely continue to do so. Even though I came to LCI with previous experience in teaching, most of that was one on one with private students. Teaching to a room full of children was a new and daunting challenge for me. What I began to realize is that as I led the same activity with each different group of students, the particulars of the activity seemed naturally to invite change. What I needed to do was tune into what was particular about the group at hand and guide the activity in a direction that would be personally meaningful to them. Sometimes it was as straightforward as picking up on a connection a student made themselves and building on the link, and other times more delicate, as when students seemed disengaged. A connection to them had to be found to regain their attention. I cannot say that I mastered the art of this in out few in-school visits, but I am becoming more aware of these moments of personal connection, excitement or disengagement, and am becoming better equipped to respond to them.

Developing a rapport with the classroom teachers was something I had given little thought to before our first school visit, but the importance of this became immediately evident. With often much time between visits, it is extremely helpful if the teacher can keep the momentum going. It also eases the burden of keeping a class in line and engaged when the teacher shows enthusiasm and commitment to what is being explored. Having seen extremes in this area while working with Lisa this fall, I can say with out doubt that the level of commitment shown by the classroom teacher has a serious impact on the students’ experience as a whole. In my private teaching I can easily translate this to developing a rapport with my student’s parent(s). Just as with a TA’s school visits, there is generally a week’s time between lessons when the the student is expected to practice what we have been working on in our lessons. Especially for children of a young age, it is important to have the commitment of the parent as well as the student and to communicate with them about how to aid in their child’s practicing. This is an example of one of the many parts of teaching that are becoming clearer and more intentional due in large part to my experiences at LCI over the course of the Fellowship.

I have to admit that before I started at Lincoln Center Institute my understanding of Teaching Artistry as a field was rather fuzzy. I was aware that various arts programs around the country employed these Teaching Artists in varying numbers and were active in bringing arts awareness to students. That was about it. I had never considered it as a career option, mainly because it had never been presented as such. As becoming a Teaching Artist as a profession is still a recent development, this is not surprising. It is however unfortunate that more young musicians, and artists in general, are not aware of the field. Now that I have been exposed to what the TAs at LCI do and have an idea of the field’s potential, I definitely consider becoming a Teaching Artist an option I may explore in the future. I say this in such vague terms only because I consider it something that requires more experience than I yet have. It is, however, something I am very interested in and believe to be a powerful way of promoting the arts to future generations; something I feel is the concern of all artists.

There is no doubt in my mind that a single aspect of either my musical or personal life have escaped my experience at LCI unchanged. As I continue to mention, my teaching has been forever altered by LCI’s philosophy of aesthetic education and my experiences working with a TA. I am also beginning to notice changes in my playing. Although barely apparent in my day-to-day practicing, as I rehearse in preparation for an upcoming recital I am starting to notice a looseness and freedom in my playing that was previously missing. I believe it to be mainly a result of the changed way in which I listen to my own playing. I think the biggest change is that I am atempting to listen outside myself. I ask myself more, “What is it I want to share with my audience through this piece?” In asking and attempting to answer questions such as this, I have begun to bring a playfulness to my playing that was previously absent. This is an exciting development to me and one that I imagine will continue growing with the employment of the 10 Capacities for Imaginative Learning as well as other LCI practices in my professional and personal life.

"'Education,' as I view it, is a process of enabling persons to become different, to enter the multiple provinces of meaning that create perspectives on the works (of art)." - Maxine Greene, Variations On A Blue Guitar

Within moments of beginning to revisit Maxine Greens’s Variations on a Blue Guitar, I came across this sentence, and as I continued to read it stuck with me. It made me think back to my school visits on Long Island with Lisa, and in particular to the moments of difficulty. It is in those instances of difficulty when attempting to connect with students, those times of struggle when the material you are presenting seems just too strange or foreign for your students to open up to, that I am assured that TAs, and artists in general, are needed in our schools and the extracurricular activities of young people more than ever. For as funding for arts programs in this country is cut, so is the breadth of the next generation’s education. To my mind there is a frightening amount of homogenization occurring in public schools. Teachers are expected to teach to the test and for the most part ask questions that require nothing more than regurgitated information. With this as the extent of education in our country, to what extent are students able to come forth with their own developed individual identities? There are many classroom teachers and community arts teachers that go above and beyond, making all the difference in expanding many young people’s world views. Having myself been gifted with an education rich with inspiring role models who have constantly expanded my range of experience, I feel almost as if I owe it to them to aid in the perpetuation of true curiosity and joy in learning. Perhaps the most important thing I will take away from working with LCI’s TAs is that being a good teacher is much more than passing on information. It is also about inspiring your students to ask questions about the world around them, and to greet new information and experiences with an open and inquisitive mind.

“The understanding of art and of its role in civilization is not furthered by setting out with eulogies of it nor by occupying ourselves exclusively at the outset with great works of art recognized as such. The comprehension which theory essays will be arrived at by detour; by going back to experience of common or mill run of things to discover the esthetic quality such experience possesses.” - John Dewey, Art As Experience

What is the point at which it becomes a hindrance rather than help to artists and their fields to put their work on a pedestal? With the gentrification of an art form there are certain perils. As one audience is developed, another is lost as the price of performances rise out of their reach. Over time, as access becomes limited, experiences with certain music, dance, theatre, etc. are not had, and before long, if even presented with the opportunity to attend a performance, the experience no longer seems relevant. The concert hall is a foreign and uncomfortable world, with etiquette unknown. The solution to this problem is no simple one, but at its most fundamental level, it is again with education and broadened experience at a young age that the biggest difference can be made. No matter what turns my professional life takes, I intend to always keep teaching in some form as part of my life.

“Art happens outside of what you already know. Inherent in the artistic experience is the capacity to expand your sense of the way the world is or might be.” - Eric Booth, The Music Teaching Artist’s Bible

Reading Eric Booth’s book, The Music Teaching Artist’s Bible at the end of the Fellowship is wonderful. It is both insightful and inspiring in its view of the Teaching Artist’s role in promoting and teaching the arts in 21st century America. It has helped me make connections as I reflect on my own experiences at LCI and in working with Teaching Artists. Even though practically everyone finds some form of art an enjoyable part of their life, there is still an overwhelming opinion that the arts do not meaningfully contribute to society. Arts programs and organizations find themselves time and again having to justify themselves when the evidence of their worth surrounds us. What else takes our existence and turns it into civilization to such an extent? Art in all its creative, imaginative glory has an irreplaceable power that I have never believed stronger than I do now as I reflect on my learning experience over the course of the Fellowship at LCI.

Felipe Tristan on Networking

2011-12-13T10:00:00.007-05:00

I think that a crucial element of this Fellowship for further development of our career is networking. Networking can be viewed as a magic key to doors that can be opened even when you least expect it-- you never know. Furthermore, this implies a snowball effect, a positive one. When one door opens, that leads you to facing other doors that might be opened in the future, and so on. You get the analogy. In other more tangible words, I believe that we must remain always open and receptive when attending events, being introduced to different people, keep a positive attitude and always present ourselves at our very best.

In this Fellowship, we have been scheduled to meet with various constituents at Lincoln Center as well as several artists, educators and entrepreneurs of the artistic circles of New York City. These have been extraordinary opportunities to introduce ourselves, our points of view and most importantly our work. Additionally, our mentors have been incredible advocates of our exposure and introduction to the artistic circles in the city. In my case, Katie, my mentor, has done an excellent job in this area, for which I am very thankful. She has introduced me to several musicians, conductors and composers of all levels, ages and backgrounds. This is a key element for an emerging artist.

Economists and marketers often talk about demand-supply philosophies for success in a determinate situation. On this path, I believe that it is important first that we determine what it is exactly that we want to get out a particular meeting and what are we going to do to create a bridge between the two parts, or a win-win situation, and later a follow up. If you have a solid idea of who you are, what you do and how it is unique and important to the world, then it is just a matter of putting the “product” out to the market, especially when you know there is a need for it (demand).

We live in a world with now over 7 billion humans, but still it can be a very small world when it comes to networking. Finally, I would like to add that while networking is a skill to be acquired and practiced, as I mentioned before, also we must always remain genuine and natural. I am very satisfied with the work done thus far in this Fellowship in that regard, and I am now looking forward for more doors to be opened and, of course, to open my own door to others.

Kiah Abendroth: Observations from the Classroom

2011-12-09T10:00:00.000-05:00

In addition to working with my fabulous mentor Lynn, I’ve recently had the opportunity to observe one of LCI’s other great Teaching Artists, Katie [Felipe’s mentor]. She taught four classes of young teens about music, the blues specifically. I wanted to reflect a bit on that experience:

One of the first things I noticed was Katie’s continual use of questions. Intellectually, I know that this is one of the cornerstones of LCI’s teaching philosophy, but seeing it in the classroom brought a deeper level of understanding. I had limited LCI’s questioning to the more philosophical questions, such as: “What do you notice about this music?” What I hadn’t considered was the use of basic/informational questions.

Within the first-half of Katie’s lesson, she always discussed the historical context of the blues. Every time she got to this point, she would pause and ask: “Does anyone know when the blues started?” This was particularly memorable to me because it’s not what I would have done. I would have just informed the class. However, in doing this, I would have missed an opportunity to engage the students more deeply. Asking a question helps to spark curiosity. It draws the student’s attention to the gap in their understanding, cultivating a space for that information to go. This concept reminds me of the old Zen story about the “full cup” syndrome, and I think high school students may be especially susceptible to this. The story is as follows (quoted here from Bradford W. Swift’s Life on Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life):
It appears a young seeker of wisdom traveled to the remote reaches of the world to learn enlightenment from the master. But before the master would even consider teaching him, he invited the young man to participate in the tea ceremony.

So, they retired to the tea garden where the master began the much venerated tea ceremony, preparing the water mindfully, adding the tea leaves just so, etc. The master began pouring the tea into the young seeker’s cup, talking politely as he did so. As the cup began to fill, the student-to-be grew nervous, yet the master continued to pour. The cup filled to the brim, then the tea began to pour over the rim.

“Master, master,” cried the young man. “You are over filling my cup.”

Finally, with a smile, the Zen master stopped pouring the tea. “Yes, and you are like the cup; so full there is no room for enlightenment.”

Listening as though you already know everything is listening with a “full cup.” When Katie asked the class the question regarding the historical origin of the blues, she helped to create space in their cups. I’m sure more kids in that class will remember where the blues came from thanks to this simple twist in approach.

Something else that was memorable for me was the amount of reassurance and encouragement Katie provided throughout the lesson. Here’s a some examples of ways in which she accomplished this:

1. Removing intimidation. I noticed the use of phrases such as, “Just take a stab at it,” encouraging the kids to not be intimidated by an activity.

2. Positive Feedback. “What I’ve seen so far looks really, really good.”

3. Student Examples. As soon as one of the students would finish an activity, Katie would walk up to them and make a comment to the class such as, “She’s totally done! See, no big deal.” Then she would ask the student if she could share what he/she had done. They always complied, and this helped to further reduce any intimidation of the task.

This type of encouragement seems vital. The kids are being asked to take a lot more “risks” than normal. They’re being confronted with situations where there’s no right answer. This is, in fact, supporting two different elements of the ten Capacities for Imaginative Learning: “Taking Action” and “Living with Ambiguity.” As I mentioned in my previous blog post, “LCI’s Teachings and the Imagination”, using these ten Capacities can be challenging at first! It takes practice and can feel like a big change, especially if you’ve become accustomed to learning in a different, more restrictive setting. Constantly providing encouragement seems to be an integral part of implementing the Capacities successfully.

In discussing the observation afterwards, another key concept was reinforced: the idea of learning as a personal journey. This has several implications. Firstly, the instructor must teach to their audience. Every age group and classroom is unique, and this should be taken into consideration when planning. This awareness must also continue as the lesson progresses, honoring that the students are learning and thus your audience is changing. Katie had a great analogy that likened this sensitivity to cooking (great cooks work with the food, watching it carefully as it progresses in order to get the best results).

My most important realization on the topic of “learning as a personal journey” was: you can’t make the learner have a meaningful experience, all you can do is present them with the space to do so. This is a compete shift in perspective for me. I see now that, in the past, my focus would have been more on the information than the student. My goal was the transfer of information. Now, my focus is on creating an environment that encourages exploration. It’s about the student engaging in activities that lead to growth, personal discovery, and inspiration.

It is my sincere hope that I can begin to implement all of these things the next time I’m in the classroom. Beyond that, I hope that I can remain an “empty cup” throughout my journey as an educator-- always ready to continue learning, growing, and changing.

Sara Barney: Recent Reflections

2011-12-06T10:00:00.001-05:00

There are a few thoughts I have been circling around lately. I have been reflecting on the idea of living with ambiguity, attending performances, and becoming more comfortable with networking and communicating. After journalling and many conversations, I believe they have an interesting way of connecting to one another.

Living with Ambiguity
Living with ambiguity has never been super fun for me, though I’m not sure if it is something that comes easy to most. It’s growing on me. It has taken since June, but I can truly appreciate it for what it is and recognize it’s important while living in this city. Life here goes so fast. Opportunity flees just as fast as it comes rushing back. I see that now as a really exciting thing. I have hope for future aspirations. I can see how the constant turnover of opportunity can seem scary. The sense of stability sometimes seems a bit lacking, but I feel it is all in how you look at it. For me, right now, in my life, I look at it as endless possibilities. I see room for further discovery and opportunity to be exposed to numerous adventures. Without the fellowship’s guidance, I don’t think I would see myself willingly experimenting with ambiguity. I am so very grateful that the fellowship has allowed for me to discover this way of being.

Performances
I feel like I have been to a fairly wide spectrum of dance performances these past few months: some using additional mediums with movement, others using specific dance techniques. I have become aware of more and more things while being exposed to such a variety of shows. I am starting to build a sense of my true likings from a performance, maybe even details that I would like to use sometime. I recently have been drawn to the spaces that people choose for their work. I find it very interesting when a choreographer really uses the space they and/or their company performs in. I think it is because I feel more a part of the work when the space that I am sitting in is used in some fashion. I have experienced very intimate settings as well as quite grand spots. In both situations, if the space was used in some way other than a traditional sense, I was exceedingly engaged. I was drawn into the story; whether it was literal or abstract, I felt a greater sense of understanding. I believe details such as this allow for a certain depth in the work. When things are carefully constructed and thought out, I have a certain appreciation for it, whether I would like to perform it or not.

Communication/Networking
(Small Back Note) My mother owns two ballet schools in Rhode Island and had performed professionally for many years. I was known as “Eva Marie’s daughter” for most of my childhood and teen years. I found this to be pretty fun. I was at every show and event she participated in. In doing this, I got to meet many people. She introduced me to everyone she worked with. At the time, this seemed simple. No “biggie.” When I got older and started to go to functions that didn’t involve her, I began to learn how to stand on my own two feet and present myself as Sara Barney. It was liberating. Though, as time went on, it became difficult to make those connections with artists I didn’t know. I began to think, “Who am I? I’m not that important. They don’t even know me. They’re accomplished and successful. I should probably not say anything.” It took some time to figure out that we are all human. Novel, isn’t it? People like to hear honest praise. People enjoy commonalities with others. What is the harm in telling someone you like their work? Living here in NYC, I am becoming more comfortable with communicating with fellow artists. I now believe that no matter how successful someone is, we can connect, at least on some level. You never know when you put yourself out there what may happen. It may be your next big break or a new friend or someone you run into in a few years. They may know someone that you should know. Worst case scenario, they end up being not very nice. When you know you are being genuine, that’s all that matters. If someone cannot accept that, remember that that’s not your problem. Well, that is what I am telling myself now. I feel a bit more empowered with the people I have met during the fellowship. It is happening slowly, but my community here in the city is growing.

For me, these three topics have been integral parts in my personal and artistic growth during my time in the fellowship. It hasn’t necessarily been easy or stress-free these past months, but life is like that, full of tough times to discover the great times to be had. I am more comfortable in my skin now than I was six months ago because of this fellowship and all its capacities (no pun intended).

Ryan Layton: "NYC-- The Place for Me?"

2011-12-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

Living in the city has been an invaluable experience as a young artist. It’s something I always hoped to do, and thanks to this fellowship, I had a perfect opportunity to make it happen. From the moment I unpacked my things in Washington Heights, I started trying to decide if a life in the city could be for me. It’s a hard decision to make and one that I had to make quickly. The fellowship wouldn’t last forever. If I planned to stick around, I would need plenty of time to search for another job and look for a more permanent place than the sublet I had at the time.

By the time we went on our summer hiatus, I had decided that the city was the place I needed to be at this point in my life, but that didn’t guarantee that I’d always enjoy myself or that things would be easy. That became apparent as soon as I started looking for jobs. The search was (and remains) unfruitful. Getting no response from my inquiries for positions as a waiter, telemarketer, guy who passes out flyers on the sidewalk, guitar store clerk, and a number of other odd jobs, I had to look deeper within and decide if staying in the city was really worth all of this struggle.

While back in North Carolina for Thanksgiving, I talked to a friend I graduated with who, just months after graduation, is doing very well as a guitar teacher in Charlotte. Although Charlotte’s art scene isn’t nearly as booming as NYC’s, it is incredible for a city of its size, and the people there are enthusiastic patrons. Plus the rent is low, and they have a Bojangles. Seeing how good my friend’s situation is made the South look very attractive all of the sudden. I always knew that I loved the South and wanted to go back there one day, but the belief that New York City was the place for serious artists kept me from ever entertaining the thought. After seeing what my friend has been able to do while I’m struggling to get the same thing started for myself, I realize that letting go of any fantasies I have about the city could open up a lot more for me.

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. I think I still have a lot to prove to myself, and I won’t feel good about leaving until I’ve done what I intend to do. I want to know that I came up here and made something out of my time. While my goals are pretty straight-forward and can be accomplished no matter where I live, there is something about knowing that I can accomplish them here, in New York City, and knowing I’ll feel like a hack if I don’t. It’s a completely made-up notion, but sometimes I can’t ignore it.

I guess the bottom line is, I still have a lot of thinking to do. Fortunately, there is still a little bit of time left to think before I find myself in trouble. Whether I decide to call the city home for a little while longer or if I move back home or somewhere else, I’ll know that I gave everything my best effort and all of my decisions were very well thought-out. Until things come together, I’ll just keep working hard and trust that whatever happens will be for the best.

Hannah Emerson: Reflections on Teaching Practice

2011-11-30T10:00:00.001-05:00

I grew up completely immersed in and surrounded by education. With absolute appreciation to my mother, a classroom teacher for 30 years and now an assistant principal, I spent many adolescent afternoons helping her at school, sitting in on teacher meetings, assisting in dismissal, organizing and decorating her classroom, and almost always eavesdropping on conversations with co-workers about the good, bad, and everything in-between. Often hearing what needs to change and how she is going to make it happen. I remember watching my mother fill out lesson plans, IEPs, and many other forms of paperwork on the regular. Only noticing through naive eyes she was not showering abundant amounts of attention my way, I failed to realize the volume of insight I gained from observing her faithful allegiance to education. Being a teacher is demanding, and my participation in the workshops with Lynn only furthers my understanding of what it takes to be an educator of any capacity.

Honest commitment. Each workshop deserves an equivalent amount of time for both the planning session and the classroom lesson. The classroom teacher’s undivided engagement and participation during the planning and the lessons are critical components. One pattern I’m noticing throughout my time with Lynn is how the teachers’ engagement, more often then not, directly parallels the students’ engagement. When the teacher is not actively taking part in the group experience, various students mirror the same mannerisms. When a teacher is invested, the student is invested; when a teacher is distracted, the student is distracted.

Unyielding patience. Observing Lynn, I perceive how many students can be initially hesitant when asked to actively participate. Remarks of “I don’t know how”, faces of confusion, raised eyebrows and arms crossed. It was not until almost halfway into the workshop that many of the students began to let their arms down and open up to the experience. Maybe the students became honestly interested, maybe they felt pressured to participate, maybe it was simply succumbing to the fact of practically being knee-deep in it, so why not jump all the way in? Honestly, I am not sure; however, what I do know is for many students, their engagement was not immediate. It took extra time and effort than I initially expected. Lynn remained stunningly patient, never getting frustrated in the least. Near the end of the first lesson, many students were discovering on their own, yet, with a handful of students still ever-so-skeptical to take the leap, Lynn offered even more guidance.

Openness to improvisation. Being able to improvise is as important as clear, detailed planning. Over the last couple weeks, I watched how flexible Lynn is when the lesson plans do not always fit the mold of the classroom. If the planned activity is not effective, she shapes it to the students instead of forcing participation in an activity not fit for their energy or cognitive level. With a clear understanding of how each classroom is different, Lynn’s use of improvisation provides the best experience for the students possible in the moment.

I am fully aware it takes heaps more than commitment, patience, and improvisation to be an educator; however, these three aspects I can clearly see in both Lynn and my mother. Their environments and experiences are generally different, and as an artist who is highly curious and enraptured in wanting to learn everything about education, they both inspire me. Dripping with excitement over the holidays, I began participating in those similar conversations with my mother that I use to overhear as a child, but unlike before, I can now confidently share my own opinions and observations thanks to my experiences with Lynn.

Elizabeth Moore: "The Nature of the Beast"

2011-11-28T10:00:00.000-05:00

There is so very much to being a good teacher. There is of course the bit about relaying and explaining information, but true and meaningful teaching goes beyond this. It requires enthusiasm, patience, and the ability to explain an idea in varying ways. The ability to be spontaneous and respond to the needs and interests of the students at hand while at the same time remaining true to the larger goals. A good teacher must listen as well as speak, and if a teacher expects their students to flourish they must inspire them to learn. I have had teachers in all range of subject matters who consciously, and even sometimes unaware, educate at this high level. What is different for Lincoln Center Institute Teaching Artists is that this is consciously part of their teaching philosophy and job description. They are in the classroom consciously provoking imaginative thought and creativity. With steadily changing school environments, students, classroom teachers and works of art, LCI TAs must always be able to adapt their approach to the situation at hand. It is the very nature of the beast.

What has become increasingly clear to me over the course of the Fellowship is that I will always teach in some capacity. Even if I never become a Teaching Artist, I intend to use every skill I am learning in observing and working with Lisa and the the other TAs. Having the ability to adapt my examples, repertoire of teaching material, and energy level are all skills that will benefit one-on-one teaching. Encouraging students to make connections between their studies and the rest of their life experience, to learn through their curiosity and to ask questions are healthy practices in any setting. Is it also the nature of the beast that I have fallen for teaching in these last months? As music students we are told that we will most likely need to teach as well as play to make a living as a musician. I admit that before I was simply resigned to a future in teaching. I have grown to realize that being a teacher is a part of myself I am excited to develop and exercise.

Felipe Tristan: Observations from the Classroom

2011-11-22T10:00:00.002-05:00

“When I allow a lot of room for improvisation and funny stuff, I always feel planned.” --Michael Bay

Being a teacher is extremely rewarding; on the other hand, being a student is infinitely rewarding. The latter idea involves a continuous drive that leads towards a continuous discovery and growth. This is very evident to me ,especially after observing my mentor Katie in the workshops she was assigned to do. Overall, what I observed in the classroom has made me reflect about the role of flexibility and improvisation while facilitating a workshop and teaching, qualities that I believe are closely related to creativity and imagination.

My mentor was assigned to work with high school students. Initially, I felt it was going to be somewhat challenging to engage the kids due to the nature of their adolescence, and perhaps with this a restrainment or lack of eagerness to participate would come along. Fortunately, and to my surprise, they were much more engaged than I imagined, especially after the first five or so minutes of the workshop. I think that the interaction that the facilitator instigated and openness to express their thoughts and opinions helped tremendously in making them interested.

During the first session, the main challenge was to cover as much as possible with a shortened period of time due to an announcement the classroom teacher had to make, and moreover the students had just been given their grades, which created a bit of agitation among them, previous to the beginning of the first session. That did not reduce the quality level of the workshop in any way; in fact, I was astonished to find that my mentor accomplished so much under the pressure of time and still got the most out of the students, who eventually got very excited. Hence, my reflection upon the improvisatory element present in the classroom, as well as the importance of flexibility.

The work of art that the students will be viewing is Guy Davis’ Traveling Blues. Additionally, the sub-genre studied is the “Mississippi Delta” Blues. Personally, I find fascinating to dive into and study, at least in my case as an observer, a genre that is iconic in American culture and history yet not as known as other popular genres nowadays.

I was very fortunate in a way to observe the exact same session four times in a row on the same day, because by the third round I felt very comfortable with the dynamic and structure of the session and I was taking a lot of input for my own. The fourth period, that same day, was very interesting; it was the special education session, with a small group of students with various conditions. Going back to the subject of flexibility, I think this idea was very evident, as the facilitator adapted the concepts and dynamic for the occasion; granted, the classroom teacher in this fourth period was very helpful. The students showed a tremendous amount of engagement and excitement by the end of the session.

One of the very first things that caught my attention was the ability of the facilitator to take the answers of the students and develop from there; it almost felt as if it was an improvised dynamic, but I knew that there was a planned route to which we were all being guided. Responses from the students included things like complaints they have had from things like meals being undercooked, weather, too much homework, etc. From all of these, the facilitator was able to oppose different points of view, compare similarities and later on relate them to the study of Blues.

For a moment, it seemed difficult to get the attention of the class, but I suppose what helped was getting the students interested by asking them to give specific examples of a complaint they have had in the past few days or so. This, in my view, caught them “off guard” and at the same time interested. In a few seconds, hands were being raised to give an example, or for some they would just say it out loud. Curiously, this eagerness to express a message of protest or of reflection was later extrapolated in the 12-bar form of the Blues.

It seemed to me that Katie was extremely receptive of any hint of information that the students would state; she gave plenty of freedom in terms of what the students may contribute with their opinions, but at the same time the information was always directed towards a specific subject. Later, she would take this information and use it to have them create their own verses of what would later become a lyric of a Blues song. In groups of two, the students would read aloud to each other their complaints and later pretend to be their partner and act and read his or her complaint.

I am excited to be now in the planning process for my very own workshop to facilitate, along with my Kenan Fellow colleagues at LCI. In conclusion, I am very satisfied and happy that I am being exposed to these workshops, and moreover, to the incredible results and ignition of creativity that come them. It is definitely an infinitely rewarding process.

Kiah Abendroth: Imagination in Body Alignment and Music

2011-11-18T10:00:00.002-05:00

Recently, as part of my professional development, I’ve been working on the relaxation and alignment of my body. Through doing this, I’ve found some surprising connections to LCI’s teaching philosophy. I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised at this point. The more I study the philosophy, the more connections I make (I suppose “Making Connections” is one of the ten Capacities for Imaginative Learning). Actually, as time passes, the more I see the Capacities present in everything I do. I’m not sure if this is just an awareness and they were there all along, or if the Capacities are actually more present as a result of my practicing them. Perhaps a little bit of both.

ANYWAY, back to the epiphany.

I was laying on my back the other day, working on my alignment. As part of the practice, I was to imagine my spine lengthening (a type of passive correction known as “directing”). So as I lay there, imagining my spine lengthening, it actually started to happen, I could feel my body release into length. In my excitement, I thought: “Yes … up!” Oddly enough, when I used the word “up,” I could feel my body stop responding. At first, I was surprised: What changed? Why did my body stop lengthening? Over the next couple days, I continued reflecting on this, and I eventually came to a conclusion. By using the word “up,” I had undermined the power of my visualization. If a picture is worth a thousand words, when I used the word “up” I abandoned the other 999 words that came along with the picture of my spine lengthening. Interestingly, I think it is common that when trying to accomplish something, we go to words first. If I’m sensing some tension in my playing, for example, I could think “relax.” However, this is just one word. What if, in order to release the tension, certain muscles in my back actually had to contract to pull me back upright? Perhaps simply imagining what I wanted would have been more effective.

In everything I do right now, I am trying to find ways to use my imagination. In my trumpet playing, I’ve been actively imagining the sound of the music as I play (the imagined sound just slightly preceding my actual sound). This results in such things as: greater accuracy, better sound, less tension, and improved focus throughout the phrase. In a way, by letting my imagination be my guide, I am respecting my body’s natural abilities. Think of all the amazing things the body can do. Even right now, you are translating these symbols (just lines and squiggles) into words that have meaning! That alone is an amazing feat! What about catching a ball? Can you imagine what it would be like to try and use your conscious mind to catch a ball? The person would see the ball and think: “Ball is coming. Raise right hand. Arm bends at the elb--” SMACK! …Before the person has even finished raising their hand, the ball hits them in the face! We seem to have the misconception that our conscious minds always know best.

Imagination is unique. When you imagine something, you seem to use both the mind and body (both the conscious and subconscious). This is what makes it such a powerful tool. When I imagined the word “up,” that was my conscious mind trying to take control (and it was not nearly as powerful as my imagination had been). I really respect LCI’s mission to cultivate the imagination through the arts. If I ever had any doubts that the imagination was a valuable tool, those doubts have been completely erased. I challenge you to explore this yourself. Next time you’re trying to accomplish a task (anything!), consider how you might use your imagination as a tool. Try it, and I bet you’ll be surprised with the results.

Sara Barney: Observations from the Classroom

2011-11-15T10:00:00.032-05:00

Sara reflects on her observations of an LCI instructional unit at an NYC middle school with Lynn, an LCI teaching artist.

Teaching dance technique and composition is familiar. I truly enjoy the interaction I have with the children I have worked with. I find they give me the motivation to move forward in my art. I take my job as a teacher very seriously and can see the various importances of my role. In this role, I am teaching technique, encouraging an appreciation for the art form, cultivating guidance down the path of becoming a professional dancer/choreographer/teacher, as well as allowing individuals to express themselves through movement. Personally, I enjoy giving children that safe haven for discovery and exploration of movement that they may not have had otherwise.

I have enjoyed being able to take a step back and truly observe a classroom setting while being in this middle school. In this situation, I am freed from extra stress of being “on point.” The pressure is off now from being the facilitator, and I can enjoy the process. Being able to listen and watch is bringing new light on children’s responsiveness. I now have the opportunity to notice when activities are flourishing, in addition to catching the moments when things begin to fray and control becomes a bit more difficult. Each situation is typical and should be expected; though, learning how to deal with these difficult situations of maintaining focus and control is the tricky part. No matter how old the group is that you are working with, they each come with their rewards as well as difficulties. The ability to adapt to each individual situation takes patience as well as practice, and I am very thankful that I have the opportunity to build on both right now.

For me, I have recognized that teaching is something that motivates me to continue striving for the best in my life, and in particular, my art. The children we teach today are the next generation, not to sound too cliché. This is something I think that we all need to put more focus on in our day-to-day decisions we make. Our lives are difficult and tiring and a bunch of other things that many complain about, but just because we are tired doesn’t mean we can’t strive for a better future for the next generation. The next generation cannot improve if we do not help them. Art, in particular, allows for innovation and exploration. We must continue and push forward to help them be expressive individuals.

The children that we are working with right now in the school are an array of grades and levels. They represent the common varieties you would find in a middle school. I feel lucky to have this opportunity of diversity. I really enjoy the moment when children find a connection to the work, and you can see their whole bodies light up. You can see how empowered they become. Their confidence begins to grow right in front of you. I find those moments most inspiring.

In our first lesson we explored how the body is used in Flamenco dance. The upper body is lifted with the gaze of our eyes on an upward trajectory. The lower body is grounded. Lynn guides and asks the children to explore these types of feelings in the body. Afterward Lynn asks, “How did that movement make you feel? Write down a word or a phrase about it.” While doing this activity this past week in the school, I found myself intrigued by a little boy. He was very respectable and quiet. He followed all guidance and direction throughout the activity. When we came to the moment to shout out loud the key word on how the movement made us feel, we heard a variety of feelings: funny, lifted, heavy, big, alive, silly, weird, etc. When it was the little boy’s turn, he yelled, “AWESOME!” This warmed my heart. Simple activities can make children experience things they never had before and possibly in very different ways. Movement is something that can stretch you to new places. Children continue to surprise me, and I am so happy for that.

Ryan Layton on the Artist as Teacher

2011-11-11T10:00:00.001-05:00

Musicians can be downright nerdy when we get excited about something. We’ll talk about modulations or counterpoint or whatever and never get tired of it. Spending time with my mentor has been great because not only does he indulge me in such conversations, but he’s so knowledgable about everything that I always walk away with a new insight. We end up pulling out scores and recordings, talking about books by composers, and throwing ourselves into the more learned aspects of music in a way that I haven’t done with anyone before.

Before Patrick and I went into the classroom together, I had gotten to know his very intellectual side but not the side that can interact with second graders. Though I had sat in on the planning session with the teachers and knew what to expect, I had this idea in my head of Patrick in front of a bunch of second graders, poring over scores while atonal music played and referencing ideas in Schoenberg’s book. The idea was absurd and, to me, a little bit hilarious, but I couldn’t shake it. But as soon as Patrick got to work with the students, I saw how easily he could flip the switch and relate perfectly to second graders.

He had already surprised me when, in the planing session, he was drawing connections between flamenco music and second grade curriculum just as easily as the teachers were. He later told me that he pretty much has the objectives for each grade level memorized and that he keeps them in mind when he designs lessons. As the conversations with the teachers went on, I noticed that he directed the teachers just as he would later direct the kids in their classes. He never gave the teachers the answers but kept questioning them until they came up with their own goals for the lessons.

In the classroom, I realized something about myself that I had to get over to make the Aesthetic Education experience work. The kids had an activity where they created rhythms and clapped them in front of the rest of the class. When any of the kids failed to clap their rhythms correctly, I felt the private music teacher in me wanting to get technical on them. I wanted to break their rhythms down into small parts and give them problem-solving skills to interpret other rhythms in the future. Basically, I lost sight of what we were really trying to teach them, which was just an awareness of rhythm that would help them enjoy the performance they would see later. Patrick gently corrected them without turning it into a music lesson and without detriment to the excitement about rhythm and music that he created among the kids.

I knew that we weren’t there to teach the kids how to be musicians, but by the end of the day, I realized that teaching music skills was my default setting. A real teaching artist can resist the urge to overwhelm students with music skills that aren’t related to the lesson. And the music teaching artist possesses much more than just music skills, himself. The job requires a a deep knowledge of the goals for each grade level and a creative way of thinking that uses these goals to inspire relevant activities for the classroom. It’s more than I’ve ever had to handle as private lessons teacher alone. The artist as a teacher is several things rolled into one. He is involved in a balancing act that serves the integrity of the art form being studied and the leaning goals of the students in the class. It’s something that not just anyone can do, and I’m so glad to be working with someone as gifted in the ways of the TA as Patrick.

Hannah Emerson on Viewing Performances in New York City

2011-11-08T10:00:00.002-05:00

I did not grow up in an environment fostering even close to the same amount of support for the arts as New York City. I am truly grateful for the ability to experience an unfamiliar variety of dance, theatre, music, film, and everything thing in between. The variety, a bit overwhelming at first, I now appreciate. Slowly, I watched my personal artistic taste expand from the initial, tunnel vision confinement of what dance is supposed to be, to now seeing just how full the field of a motley collection of performances really is.

I can not honestly state I enjoy every performance I see. Unlike my previous belief of an obligation to do so, I’ve decided it’s okay not to. Recently, when going to dance performances, instead of deciding I dislike what I’m experiencing and leaving it at that, I start to question. What it is about this work that’s making me respond in that way? Is it the structure of the choreography, the musical choice, the theatrical elements, my responsive feeling of discomfort or anger? In the process of uncovering the ruling component of my opinion, I discover how, after accepting my preference for what it is, it is possible to continue watching with the same sincere curiosity as I had before the show began. The fact of the matter is, if I turn myself off, and decide the performance is not for me, I become stale. I am no longer open to a new experience. Why would I refuse myself such an occasion when I can continue watching with hungry eyes? I know I will find at least one element of the work I appreciate, ultimately learning something new every time.

Even though a performance might not be my favorite flavor, I never leave feeling uninspired. Seeing the work of others is encouraging; yet, being surrounded by sheer brilliance and constant creativity can also be intimidating. Being new to the New York arts scene, I find it’s simple to immediately doubt myself, doubt my ability to be successful in a place that seems as if it already has everything it needs. I know, in time, I will find my niche, because the wonderful thing about New York is how the diversity of the arts skips hand in hand with the diversity of the population. Just because I might not throughly enjoy tonight’s performance does not mean the audience member to my right will leave the theatre feeling the same way.

Elizabeth Moore: Observations in the Classroom

2011-11-04T10:00:00.008-04:00

Let’s face it. In the classroom, as in life, nothing goes exactly as planned. Prior planning. Improvisation. It is when combined that these create the perfect balance in teaching. Well, this is my opinion, anyway. Without the ability to improvise and run with things, not only can things become stale, they can stall completely. From what I have observed as a student, private music teacher and now as an assistant to and observer of the LCI teachings in the classroom, being prepared in both of these areas is the key to a successful teaching and learning experience. Lisa’s work in and out of the classroom these last two weeks has brought this clearly into focus like nothing else.

In between our planning session at the school and our first day of teaching, there were many drafts and various small revisions made to our lesson plans for the four days of teaching five classes of 6th, 7th and 8th graders. The object was to create lessons that were at the appropriate level for middle schoolers, would work with small to medium class sizes and that related in some way to what they have learned in school or are otherwise familiar with. We worked conscously to layer the material and to have everything connected and tied together.

Yet despite the carefully planned lessons, flexibility was, and will continue to be, a necessary element of our school visits. Although the level of complexity appropriate for a class of sixth graders and a class of eighth graders is similar, the way in which they respond to the the material is not in the slightest. The type of interactions possible in a class of 6 is not possible for a class of 25. Lisa’s ability to take these differences into account and to build off of something that helps a particular class relate to the art mid-lesson is a pleasure to observe. With our larger group of 6th graders this past week, Lisa at one point reclaimed the class’ attention after being met with blank stares at the idea that Flamenco dance and music was anything like the music and dance of their own culture. Without hesitation Lisa asked students to share a type of dance that they have come across in their personal experience. Slowly but surely students began to come forward, and the next activity was adapted to build off of dances they were already familiar with. The class was once again filled with activity. This ability to adjust is something I hope to become more comfortable with through Lisa’s example. There are many elements in this style of teaching both new and familiar that I have been taking note of throughout this process. The ability to skillfully adapt to the situation at hand is however a skill that I particularly hope to strengthen.

Felipe Tristan on the Development of his Artistic Project

2011-11-01T10:00:00.003-04:00

Creating an artistic project is not an easy task. For various reasons it has been a challenging process but yet an exciting one, and I am sure it will be very rewarding in the end. First, one of the issues to deal with was to define a clear concept that would be engaging enough and that would feature me as a performer and/or producer at my very best while keeping creativity and quality at high standards. Second was brainstorming and putting as many ideas out as possible without discriminating anything in order to later envision a concept.

A few months ago, I kept thinking of three or even four different ideas, and in fact, I would not get rid of of any of them. Later, it came the day of narrowing it all down to one proposal. To my surprise, none of the previous ideas passed my own filters after careful analysis and consideration of several factors. Consequently, I decided to submit only two proposals, which in the end turned out to be merged into one project, which I have been approved to present. The project is called Viva la Flute! and, as presented in the formal proposal, the project is “a Celebration of Flute Music from the Americas.”

What I find very stimulating about the process of “defining” the concept of a project is the discovery of the self that comes with it. Fortunately, we count on the help and opportune advice of our mentors. Katie, my mentor, who is an extremely active and creative musician, teaching artist and writer, has supported me and contributed a great deal of information and ideas for the creation of the concept of Viva la Flute!. Based on her knowledge and experience, she has made this process a life lesson for me. One of the things I most remember from our first discussions about my project is that I needed to choose what was best for me and what I do that could be showcased. “It is great to have a lot of things to say, but make sure you say only the very best,” she opportunely asserted. Not only that, it is also important to keep the content clear and concise, one that supports the “thesis” or, in this case, theme of the project. Less is more.

The whole process of filtering with pros and cons of each idea came with ease. As I eliminated elements or things that I did not necessarily want to portray in the project, the vision of the final product was becoming stronger with every revision. It was great to discover that my project would become a celebration project. Furthermore, I feel that going through the development of creating a project is a good exercise for the “creativity muscles” that are much needed in other assignments during our fellowship.

As far as logistics for Viva la Flute!, I believe I could write an extensive chronicle with notes of events, challenges, problems/solutions, and a large amount of anecdotes that one faces during the gestation, development and, I assume, execution of a project of this nature. For now, I could say that a key aspect is to remain creative in dealing with issues that arise from all aspects of the show. The most “obvious” or logical answer is not always the best answer. Finally, orchestrating such an event is fun but also exhausting. Nevertheless, we have been instructed and trained to create this and much more. I am up for the challenge and eager to inspire friends, colleagues, and everyone to come and celebrate at Viva la Flute!

Kiah Abendroth: Reflections on the Work of Maxine Greene

2011-10-28T10:00:00.007-04:00

[...] We desire, through aesthetic education, not only to foster a continually deepening understanding of the several arts, but to empower teachers, students, parents--all those involved with the care and nurture of the young--to act upon their freedom in the world they share with others.
-Maxine Greene, Variations on a Blue Guitar

Perhaps one of the most impressive things to me about LCI’s philosopher in residence, Maxine Greene, is her ability to follow her thoughts with action. After reading the above quote, it’s no wonder why. Being empowered, feeling both free and inspired to act, is naturally cultivated by aesthetic education. I mentioned this resulting “empowerment” briefly in my Phase 1 Reflection, but it keeps returning to me as an integral element of my experience here. Something in me keeps saying: Others have made a difference, you can too ... you have more power than you think. In moments of doubt, I still question whether or not an individual can really make a difference. However, whenever this occurs, my mind promptly responds with a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. and I’m reminded that this sense of individual weakness is false. I’m not saying inspiring change is easy, but it is possible. There are so many people in this world, imagine what it might be like if each person acted on their passions, their visions for a better planet. Personally, I think there would be hope.

This thought touches on another element of Maxine Geene’s philosophy, “Social Imagination.” To be honest, this concept has taken its place on my mental list of philosophical ideas that totally rock. Perhaps this is because it encompasses both imagination and activism. The basic idea is this: the first step to creating a better society lies in the ability to freely imagine one, thus imagination is at the core of all change. I noticed that this relates seamlessly to art-making as well. In painting a seascape, for example, the artist would first have to imagine the ocean. In playing my trumpet, I have to first imagine the sound (trust me, if I don’t tell the trumpet what to do, it doesn’t do much). So I ask you to imagine, for a moment, your vision for a better world. Can you imagine something different in society? In your community? Your own life? Consider forgetting about limitations for a moment. Imagine freely. Imagine anything! Ask yourself to dream. After all, Martin Luther King Jr.’s words were: “I have a dream.” He didn’t say, “I have a fully-developed, ten-step plan for the future.” Giving yourself that freedom to dream seems, to me, like a good start. There’s no way to stretch society’s limits without first imagining beyond them. In imagining freely, we access our full potential.

So I want to thank Maxine Greene, for being such an inspiring individual--both in her thoughts and actions. I look forward to continuing my exploration of her work and, of course, doing my own!

Sara Barney: Difficult Questions

2011-10-25T10:00:00.003-04:00

I have been asking myself these so called “difficult” questions during the past seven weeks. Where do I want to take my career? What is my artistic voice saying? Where is my niche in the dance world? Is it out there? How do I find it? What am I looking for? These questions are not always enjoyable and exciting to face. I believe that we typically make up diversions to avoid them often. Though I may know that these questions are necessary to face in life, no matter what career path I choose, they are still most dreaded. I have noticed that they make you take a deeper look into yourself, and you start to question personal subjects.

I am discovering a lot about myself and am looking more closely at the different options I have for the future. I greatly appreciate this opportunity to comfortably explore my options during the Fellowship. I have been given time and space to search with support. When given the opportunity to take a look at my options and be able to dip into each one for a taste, I sometimes can freak out. I have given consideration that having a schedule to follow with someone checking up on you, making sure that you are doing what you should, is familiar and somewhat comforting, now that I look back on it. It can be overwhelming to see that you are really in control of your future. I am so fortunate to have this umbrella of LCI supporting me through these tough but much needed adventures.

At this point, in the Fellowship, I sometimes worry about how I may not today have everything figured out in my career. These concerns have always produced a bit too much anxiety for my liking. Being prepared and thinking of the future is all very necessary, but I can recognize now how it can be over-excessive and slightly detrimental to current pressing matters. Stressing about things that cannot be taken care of today isn't worth the time and energy; I would know, I have come across situations of this kind a bit too often. All I can do sometimes is laugh at the tremendous amount of pressure that I and my fellow Kenan Fellows put on ourselves when speaking about our future plans.

Self-structured time is the culprit of all my current personal reflections. I have discovered that time can be overwhelming, especially when you are in control of scheduling it for yourself. I have put a censorship on my time in the past, which has come to light during the last seven weeks of my life. Self-structured time allows for me to take advantage of time in a way that I haven't been able to in the past. I can appreciate creative and personal needs much more now. I have belittled discovery time in the past and I feel as if I have freed myself from those thoughts during the Fellowship. I have to admit, it has been difficult making decisions on how to make use of my time. I, very quickly, make judgment on what I should be doing and question others whether they find my decisions most beneficial. I have found that the most interesting part of these struggles with time is that if I have an honest reason for doing something, in return, it will be most beneficial for me, and I need to accept this notion.

In being given the time to research and fully explore my possibilities, I am excited to see where these different routes can take me. I feel much more equipped to take these next steps in my life and career, now having been allotted this time. I can’t say today that I know where I am going next, but I know that I am becoming more prepared for it than I have ever been before. This Fellowship has given me the chance to truly transition into being an adult. Allowing me to figure out how to run my life with the support of the Fellowship is comforting and is allowing me to take some risks that I may not have jumped right into previously. I am a little afraid of what is to come, but I am happy that I have this new family to hold my hand through it all.

Ryan Layton: Reflections on the Artistic Project

2011-10-21T10:00:00.000-04:00

Finding out that my artistic project got approved was some of the most exciting news I’ve ever gotten. It was a great affirmation for me that my idea for this program wasn’t just something interesting to only me but something that an audience might intrigued by. It gave me a great deal of confidence in my creativity. It also gave my practice a new sense of purpose. I now have a specific goal (and a deadline) to work towards every single day rather than just playing guitar because I know I should. I also have unique obstacles that I can enjoy overcoming while I acquire new skills and perspectives that will make me a better artist.

I gave myself several new challenges with this project. The most interesting will be arranging popular songs in a baroque style. I’ve arranged things before, but usually just for fun and not for a concert. And my arrangements have never taken pieces out of their original style and completely re-imagined them. My project is about using electric and classical guitar to let music from all time periods and styles exist on the same program. These arrangements take that concept to the next level. Not only will music from distant genres and time periods exist on the same program, they’ll exist at the same time! Seeing the potential in a pop song to be arranged in this way is not easy. With the help of my mentor I decided that “In the Ghetto” by Elvis ought to work really well, but I’m still searching for one more song that lends itself to lots of counterpoint.

Finding this ideal second song, considering its purpose in the context of this concert, is a programming challenge like I’ve never faced before. This whole concert, really, has been a big exercise in effective programming. I haven’t ever heard a concert where pop songs in a new style are sandwiched between music by classical guitar composers from the Renaissance and modern composers of vocal music. As I assess my program order I can’t think, “Does this piece flow into the next?” because the answer will almost unwaveringly be, “No.” But the fact that every piece is so radically different from the piece before it and that all of it is somehow being brought to life on the guitar is where this concert finds its strength. What I think instead is, “Are there too many pieces in this particular key?”, “How long has it been since the audience has heard me play a piece in this style?”, “How long has it been since I used the electric guitar?” They’re all questions that are supposed to facilitate diversity rather than the sort of natural flow from piece to piece that you’d expect in a regular concert.

And then, of course, there are the challenges of getting the music under my fingers. I feel especially ready for this one. For about a month now I have aimed to only play very easy music or to play hard music very slowly so that I can absolutely nail everything. I’ve treated the difficult sections in the music from my program as if they were exercises and spent the rest of my time with etudes. No matter how hard or easy a piece is, it is an incredibly transcendent experience to feel yourself doing everything perfectly; to be 100% in control of tone, rhythm, phrasing, and dynamics. When the technical challenges are minimized, your brain has this huge amount of room to focus on shaping every aspect of the piece into high art. As I have learned new music for this concert and relearned older pieces that fit my concept, I’ve taken special care to only play them in the sort of way that allows for maximum art and minimal difficulty. Even as I increase tempos I try to retain that transcendent feeling. Having a concert to prepare for and learning all of the music in this way is going to be an excellent experience. I think this new level of preparation that I’m challenging myself with will be what causes me to grow the most by the time this is all over with.

Nothing about this process is going to be very easy. Arranging takes time, programing well means second-guessing myself a lot, and learning hard music is... well... hard. But for all of the difficulty, there has already been a huge amount of fun. It’s going to be great to give myself to the development of this project for the next few months, and when I’m finally sharing it with an audience, I will know for sure that it has all been worthwhile.

Hannah Emerson on the Development of an Artistic Project

2011-10-18T10:00:00.005-04:00

I recently submitted my first professional proposal for an artistic project. Never writing one before, I did not know exactly what I was getting myself into, and the process turned out to be one of both struggle and success.

The proposal experience taught me not only how hard is it to write clear paragraphs about the crazy thoughts in my mind but also the importance of communicating those ideas. When Elizabeth and I first decided to collaborate on a project, we spent a good amount of time solely talking about our interests. Our discussions birthed new and interesting perspectives, yet, when we began to write the proposal, we found creating a cohesive proposal with one intention to be a hearty task. It involved many written drafts with heavy, and sometimes not so pleasant, conversation.

This past weekend, I found myself in conversation with a friend from home about the Fellowship. Just hearing of the proposal acceptance last week, I instantly shared with him the wonderful news and started to discuss my experience of writing the proposal. I shared one small detail about how the first draft of the document, initially saved as "First Time Around Artistic Project Proposal" magically transformed throughout the process into Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and eventually into Eighth Time Around Project Proposal; not to mention all the extra saved documents full of research notes, related ideas, and feedback we collected throughout the process.

Just the other day I curiously glanced through our drafts. In the beginning, the first drafts were disconnected and chunky; full of beautiful thoughts, but our ideas jumped from one image to the next, making it difficult to understand. I was confused by some of my own word choices and can confidently say an outsider's mind would struggle to follow. The drafts near the middle seemed more connected at parts, yet long-winded and still a bit disorganized. The beautiful thoughts now had details and explanations, creating cleaner images of the project, but the long transitions and messy formatting distracted the viewer, taking away from the overall flow. In the end, the drafts were clear and organized. The concept, the means for execution, and the possibilities for artistic growth were communicated with clarity. All of the cracks, chunks, and craters were filled in with descriptive details that did not distract but intrigued the reader.

Looking back, I begin to see a connection between how the process of writing the proposal will directly relate to the process of creating our piece. During proposal process, Elizabeth and I discovered the importance of working with each other and how communication is key, not only to the proposal but to our artistic project concept as a whole. As we begin creating our new work, the struggle will pay off when the development of the piece, disconnected at first, successfully transforms over time. The long transitions and messy formatting will become clear. A cohesive work, full of descriptive details to fill up those unwanted cracks, chunks, and craters, will emerge.

It was just last week when Elizabeth and I heard our artistic project proposal was accepted. All the concentrated effort, long hours of editing, getting feedback, editing and then re-editing again, paid off. I could not be happier.

Elizabeth Moore: Reflections on the Imagination Practices of Imagination First

2011-10-13T10:00:00.002-04:00

Imagination practices are in themselves beautiful examples of the imagination at work. Taking abstract ideas such as using “what would have been” to think or create what can be and to take the seemingly random results of the “telephone game” as inspiration for new creation are brilliant tools for stretching the imagination. These charmingly simple practices feel fun as any game but have the power to kick-start a free-flow of ideas. When I am feeling blocked, I can trick my mind past that with such a practice. I am once again reminded that I, by myself, am full of ideas-- even original ideas. I am myself able to invent and create.

“There is nothing like knowing it all to kill the imagination.” From Practice Four in Imagination First, this statement hits home like nothing else as I enter the “real world” chapter of my life. Being out of school for the first time, one might think that it is the time to move from learning to applying what we have learned. On the contrary, more than ever I feel I cannot help but keep learning and growing. It is not just ambition. It is self-preservation. If I were to feel as if I “knew it all” or at least that I knew enough and stopped learning, I would not only be hampering my imagination, but would be unable to adapt to my new environment. And although we hate to admit it, adapting and change is necessary. Which brings me to my point: imagination is not only something we are all capable of, it is practically a necessity. It here for us even when we think we lack it. Often, we use it without recognition, but it is from recognizing that we are capable of imagining that we gain power and freedom. It is our greatest ally in times of panic and struggle.

In today’s world and economy there is no set career for a classical musician, or for an artist of any kind for that matter. Being, as I said, right out of school, I am confronted daily with the frightening uncertainty of my future career. It is through imagination, and particularly through use of imagination practices, that I am able to generate possible future paths, or think up odd combinations of supporting skills. However likely or unlikely these may be, they both reassure me of my ability to create options for myself, and allow me to lighten up enough to generate options without judging them first. Eric Liu and Scott Noppe-Brandon’s Imagination First is filled to the bursting with thought-provoking, idea-generating imagination practices that can even lead to the development of your own personal imagination practices. As I said: imagination practices are in themselves beautiful examples of imagination at work.

Artistic Project Announcement

2011-10-11T16:36:00.001-04:00

We're delighted to announce that this year's Kenan Fellowship Artistic Projects have been selected. They are:

Introspection, a music-dance collaboration, produced by Kiah Abendroth

Guitar Rep, a music program, produced by Ryan Layton

Sound of Sight, a music-dance collaboration, co-produced by Hannah Emerson and Elizabeth Moore

Viva la Flute!, a music program, produced by Felipe Tristan

Congratulations to the Fellows! We look forward to seeing the performances this winter.

Felipe Tristan on Career Development

2011-10-06T10:00:00.001-04:00

"What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing." --Aristotle

One of the reasons why I applied to this Fellowship is because I knew it would open many doors in my career. Being in New York, surrounded by so many artistic miracles every day, is enough to inspire me. Since my arrival, I have begun to discover that in fact doors were being opened at different levels, in both figurative and literal ways! For example, I recently found myself entering the offices of the various constituents of Lincoln Center: The New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet, The Chamber Music Society, Metropolitan Opera Guild, Jazz at Lincoln Center and Lincoln Center Theater. Before this fellowship, I would have had to buy a very expensive ticket just to enter the hall. Not even in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined myself as being involved behind the scenes as it is happening now!

The experience of being introduced to them through the fellowship represents the opening of figurative doors in my career. From this perspective then, I believe that such opportunities must never be taken for granted. Instead, they must be seen as a means by which I might open myself up to new paths.

It is almost surreal to think of the day when we will be set and say, “This is it, I am going to stop now. I have reached happiness.” Wise is Barry Schwartz in his lecture “The Paradox of Choice” by affirming that having too many options “lessens the satisfaction” once the goal has been reached at the end of the day. However, I think that being open to the possibilities and eager to reinvent yourself with them will only allow you to grow in multiple levels. In other words, options can be good, and so is the openness with which we consider them.

In a recent interview for the New York Times, famous best-selling writer Paulo Coelho taught the world a lesson on facing career challenges with his versatility and openness to risk. In the midst of a sales crisis and against the will of his publishers, he decided to “give away” his work; his best-sellers were available for anyone around the globe, free to download. From a business perspective, this is no way to make money. However, the writer’s strategy regained the interest of his readers but also brought him an entirely new audience of the curious. His sales figures have now skyrocketed to record highs.

One of the great educators and philosophers of the last century, Jean Piaget stated that “knowledge is a system of transformations that become progressively adequate.” I believe that it is one who discovers in the long run what choice was adequate or inadequate, whether it's life or career choices.

I think that Lincoln Center has been directly and indirectly instructing us in the art of career planning. We are taking in as much as we can from this experience, meeting inspiring people with inspiring stories every day, attending incredible performances, learning skills and concepts that no other program offers, but best of all, defining more and more our path to success in our fields. I believe that we must be focusing all of our efforts in being creative and imaginative with our plans, strategies we use to handle challenges and with what we “have to do”. With this approach, we can keep pursuing that day of illumination, while remembering to enjoy the present.

We are constantly looking for success in one way or another and whatever that means for each of us, frequently planning how to get closer to it, how to reach it and for those determined (or lucky) enough, how to maintain it. Whether it means winning an audition, accumulating wealth, finding love, or even to reach a state of illumination, in all these, achieving is the key word and a very dangerous one, too, because then the ego becomes insatiable, the perception of success is based more upon reaching goals and less upon savoring the success for which we so long searched.

What are you doing today that is going to get you closer to where you want to be tomorrow? Have you envisioned your surreal day? An undeniable fact: doing is learning. Thank you, Aristotle!

Kiah Abendroth: LCI's Practice and the Imagination

2011-10-04T10:00:00.002-04:00

The more I learn about LCI’s philosophy, the more I believe that we all have the mental capacity to think in this creative way; it’s just a matter of tapping into it. It seems to me that the areas of the mind used in the 10 Capacities for ImaginativeLearning may simply have fallen “out of shape” in the human mind over time. I say this for two reasons:

One- When first exercising these capacities during the International Educator Workshop in July, I found myself becoming extremely mentally fatigued. My brain literally felt like mush at the end of the day. And it wasn’t just me; the other Fellows, as well as several TAs, all reported feeling this way at first. It reminded me of what it might be like to begin using your legs again after spending years in a wheelchair (a situation I am fortunate enough to have never actually experienced).

Two- I noticed in myself that these “muscles” seemed to be growing stronger. The more time I spent thinking about the philosophy, the more my mind would actively use this creative thought in everyday life. (For example, I observed myself noticing details I had never seen before, making connections between things seemingly distant, asking questions non-stop, feeling empowered to think bigger and to put those thoughts into action.)

When these areas of the mind are stimulated, it seems they begin firing on their own. Unfortunately, the opposite also seems to occur. If creative thought is not regularly exercised, those areas of the mind begin to slowly revert into dormancy. I’ve shifted my focus during Phase 2, focusing less on the LCI philosophy, and as a result I’ve noticed a slight decrease in my mind’s spontaneous use of the Capacities. My mental muscles were abandoned in the midst of their development! Luckily, just as an inactive part of my body would maintain some residual muscle mass, so the areas of my mind stimulated by the use of LCI’s practices have maintained some strength. Especially after any activity or exercise related to the LCI philosophy, I find my mind once again returning to its previously strengthened state.

To shift topics slightly, I’ve noticed that some thoughts can inhibit these mental capacities from being expressed freely. For me, the biggest of these inhibiting thoughts has been the fear of failure. This issue is addressed beautifully in Practice 28 of the book Imagination First, “Fail Well,” so I’d like to discuss that practice here for a moment. The basic concept of “Fail Well” is to re-define “failure” as something useful-- to consider that failure is just a different outcome, one that doesn’t have to be negative at all. As Imagination First puts it: “When we let failure guide us, we see a far wider field of possibility: now the realms where failure might lurk are not dangerous or unwelcoming; they are potentially useful.” Personally, this has opened me to a new world of creative possibility. I’m sure you can imagine a past “failure” in your life. Can you imagine what it might have been like to experience that failure using “Fail Well?” It’s both inspiring and humbling for me to think of how much more I could have grown from my various life experiences … or how many more life experiences I might have had, if I hadn’t been afraid to put myself out there.

Another quote I like from Imagination First regarding “Fail Well” is the following:

[...] there is a useful way to fail and a wasteful way. The wasteful way to fail is to deny it or hide it. [...] The useful way is to treat failing like a learnable skill - something that, with effort and reflection, we can get better at until one day we can reach the point of mastery.

Being an artist, the first thing I think of after reading this is applying it to my trumpet practice. Coincidentally, the authors were on the same page, as the very next paragraph address this issue! They say that:

[...] good practice is not mere repetition; it is paying attention. It is releasing the ego’s hold on the situation long enough to let our mistakes guide us. It is creating a safe environment where others can learn the same way. We get better at failure by not punishing it when it’s useful.

This concept of embracing “failure” has been a big part of my learning experience here at LCI, hence why I’m sharing all this with you! I still say to myself, when feeling worried about a potential outcome, or disappointed in any way: “Fail Well! Fail Well!”

Knowing this intellectually, however, has been completely different than actively embracing it. Trying to apply “Fail Well” in my life has shown me how ingrained that fear of failure can be. Perhaps this is made worse by my perfectionist nature, my tendency to take everything I do personally--as a reflection of who I am. Despite the fact that being a perfectionist can be occasionally useful, it can also be seen as a type of illness, for lack of a better word. Essentially, it leads me to define myself by what I do instead of by who I am. My “doing” is defining my “being,” instead of the other way around. So I ask you: do you ever let your “doing” define your “being?” Could you imagine what it might be like to reverse this ... to let your “being” define your “doing?” How might your life change? Just food for thought.

Another recurring idea, connected to the LCI philosophy, is the idea of no limits. By refusing to imagine the impossible, you personally ensure that it remains in the realm of the unattainable. How could we ever hope to stretch our current limits if we don’t try to reach beyond them? Sometimes it seems like we have become so skilled at working within systems (following rules, staying within the lines) that innovation itself is being stifled! In order to avoid this, you would have to believe in yourself, more than you believe in your limits.

Imagination seems to naturally cultivate this. I recently learned that Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, was an extremely prolific inventor. He would invent something new every three days or so, and something really great would emerge about once every other week. What is so inspiring is that he wasn’t limited by his lesser inventions. Everything he did he used as a building block-- a “Fail Well.” Mathematically, his “failures” thus outnumbered his “successes!” However, it’s obvious that he is not considered a failure in his field. It just goes to show you that “failure” and “success” are intimately related-- just different sides of the same coin-- the coin of innovation!

So, in fully embracing this idea of imagining freely and “Failing Well,” the only direction left to go is up. In every situation you are growing and reaching further. Success is no longer a question, it’s just a matter of time.

Sara Barney on Having an Artist Mentor

2011-09-29T10:00:00.003-04:00

Many qualities make a truly exceptional artist mentor: being committed, keeping your best interests at heart, being nonjudgmental, having the ability to sincerely listen, being sensitive to personal obstacles, being secure enough in their own skin to support your discovery, challenging you, inspiring you to do your best, being completely transparent, honest, patient, trustworthy. Deborah fills all qualities.

I have worked exceptionally hard to be independent, to be confident in my decisions, and with that, sometimes I feel I have been perceived as not needing any help. Just because people strive to be confident does not mean they do not have insecurities and difficulties. I feel I lacked the support of an artist mentor during fragile moments. This is not to say that I didn’t have amazing teachers, as well as strong support from family and friends, though something was lacking through my journey in school. The Fellowship has given me an opportunity of a lifetime. Receiving guidance in the transition from the academic world to NYC is much needed and appreciated. Deb is not only giving me guidance though my artistic endeavors, she is also helping my through personal discoveries. She is opening my eyes to many more possibilities I have perhaps over looked in the past.

The pressure of doing the right thing has lent a hand in blocking my career choices and creative process. Deb’s encouragement and support is helping me to break through and identify what I truly need in my career and creative mind. I tend to live my life haunted by the word "should". Should I do that? Should I be trying harder? Is this something I should want for myself? These questions have contributed to my decision-making process in the past. The process of figuring out what I really need in life and in the arts is difficult when the word "should" is involved. Deb has a way of asking me difficult questions that we never like to ask ourselves, to get to the root of my thoughts. She holds me accountable to the goals I set for myself, which helps me, in return, from letting my responsibilities to myself lose priority in my life. I am now, more than ever, challenging myself to maintain a sense of willingness and openness in exploring new ventures. This environment, that structured time I have built, is a safe space for exploring and discovering my choices.

Deb has helped me acknowledge balance or the lack of balance in my life. I have found we need to listen to our creative side and nourish it with stimulating thought and activity. Those little things that we say we never have time for, or that we wished we did more often, are all contributing factors to a balanced or unbalanced life. I recommend not to turn away from those thoughts and needs. I, with the support of my mentor, have taken responsibility in setting priority in bringing balance to my life. This has helped me evaluate, along with put focus on standards I would like for myself.

Deb is helping me take a more realistic perspective of this profession. I had known realities of this profession previously, though living in an unstructured, nonacademic world where I run my life and make my own decisions is quite an eye-opener. It's pushing me to recognize the idea of budget and is forcing me to take a look at what I want for my future. Having the support of my artist mentor allows for me to go into this experience with a little less fear. She is like a safety net of inspiration and motivation to keep going.

My confidence in networking has been boosted. She has given me a sense of self-worth in this field that has been dormant. I now have rethought the act of networking; it is much more human than I thought it was. We are all people and appreciate acknowledgment. Why not introduce yourself and make it known that you have a genuine liking towards their work? In the act of doing that, there's no harm in slipping them one of your new lovely business cards, either.

I feel honored to be able to go to a variety of performances with someone who lives in the center of it all. This opportunity is introducing me to a family of positive role models. I feel I have been given access to a professional community that I would not so easily have without my artist mentor.

Ryan Layton on Writing an Artistic Project Proposal

2011-09-27T10:00:00.002-04:00

Over the summer, when this proposal was further off in the future, I wasn’t all that intimidated by it. I thought about the grants I had written in college and figured that the skills I picked up in that process would be helpful when writing my performance proposal. But when I finally came up with my concept and got really attached to it, the stress was on. Writing a proposal is a simple enough task but when one stands between you and the performance idea you’ve grown to love, it’s hard to not be intimidated. Thankfully, a lot of the skills from grant writing really did come in handy.

When writing grants and when writing this proposal, I had to anticipate the questions my readers would have and make sure I answered all of them. In doing this I tended to get a little wordy. There were sections where I would get too lost in details when just a sentence or two would have been appropriate. While trying to give my readers as much information as possible, I tended to complicate things without realizing it. Fortunately Patrick, my mentor, who has done lots of writing including a recently completed memoir, was always willing to look at drafts of my work. With his help I felt sure that my ideas would be as clear to the reader as they were to me.

Patrick also helped me get a feel for the big picture and overall layout of the proposal. In earlier drafts my descriptions of the project read a bit like an essay. Patrick helped me organize my thoughts on the page so that I was coming out of the gate telling my reader what this project was all about and how I planned to achieve my goal. Then I could provide background information and explain why this project is so important to me. My earlier drafts took too long to get to the meat of my project. The reader could clearly see why I was passionate about my program but there was too much to sit through until I explicitly stated my mission and means of making it all work.

Something that was unique to this proposal that I hadn’t experienced in grant writing was the idea that not all of my details had to be perfectly clear at the time I turned my proposal in. Only having a working title, having a piece or two on the program still under consideration, and having mostly ballpark figures in my budget wasn’t all that bad. At first, I really wanted to nail down these details. I didn’t see it as leaving myself room to make further decisions about my project, I saw it as turning in something that was incomplete. But when I stepped back and looked at the whole proposal, I saw that these details didn’t detract from the proposal as a whole. What mattered most was that I represented my overall concept. If I felt more time would result in a better title for the project, fine. If another piece comes along that ties the whole program together better than what I have listed, great. Being able to let go of little things like that really freed me up to focus on my language and organization of the proposal. It also allows me to continue making decisions that improve the project without changing its mission.

The experience of writing this proposal was an invaluable encounter with something that I will be doing for the rest of my career. While writing grants for small sums helped me build some fundamental skills, there is nothing to get those skills in shape like having your project’s future hinge on a four page document. I’m very grateful to LCI and the Kenan Trust for this opportunity and to Patrick for all of his help. The proposal writing process was hard and while it may be over, there are now new challenges on the horizon. Namely, being patient while all of the proposals are reviewed. And if I’m lucky enough to get the green light, there are sure to be some challenging practice sessions ahead of me.

Hannah Emerson on Networking

2011-09-22T10:46:00.001-04:00

New York City is massive. Eight million people live here, and a fraction of those people are involved with the arts. Dancers, musicians, actors, writers, filmmaker, designer, stage managers, lighting designers, sound designers, and costumers, all of whom I want to work with.

The problem for me is where to start, and I recently realized I'm still in the process of learning just exactly what networking is for me.

I know that networking is a critical part of starting and maintaining a fulfilling career. I understand what networking is, what it entails, and what it can provide. Networking builds relationships. It creates connections that can result in new opportunities and can set up potential for collaboration. Overall, networking will build a supportive web of helpful people.

Since arriving in New York City, I'm constantly meeting new people. Lincoln Center Institute has introduced me to fantastic teaching artists. I am currently in the middle of attending meetings with the heads of the Education Departments of a handful of the Lincoln Center constituents. I even had the chance to eat lunch with Reynold Levy, the President of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Outside of Lincoln Center, I've started to meet wonderful dancers and choreographers when taking class, workshops, and by getting in contact with UNCSA alumni. Each interaction ends with a proposal to please stay in touch and not hesitate to contact if anything is needed. I have so much at my fingertips. If I need help it's there.

The other day, I met with my mentor Lynn. We began talking about questions I had concerning networking. I spoke about my understanding of what networking is, yet I expressed some troubles about coming to terms with my role in networking. As the conversation continued, we shifted topics and I told her about how I bumped into a friend from UNCSA. He graduated a couple years ago with a BFA in acting and is now at the Manhattan School of Music getting his Masters in Jazz Composition. Full of excitement to actually see a familiar face, we began a non-stop conversation. He shared with me the many thrilling projects he is in the midst, of and I talked about the Fellowship and the workings of my artistic project proposal. Before we parted ways a couple trains later, he expressed his interest in being a part of the project. After sharing this exciting experience with Lynn, she bluntly said what I lacked to notice. I just successfully networked.

Elizabeth Moore on Self-Structured Time

2011-09-20T10:00:00.001-04:00

"If the world were merely seductive that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." -E.B. White

It is hard to plan the day. So many possibilities. How much time should I spend improving my art through practice? And how much should I spend promoting myself as a musician and private teacher? How about on research and study? Looking into graduate programs? My health and well-being? These are questions I ask myself on practically a daily basis. And the answers are not always the same. Similarly to White, I ask myself, how best can I both improve and savor music, my music, teaching, this city? I am grateful that at this stage in my life, I have little doubt as to the "what" in filling my self-structured time for the Kenan Fellowship at LCI. It is in the organization and management of the "what" that is the greatest challenge, and that for me, makes all the difference in balancing "improvement" and "enjoyment" of my music and myself as a developing musician in New York City.

As a violist I am familiar with a significant amount of self-regulated practice time. Hours each day "free", but a commitment to my instrument that results in a very different reality. I knew that my self-structured time for the Kenan Fellowship at LCI would include time dedicated to practice. I also had a fair number of ideas about how the rest of my self-structured time could be used. And as I anticipated, filling the hours of the day has not been a struggle: practice, promoting myself as a private teacher, researching graduate school options, attending concerts, taking up yoga, preparing for and teaching private lessons... many of these activities are already represented in my daily schedule. No, filling the days is not the challenge. Doing all this and not burning myself out is.

I am at a point in my development as a musician where it is necessary for me to divide my energy in multiple directions. As a newcomer to the city I must spend time on networking and promotion that I would otherwise spend on practice and study. It is a juggling act. And like a juggling act, organizing my time effectively takes practice. I have in these first few weeks become acutely aware of what a responsibility it is to be the sole manager of one's own time. Filling hours with worthy pursuits is one thing. Remaining effective and focused is another. If I am not careful, I can end the day feeling completely drained. And ending each day feeling as if you have been hit by the train you were, in reality, riding on is not a desirable, nor, to my mind, necessary, outcome of leading a full and productive life. It is not that these are activities that I do not enjoy. It is simply that there will never be enough hours in the day, and if I am not careful it can feel as if I am waging a losing battle against the clock. I have realized that careful organization of my time each day can guard against this. The simple act of creating a list of attainable goals and tasks for the day ahead reminds me that I am moving forward. It keeps me grounded. And grounded, I am less likely to feel as though I am losing to the clock.

Perhaps the weight that I feel has to do with the fact that even though we each wrote a proposal for our self-structured time and had it approved by our mentor, Melissa and Jose, there is no one looking over our shoulders to make sure we are on task. Is this the "real world" that I have heard referred to? There are no longer classroom walls and graded papers. Our relationships are becoming more subtle than student and teacher, or student and student. There are still deadlines and expectations. And there are no excuses. I am responsible for my own success and for my failures. I have the support of friends, colleagues and mentors, but the rest is up to me.

In conclusion, I would like to be clear that for all of its challenges, managing my self-structured time is an extremely positive experience. It is not completely new or foreign, but it is leading me to examine in new depth what my strengths and weaknesses are. What comes naturally and what I must work hard to achieve. I am extremely grateful that the Kenan Fellowship at LCI is giving me the opportunity to learn from and for myself in this way. Each day I feel a bit more balanced. My feet are more firmly beneath me, and I end each consecutive day more at ease, more comfortable with myself, and what I, alone, can accomplish.

Elizabeth Moore: Reflections on Phase I of the Fellowship

2011-08-16T10:00:00.004-04:00

Below, Elizabeth reflects on her training at UNCSA and her experiences as a participant in LCI's International Educator Workshop, part of the Institute's annual Summer Season of professional development for educators.

Reflections on Phase I - From My Fire Escape

I have had phenomenal teachers. Teachers who inspire their students to learn through their passion for a subject, with how they bring them to take responsibility for their own learning, or with their ability to show the relevance of what they are teaching to each student’s life. Sometimes by being tough, and letting you know when you haven’t given your best. Every teacher that has ever left a positive impression on me has been interested, curious, and engaged with this world of ours. My interactions thus far with the Teaching Artists here at LCI have impressed upon me how much they embody all of these things.

In high school I had this teacher who was as dedicated to his students as to spend long hours outside of school going over physics problems via telephone with his most stubbornly science-inept pupil, and constructed weekly challenges where we had to devise creative methods of defeating “Evil Pete” (his mischievous counterpart) using only the items listed and our knowledge of physics. I, that previously science-inept student, soon became a champion in the battle against “Evil Pete.” Although I retain little understanding of physics, what I will never forget is that, through this and other similar experiences in high school, I learned how to learn.

I like to think that I have been practicing this skill ever since. As content became more important while learning a very specific set of skills and techniques in my study of viola at UNCSA, I did not need to focus on figuring out how to study the information. I had already learned how to learn - leaving room to enjoy the process and focus on the content. Each student at UNCSA is there to become a practitioner of their particular art form. Many of us develop a sort of “tunnel vision” while learning these skills. While this was good for me in that it allowed for a level of focus not often possible outside of conservatory, graduating and entering the “real world” coming from this reality seemed a startling, and to me, frightening change. In what ways can I employ myself as a musician? Is it o.k. to take some time before auditioning for graduate programs? What types of ensembles am I ready to audition for? How do I find students in a city like New York? I am so grateful to have the opportunity to spend this transitional period at LCI. It is giving me tools that are changing the way I look at and think about the world around me. As I begin to notice new things and ask more questions, new ideas occur to me as options for a young musician such as myself in New York. I am reminded everyday by the example of the staff and Teaching Artists here at LCI that the learning isn’t over. That it has in fact just begun.

My introduction to the Capacities for Imaginative Learning is already having an immense impact on my daily life - how I look at visual art and dance, how I listen to music - even how I converse with my friends and colleagues has been altered. Implementing the Capacities for Imaginative Learning into my work and practice as a violist is a very exciting possibility. Some of the Capacities fit neatly and naturally into the way in which I have been taught at UNCSA and the way in which I already practice - identifying patterns, making connections, reflecting/assessing - others are a foreign way to approach my art form, but I am excited to integrate them. The applications seem endless to me, and I feel like they put the strengths and values of all the best teachers I have had into one, concise, concrete and beautiful philosophy. I now have a better idea of how I might become one of those teachers that inspires others to be curious and passionate about the arts and the world around them. In the meantime, they are already helping me to grow as a musician and into a more aware human being.

Specifically, this summer at LCI has become about noticing deeply and taking my noticings and turning them into questions. Open questions. Questions that lead to more questions and maybe research. Maybe that research turns up answers, and perhaps it just leads to more questions, but regardless, it is a fascinating process. It is these two capacities that have most effected me - just realizing (or perhaps re-realizing?) that there is an infinity to what can be observed has change immensely the way I look at the here and now. At a point during the International Educator Workshop we were asked to view the large Henri Moore sculpture in the reflecting pool here on the LCI campus. Although I had passed by it many times, it had never spoke to me. In the next 45 minutes something happened. By having to live with and consider it, the sculpture took on meaning for me. Curved and straight lines, textured surface, shadows cast on the water and on itself. Sunlight and dark hollows, shadowed. My noticings go on. From the roof-lawn of the Lincoln Restaurant it reminds me of a serpentine sea monster - perhaps the Loch Ness monster - exploring the sunlit surface. His title, Reclining Figure, is merely an abstract suggestion, and the sculpture now has a meaning and character specific to me and my experience with his work of art. Somehow, like that time Evil Pete motivated me to explore the use of physics, this sculpture by Henri Moore captured my interest.

From my fire escape I see the street, through the rain protruding with a slippery glow. Street light, heat, noise and dirt rise to my perch - and I’m crazy in love with this city. There is an anonymity about this crowded place that is at once terrifying for an artist (and surely any other ambitious individual) and practically intoxicating in its opportunity. Opportunity that invites reinvention and adaptation of myself with every new street, neighborhood, and concert hall I enter for a first time. Opportunity in the people I may meet and the art and music I have begun and will continue to experience. But best of all, LCI is giving us a place in this vast city where we are not anonymous, and providing us with the tools with which and the environment in which to grow as artists, future educators, and as people.

Hannah Emerson: Reflections on Phase I of the Fellowship

2011-08-11T10:00:00.005-04:00

Below, Hannah reflects on her training at UNCSA and her experiences as a participant in LCI's International Educator Workshop, part of the Institute's annual Summer Season of professional development for educators.

I spent the last four years of my life training to become a professional dancer and the last four weeks devoted to being a Kenan Fellow. At University of the North Carolina School of the Arts, I worked my body daily to better my technique, explored various ways of generating movement, and performed in works created by others as well as myself. At the Lincoln Center Institute, I worked alongside the other Fellows to introduce my mind to the philosophy of aesthetic education, explored the Capacities for Imaginative Learning, and saw performances by the finest theatre, dance and music companies in the world.

Until very recently, I thought my training at UNCSA and aesthetic education as practiced by LCI were two different entities. I found their goals valid in their own light yet located on opposite ends of the spectrum. It was not until my participation in the International Educator Workshop that I notice how my past education at UNCSA unswervingly relates to my current learning at LCI.

At the beginning of the workshop I felt intimidated. I saw myself separate from the teachers attending. I felt under-educated. I did not fully understand how I could fit in with a group of teaching professionals. I was worried. How would I carry on a conversation about education when I do not know anything about being a teacher? I didn't want to seem young and unintelligent. Fear was guiding my experience. The awkward lulls in conversations made me nervous. I tried avoiding them, which explained my quiet demeanor at times and why I was often found surrounded by the other Kenan Fellows. I was immersing myself in the LCI philosophy but not much immersion was taking place in regards to my relations with the other participants. I was lost on how to make connections.

Midweek, wrapped up in a group of early elementary school teachers having a discussion about what skills the teaching artists leading the workshop were building, I did a lot of listening. Critical thinking, increased awareness, imagination, risk-taking, confidence, collaboration, stimulating curiosity and deep engagement were just few. All the groups shared similar findings, and I began to recognize how familiar employing many of those skills were to me. Even before the Fellowship began, I was asked to notice deeply, question, see patterns, and exhibit empathy. As a student, choreographer, and performer, my teachers at UNCSA constantly asked me to employ these skills, both in the classroom and on stage. The teaching artists were developing the same skills in the educators as my teachers at UNCSA did with me. Just then, I grasped how superficial I was when comparing UNCSA and LCI previously. On the surface, they looked so different to me, yet at the core the values are the same.

At that moment I realized, I was not at the International Educator Workshop to become an educator; I was there to become a stronger artist. I no longer felt a pressure to understand how to think like a teacher. I realized, even though I feel my ambitions as a professional artist are different from those of professional teachers, the skills needed to be successful in each respective area are identical. I found the connection, and it opened up my ability to carry on more conversation. The confidence in my voice grew, and it changed the rest of my experience.

By the end of Phase I, I’ve come to a new understanding. The Capacitates for Imaginative Learning not only create stronger educators, artists, and learners; they make better people. For me, my next battle is learning how to take action. I’m curious so see how my new experiences will foster my future decisions.

Ryan Layton: Reflections on Phase I of the Fellowship

2011-08-09T10:00:00.004-04:00

Below, Ryan reflects on his training at UNCSA and his experiences as a participant in LCI's International Educator Workshop, part of the Institute's annual Summer Season of professional development for educators.

It is an interesting experience: going about your life as usual when, suddenly, something extraordinary enters your world. You think to yourself, "How did I ever live without this!?" and begin changing the way you do any and everything because now you know something wonderful, and you will never be the same. We all feel this way from time to time about matters of varying importance. For example, I have forgotten what I used to do with my spare time before Netflix. Having all 14 seasons of King of the Hill on instant watch has changed me. But over the course of Phase I I have had a new experience that is far more profound and life-changing. Since having a brush with Aesthetic Education, I can’t think about effective teaching without LCI’s ideas being front and center.

I’m lucky that my guitar teacher at UNCSA was an absolute genius. Although I wasn’t aware of it, he was exposing me to some of the same ideas we have been learning as Kenan Fellows. I can draw several connections from what we did in my lessons to the Capacities for Imaginative Learning. Other areas of my music education, however, didn’t make use of them at all. For example, in music theory class, I think I could have benefited from noticing sounds deeply before analyzing how they were made. Instead, we usually did as lots of music classes do; we listened to a piece one time through with a copy of the score and jumped right into analysis afterwards. This approach to teaching subjects like music theory works well enough, and I don’t feel like I missed out on anything because of the approach my teachers were taking. I know I learned my material well, and it still sticks with me. But the idea of using the Capacities to build on what I experienced, in classroom situations I never would have thought could use changing, is very exciting.

Realizing all of their applications did take me a while, though. When we first started studying them, and even until the very end of the workshop the Kenans participated in, I had questions about how widely the Capacities could be applied. When we used them to connect with a piece of art, I could feel instantly how helpful they were. But when I tried to imagine them in the average classroom, I was at a loss. I just didn’t see how "Living With Ambiguity" could help someone learn math or how "Exhibiting Empathy" could aid in teaching music theory. Frankly, I still don’t. But what I realize instead is that they don’t have to. All of the Capacities can work individually of one another. It isn’t an all-or-nothing sort of deal. While some Capacities aren’t well suited for a particular subject, others can do really great things to deepen a student’s connection to the topic.

My deeper understanding of the Capacities wouldn’t have happened so quickly without the brilliant teaching artists that guided us through the Summer Season workshop. The organization of the whole thing was brilliant. We had deep experiences with two different kinds of art: African masks and Flamenco music. The TAs led us through all sorts of different activities that gave us deeper connections to the works we would eventually see.

When we finally came face-to-face with the works of art, we didn’t just look at them like we may have looked at art before. We viewed three African masks at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The African Mask room is one that I normally breeze on through, but we spent an hour only looking at three. At each mask, we noticed more than I would have ever though was there to notice. Similarly, Flamenco music isn’t something I’ve ever had a strong interest in before and would have normally appreciated in a lazy sort of way and moved on. But we got to see a live performance, have a long discussion on what we noticed, and then see the same live performance again. That was unbelievable. The first time through, I only focused on what I related to most-- the guitarist-- and nothing else. But after hearing what everyone else gathered from the performance, I would have felt like I missed out on something big if I didn’t get to see it again and notice those same things for myself.

Only after we had experienced the works of art did we talk about pedagogy. I don’t think it would be possible to talk about the pedagogy without having experienced it in action first. I think it is something you really have to go through as a student before you can start to practice it yourself. Our discussion of pedagogy was the first time I had been asked to create a lesson plan (of any sort) and the first time I had gotten such a close look at the inner workings of Aesthetic Education. I excitedly drafted a lesson plan and activities around Ghostcatching [a digital work of art] and, while it was a new challenge, I found that I didn’t feel out of my element at all. From there, I started thinking about how I can use the Capacities and the teaching skills I picked up in the workshop when I teach my private guitar students.

While I still have lots of trial and error to go through before I find how the Capacities will work in my own teaching, I feel myself getting closer to being the sort of teacher I want to one day be. I have realized that teaching is like a puzzle. But rather than opening the box, dumping the pieces onto the table, and going for it, you have to gather the pieces over time and put them into place as you go. Perhaps a good number of pieces can be picked up just by experiencing good teaching as a student. But knowing the individual skills is nothing if you don’t know how they all fit together or if other important pieces are missing. I guess there is no way to know how close you are to finishing the puzzle, and maybe it could be said that no one ever does-- they just keep learning and amassing pieces. But after my experiences in Phase I, I feel like I can see much more of the big picture I’m working towards completing.

Kiah Abendroth: Reflections on Phase I of the Fellowship

2011-08-04T10:00:00.004-04:00

Below, Kiah reflects on her experiences as a participant in LCI's International Educator Workshop, part of the Institute's annual Summer Season of professional development for educators.

I could have never anticipated the type of impact this fellowship would have on my life. I had imagined learning a new teaching philosophy, even new skills to succeed as a professional musician, but never had I imagined discovering a new way of learning, a new way of perceiving my whole world (yes, please feel free to commence singing “A Whole New World” from Aladdin...). Just kidding, I’m actually serious about this. Please stop now.

No, seriously, stop. Take a moment and look at your surroundings, and find an object that interests you, anything.

And just start noticing. Notice details.

Maybe there’s something about it that you’ve never noticed before. Is there?

I’ll play, too. There’s an antique clock directly in front of me; I’ll use that. Let’s see, what can I find? There are some points at the top that catch my eye. They’re very symmetrical, a whole array, kind of like a fan. Directly below the points is a semi-circle. Actually, when you combine the two, it could create a sun. (Interesting! I’m starting to like this clock a little bit.) Looking more deeply, I see that there are also stars … tiny stars, etched into the wood below the sun. It’s a beautiful symmetry: night and day. Thinking back, I’ve seen solar themes before in clocks. I guess this makes sense; historically, we do use the sun to determine the time of day. This clock seems to create a particular scene, however, a time of day when both the stars and sun are present. Daybreak or nightfall, I guess. I begin to wonder which it is. Is the sun setting or rising? Something about it makes me think it’s rising. I can even see it in my mind: the sun creeping over the horizon, the grassy countryside vibrant with a kind of waiting, and the stars, still holding onto their nighttime brilliance in the periphery. It’s beautiful, and it feels tranquil and grounding to me. I feel at home. It’s funny to think that, a couple of minutes ago, I didn’t even like this clock. Now, I could probably look at it for hours.

This is LCI. Looking at a work of art, you take time to notice deeply, ask questions, make connections, and through this you create meaning. One of my main questions after the first phase of this fellowship has been: How can I teach using the LCI philosophy? Well, that was my first attempt. (It seemed only appropriate for me to share with you what I’ve learned in a way that also helped me explore how to teach.)

During the International Educator Workshop, I observed the teaching artists leading through questions, a process that stimulated personal discovery. This process is also empowering. But why? I guess because the learner is asked to take his own steps forward. Thus, after a while, the learner realizes that he can walk on his own. Then when left alone, suddenly the learner is walking, searching, making connections, discovering, delving into a deeper understanding, and maybe even carving a new pathway for the future.

My studies at UNCSA provided me with many skills to use as a professional musician, and now my studies at LCI are providing me with a process. I’m excited to see how the two will interact. I wonder in what ways my trumpet playing will change? What techniques could I try that I’ve never explored? Through these questions, I’m inspired. I know that I’m on the edge of many great new discoveries.

Sara Barney: Reflections on Phase I of the Fellowship

2011-08-02T10:00:00.003-04:00

Below, Sara reflects on her training at UNCSA and her experiences as a participant in LCI's International Educator Workshop, part of the Institute's annual Summer Season of professional development for educators.

School had always been a bit more difficult for me, it seemed. Spitting out information verbatim from the book was never and still is not something I have much expertise in. I had to do extra work just to make it by in some cases. It makes me wonder what the outcome would be if teachers reevaluated their educating norms. What differences would be made if they would address the individual rather than the group as a whole?

Aesthetic Education has brought new light to the way I look at academic and artistic learning. It gives me hope for possibilities in different approaches to learning and educating. I have found that it allows for learning, of all kinds, to be more open for the individual rather than regimented standards that have been made to generalize the group as a whole. The way these practices has transported me into a new way of approaching learning, as well as life in general, makes me wish I had this opportunity sooner.

The University of North Carolina School of the Arts gave me an unyielding ground to stand on for future artistic endeavors. The focus of our classes were largely skill- and technique-based. In our movement classes, our bodies and minds were pushed to their emotional and physical capacity. It developed fantastic strength and endurance for company life. It was a safe place for me to discover who I am as an Artist with a community of great support. The opportunity to witness and partake in the vast amount of works of art enriched my life in such an exceptional way. To have art at your very fingertips; how can you not be constantly stimulated in a community like this! It is such a rare lifestyle to exist and participate in; I hope I can continue a similar lifestyle here in NYC.

In being introduced and immersed in Aesthetic Education was a fresh way of looking at learning and educating for me. It differed greatly from my past learning experiences. I have always been encouraged to think creatively with great innovation as well as exploring my own imagination while being an artist, but I never considered how this might help my other schooling. These past four weeks have given me insight on how to make that possible.

I have learned that the Capacities for Imaginative Learning can be a great guideline in many aspects of my life. I have found myself feeling a bit more awake when incorporating the different Capacities day-to-day. I started to notice some of the little things that I never really saw before. I have been able to make connections with others that I may not have had the courage to talk to previous to Summer Season. Summer Season has given me added individual strength in taking action in my artistic opportunities as well as life in general. Summer Season has begun to solidify these ideas for me; in personally experiencing new practices, I was able to witness a change in others and myself. I can only imagine how this would have helped me in past schooling.

I now can see the potential for Imaginative Learning, but it brings me to my next question: How could Aesthetic Education improve/develop artistic skill/technique-based learning? I have no doubt that this could be a remarkable collaboration, but the thought of incorporating Capacities for Imaginative Learning and skill-based teaching is intriguing to me. My curiosities lie with the “product” of what these teachings could bring. Would we focus more purely on just some of the Capacities or would they all be incorporated on some level of the dialogue? I am curious mainly because during my hiatus I will be teaching young children Contemporary and Composition [for dance]. I wonder how much of these past four weeks will influence my typical approach to these classes. I have every bit of confidence that they will; it motivates me now to take some risks.

I now have a sense of empowerment and responsibility to practice these new ideas. In the past, for some reason, I have always made myself believe, more often than not, I wasn’t fully qualified. This never stopped me from actually teaching or partaking in situations that were similarly uncomfortable, it just seems that I was doing myself a disservice by having such doubts. In these past four weeks I have experienced something different. It has allowed for me to appreciate the idea of learning through teaching. I am excited to share what I have learned now. The teachings have been consequently more accessible than I thought they would be. I think it might have been through the ways they were presented to me. The notion of giving [a participant] just as much information as needed to complete the task has been a great find. I have discovered that it lets the learner focus on one idea at a time. In similar past experiences, when given a glimpse of the end product, the thought of what it "should" be was debilitating. I sometimes went through the initial feeling of being closed off to any other possibilities. I had to fight my way through just to attempt to find creativity in some cases. Taking a different approach to this task allows for more individual freedom in the process. It gives us our voice back. It allows for us as learners to take responsibility and discover on our own paths. Without appropriate guidance, this process could go sour real quick. The teaching artists who lead me through these activities showed a focused, as well as an open-ended, personal discovery. They showed me that I have much more information to give than I ever that thought.

As I say "see you later" to everyone I have worked with these past weeks, it has been really nice to take the time and look back at everything we have done. I feel that many of my thoughts about life have been altered slightly, and it is truly thrilling! At this point in the Fellowship I am eager to have a few weeks to allow for everything to marinate. Phase II will be a new adventure, and I am raring to go!!

Felipe Tristan: Reflections on Phase I of the Fellowship

2011-07-28T10:00:00.012-04:00

Below, Felipe reflects on his training at UNCSA and his experiences as a participant in LCI's International Educator Workshop, part of the Institute's annual Summer Season of professional development for educators.

"Being open to the unfamiliar will inevitable make you grow on many levels." --Maxine Greene, as heard in her lecture at LCI's Summer Season 2011

It is amazing how only a few days can have a tremendous impact on one’s perspective. The time I have spent in this Fellowship has already brought me a great amount of enriching experiences. But more than experiences, lectures, concerts and events, it is the fact, itself, of being immersed in this world of imagination, creativity and innovation that the program offers which makes all this an incredible and a life-shaping experience.

While pursuing my Professional Artist Certificate at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, I was being taught theoretical, technical and practical concepts about my craft. Immensely wise was my mentor at UNCSA by reminding us that “if you keep doing what you have always done, you are going to get what you have always gotten.” Similarly, I have been told in this Fellowship that if you are “open to the unfamiliar,” the growth will be almost inevitable.

I believe these two statements complement each other in various ways. They both imply and encourage a discovery, inquiry and curiosity. In the Fellowship, we are being encouraged to look for new and wider perspectives, to never limit exploration and to search for justification of self. That can potentially have an outstanding positive impact in anyone’s life, and that is what I have been getting in this program during the Summer Season, and of course much more to come!

After reflecting for a few days on how long this experience will be of high impact on me, I could not find an answer nor visualize myself not believing in the key elements of LCI’s philosophy. I believe that regardless of the twists and turns that my path may take in the future, what I have learned here will stay with me forever.

Thinking about all that made me think of different questions about the infinite possibilities for the future. Will this experience redirect my path? How will this experience reshape or add a new flavor to who I am and what I do? In one of the meetings with the Lincoln Center staff, a member of the Board of Directors remarked, “…allow serendipity to guide your way” after describing the different paths that she had been through in her professional life; her passion was always the motto.

I am eager to enjoy the journey and seize the moment, the magical process and many other similar cliché motivational phrases, because at the end, I believe we are being taught how to learn more than how to teach, and by learning in that way I am enriching myself and ultimately influencing positively our society. We are being taught how to learn in a way that such experiences touch your soul, and that is something worth enjoying, seizing and owning.

Kiah Abendroth: First Impressions of the Fellowship

2011-07-26T10:00:00.002-04:00

It’s been less than a week since I walked through the doors at LCI, and my mind has already shifted. Everything I perceive is on a different plane. If I had to pinpoint it, I’d say the shift occurred on my second day of work. After work, to be precise…

I was sitting at my tiny black desk, the AC unit humming in front of me, looking over one of our assigned readings: LCI’s publication of “Aesthetic Education, Inquiry, and the Imagination.” I had been writing down reflective questions for the past hour, but my mind was on a different mission: to form a definition. Not just any definition, either, but one with the utmost clarity and rigidity (preferably with numbered sub-categories), so clear that it could be boxed up and tucked away in the recesses of my mind. It was in this moment, just as I became conscious of my defining, that the shift occurred:

What if defining something wasn’t the best way to learn?

The act of defining something puts limits on it, limits that can potentially restrict deeper understanding. We are taught to follow the rules, to follow the given definition, not to break the limits we are given. Thus by defining something, we have put it in a box. Yet what happens when our box turns out to be too small? When the idea is bigger than we could comprehend? That definition, that mental box, is no longer useful; it’s an obstacle.

LCI focuses on learning through inquiry, and now I know why. Leaving an idea in the question form avoids this entrapment. Instead of creating limits, you stay connected to the abyss of knowledge that has yet to be traversed; you open to possibility. The result is expansive, overwhelming, inspiring. I remember feeling my mind broaden out around me, the universe suddenly as tangible as it was endless. I had to force myself to sleep; my mind was alive with a constant swirling… What if? … What if? …

And it’s just the beginning.

Hannah Emerson: First Impressions of the Fellowship

2011-07-22T10:00:00.000-04:00

Every day I look forward to going to work.

For many years, I listened to people talk about their jobs as something they have to do. “It’s how life works, Hannah. You must go to school, learn a trade, and work for the rest of your life until the age of sixty or so.” From the eyes of a young, impressionable girl, this seemed awful. I did not look forward to going to school, and I predicted I would feel the exact same way about going my work.

During my first week as a Kenan Fellow at the Lincoln Center Institute, I watched a lecture by Maxine Greene from Lending the Work Your Life*. At the very beginning of the section, “Thinking of Things as If They Could be Otherwise”, I remember her speaking about routines. What I gather is the way in which routines can lead people to build habits out of boredom. Boredom creates “empty eyes”.

This idea resonates with me. I remember having “empty eyes” during my schooling. My daily routine of sitting in a desk and listening to my teacher lecture for hours did not involve much direct interaction. I found I was often bored. Maybe this is why I grew so found of dance. Dance involves my complete concentration. Very soon I became enamored with how much I receive when I am fully engaged.

As I learn about the Lincoln Center Institute’s Capacities for Imaginative Learning, I do not have “empty eyes.”

The more I notice, the more I question, and I wonder how different I may be if I experienced the same engagement in my primary education. What if the excitement I feel while dancing and on my way to work I felt for school? What if going to school was not something I had to do but something I wanted to do?

*Editor’s Note: Lending the Work Your Life is a DVD recording of Maxine Greene’s speeches at Lincoln Center Institute’s Summer Season workshops.

Ryan Layton: First Impressions of the Fellowship

2011-07-19T10:00:00.002-04:00

In the weeks leading up to my first day of work, I had prepared in every way possible. I reread the same materials that helped me before my interview, I rode the subway to and from Lincoln Center until I knew exactly how much time to allow for my morning commute, and I hit the malls until my closet epitomized “business casual”. There was no doubt that on my first day of work I would be on time, well-informed, and dressed like my dad. In hindsight, I probably overdid it a little, but the preparation helped me relax and trust that I was ready to do my best. However, on day one, my preparation served me very little.

One of the Lincoln Center Institute (LCI)’s full-time Teaching Artists came into the room, and no sooner had I introduced myself than I was helping to clear a space in the center of the room for what had only been described as a “movement workshop”. I had been at work for fifteen minutes and was already being thrust outside my comfort zone. While being told to move my body into various straight lines and then into curved lines-- and to do so in the presence of the two wonderful dancers that I work with-- I considered my reservations about maybe looking foolish. It didn’t take long, however, to realize that the more of myself I gave to the workshop, the more I would get, and I aimed to get as much as possible. I had no room for reservations.

We took turns moving for each other, discussing our impact on the space around us. We worked with partners and drew their movements and further explored the notion of space in our drawings. We imagined our bodies leaving trails of color in the air when we moved and made choices regarding color as we drew our partners. All the while we were asking questions. But the questions weren’t addressed to our workshop leader, they were to the drawings we made, and they were asked without the expectation of an answer. The whole process was like nothing I had ever experienced. But we weren’t finished. We took seats and turned our attention toward a projection screen and watched a short work that involved dance and digital media called Ghostcatching.

When we were asked to discuss Ghostcatching, I think we were surprised at how easily we grasped the artistic principals at work in the piece. But we shouldn’t have been. We had spent the morning up to that point completely immersed in discussions and actions involving space, movement, and color, which was a big part of Ghostcatching. We had been contemplating the same things that the artists behind the piece had contemplated, and so we were no longer removed from the piece, but had experience with the concepts at work.

I spent the rest of the day with my mind a little bit blown. I thought about how fun and how challenging and how incredibly integrated that whole workshop was. Days later, I’m still thinking about it. Up until that workshop, I had only seen art appreciation or understanding taught from some sort of contextual point of view: when was it made? what were the materials used? how is it significant to society? All of these are important questions but still leave too much room for the observer to ultimately say, “I don’t get it.” After my experience on my first day, I’m thrilled to know that there is another way to educate people about art and that it really works. I’m more excited than ever to move forward with this fellowship and see what other great experiences are in store for us.

Sara Barney: First Impressions of the Fellowship

2011-07-15T10:00:00.001-04:00

Walking into the Rose Building of Lincoln Center was awe-inspiring. I thought, “Wow, I can’t believe this is actually happening!” I arrived on the seventh floor, assuming an orientation-filled day, discussions of what we will do in these next six months and what is expected of myself and the other fellows. To be thrown into an experimental workshop on the first day was a mix of emotions. Excitement, fear and curiosity were all present that morning. I had to prepare myself with mini inner monologues to stay open and willing for whatever may come. I jumped head-first into the Capacities for Imaginative Learning*. “What is expected of me? Will I like this? How does this all work?” These were just some of the questions flooding my brain that day. I again referred back to my inner monologues and continued on with a bit more openness.

The movement exploration of the workshop was comforting. It was something familiar, which allowed for an easier transition to something new. I quickly thought about the others in the group who are musicians and how they may not feel the same as I do. Even in an uncomfortable setting, all six fellows were working together. Hearing of everyone’s perception and interpretations was stimulating. It seemed so interesting how we could all have the same instruction and come out with such different takes on the ideas. I really appreciate the Capacity of “Living with Ambiguity”. I think I could very soon grow to love the thought that not all problems have solutions instantly and may have many interpretations.

*Note from editor: The Capacities for Imaginative Learning were created by Lincoln Center Institute to articulate outcomes of the practice of imaginative learning through aesthetic education. The ten Capacities are: Noticing Deeply, Embodying, Questioning, Identifying Patterns, Making Connections, Exhibiting Empathy, Living with Ambiguity, Creating Meaning, Taking Action, and Reflecting/Assessing. For more information, visit: http://www.lcinstitute.org/.

Elizabeth Moore: First Impressions of the Fellowship

2011-07-12T10:00:00.000-04:00

As I prepared my application for the Kenan Fellowship at Lincoln Center Institute and went in for my interview, I felt confident and comfortable with the notion of experiential education, having myself grown up being home-schooled and attending small schools focused on learning through hands-on experience. I knew that the educational philosophies of John Dewey and Maxine Greene and LCI’s emphasis on aesthetic education was a logical continuation for me as both a growing artist and future teacher.
These beliefs hold true. More than anything I am tremendously excited as I realize just how little I know. A host of new resources and fresh presentations have already in the first few days shown me that I am at just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more out there and I can and will keep growing. Yes, I was raised in a free-thinking, encouraging and supportive community and have been involved in making music and art for most of my short life, and yet still I have spent so much time learning what “is.” As both Dewey and Green encourage, I want to imagine what could be.

Despite my background, I still shut myself down. Being asked our first day in a workshop to experience a work of art through questions, I realized for the first time just how difficult that has become for me. I say that it has become difficult because I am sure that, as a child, I had no qualms about asking a continual stream of questions, but now there is something that holds me back. There is an unfortunate stigma in our classrooms and culture as a whole that if you ask questions you are not intelligent. As Socrates showed with his method centuries ago, asking questions is an effective way to explore an idea. What have our teachers and peers done to us? What is the media telling us? What has happened to us that we are so afraid of having and expressing our own thoughts and ideas? Will we ever be as free as our five-year-old counterparts? Doubtful, but I believe we can unearth a new freedom, where despite years of being told that this is the world: this how it is and will be, we can and will imagine what else could be.

In these first few days as a Kenan Fellow I am already inspired by the attitude and philosophy at LCI. We have already been grappling with these questions as we begin to read excerpts from Maxine Greene’s Variations On A Blue Guitar, from works by John Dewey, and from LCI Executive Director Scott Noppe-Brandon and Eric Liu’s Imagination First. And as I said, realizing how much there is for me to learn has brought my excitement (and yes, my anxiety) about the fellowship to a new level, as my attentions are pushed in new and enticing directions.

Felipe Tristan: First Impressions of the Kenan Fellowship

2011-07-08T10:00:00.002-04:00

Sparkling excitement

Almost two years ago, when I first heard about the Kenan Fellowship at Lincoln Center Institute and knew very little about it, I began immediately to feel a spark of curiosity; I wanted and needed information, I needed to find more and more about what it was all about. All this was very exciting, and little did I know that I was already immersing myself into one of the Institute’s philosophies by stimulating my own curiosity and imagination.

A year later, I began to set my mind to this process. A few weeks later, after the application process, I got an interview and it went very well. My excitement level went from high to super high. Finally, great news came my way; I had been accepted into the program! Not only was I going to be doing what I love the most, but I was going to be mentored and instructed by professionals in the field, all of that in the ideal location, New York City.

Now, only after a few days of having started in this program, I have begun to get a real glimpse of the infinite possibilities, potential and learning experiences that the LCI will bring to me, my dear fellows and, consequently, our world. I have started to question things from different perspectives and not always necessarily looking for an answer but for the experience of questioning, the exploration and ignition of imagination within.

The other day, walking through the streets of Manhattan to meet with a friend, I started thinking about different concepts that had been discussed at the LCI that morning, concepts about questioning, imagination and creativity. Suddenly, I found myself trapped in a cluster of different types of questions, both philosophical and existential.

Initially, I felt somewhat disturbed, but then after a little reflection I felt content because I knew that by being part of this great program, I was in the right place to stimulate the capacities that will eventually generate the answers. Perhaps this experience will make me realize that neither the answers nor the questions were ever as needed or crucial as I thought they were.

Today, I have opened my mind, heart and arms to embrace this experience at the maximum level. This is really exciting!

Introducing the 2011-2012 Kenan Fellows

2011-07-06T13:41:00.000-04:00

We're delighted to welcome the tenth year of Kenan Fellows at LCI! This is their second week of the Fellowship, and we'll be posting their first reflections soon.

The 2011-2012 Kenan Fellows are:

Kiah Abendroth, Master of Music in Trumpet Performance
Sara Barney, Bachelor of Fine Art in Contemporary Dance
Hannah Emerson, Bachelor of Fine Art in Contemporary Dance
Elizabeth Moore, Bachelor of Music in Viola Performance
Ryan Layton, Bachelor of Music in Classical Guitar Performance
Felipe Tristan, Professional Artist Certificate in Flute Performance

We are looking forward to sharing the next six months with them and sharing their reflections on this blog.

Amanda Hinchey: Everything Potent is Dangerous

2011-03-03T10:00:00.003-05:00

Below are photos of Amanda Hinchey's artistic project, a dance piece entitled Everything Potent is Dangerous. The piece was a duet with Sarah Elizabeth Seger, with original music incorporating recorded interviews by 09-10 Kenan Fellow Gregory Miles Hoffman.

Photos by Melissa Gawlowski, Lincoln Center Institute:

Amanda Hinchey

Sara Elizabeth Seger and Amanda Hinchey

Kayla Herrmann: Reflections on the Artistic Project

2011-03-02T10:00:00.016-05:00

Kayla reflects on the process of creating The Orchard, a dance/music collaborative piece with Kathryn Logan:

"If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

--Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944)

If you didn’t know, freshly squeezed grapefruit juice is amazing, and I am drinking that right now. I know many people think grapefruit without packets of sugar on it is too bitter, but it has a really sweet side, too. The trick to enjoying grapefruit juice is to drink it very slowly. With each small sip, notice how it starts off sweet, turns bitter at the back of your tongue, and then after you swallow it (enjoying the bits of pulp that come with freshly squeezed juice), enjoy the lingering mixture of sweet and tart next to each other.

My experience as co-director and performer in The Orchard was also very two-sided. I wouldn’t choose sweet and bitter to describe the two sides (although they had moments of each!), but they were certainly very different. It never occurred to me that performing and directing at the same time would be frustratingly difficult. Once all the musicians were in town and we were in the theater with the dancers, I kept needing to make decisions about lighting, video projection, placement of dancers and musicians, how loud the sound should be, you get the picture. On top of that, I needed be able to coach the musicians on how we can be more effective as an ensemble when playing with the dancers and film. I kept imagining that if I concentrated really, really hard, I could make another me appear out in the audience. I needed to be able to see what was going on-- to find out how well we were communicating to the audience. But when you are on stage, that perspective is almost impossible to have. On one hand, I am so grateful that my collaborator, Kathryn Logan, was not dancing and able to sit in the audience and make calls about lighting and placement. On the other hand, I hated feeling like I was not contributing as much in the overall direction of the piece. I felt defeated by my own self for not being able to sprout super cloning powers.

I thought about what it must have been like for Kathryn to sit in the audience, watching the movement that she created, and feeling frustrated when it isn’t being done correctly. I think that is very related to my experiences as a teacher, too. I often want to grab the cello out of my students’ hands and play it for them because they just can’t figure out this simple thing that I’m trying to teach them. I always remind myself that true satisfaction in those moments is finding the best way to help them figure it out. What made Kathryn such a great choreographer was her ability to coach the dancers into finding the “thing” she was after. In many instances, the dancers did something a little different, making it their own movement, and it worked even better! I was lucky to have such a great collaborator, because we agreed to always keep on open mind about the project and how it would evolve. In these moments, when the dancers or John (the cinematographer) or the musicians did something a little different than what we had in mind, we always considered it. I think that made our performance more organic and successful, because each performer had the opportunity to make some aspect of it their own.

I think this is the right time to make a confession. I was not as good of a director and coach for the musicians as Kathryn was for the dancers. Part of this comes from my decision to bring in musicians that do not live in NYC. The sweet part is that I didn’t have to schedule around work and school during tech week. The more problematic part: having to rehearse in a very short amount of time. We only got one real rehearsal in before the first tech rehearsal. There wasn’t any extra time outside of simply getting the music together. I really wanted to be able to share our concept with the musicians, give them some time to think about it and reflect on it with a guided discussion. I had sent them all a description of it when I asked them to perform in the piece, but they didn’t have a chance to develop a personal connection to the concept over a longer amount of time.

When I do this again, I will be more prepared to be a director. Directing isn’t just about where the musicians sit or what font the program should be. It is also about having a captivating personality and the ability to make everyone feel comfortable experiencing the concept of the piece. As a performer I am so used to following a conductor or communicating equally amongst the chamber musicians. As a performer/director, I need constantly be aware that I am wearing both shoes. Like the quote at the top of this reflection, I need to improve my ability to inspire the passion and confidence I have in my ideas and concepts.

Since this is my last blog as a Kenan Fellow, I want to say thank you to everyone involved in making this such a successful relationship between LCI and UNCSA. It has certainly been a career-shaping experience.

Photos of The Orchard by Melissa Gawlowski, Lincoln Center Institute:

Brittany Zellman, Kayla Herrmann, Taya Ricker, and Daniel Winnick (Katy Gilmore in foreground)

Kayla Herrmann

Kayla Herrmann and Taya Ricker

Daniel Winnick, Taya Ricker, Brittany Zellman, and Kayla Herrmann

Benjamin Garner: Reflecting on the Artistic Project

2011-03-01T10:00:00.081-05:00

Benjamin reflects on the process of creating Sacred Search, a theater/music collaborative project with Drew Madland, and on what's next:

There has been a challenge to Lincoln Center Institute, one that beckons with ferocity to be oneself and pursue art. I might speculate on the exact wording of the edict; and then debate with you the wording and syntax, all before finding out what this challenge is as a group. While not a bad idea, instead, I will tell you what I feel.

I feel privileged to have been a part of something spectacular! Phase 3 was the most challenging physically. I experienced more movement via warm-ups, blocking scenes, and mostly getting energy from being around people. I began to really appreciate the comfort and home-like quality of the Clark and Samuels during our rehearsals and tech week.

Reception Q&A following the first performance-- This was a real surprise to me. I actually enjoyed sitting up in front of people, taking questions. My father commented that it was because I was talking about things that I have a lot of experience with; I might agree with him. It certainly was an effective reflection tool as it provided valuable audience perspective and inquiry, immediately.

I want to take a moment to thank my LCI mentor Patrick for coming out to rehearsals and providing an extra set of ears. Your encouragement and observations were always insightful and helpful, especially in respect to dynamics. You were always willing to come sit in on a rehearsal and provide feedback about text or sound or ideas. I also want to thank Jeffrey [Drew's mentor] for his support and help all during the process.

I had tremendous support from my family during January. The transition from income to non-income put a strain on my ability to manage time, as well. My time started to be at the whim of whomever I could work for. I had time commitments outside of LCI as a result, but that still did not provide enough. With the generous help from my family, I was able to stay fed and warm and healthy. Not only that, but I had 12 extended family members attending the project performances. I wouldn’t be here without you all.

I made a challenge to myself some time ago. I want to provide for myself as much on art and, specifically, music income as possible. LCI helped show me that this could be through teaching music lessons, where I work directly with youth to explore musical ideas and concepts, or performing as a conductor or a pit-band musician, or as a recording engineer and producer. The point is that still I try to make income to support myself from music activities; I get to choose from the diversity of music as to how I make my income.

I plan to stay in New York, to fight for art alongside LCI via exploding creativity in youth, and blowing minds with high-quality art. We need to bombard our children and students with color and light and sound if we expect to hold their attention. If we are going to address the problems of our planet and our society, we are going to need our youth in on it, and we are going to need them to think outside of the box. That is a challenge for LCI and me and to our future.

Photos of Sacred Search by Melissa Gawlowsi, Lincoln Center Institute:

Robyn Rikoon as Keely and Joshua Brocki as Sentence

Joshua Brocki and Robyn Rikoon

Joshua Brocki as Sentence, Drew Madland as Chorus, and Annelise Bianchini as Keely Understudy/ Chorus

Joshua Brocki, Drew Madland, and Benjamin Garner

Drew Madland, Annelise Bianchini, and Joshua Brocki

Drew Madland, Joshua Brocki, Annelinse Bianchini, and Benjamin Garner

Joshua Brocki

Kathryn Logan: Reflecting on the Artistic Project

2011-02-28T10:00:00.007-05:00

Kathryn shares her thoughts on creating The Orchard, her dance/music collaboration with Kayla Herrmann.

When the Fellowship started for us in June, I had already been a part of four previous Kenan Fellow Artistic Projects, and had twenty close friends who had been Kenan Fellows before. Point being, I came prepared, in a way-- with expectations. I had an idea of how it all worked.

But if there is anything that has been ingrained in me more deeply over these last six months, it is that every experience is perfectly unique. With preparation or without, you must allow each moment, each piece of art, be what it is.

And, frankly, nothing could have quite prepared me for the incredible experience I had with the creation of The Orchard. When Kayla and I began considering the idea of collaborating on a concept, I was laying on a pile of rocks by a river in Tulsa, Oklahoma, finishing up the last leg of my musical tour. We were talking on the phone about what was consuming our minds at the time, and found enough similarities in our engrossed solo thought processes that collaboration seemed inevitable.

For both Kayla and me (and it seems Drew and Ben and Amanda as well… interesting…) space seemed to be a recurring thought-theme. I was coming off of a five-week tour by myself-- having seen for the first time the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park-- experiencing an amount of space that, having been in New York City for over two years (and the greater part of the last 8 years), was an overwhelming and welcome change. And I imagine that moving to New York for the first time brings up the awareness of space in another kind of way.

Kayla was also rediscovering yoga, and I had just finished a yoga teacher-training program. We were both fascinated by awareness of self, and, having been learning about Lincoln Center Institute’s philosophies, the responsibility and curiosity of self that is very much paralleled with yogic philosophies and discoveries.

Point being: the more we talked, the more obvious it became that all of these things belonged together in some way. And if we dug deeper into these concepts, perhaps we could find an artistic through-line.

We started rehearsal with the dancers not long after I returned from tour. Even if our project wasn’t going to be accepted, these were ideas that Kayla and I wanted to explore artistically. We spent the greater part of the first month of September meeting and talking and digging and reading and exploring…

After the project was accepted, we kicked things into high gear. Movement rehearsals were happening at least twice a week, moving up to about three times a week in November (once we had space availability at LCI!).

Dig. Read. Talk. Move. Meditate. Meet. Dig. Read. Explore.

There is a part of me that believes that if you explore earnestly, and dig deeply, and communicate openly, you will create something worth seeing. Sometimes I think I don’t know much beyond that about art making. But listening and making decisions that your brain doesn’t necessarily want but your gut knows is right-- there is something in that. And I will hopefully spend my life searching to understand that thing.

Why film for this piece? Mostly, originally, because one of the original visions for this piece was of humans hanging from trees, and I was not ready to give that up. I seem to have a lot of ideas for artwork that require people to be perfectly inhuman. In recognition of the fact that the Clark Studio Theater could likely not supply wires from which the dancers could hang in mid-air, video seemed the alternative.

Once the idea of including video in the production was accepted, our minds started reeling. You could do so much to create atmosphere with the added aspect of video projection. So if we’re going to do it-- let’s do it.

Meeting John Appleton was a great gift. His girlfriend was a dancer at School of the Arts and we met at a show. He off-handedly suggested that he was interested in film-art, and I off-handedly mentioned that I was doing the shooting, designing and editing of the film for this piece alone and I might tear my hair out with everything else I had going on, and thus-- love was born.

We had a meeting. I showed him the footage I had shot already, explained our vision for the piece, let him read the proposal and the Arc layout with choreography I had written, etc… But when he found out we were using Shostakovich’s 8th string quartet, he was hooked. What are the chances that that just so happens to be his very favorite string quartet of all time and he had been dying for years to do something with it and he already knew all of its history?

John and I scheduled a film shoot. I got Aaron, Katy and Dale to come out to Prospect Park in all black and we spent the day climbing trees and jumping from them.

I slipped into the role of film director like it was created for me. I have wanted to go in that direction for some time, and this shoot sort of settled it for me.

With December came the final music score decision, and things started rapidly falling into place. Things were tense at times and difficult, of course. Any piece this big, with this many aspects and collaborators is likely going to get intense at moments. And with Kayla out of town for the month of December, all of our communication was over phone and email. And a lot can get lost in translation when you aren’t face to face.

Just as I suspected, in our first meeting after she returned to New York in January, we flew through information together. It seemed all we needed was just an hour to sit down and be able to look at each other to understand what we had been trying to scream at each other via email for the last month. We both let out a bunch of “Oh!”s.

Tech rehearsals came and so did the musicians and then things started to become real. Syncing up video with live music with dancers with lighting with vision of how timing needed to happen in order for a movement to be effective… I suspected from the beginning would be a challenge. But these musicians proved to be incredible. They put these pieces of music together so quickly and were so willing to negotiate timings to the benefit of the concept of the piece.

One moment I will hold dearly for the rest of my life is a moment before the second performance on Sunday. We were in the Clark, and the dancers had a question about some musical timings that were slightly different in the live music than they were in the recordings we had been using. So, standing at the front, I asked the musicians to go to a particular measure in the music so the dancers could rehearse a moment in one section of the piece. We rehearsed that a few times. I felt like one of my deepest life-long dreams had been realized in this moment. Here I was, asking a string quartet to play something again and again, directing dancers-- I felt like choreographer for one of the great ballet companies, long ago. On a smaller scale, of course-- I certainly claim to be no Nijinsky in front of the Ballet Russes, but something in that moment made me feel a sense of timelessness. Of bigness. Which is exactly what Kayla and I were trying to create with this piece. I could have collapsed with happiness.

And how satisfied are we with a final product ever? I think all creators/directors wish at the end for one more week of rehearsal! Six more hours! Just give me a little more time and I can… But again, the lesson: you have to let it be exactly what it is. At some point you have to sit back (in my case, in the audience!) and just enjoy this thing you have put so much of your self and discovery and love into for the last six months. My expectation of the Fellowship was much like my original vision for this piece: eventually irrelevant. Because if you cling too tightly to that then you can’t feel what it becomes, you can only see what it has not become.

And on Sunday, with the relinquishing of this expectation, with the relinquishing of original vision, I allowed myself to be taken over by The Orchard into which I had been placed. And I cried. And I let something go. And in letting something go, I had the recognition of space inside of me. And whether that was my vision from the beginning or not, it was exactly what I needed. And I was moved.

Photos of The Orchard by Melissa Gawlowski, Lincoln Center Institute:

Katy Gilmore and Dale Harris

Dale Harris and Aaron McGloin

Dale Harris, Katy Gilmore, and Aaron McGloin

Dale Harris, Aaron McGloin, and Katy Gilmore

Katy Gilmore

Aaron McGloin, Katy Gilmore, and Dale Harris

Kathryn Logan in rehearsal

Drew Madland Reflects on the Kenan Fellowship

2011-02-25T10:00:00.001-05:00

When I think about being a Fellow over the last 5 months it is hard to separate personal, professional and artistic growth. The Fellowship has been a holistic experience for me. The Capacities and the Institute have helped me understand the inter-connectedness of the whole of my experience. I have become a better horizontal thinker by tuning into my brain's ability to make connections among all facets of my art and life.

The Capacities of Noticing Deeply, Making Connections, Exhibiting Empathy, and Living With Ambiguity all intertwine in a constant feedback loop of information, interpretation, clarification, questioning and re-interpretation that make each Capacity a part of every other Capacity. They are a distilled flow chart of the natural movement of an open, hungry, imaginative mind. The Capacities help one see possibility and imagine the greatest heights while also sharpening the ability to recognize the actual circumstances and work within the limitations imposed by the specifics of time, space, and energy. The result of constantly re-investing in the Capacities as inseparable from one another is the blossoming of ingenuity, industriousness, originality and perseverance of will.

We are strong in our diversity. When we stay open to one another, we learn from one another; we also learn to recognize the quality and depth of own creative and emotional impulses. By staying open we gain perspective on what else our thoughts can mean, what else others' thoughts can mean, what the meaning is, was, and could be. Staying open to one another allows the Capacities to grow into an interconnected web of exploding possibility. When we embrace our differences, we expand our knowledge naturally and always ask ourselves to ask more, to go deeper.

The craft of the question is one of the most important skills I have enhanced throughout the study and use of Aesthetic Education. How do I craft the perfect question for the imagination to release into possibilities? Each question is like a light switch that illuminates an otherwise dark corner of the mind, the subconscious, the memory and the immediate sensory experience of each individual.

I feel my emotions up to my skin as I have gained deeper sensitivity and understanding of my intuition. It sits in my stomach and tells me the truth that colors my everything.

The Freedom of time, space and energy during the majority of my self-structured tuned me into many more layers of the reality of my surroundings than I would have perceived within a more structured context. Empowered with the freedom to explore the size, shape, depth and meaning of my time in space, the qualities, the textures of that time, the knowledge it has garnered, works on my senses and sensibility and layers my awareness of myself as an artist and professional in New York City and the World. The Fellowship gave me the time and space to understand, through trial and error, how much time it takes to do anything on my own in NYC, from doing laundry, to creating and producing an original work of art, to preparing for and attending acting class, to being on time. I had to plan my plan, time to arrange the use of my time. I discovered that keeping a master schedule and putting in at least an hour a day to send e-mails, make phone calls, and double check my appointments/deadlines is crucial to my success as a one-man business. This process has also clarified my intentions as an artist and actor, specifying what I want and how to go about getting it by trying to do what I think I want, succeeding, failing, or partially failing, reflecting and trying again. It pays to be stubborn with your dreams.

If I were to go back in time and give advice to someone in my position one year ago, these are the things I would say: Trust yourself and follow through. Don’t let the others’ judgments and insecurities get you down; do what you want to do regardless of outside pressure. Love yourself as much as you love others, always. Listen with your whole body and allow it to inform your response; when you have a traumatically beautiful or terrible experience let it knock around for a while and turn itself over in your memories; they have something to tell you, and if you listen to yourself, you will learn from those moments. You can learn something from everything. In every moment, there is infinite possibility, but sometimes you can’t see it, and that’s ok. Self-reliance is hard to live up, to but independence is golden. It is not fair, and most people don’t care if that hurts your feelings. Know who your friends are and nourish your bonds with them in order to cultivate collaboration, radical thinking and to solidify individual and collective action toward achieving your common goals. If you make possibility a reality it has the potential to bring more joy into life for more people, especially yourself. Doing and being are both important; take responsibility to maintain the balance.

Amanda Hinchey Reflects on the Kenan Fellowship

2011-02-24T10:00:00.001-05:00

Despite all of the stress that I inflicted on myself over the course of the Fellowship, I can honestly say that I have been able to find more happiness in the work that I am focusing on here in NYC. There is much more of an overall feeling of hope, whereas before I tended to feel completely depressed whenever I thought of all of the goals I wanted to accomplish. With all of the time that has been allotted for me to simply focus on myself and my art-making, along with the self-reflection inspired by the process of Aesthetic Education, I am becoming much more comfortable in expressing my opinions on works of art, as well as making decisions in my own creative process. It has also helped shift the way that I communicate with other people, by providing a safe environment where I’m given the chance to practice being more vocal in discussions of art or any other subject. In all parts of my life, from creating art to writing or having a conversation, it has always been my way to think thoroughly before I act, so that whatever comes out is as close to perfect the first time around. Being a part of this Fellowship has allowed me to try thinking out loud more often, and being okay with the notion of coming up with many different ideas and then working with those ideas to see which is best. It has allowed me to explore the grey area of the process between the question and finding the answer.

Going through this Fellowship has also given me ample time to focus on my skills at networking, which I believe will be one of the most important tools for me in continuing with what I have started to build as a result of this experience. I have always had difficulty with reaching out to people for help, whether it is artistically, professionally or personally, but this experience has truly shown me how difficult it is to accomplish anything in this city on your own. This is something that I never fully appreciated, even though much of what I have done in the city was the direct result of successful networking. Currently, it is still a challenge for me to even work up the courage to email another person, and because of this hesitation, which kept me from responding immediately to certain situations, I began to create a great deal of unnecessary stress. This is something that I feel I have improved on, but will still being working on for long after the Fellowship. As part of the process of putting our final shows together, we have had to rely a lot on the kindness of others because of our limited budget, and none of that would have been possible were it not for the personal connections that we have made both in and outside of this Fellowship. Because of this, I have become more at home with the idea that going forward from here it will be necessary to ask people for help at times, as they will undoubtedly be asking me for help, as well.

I’m extremely grateful to have had so much exposure to the process of aesthetic education, and I know that it has made a lasting mark on how I view art and the world in general. The aspect of this process that has directly affected me the most is the Capacity of “Living with Ambiguity”. It is something that I and many of my friends who work in the arts seem to struggle with, and yet it is vitally important to survival in this city. There needs to be a certain amount of trust within ourselves that we will be able to accomplish what it is that we are setting out to do, and that there is no point in trying to control what will happen in the future. It is impossible to do so, and trying to will only result in more pain and stress. I used to feel as though it was my worrying and nervous energy that made sure that I never became lazy or complacent, and now I can see how much that misplaced energy was holding me back because of all the anxiety it created. After this Fellowship has come to an end, it will be important for me to continue to build that trust in myself, and “Living with Ambiguity” as to what the future holds will be a huge part of the process of continuing to build that trust.

Kayla Herrmann Reflects on the Kenan Fellowship

2011-02-23T10:00:00.001-05:00

Below are the three questions Kayla's mentor Jessica posed for reflection on the Fellowship, followed by Kayla's responses.

1. In what ways has this Fellowship instigated a new or different outlook on pursuing various career possibilities as a musician?

2. What teaching strategies or concepts struck you most during this Fellowship, and what might you incorporate into your own pedagogy as a teacher?

3. What aspects of your unstructured time will you incorporate into your daily life as you grow your career?

Recently I have been noticing how important artistic teachers are in the public and private school setting. It doesn’t take a conservatory-trained musician to inspire creativity and appreciation for the arts. I realized that often, conservatory-trained musicians are unable to communicate with children. They are unable to teach, unable to articulate musical ideas to a student. This Fellowship has given me a unique opportunity to notice how important education is in the non-private lesson setting. Students need the opportunity to explore their creativity. I think that as I continue with graduate school, I will spend some time focusing on early childhood education and/or community music outreach.

I have been fascinated with LCI’s teaching artists' ability to ask questions while not focusing on a right or wrong answer. No asking questions that demand a "yes" or "no", and no asking questions where there is one right answer. I am beginning to notice areas in my own teaching where I can do the same. In my own cello teaching, I can start asking the children what the notice instead of what they liked or disliked, therefore opening up the possible answers. I have also tried to stop asking weighted questions: questions with a right and wrong answer. So instead of asking the student how the phrase should go, if there is a specific answer I am looking for, I will demonstrate that idea and ask them what they noticed about it. That way I am teaching them how to hear the phrase correctly, instead of asking them to guess the right answer when they have no abilities or skill sets to determine the right answer to begin with.

One thing I have learned from having self-structured time is that I need to balance sitting at home practicing with collaborating and interacting with people. It is important for my brain to stay active by working with others. I am also learning how much I dislike managing and writing emails. Of all the administrative tasks that come with being an entrepreneur, that is probably my least favorite. I found that if I do them early in the day, like before 9 a.m., I am much more likely to get it done. By the time 10 a.m. rolls around, I’m already feeling guilty that I haven’t practiced enough, and that seems to be the only thing on my mind for the rest of the day. But even I do not usually feel like practicing at 7 a.m. (and my apartment building appreciates this, I’m sure).

Megan Szymanski Reflects on the Kenan Fellowship

2011-02-22T10:00:00.001-05:00

Below are the questions Megan's teaching artist mentor Lisa posed to Megan in reflection of the Fellowship, followed by Megan's responses.

1. Describe your LCI classroom experience and journey. How has it resonated with you?

2. In what ways has your AE experience as a Kenan Fellow changed or affected your final presentation and your artistic perspective?

3. How has it affected your flute practice? In what ways?

My journey in the classroom with Lisa is something I will never forget. Going through this process was something I was really looking forward to in this Fellowship, because it was the one component I was the least familiar with. It was the first time I had worked with groups of children in Kindergarten through 2nd grade. Since I am primarily a visual learner, I learned the most from observing Lisa and taking notes. By observing, I naturally started adopting the ideas of Aesthetic Education (AE) into my own life, sometimes without realizing it. It is especially evident in my private teaching. For example, I have been asking the student open-ended questions instead of first telling him the answer. Then I deliberately make sure to take action and reflect on the experience. It is a pretty simple process that can bring much greater “results” (sometimes not the intended results) when implemented. I feel lucky to have been able to watch an entire unit at a school, with someone there to answer my questions and help me understand the details. Since there were 17 classes, I didn’t see all of them every week, but there were some classes that I saw all four weeks. It would have been especially rewarding to see the kids on the day of the performance, and even to go with them to the performance. However, I understand the role of the Teaching Artist compared to the classroom teacher, and how they have to balance as a team. This Fellowship would not have been complete without the LCI classroom aspect, and now I can really appreciate the care that adults need to take to help shape and mold a young child into an imaginative and creative thinker.

Learning about Aesthetic Education definitely had an impact on creating my artistic project. Although I will no longer be performing in January, it was still beneficial to go through the process of creating the project (“Aria: A Journey to the Heart”). It was similar to creating the lesson plans, in a way, because I had to think about what the experience would be like for the audience from an aesthetic point of view. Although it is not directly “education”, it still takes the audience through a journey, an experience that could have multiple interpretations. I also had to consider transitions and “flow”, and how each section related to the overall purpose (similar to the “line of inquiry”). I also considered multiple attention spans and learning styles, and to make the experience more “whole”, I added a visual component, in addition to using several different combinations of musicians.

In my flute practice, probably the most evident Capacity that comes to mind is “Living with Ambiguity”. There are so many ways to play music, and our job is to make a choice (sometimes in the moment) and accept that not everyone will agree with it. I am also trying to approach new music in a different way. I ask myself, should I start with some contextual research (listening to recordings, score study, historical information)? Usually that works for me, but sometimes a quick look at the music first is also beneficial. Then, I use a lot of resources to understand the music better, but not all at once. I am getting in the habit of writing a question mark next to a spot in the music where I’m not sure what interpretation to use. The Capacity of “Making Connections” is also a huge one with practice. We should always be trying to connect our warm-ups to our repertoire study, figure out how composers are related to their own compositions and others, and the list goes on. Since I am such an avid journal keeper, I have been trying to journal in my flute notebook a little bit after practicing. It helps me reflect on the struggles and successes of the day. It is very helpful to have tangible proof of my progress, which is why I also record my flute playing often.

Learning about AE has also made me understand more about what it is to be an artist. Sometimes instrumentalists in particular struggle with the “artistry” part of being a musician, because we are so focused on the mechanical part of mastering an instrument. Sound and technique and musical interpretation (from information) are so essential to us, because these things absolutely do determine a large amount of our success. However, we have to be very careful to balance the “machine” with the “human”. That is what really distinguishes certain musicians, and when we find those musicians, we can never really put a finger on what makes them so special. We try, but that’s part of the reason for art: to give what cannot be said in words. After my AE experience, I like to refer back to the Capacities to help with that idea of Artistry. Using the Capacities is what brings us deeper into our art. It’s the place where we have “aha!” moments. When we have those moments of deep experiential learning, then we actually have something to say when we express ourselves through our arts.

Benjamin Garner Reflects on the Kenan Fellowship

2011-02-21T10:00:00.001-05:00

Benjamin's teaching artist mentor Patrick asked Benjamin three questions for reflection on the Kenan Fellowship. Below, Benjamin provides his responses.

What are three highlights or big impressions of your whole Kenan Fellowship experience from Summer Session to now? (Consider: epiphanies, key ideas, personal process and growth)

a. Time Management. Over the course of this Fellowship I have had to revisit ghosts of my past days where I was rarely not overbooked, and I did not know what sarcasm meant, the days all seemed to flow into one another. Well, sometimes they still do seem that way; however, the simple act of keeping track of daily work has thrown all of my plans into perspective. Using time management has helped me learn how to be punctual in New York; which I have also learned is a make-or-break skill to have in this city, if you catch my drift, and if you don’t, I’m saying that one can be fortuitous and profitable by showing up on time.

I feel more confident that I can make realistic plans to accomplish my goals and ambitions for this city.

b. Brainstorming. This is the powerhouse that builds strong creative skills. This can work very well in collaborative environments as well, when the combination is right. What does it take to brainstorm? Well, at first, heavy criticism is not really the best way, either alone or in a group. That was a slow lesson learned for me. I like when I can achieve results from toils and labor immediately; however, I have had a nearly debilitating streak in my past of being critical of others and myself to the point of frustration and abandonment. The result of that tempered me toward objectivity, observation and scientific study.

c. The Power of Revision. I have found it extremely useful to be in a constant state of revision. This requires me to be open to possibilities and change at any moment. It is a check and a balance aimed at keeping you aware of what you are doing. While in the process of developing a lesson plan for a school, or my own project proposal, or a blog entry, I use each draft as a stepping-stone. The first is usually a very rough outline of what I generally want to accomplish. The next is refined and checked for specificity. Each step gets me closer to the ultimate goal. The lesson is, keep walking and you will get where you need to go!

What teaching strategies or aspects of LCI’s approach that you witnessed through your mentor’s work in the classroom resonated with you?

First of all, teaching music creation during core classes resonates with me as a musician that reminisces about his earlier school days, sitting in core classes, daydreaming about music during class, not always interested in what the teacher was saying. This experience gives me a new appreciation for what it means to be a musician and a teacher. Patrick showed active awareness of multiple intelligences through his very clear instructions and demonstrations, and a discernment of relevance, demonstrated through adaptability to the array of questions and scenarios created by students of a wide range of education levels.

Patrick used the LCI lesson plan development process in addition to being open to collaborative input, exhibited through active communication with me during my own lesson plan development and conversations during the course of the visits to the LCI schools. All of that sounds very official, when in fact it was a wonderfully engaging experience for me, and, I think, everyone involved.

In what ways has your LCI/Kenan experience challenged and/or changed your previous ideas about art, teaching, and life in general?

Art is bold, Art is Sacred, Art affects everyone. I think that is more true now than when I began the Fellowship because I have experienced it all over New York City. It forces me to consider the impact that any single piece of art can make. I think deeply about how I feel a sense of belonging to the people around me and how I can serve them. I want to learn from them and with them. Teaching is always going to be a challenge, but it is our duty and privilege to persist and search for knowledge and understanding together.

Life is always going to have challenges. How you pick your routines and goals means what you do with your time. First of all, identifying your time and scheduled routines is half the battle to understanding what you need to do to accomplish your tasks. The Kenan Fellowship requires this of Fellows; however, after the Fellowship I will need to maintain this identification for myself. The Kenan Fellowship taught me a better sense of accountability. They also included role models who have established themselves as reliable and informative teaching artists. It is now my turn to be that role model, whether it is for my classes of students working on musicals or private students working on their etudes. I am indebted and grateful to everyone at LCI, the Kenan Institute, and UNCSA, for their strong connections to each other and to us! If you need ever need me, you know where to find me! I am at your service!

Kathryn Logan Reflects on the Kenan Fellowship

2011-02-18T11:31:00.001-05:00

As we look ahead to the tenth year of the Kenan Fellowship (applications are due next week, and interviews begin in Winston-Salem on March 24th), we share the final reflections of our most recent Fellowship alumni. In the coming weeks we'll also share photos of their artistic projects, as well. We'll begin with a final reflection from Kathryn Logan:

I imagine that, on some level, we are all a product of our circumstances. We are a make-up of a mash-up of our experiences and the particulars of our time, location and genes. Amongst other things, perhaps-- I certainly can’t claim to hold the answers, but these are the things I have noticed.

And against which I seem to rebel.

I cannot dispute the fact that had I been born in a different area of town, into a different family, with a different source of income, different values of health and happiness and love, I would likely not have had the opportunities I’ve had, or the work ethic, or the vision.

One of the things that has struck me most particularly about LCI’s philosophy is the sense of empowerment it creates in its practitioners. The practice of aesthetic education asks of its participants a responsibility for their learning and creates in them a deeper curiosity. It is this curiosity that I feel like has been instilled in me through my circumstances. I have it naturally because of the life I have lived. But not all persons are provided the luxury of the conditions that can create this curiosity. I had a stay at home mother who didn’t allow us to watch much television. We had blank paper and each other and a deep and constant influence of music, dance, theater and visual arts classes. I spent most of my young childhood behind a sound engineering board at classical music concerts at the college where my father taught sound design, in a dance or art studio, in chamber music rehearsals, and on and on and on. The classical arts were a staple in my life, and my parents asked questions of us and treated our selves and our questions as not only valid but vital.

There are so many children in this world who grow up under the foot of the old adage that children should be "seen and not heard". Too many children are taught, if only subconsciously, that their thoughts are not important, their questions inconsequential, and their sense of empowerment is never allowed the chance to wax.

When I first came to this Fellowship and we entered Summer Season, I had done some reading of Maxine Greene and John Dewey. I had discussed the Capacities for Imaginative Learning with some of the previous Fellows. But the embodiment of the concepts of this philosophy of Aesthetic Education still eluded me. Summer Season was of course informative, and the International Educator Workshops brought me still further, as well as additional reading and discussion. But it wasn’t until I got into the classroom and started watching these philosophies, put into lessons, put into action that it really started to take an internal hold on me. (Where are we, now-- embodying, taking action… here they go…) The children with whom my mentor and I spent time were certainly informative to my life seminar in AE, but it has really been through the process of teaching that it has started to come together in my mind. Hearing myself figure out how to ask a very direct and yet somehow open question of a person as a way of leading them without leading them toward an understanding within themselves of a concept we have been exploring… It is a simply remarkable thing to discover within oneself! I have found empowerment through the process of teaching this philosophy that looks to create an empowerment within the students of its practices…

It is a loop within a loop within a loop this practice. Not linear but circular-- spiraled and infinitely tall.

There is no ceiling in this place, and it’s covered in four dimensions of mirrors.

I feel as though I am starting to have an understanding of some of the holes in this country’s educational system. The things I have seen in the public school classrooms and the vast difference a great teacher makes… In classes where a teacher is removed, the students are removed. Consistently and no matter the grade level. It occurs to me that furthering education for teachers in the school system is not only important, but absolutely necessary. Teachers need to have an active learning practice in order to be successful because they are so influential on the process of their students. If a teacher is cultivating their own curiosity, then their students will cultivate curiosity, but without that there is a crucial disconnect in the learning circle.

When Lynn and I first met, we talked about how important it was to me to move forward with my career after this Fellowship. This goal is more apparent to me now than ever, as the Fellowship is drawing to a close. I am learning that it is absolutely possible. There are ways to put work together here and there to support oneself and stay focused.

I have learned that I am not willing to give this up. I have learned about myself what is perhaps the most valuable thing of all: what I want. I am more sure than ever how important a life completely immersed in the arts is to me. I want to teach, to research, to do whatever it takes to be in it all the time, and I won’t rest until that happens. I have learned that no matter how busy I am, making my art my first priority is a choice. There is really no excuse for it not being your first priority unless you are unsure about whether you want it to be your first priority. That question is gone for me now. I am certain that this is where I want to live-- that this is what makes me most myself. Questions and discovery. Beauty and earnestness and vivacity.

And there is Teaching Artistry. I have always enjoyed teaching, but this kind of teaching is fulfilling on a whole new level. I have discovered that my work with Lynn in the classrooms, a student of this philosophy in LCI Teaching Artist clothing, has greatly influenced my own artistic and philosophical processes. The capacities I am working to cultivate within the students with whom I am working must be so clear in my mind, and as such are being explored and cultivated within me consistently, too. I am daily, hourly, making connections between discoveries I make in the classroom, or watched a child or teacher make, and my own artistic process and art viewing.

A huge part of the Fellowship for me, of course, has been the collaboration with Kayla on our artistic project. I have learned so much about my own artistic process through the collaboration on and creation of this piece. For example, sometimes what seems right to me at first (whether in a grant proposal or a dance piece) may not be what is needed, and, most surprisingly, I am much more open to changing my mind and listening to that than I thought I was. On several occasions Kayla and I have butted heads about an idea (like all collaborators do), and on several of those occasions, upon reviewing Kayla’s idea, I realized that her idea was in better support of the piece.

I have collaborated with people before, but they have always been people with whom I already had some established prior relationship. When Kayla and I first started collaborating, we had not known each other very long and knew very little about each other on an artistic level. Of course we trusted each other’s talents to an extent because we both graduated from the School of the Arts, which suggests a certain level of artistic competence in our respective fields, but there was not a speck of knowledge between us about how our collaborative artistic process would proceed.

The process has been an incredible learning opportunity. One thing that has become apparent to me is how differently people’s brains function. Yes, perhaps, this seems a little obvious to be a new discovery for someone who has been in many cross-discipline collaborations before, but if you have a prior artistic relationship with someone and have some concept of how they work, you will likely, if only subconsciously, work with people who have a similar working process or specific artistic vision as you do. Kayla and I, not having the luxury of a previous artistic relationship, had to play all of this by ear and put the microscope to our brains to analyze and amalgamate in quite the jiffy.

People Think Differently.

A lesson I’ve learned at LCI in every nook and cranny.

For some time I have been searching for a sense of continuity. I have many different loves and, so it feels, many different facets of my self. I have always felt a little scattered, as such, and I felt when I first came upon LCI that I had found a place where all the aspects of my self could finally feel as one. I really didn’t know how right I was because, as scattered as I still feel sometimes with music and yoga and dancing and choreography and etc and etc and etc… within this teaching philosophy, they can all live in an amazing kind of consonance, which is in my life so far unprecedented.

These have been some of the greatest months of my life, learning about this philosophy, putting it into action, being allowed the time and space to create, to explore, to question, to cultivate… it has been an absolute dream. The sense of empowerment created in students of LCI’s philosophy has been certainly planted in me

This Fellowship has allowed me a momentum that I’ve needed to get myself going artistically. I now have enough projects under my belt, enough of a forward movement that I’m all inertia. As though stopping at this point would take just as strong a force as it took to get me moving. And I feel like that has truly been my biggest obstacle: just getting going, meeting people, having enough time to become a part of the arts community. And to be performing and creating enough work here that I get used to it. So that if it wanes I won’t accept it. So that what is uncomfortable is not being heavily immersed in this world.

So that I can be empowered enough to refuse to fall victim to whatever my circumstances: how ever little money I may be making, whatever the conditions may be, I will be willing to do whatever it takes to stay here, to do the work. Because no matter what, it’s worth it.

Kenan Fellowship Artistic Projects: Jan. 21 - 23, 2011

2011-01-14T10:00:00.003-05:00

We are thrilled to share the lineup of the this year's Kenan Fellowship artistic projects. The performances will take place on Friday, January 21 through Sunday, January 23, 2011 in LCI’s Clark Studio Theater in the Rose Building at Lincoln Center. We are all very excited about their projects, as it is not only a highlight of the Kenan Fellowship, but also a wonderful opportunity for the Fellows to present themselves as artists in New York City.

Over the past few months, the Kenan Fellows have been creating and producing the following programs:

Sacred Search
Collaboration between Drew Madland (Theater) and Benjamin Garner (Music)
Sacred Search, created by Drew Madland and Benjamin Garner, is a restless meditation on the role of space, memory, and dreams in the human search for the sacred. Combining a rich soundscape, live instrumentation, interactive projections, and theatrical text and movement, Sacred Search creates echoes of familiar images and nostalgic longing that reach deeply into the lasting questions that fuel the human search for home and ultimate purpose.
Performances: Friday, January 21 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, January 22 at 1 p.m.

The Orchard
Collaboration between Kayla Herrmann (Cello) & Kathryn Logan (Dance)
The Orchard features original choreography and video projection set to live classical music. Kathryn Logan, choreographer, and Kayla Herrmann, cellist, combine forces to explore how confrontation with space helps balance our drive for success with the need to recognize and appreciate the beauty and vastness of our surroundings. Today, as we face a teetering economy and catastrophic damage to our environment, it is important to find our place in this continuum; to find awareness and curiosity in the midst of a busy schedule. The Orchard invites the audience to consider their own experience with these poles and to recognize space as the catalyst for movement between them.
Performances: Saturday, January 22 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, January 23 at 3 p.m.

Everything Potent is Dangerous
Choreographed by Amanda Hinchey (Dance)
Everything Potent is Dangerous is a contemporary dance piece that began with a series of interviews designed to explore the sense of identity: how is our perception of self influenced by our cultural background? How do our circumstances shape us—how do we believe they shape us? And, perhaps most important, how is our perception of ourselves affected depending on whether we see ourselves as members of a majority or a minority? The diversity and the cohesion of the individuals who addressed these questions are illuminated as the dance unfolds.
Performances Friday, January 21 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, January 22 at 2 p.m.

There will be informal Q-and-A sessions with the artists at the end of the evening on January 21 and 22.

All performances will take place at Lincoln Center Institute’s Clark Studio Theater, and admission is free. Hope you can make it!

Kathryn Logan on The Capacities for Imaginative Learning

2011-01-13T10:00:00.001-05:00

The Capacities for Imaginative Learning:
Noticing Deeply
Embodying
Identifying Patterns
Making Connections
Exhibiting Empathy
Questioning
Living With Ambiguity
Reflecting and Assessing
Creating Meaning
Taking Action

I have really taken to all of the aspects of Lincoln Center Institute’s philosophy, but the Capacities for Imaginative Learning have really helped me to define my progress and knowledge more clearly.

I have a difficult time with specificity. Definition feels like putting myself, or different aspects of myself, into categories, into boxes through which I cannot seep, muddy lines, or escape if need be. As such, I struggle with clarity at times. Thinking about them in this moment, seemingly objectively, I cannot imagine from whence the idea has arisen in my mind that these two concepts are mutually exclusive: boxing oneself in and living with clarity and definition of self, knowledge, and action. But from the inside, they feel that way.

I feel as though the Capacities for Imaginative Learning have offered me a freedom from this dichotomy: they allow me instances of clarity in my artistic blur of an existence, and do not request of me finality.

This idea fits in with one concept that I am continually noticing and finding to be truthful in my life: everything flows-- everything is always changing.

What the Capacities (and my awareness of the Capacities’ rubrics) have enabled for me is a way to use a specific vocabulary to note my work, specific skills that I am enhancing in my day-to-day life, and my progress. I think it can be difficult, as artists, to recognize when and if we are progressing forward. Because we move forward and backward in time and in style constantly (rehearsing, learning repertory, visualizing, revisiting ideas and works, understanding the now, cultivating presence, etc…) it is difficult to measure where we are, where we were, how far we may or may not have come. There is no real codified measurement of artistic sense and knowledge. Certainly there are specific techniques within each discipline to be mastered, but as far as the exercise and progression of the blanket artistic mind, there is no real test of progress. It is, in some sense, inherent in the artistic process that there not be! Art needs, for the sake of its definition, to NOT be systemically measured! It must be free and open ended, it must have no ceiling and no walls, it must exist in the midst of infinity.

The Capacities for Imaginative Learning give us a sense of artistic specificity. They allow for us lenses of language through which to view our processes and enhancements of skill.

There are ten Capacities for Imaginative Learning, and I notice them all in my daily life. But there are certain ones that really hit home for me-- that have really deepened my understanding of my self and enhanced my professional and artistic initiative.

Noticing Deeply. As a yoga teacher and practitioner, if in no other part of my life, this capacity is ever at-hand. It brings light to the lesson of true presence. If we are earnestly just noticing, not placing judgment or interpretation on our experience, then we are not caught up in our minds-- we are not escaping what is in front of us, the moment at hand. We are, by nature of the fact that we are simply noticing, exactly here and now. This sense of presence is something that, as a performer and choreographer, I work constantly to cultivate in my self and in my dancers. A sense of the now, of awareness, is necessary and captivating on stage, and helps to rear understanding of and empathy toward that which and those who surround us off stage. Noticing Deeply, by naming it, by giving it recognition, gives us a reminder that this is a thing toward which to work. Just the placement of this vocabulary in our minds.

Making Connections. This is the Capacity that has most surprised me. It confused me a little bit from the start-- I couldn’t seem to fully grasp the concept. For the first month of our training with LCI I was unsure about the differences between Making Connections and Identifying Patterns. How are these two concepts exclusive from one another? Aren’t they both just ways of saying “recognizing and putting pieces together so that they create a whole idea”?

And the answer is, “Yes. But.”

Identifying Patterns is Making Connections, yes, but Making Connections doesn’t necessarily mean Identifying Patterns. They aren’t mutually exclusive. There are connections inherent in patterns that we notice, of course (on some level, I suppose, this is all semantics) but is there necessarily pattern to be detected within every connection? Certainly not.

This has been a slow learning over time for me, the difference between these two Capacities, but the thing that has really hit home for me has been observing (noticing, if you will) other people as they make connections for themselves. Yes, of course, making connections within myself is always interesting to note, but watching someone else go through it can be jaw-dropping. At any age. Certainly in the classroom, when a child recognized that the exercise we were doing, making shapes with our bodies, connects to the dance piece we will be viewing; it was remarkable to watch their young mind make that leap. But observing, for example, a teacher who has been noticing and growing creatively for many years make an exciting connection in their minds-- it can be incredibly moving.

There is something inherent in the Making Connections capacity that suggests a relinquishing of our egos. We have to take a mental leap, we have to be willing to leave any preconceived notions where they are and make ourselves vulnerable to what we are Noticing in order to make a new connection in our minds.

I find myself now, daily, muttering under my breath to myself, “making connections, making connections, making connections” as I notice it happening both around me and within myself.

Living with Ambiguity. The most recent addition to the Capacities for Imaginative Learning list. This capacity is the most difficult for me and, I have found, the most difficult for most of the people I have talked to about it.

Built into Living with Ambiguity, similarly to Making Connections, is feeling of release. We have to be willing to let go of our control in order to accept ambiguity in our lives. By definition.

When I remind myself of this capacity I seem to sink back into myself-- to have a more earnest experience of whatever is actually happening because I stop trying to MAKE my experience into something: stop trying to put It into a box, into a category, and just allow it to be whatever it is-- stop making it swing in any direction or the other.

It seems as though being willing to Live with Ambiguity allows us the opportunity to Notice Deeply, by taking away the obstacles (control, outside force) that would keep us from seeing exactly what is happening, untainted.

And this is just one small example of how the Capacities for Imaginative Learning loop around each other. They all give to each other and feed off of each other around a common goal of sustaining creativity, clarity and self-awareness, and (a bit of an interpretive leap on my part, but) kindness. For me, the Capacities are lenses through which we can notice the progress of ourselves and our surroundings, but also a way to cultivate understanding within ourselves and our surroundings.

I will take away from this Fellowship a deeper understanding of (and names for!) these traits, these capacities, these things I can hope to foster more of within students and myself.

Megan Szymanski on Leading a Lesson

2011-01-10T10:00:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to lead part of a lesson during one of our visits to a first grade class. For me, I knew this experience would truly reveal how deeply I’ve adapted LCI’s teaching philosophies, and that was a little bit daunting. I was worried about a few things, like not knowing how to transition smoothly to the next activity, or forgetting what to say in front of all these kids and my mentor and the teacher. On the other hand, I knew I was dealing with an excellent classroom which Lisa and I had worked with twice before, and I knew the kids would be excited to have me take over for a little while. Having someone new in the classroom was obviously a treat, and they behaved extremely well for both Lisa and me.
One of my fears came true: After getting caught up in an activity, I did forget what came next. I had the luxury of having Lisa catch me when I suddenly was at a loss for words, and the kids didn’t seem to notice. After reflecting on the experience, I came to the conclusion that I probably wouldn’t have “blanked” as much if I had created the lesson myself (I was following the lesson plan created by Lisa and the teacher partners). Another difficulty I encountered was time management. I didn’t realize how quickly time passes when you are completely involved in an activity. This must be why masterclass teachers always need an audience member to tell them when they have 5 minutes left (and why the classes usually run late no matter how hard they try). So I guess “time flies when you’re having fun” is a pretty accurate expression.

I tried to use the Capacities for Imaginative Learning, especially: Embodying, Questioning, Reflecting/Assessing, Noticing Deeply, Making Connections, Exhibiting Empathy, and Taking Action. That is almost all the Capacities. After seeing Lisa lead so many lessons before, I had no trouble with asking certain questions and guiding the noticing. I definitely would have not known how to do that before I started this Fellowship, although I think my thinking would have been on the right track. These Capacities really just enforce what I already thought was the right way to teach, which is a good sign to me that the Capacities are intuitive and organic tools of teaching and learning.

After reflecting on this day, I think what I realized is that everyone has their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to being a Teaching Artist, and it’s important sometimes to just give it a shot. I honestly would have been too terrified to try if Lisa wasn’t there to encourage me, but I’m glad I did. Now that I have attempted walking in the shoes of a TA, I can more easily see myself wanting to do it again in the future. I can also see that there is a lot to learn about being a TA, and it must be a continuous growth process, which makes sense because art-making is all about growth anyway. Being a Teaching Artist is an art in itself.

Amanda Hinchey: Managing Head Space

2011-01-07T10:00:00.003-05:00

Managing head space over the course of the Fellowship has been an ongoing work in process. At the start of Phase 2, I was definitely overwhelmed by the number of different opportunities that I was suddenly able to explore. While the freedom of self-structured time was one of the things that I was initially most excited about, when the time actually came I was suddenly very intimidated and wound up initially not pursuing as many different goals as I wanted to. This anxiety and feeling of being overwhelmed has filtered down into every part of my life, including my artistic project, as well as my time completely outside of the Fellowship, although I am happy to say that this has slowly but surely been improving.

Even though I had been living in NYC for a year prior to coming to LCI, I still had not yet gotten a firm grip on how to exist in this city and find the balance between personal and professional. One of the things that I envy the most about the rest of my family, and am reminded of when I visit them at home, is that they have jobs that they genuinely enjoy doing, but at the end of the day they are able to come and completely separate themselves from those jobs. Anything that they didn’t accomplish in that day can wait until 9 a.m. the following morning. Working in the arts is an all day, every day job, and even when I’m not actively working on something, I find myself constantly planning and worrying about the next email that I need to send or the next section of my piece that I need to choreograph. I would feel guilty about any time that I would take for myself, because the weight of what it is that I’m trying to accomplish through this Fellowship was always bearing down on me. More recently, I have been recognizing that it is very important to make sure that I take that personal time for myself to ensure that I am still a well-rounded individual. This can include anything from taking a visual arts class to volunteering at the local animal shelter, as well as making sure that I take the time to get to dance class.

When I first officially started rehearsing for my artistic project with Sara (my duet partner), I was frantically trying to manage all of the different logistical aspects of the piece, from booking rehearsal to postcards and other promotions, and it was only after I realized that if I just trusted that I would find a way to make things work no matter what that the process became more bearable. I also had to spend a great deal of time coming to terms with accepting my creative process for what it is right now, and recognizing what is the enjoyable and efficient way for me to work. Since that has happened I have felt much more liberated as a choreographer.

Although there is a part of me that is finally starting to feel at ease with the Fellowship, there is now a new sense of panic that has started growing in me regarding what is going to happen after it’s over. Ultimately, the biggest challenge for me has been my head getting away in my professional and creative process. Currently, my goal is to take everything one step at a time in order to make sure that I am able to be as fully invested in the Fellowship as I can be until the very end.

Kayla Herrmann on Writing a Lesson Plan

2011-01-06T15:51:00.002-05:00

One of the Fellowship assignments was to brainstorm a work of art and come up with a 45-minute lesson plan. Easy, right? Well, actually, yes. This worries me. To tell the truth, I probably only took 10 minutes to come up with the activities, and then maybe 20 minutes typing them and making sure that I was choosing the best language. The brainstorming took a little longer, but I didn’t struggle with that, either. I felt like it should’ve been more difficult for me, so I wonder, did I do it incorrectly?

Let’s examine each step. First, I watched the work of art, Mountain Music. As I watched the video, I immediately started noticing aspects of the performance that would be interesting to children. I wrote down the things that were interesting to me from a teacher’s point of view. I wrote down what I noticed using language that I would want to use in a classroom. The difference is that if I was talking to a colleague about the performance, I might use language like tempo, dynamics, ensemble balance, stylistic techniques, etc… I might choose to introduce one of these words to the students, but I would assume that they know the words already. It doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t talk about tempo, for example, but I would talk about it using words like "slow" and "fast". It wasn’t hard for me to view and write about the work of art with this lens, perhaps because I have been teaching for a long time, and I have a lot of experience looking at music from the point of view of the student. The way that I brainstormed helped me, because I already had the language written down for my lesson plan.

I’m doing okay so far, I think.

Next I needed to pick an aspect of my brainstorming to turn into a line of inquiry (a line of inquiry is part of LCI’s Imaginative Learning approach. I find it similar to a thesis—it is that main focus, the tree from which ideas and activities grow out of). I didn’t "finalize" my line of inquiry before I made the activity. I wrote a first-draft sentence which had the main concept, but it wasn’t until after I came up with all the activities that the line of inquiry really took shape. I wonder if I did it backwards?

Part of coming up with activities is layering them in a certain way so that they build upon each other, and this layering is what allows the students to have a deeper connection with the activities as the lesson moves along. I looked at the activity that I wanted to end the lesson plan with and worked backwards. My final activity was to have the children be able to work in a group, playing rhythms while taking turns playing a solo. The idea being to study the way the bluegrass uses facial cues to communicate, and in a previous lesson, they have learned about different patterns found in bluegrass music. So I looked at each aspect of this final activity and picked the most basic idea: noticing cues. Because the students must be able to notice the cue before they can practice giving the cue. And I worked from there, layering each activity so that when they got to the end, it wasn’t an unmanageable task.

I had a really fun time creating this lesson plan, and I hope to learn during the rest of my Fellowship whether my approach (brainstorming through a student’s eyes and then picking the final activity and working backwards) and lesson plan is typical of an LCI lesson plan.

Benjamin Garner: Observations from the Classroom

2010-11-26T10:00:00.003-05:00

I would like to share with you some observations I have made while in the classroom with my mentor Patrick.

The Top 10 Observations from the Middle School Classroom

1. Students often listen to their peers.
It seems that when a class is out of control, which is rare at the school that we have been visiting, it seems to make all the difference to have a student who does understand the activity explain it to the rest of the class in their own words.

2. Students are more engaged when they can move around the room.
The idea of the one-piece chair-desk is, by nature, movement-limiting. Having students up out of their seats, demonstrating for the class, moving to different places in the room to rehearse, and grouping with partners, all help the student embody, with their whole body, the art-making and activities.

3. Each class is different, and the lesson for each class needs to be malleable enough to meet the requirements of that class.
I’m basically saying that a rigid lesson plan is not necessarily going to work for every class. A general outline is preferable, especially when it has optional additional activities for under-prepared or differently paced classes.

4. Teachers are your allies as well as your students.
Good teachers are aware of what is going on in the class even when they are not the ones teaching. They are able to step in and guide the students toward understanding a concept or to discuss thoughts from a previous class. Any technique or activity that a guest teaching artist uses is fair game for the teacher to incorporate in his or her teaching style.

5. The students are more willing to be creative when they do not have to perform.
In numerous classes, the students would make decisions about their art. This could be anything from rearranging the order or placement of chords, to coming up with a different rhythm for how to speak a stanza of a poem. However, as creative as the students were, when it came time to demonstrate their work, they would occasionally shy away or withdraw their desire to perform. Having a dedicated performer in the class, as I was fortunate to be, gives them the creative license to make a decision like a composer and then observe the effect safely and objectively from the sidelines.

6. 40-minute classes go by faster than you think.
In most cases, the students did not realize that the class time was up until the school bell went off, especially when they were engaged in music-making activities.

7. I am still a student.
Well, not a middle school student; I am more like a student at a middle school. The point is, when working in a school for any reason, it is important to remember what it is like to be a student. If you bring an intention to learn to your classroom, then you will most likely foster that in your teaching. This will also connect you with other students who have that same intention.

8. Music allows us to view a poem or text in a different way.
By asking ourselves questions about a musical composer’s decisions, we are forced to really look closely at how he made those decisions. The lyric text or poem has a meter and, in some cases, a rhythm. The musical setting can influence significantly the key words in the text. It is a composer’s job to distinguish those characteristics. To act like a composer requires us to become intimate with the texts.

9. Patience is absolutely necessary.
Even with clear instruction, there will always be a few students who need a little more. Taking time to work with those students individually or in small groups can ensure that they understand the concept. Once those students get it, then they can share what they have learned with other students. The class or activity will progress rapidly once the students have a clear idea, simply as the result of being patient with them and carefully explaining the ideas in different ways.

10. Students can be very insightful when given the opportunity.
Big surprise, right? We were discussing two poems, one by Langston Hughes titled, I, too, sing America and the other was I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman. To paraphrase a 6th grade student who responded to the Hughes poem, “It is about equality. The Whitman poem does not say anything about race or color. Hughes is saying that people with different color skin are part of America, too.”

Kathryn Logan: Observations from the Classroom

2010-11-23T10:00:00.002-05:00

Lynn and I have been at an elementary school in Long Island. We’ve had two full days of teaching in eight separate classrooms, Kindergarten through 2nd grade. The work of art we are teaching to is Ghostcatching by Bill T. Jones, a piece that we also spent some time discovering with New York teachers in Summer Season [LCI’s professional development workshops for educators] this summer.
The teachers at the planning session here had remarkable ideas. I have noticed through my own process of aesthetic education that I tend to skip steps when I am looking at a piece of art. Often, instead of just noticing what it is that I see, I find myself seeing something, interpreting it, seeing it again, comparing it, finding metaphors, referring back-- all of these things before I really have a conscious idea of the first thing I was noticing. These teachers see so clearly. It was inspiring and is a lesson I am taking into other parts of my life. Noticing deeply is not making connections, is not identifying patterns. There can be moments in an aesthetic education lesson plan that exercise many Capacities* at once, but the Capacities themselves are not overlapping. This is why they are separate in the LCI philosophy. Notice deeply. Make connections later. Skipping steps is not helpful; it is mind-muddying, and it ends up taking up more time in the long run.

When we got to the school on the first day, I felt the most incredible rush of very specific memories. An elementary school is an elementary school is an elementary school, it seems. There is some underlying feeling-factor that lives in each and every one. Of course, the children and the teachers; principals; lockers; linoleum; restrooms marked “girls” and “boys” instead of “men” and “women”; visitor stickers; florescent lights; hand-painted pictures in the hallway; cut out letters, leaves, teddy bears; and the sound of small scuffling feet…

But it’s not the stuff that feels so remarkable to me-- there is something about a place that’s entire purpose is the cultivation of the minds of children. Some space designated specifically where children are taken seriously. There seems to be so little of that in the rest of the world. We as adults have a tendency to treat children without respect, as though we own them, and as if they are not in any kind of position to have an opinion or take charge of themselves and their education. But isn’t that what we want for them? I think that AE is certainly focused on empowering people in this way: putting them in charge of their own education. The point being: in elementary school-- the kids are it. The kids are the reason this building is even standing! The children are the reason there are pictures on the walls, are the reason there is a gym down the hall and there are books on the shelves. There is something really inspiring about a place dedicated to children in this way.

Oh, and these children. We began with a kindergarten class on the first day and ended with a kindergarten class on the second day. A kindergarten bun, in between which were many first and second graders. A grade school sandwich I’m still digesting a week later. How quickly they catch on, and how ruthlessly they pursue their own research. In one activity, they would make a shape with their bodies, then draw that shape on their paper. Almost every one of these children, when they went to draw their shape would, unprompted, stand up again and look at their bodies, feel their bodies, experience this shape, try to draw it again, stand up again, experience, try to draw. It was remarkable. They were so invested in creating a true likeness of their shape.

It was so fulfilling to watch these children grasping onto movement so quickly and so fully. It has been a concern of mine that our culture does not put enough emphasis on the understanding and experience of our bodies, and that this is one of the reasons that we are so unhealthy, and on so many prescription medications: because we don’t know how to listen to our bodies. We aren’t taught from a young age, as a whole, how to listen to them, how to converse with them. We are, in fact, taught not to think about them, not to notice them. We are taught that our minds are what we need cultivate, singularly. Physical Education practices are meant for kids to blow off steam in the middle of the day, or learn about sports, etiquette, and teamwork, but not their relationships with their own bodies. As such, seeing these children so inquisitive about their bodies, and a school that was so open to our presence there, instilled a little bit of hope in me.

They were so taken with Lynn, and I learned so much from her. The way that you ask questions is so important: varying your language, and being incredibly specific about what you want them to do, especially at this age. A lot can get lost in translation when you’re working with twenty 5-year-olds moving their bodies.

In the next to last class on the second day, I led the second part of the lesson, and in the very last class, I led the full lesson. I felt so intimidated. By kindergarteners. So intimidated. But they were so attentive, so curious, and remarkably quiet! I was so impressed by these children that I zipped through the lesson a little too quickly, and we had a few extra minutes at the end to ask them more questions.

The questions Lynn asked were so fascinating, so intuitive. Things like, “If your arm is straight and behind you and you can’t see it, how do you know that it’s straight?” or, “What is the difference between a straight line and a curved line?”

The answers these kids gave! One second-grader suggested that curved lines were bumpier. Many kids would get up and show us with their bodies.

I can’t wait to get back into the classrooms for our next lessons and to continue to cultivate my relationships with these amazing children. I am really excited at the prospect of refining my skills as a Teaching Artist: learning to ask more specific yet open-ended questions, how to remain open and intuitive to the experiences of these children, and how to keep the flow moving so that the kids stay active and interested the whole time. Between Lynn and all of these remarkable kids, I think I’ve got a pretty solid set of teachers.

*Note from editor: The Capacities for Imaginative Learning were created by LCI to list some of the potential student outcomes from our teaching practice. They are used both as a planning and as an assessment tool. They are: Noticing Deeply, Embodying, Questioning, Identifying Patterns, Making Connections, Exhibiting Empathy, Living with Ambiguity, Creating Meaning, Taking Action, and Reflecting/Assessing.

The Kenan Fellow Artistic Projects

2010-11-19T10:00:00.002-05:00

The Kenan Fellows are deep in rehearsal for their upcoming Artistic Projects, which will showcase their artistry for the public. They'll be performed the weekend of January 21 - 23. Here are the details:

Aria: A Journey to the Heart, a concert by Megan Szymanski
This performance takes the listener on a journey to the heart through different variations of the “aria”. Three different kinds of love are portrayed: Familial, Spiritual, and Romantic. The program features a piece for flute, digital delay, and CD entitled Pulse Aria; the Bach aria Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben; Borne’s Carmen Fantasie for flute and piano, and Doppler’s Rigoletto Fantasie for two flutes and piano.
Performances on Jan. 22 at 8 p.m. and Jan. 23 at 2 p.m. Informal Q-and-A reception with the artist after the performance on the 22nd.

Searching for the Sacred, a music/theater collaborative piece by Drew Madland and Benjamin Garner
Searching for the Sacred is a restless meditation on the role of space, memory, and dreams in the human search for the sacred. Combining a rich soundscape, live instrumentation, interactive projections, and theatrical text and movement, Searching for the Sacred creates echoes of familiar images and nostalgic longing that reach deeply into those lasting questions that arise in the human search for home and ultimate purpose.
Performances on Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. and Jan. 22 at 1 p.m. Informal Q-and-A reception with the artists after the performance on the 21st.

Everything Potent is Dangerous, a dance piece by Amanda Hinchey
Everything Potent is Dangerous is a contemporary dance piece created to investigate the question, “How is one’s perception and presentation of self influenced by his or her cultural background?” It is an exploration into how we believe our own cultural circumstances have shaped us, and it began as a series of interviews of a group of diverse individuals who were each given a set series of questions pertaining to their personal background. The piece in particular aims to tackle the idea of how our sense of self-identity is affected by whether we look at ourselves as a majority or a minority.
Performances on Jan. 21 at 8 p.m. and Jan. 22 at 2 p.m. Informal Q-and-A reception with the artist after the performance on the 21st.

The Orchard, a music/dance collaborative piece by Kayla Herrmann and Kathryn Logan
Using videoed and live original choreography and live performance of arrangements of classical compositions, The Orchard creates an atmosphere of this oscillation, exploring the curiosity of ourselves and surroundings, anxious mental fixation, and the swing that takes us between them. The Orchard invites the audience to examine their own relationship with their swing, and to open themselves to recognizing the catalysts of this dynamic movement.
Performances on Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. and Jan. 23 at 3 p.m. Informal Q-and-A reception with the artists after the performance on the 22nd.

Megan Szymanski: Observations from the Classroom (Instructional Sessions)

2010-11-15T10:00:00.002-05:00

For the last two weeks, I have been observing the classroom lessons with my mentor Lisa. It’s hard to believe we are already halfway through with the unit. I have been to a total of four days at the school we are working with, and within a day we usually have between three and five 50-minute lessons with the kids. Personally, I am quite fascinated with these kindergarten, first, and second grade classrooms. I especially love all the books, the art hanging on the walls, and the crafty “learning tools” that are posted everywhere. In one classroom, the teacher had even posted lists entitled, “What we noticed about ____”, filling in the blanks with books or artworks, and quoting the kids on their responses. I silently cheered at that!

I also give the teachers a lot of credit for being so patient and strong when it comes to behavior in the classroom. Convincing a group of twenty-seven six-year-olds that it’s the right thing to be respectful and work as a community seems like a major challenge. I’m learning terms like “Magic Five”, which is used to remind the kids to sit quietly, with legs crossed and hands folded. Every classroom is different, too. Some have more kids, some have quieter kids, some have two teachers, and some have just come from recess or lunch. All these factors dramatically change the way Lisa has to teach her lesson. Lisa is so flexible, as I expected, and after each lesson, we always talk about what just happened and why. Each classroom has been fun to work with for one reason or another. The lessons almost never go exactly as they are written on paper, because kids love to ask questions, or sometimes there are a few kids who need extra attention. The great thing about a trained LCI Teaching Artist is that they are always able to redirect the focus to the work of art, no matter how far the kids’ minds seem to wander. There is always a connection to be made.

The kids are fascinated by rhythm and music, and they are always eager to learn and perform songs. We even had one class perform a great song about expressing their feelings. They were so excited to sing for us, so the teacher put on an accompaniment CD, and they sang their hearts out. It was really special and completely unexpected. When the kids hear the Mountain Music or talk about the rhythms Lisa has been introducing in the lessons (“boom-chick”), they automatically make connections and embody the music. It is great to see LCI in action here. For another example, when they learn the instruments, they do not just look at a picture of an instrument and memorize the name of it. Lisa has them hold an imaginary fiddle, or guitar, or bass, and they feel the motion as if they were a part of the bluegrass band. After seeing these lessons, I have a deeper understanding of why the kids will “get more” out of the work of art (Mountain Music). They are learning the key words of the performance, the instruments used, the words of the songs, and the rhythms-- all through brilliant Aesthetic Education. And it’s working.

Drew Madland: LCI's Practice and the Imagination

2010-11-12T12:00:00.001-05:00

Ideas belong to everyone. Ideas are free. Imagination is free.

LCI teaching practices of art making, questioning, and reflection open the imagination up to the breathing continuum of knowledge. LCI teaching reveals the three-dimensional, textural character of the mind and body; acute to verbose, vacillating and vast.

An LCI imagination frees itself into an acrobatic sponge that soaks up every experience, flips, leaps and dives into questions, observations, and more questions to follow; all the while, the mind is absorbing and transforming the experience into knowledge.

Flex the mind, wear out the intellect, taxed after a day full of analysis, reflection; a day of breaking down the most minute aspects of observation: what is that? Be more specific. What is the actuality? LCI demands a tireless process of searching to uncover the textures of the complicity of a vast array of subject matter, experience, and observation: the truth. Strong, resilient imagination.

Imagination as question-dialogue.
The “line of inquiry” and the questioning process are the backbone of imaginative facilitation. LCI teaching practice uses the open question to activate the imagination. In the LCI teaching practice, the crafted question is designed to release unlimited responses from unlimited participants. Through the use of art-making activities that relate directly to the work of art, LCI teaching generates constant conversation and questions. This dynamic dialogue creates an imagination community, a feedback learning loop amongst students and teachers where everyone learns from one another.

Imagination as experiencing with all five senses.
By structuring art-making activities to call on all five senses and the mind, LCI develops the whole imagination, mind and body. LCI teaches “backwards” by using art-making activities that empower student as creator, thereby freeing the student of “getting it right” and enabling the student to experience information before “learning” it. By teaching “backwards”, LCI practice injects information into the body’s senses before the mind and the insecurities of the self can distort the actuality of the incoming information.

Imagination as searching/risk
LCI teaching practice of noticing deeply and reflection trains the mind to trust intuition as the basic impulse for learning and implicitly embeds a hungry curiosity in students. The student begins to trust and own their powers of observation. The student takes ownership of the inquiry. The mind is trained to ask, “What else?”, to say, “Yes, and…”, to notice deeply the connections among questions and content, and to use this experience to generate further questions and push the boundaries of how deeply one can go into an inquiry. The inquiry-based process becomes a personal search for truth.

Once the student takes ownership of the inquiry-based process, the student’s willingness to take risks and “fail” becomes greater. The beauty of the open question is that it abandons the negative connotations of “failure” altogether. “Failure” is an opportunity to learn, and although it is sometimes painful, it is part of the inquiry-based process. LCI teaching embraces the idea that one must continue to risk failure in order to overcome challenges and the perceived limits of the mind; to grow the imagination.

In reality, these perceived limits of the mind may not even exist; humans are capable of incredible things when the will is strong and the mind is ripe.

Together we solve problems.

Amanda Hinchey on the Development of her Artistic Project

2010-11-03T10:00:00.001-04:00

My Artistic Project has been a source of both never-ending joy and stress at the same time. From the moment I found out that my proposal had been accepted, it has been very difficult for me to not become overwhelmed with worry over everything from casting to budgeting and rehearsal space. This will be by far the largest project that I have ever taken on, and so much of my time has been spent trying to let go of being intimidated by the amount of work that I will have to put into it.

Once I really started to delve into the process of interviewing people on video (the primary source of material for the piece), it became very clear that the first very big hurdle of this project would be distilling all of the gathered information down into a single cohesive work. At this point I have only collected four interviews (a fifth of my original goal), and already I have enough information to create four very full-length pieces. I’ve found the process of interviewing people extremely enjoyable; it’s certainly been great to get to know each individual more through their personal history. Often times I’ve even wound up asking questions that have nothing to do with what I had originally planned to investigate; rather, they were things that I was simply curious about. I’ve also been pleasantly surprised at how little encouragement the people I’ve interviewed have needed to talk openly and candidly on camera. The most interesting aspect of each interview is the overall impression that I get of that individual, as often times there is a lot of fascinating information in the way that he or she said things, as well as the things that were not said. It has become relatively clear that these impressions will be the main source of inspiration for the piece, as they are what interest me the most, and also, from a purely practical standpoint, it will make it much more manageable for myself and the composer I’m working with. Additionally, I was fortunate enough to get the chance to go on a retreat for contact improv dance in MA. This experience did help tremendously with the generation of choreography for the piece.

By far the biggest headache in the process thus far has been casting the actual dancers, as the number of people that I’m working with fluctuates regularly. Currently, there is only one other dancer attached to the project along with myself, although there is a possibility that there could be more joining in the future. This has presented an interesting challenge for me, as I had originally intended to work with four bodies in the space. Because of this I have begun to think about alternative ways to portray a larger group of individuals with just two dancers. Currently my plan is to experiment with using many strong beams of light that will hopefully cast shadows in multiple directions, although this idea is still purely hypothetical and I still need to work out the logistics of whether it is even possible.

Already, I’ve learned so much through the beginning process of creating this piece, and I’m happy to say that I’m ALMOST at the point where I can finally let go of all of the unnecessary expectations and fully enjoy having the opportunity to create something meaningful to me and on this scale.

Kayla Herrmann: Observations from the Classroom

2010-11-01T14:54:00.002-04:00

“Seek! Do not destroy!”

Man, let me just tell you how amazing these K-2 kids are! I have taught music lessons and coached swim teams full of children for years—and I am still inspired when around them! I want to share with you some particularly wonderful moments:

Jessica and I walk into a classroom of first grade students and Jessica says to everyone, “Do you guys know why I am here?” And this little boy opens his huge eyes says, “Ms. Jessica? I LOOOVE music!”

While in an art classroom of second graders, Jessica plays a little clip of the work of art they are studying, Mountain Music. They are supposed to be listening carefully to the sound of a particular instrument to see if they know what it is, but this one girl can’t stop moving every time Jessica plays the music! The minute the music plays she is closing her eyes, smiling, and waving her entire body! If any of you have seen Kenan Fellow Benjamin Garner dance down the sidewalk, she kinda looked like him.

In a kindergarten classroom, Jessica played a music clip and asked if anyone knew what instrument was playing (keep in mind, these kids have been in school for less than two months). A little boy called out, “A banjo!” I saw the teachers' eyes pop out of their sockets in amazement!

In another classroom, Jessica asked if anyone wanted to play a rhythm pattern on their instrument. A shy boy raised his hand and played the rhythm while saying, “Red, yellow, yellow, red.” (We were using colors to show patterns). The teacher told us that that boy is still working on his language and rarely speaks in the classroom.

Jessica asked a classroom of second grade students what they noticed about bluegrass music. One girl said, “Music is so comforting.”

Captain Picard and I connected on another topic yesterday. (In my last blog, I mentioned that I watch Star Trek as I fall asleep and that I often find myself empathizing with Captain Picard because he is full of deep curiosity and a desire to explore.) The Enterprise came across an unknown life form, and because they did not know how to communicate with it, they were afraid and wanted to fire at it. (Also, this unknown life form was sucking the life support from their ship…tiny detail. :) ). Captain Picard refused to allow the life form to be killed, because he knew that all they needed to do was find a different way to communicate. In a moment of passion, he spoke out, “We are here to seek out new life form, not destroy it!”

Like the unfamiliar life form, imagination can be scary. Captain Picard’s crew wanted to kill the life form before it had the opportunity to destroy their ship. In the same way, we often “kill” imagination before it has the chance to develop. I have heard so many adults say, “I’m not imaginative, I’m not creative,” and I’ve heard teachers say about their students, “Oh, some of my students are imaginative.” In the past few days, I have been moved to tears countless times in these classrooms. These children are amazing—their eyes are full of pure, innocent wonder! I have been in eight classrooms and not once seen a child unable to feel imaginative; to embody the music into their every movement; to create many different sounds using two sticks! So I ask, when did we start telling ourselves that we don’t have imagination? When did we start telling others that we are not imaginative? When did we, as a culture, start accepting that some are imaginative and others are not? The evidence from these eight classrooms shows clearly that every child is using their imagination, so what is happening to us? My guess is that at some point, someone decided imagination is scary because we can’t know or see where it will go. If we don’t trust humanity to be good, we can’t trust each other to be imaginative in positive ways. I think we need to feel more in control, and that is what ends up “killing” imagination.

I feel very lucky in my childhood to have had such wonderful, encouraging teachers and parents. I remember one time in elementary school when I did something quite imaginative. My second grade teacher and I did not get started on the right foot, and I was very concerned about this. One day, before school started, I moved my desk right next to the teacher’s desk. When she came into the classroom, she said, “Kayla, why have you moved your desk over here?” I said, “If we sit next to each other every day, we will have to get along!” Now, my teacher could have said, “No, go back to your spot.” Or even worse, “That’s a bad idea. Go back to your spot.” Instead, she said, “Well, okay, that is different way to think about it! Let’s give it a try!” Right there, I felt like my imagination was appreciated and encouraged. Had she turned me down, I may have felt like imagination wasn’t a good thing.

The scary part of this story is that if the teacher had said no, she may have not being thinking about the long-term ramifications of that. I think we often fail to think about how our behavior around children can change the way they behave on a very quiet level. I appreciated Picard’s determination to give the life form a chance to communicate. I think sometimes we need a Captain Picard to root for us, too. Maybe it is a parent, school teacher, friend, or sibling who says, “Wait! Give them a chance to be imaginative—even if they take an approach that you are unfamiliar with!”

Benjamin Garner: Collaborating on an Artistic Project

2010-10-29T10:00:00.002-04:00

For those of you that don’t know, the Kenan Fellows will be performing at the Lincoln Center in January! Drew Madland and I are working on a collaborative artistic project, which is a Music and Movement collaboration with three actors and one musician. It has already begun to take shape. As we work together as an ensemble we will be developing relationships, trust, and art that really speaks to who we are as artists.
Our first ensemble meeting for our project had a rocky but necessary start. While Drew and I had both brainstormed and discussed the rehearsal and performance intentions, the other two candidates in the ensemble, Josh and Jasmine, still seemed to have plenty of excellent questions. They needed to know what clarified their parts and our cumulative goals for the piece. “Questioning, Reflecting, and Reacting; this is the nature of all of our interactions with the project,” says Drew.

The ensemble moved together to my tiny NY bedroom and gathered around the sound system. It was time for show-and-tell, sharing time. Our assignments were to bring a sound or a text or a book or something that would communicate our connection to the overall topic of our project, Searching for the Sacred. Each person had a completely different approach. Jasmine shared her musical origins through an audio play list, Drew wrote some vivid text and read it out loud, Josh shared a passage from a book about complicity, and I had chosen a short play list of Rachmaninoff preludes performed by various excellent pianists (Horowitz, Richter, Weissenberg, Van Cliburn). We each brainstormed stories about the wordless preludes. This gave me insight into what makes actors tick. I can more clearly see what they do as actors and as people and about how well they will bring themselves into this project. These insights and ideas are the inspiration that we draw on to help us make decisions about the project.

As a musician and composer, I am used to constructing something concrete to be played and performed with refinement and musicianship. As an improvising musician in different situations, especially accompanying dance, movement, and acting, I am used to reacting to already-created material. In this collaboration, there is not yet a completed picture, only windows into the depths of what makes us people. In this project, we are all searching for something formless and incorporeal but that is also inside of us. The process of sharing this exploration provides the result we need to continue on our collaboration; we gain the mutual understanding of intention and a personal connection to each other.

I also think of music as a medium that can be weaved seamlessly into another medium, such as spoken word, or dance, or more music (for instance: a pulsating rhythm going on under a modern dance, or a drone going on while someone is speaking in a solemn tone, a recorded pattern off-stage during a performance that sets a unique tone for a traditional composition performance). Music can be used to accentuate what is being communicated in another medium, such as a sound or pitch for each step or large motion. For instance, picture the same modern dance from the last example, but inside a vacuum so that you cannot hear the footsteps or the breaths or the musical rhythm. The visual picture has not changed or affected the dance; however, it is completely silent. Imagine that you could blink, but every time you do, you miss something. Now add the air back in; the dance may be communicated without eyes, because there is rhythm and footsteps to connect to the movement performance.

As we proceed in this collaboration, Drew and I discover what we want as directors and as an ensemble. All of our actions, from conversation, to sharing, to reacting, to questioning, all of these actions and many more are part of our process for creating this artistic project.

Kathryn Logan on Having a Mentor

2010-10-27T12:21:00.003-04:00

One aspect of the Kenan Fellowship is having a mentor; the Kenan Fellows are assigned LCI Teaching Artist mentors in their own disciplines to support and assist the Fellows through their learning and grast of LCI's teaching approach; guide the Fellows through the challenges and realities of what it means to be an artist in New York City; and instroduce them to a netword of professional artists in New York City. Below, Kathryn describes her reflections on her experience thus far.

I love school. I always have. I love to learn, to read, to wonder-- and I’ve always felt there was something really nice about having an imposed structure to my life. It’s easy. When you’re really passionate about something and you are blessed enough to get to do it every day, like I did at the School of the Arts, you can focus so much more easily on improving your art form when someone else is setting your schedule for you. Just show up and work. No problem.

I love-- many things. And, as such, when I moved back to New York after graduating from School of the Arts, I spent a lot of time going back and forth on what I wanted to do. I would take class here and there when I could afford it, I played some music, did some recording, performed a few times every month or so: dance, music, writing, teaching... I couldn’t seem to make a commitment in a sense that I could really improve as an artist in any one area. I couldn’t seem to create a structure for myself to which I could consistently stick.

One of the things that I am loving about working with my mentor Lynn is the amazing sense of structure it is adding to the time I have set aside for furthering myself as an artist. She is helping me find the thing I need most when it comes to my art and my career: focus. She is helping me to notice more deeply, and recognize more truly how to set deadlines and stick to them: how to be true to the goals that I set for myself.

Having a mentor is a rare opportunity. To have someone in my life who has made it her business to help me find myself as an artist-- to hold myself accountable for my career. We have passion, we who have been through the trenches of School of the Arts and come out the other side. We have drive, talent and incredible training. But what we don’t have is someone to bring us into the art world realistically: someone to say, “Yes. Great. But How?”

This is the incredible gift that Lynn is giving me. She is opening my mind by suggesting that dreaming is useful, but at some point you have to think logistically if you want to move beyond just mental imagery. At some point we have to learn how to set deadlines, and to meet them: how to not only set goals for ourselves, but to take the realistic steps, every day, to reach our goals.

My first planning session at an elementary school with Lynn won’t happen until next week, but I am very anxious to see how all that we Kenan Fellows have been learning and reading about these last few months is being put into active practice in the schools. I’m excited to see how young kids, especially, are reacting to the LCI approach of Imaginative Learning. Because one of the things that I respect and love so much about this philosophy is how it teaches students, teachers, people, to take responsibility for their own education: to feel an ownership of themselves and their expression.

That ownership is certainly what my mentor and this philosophy are teaching me.

You cannot avoid yourself here. It’s pretty extraordinary.

Amanda Hinchey on Networking

2010-10-20T10:36:00.003-04:00

I cannot stress enough how important networking is. This is especially true in New York City, a place that, I am constantly reminded, is not nearly as big as it appears. I am constantly running into people that I know on the train, or recognizing the name of a performer on a program; the everyday examples are endless. That is why it is so important that, as artists, we build strong relationships with the other artists in our community, because we are constantly relying on each other for support. In many cases, I have found that having the right connections can be more important than something such as a strong audition, as auditions are often affected by who a person knows.

Even now, I never feel completely comfortable when trying to reach out to people that I’m interested in working with. In order to network effectively, one often has find the right balance between being polite enough to show respect and being aggressive enough to be taken seriously. This is a balance that I have always struggled with, as I often worry that I might be imposing on others and, as a result, am not aggressive enough. During my time in this Fellowship, I am working on becoming more comfortable with being more forward with other artists and hopefully build even more strong relationships, which will, in turn, lead to more opportunities. I know already that simply through meeting the other Kenans that I’ve forged many long-lasting relationships which I know will benefit me in the future. There have been several other instances over the course of the Fellowship where I wish that I had felt more comfortable with networking. A prime example of this was the Fall TA Workshop, which was a situation where I was surrounded by so many talented and intelligent dancers as well as musicians and visual artists, etc. However, I only wound up exchanging information with a small number of them, which is something that I regret, to say the least. The main thing that the Fellowship has taught me about networking is that it is important to be aggressive; this applies to networking as well as fundraising and promoting yourself.

The power of networking never ceases to amaze me. There have been so many instances where I have been given opportunities because of people who, when I met them, I never thought would benefit me in such ways. This is why it is so important to maintain a good relationship with every person one comes into contact with in his or her field. If not, you could be inadvertently closing a door on something wonderful without even realizing it. This is the attitude that I hope to maintain throughout the course of the Fellowship, as I am constantly being exposed to so many amazing artists on a regular basis. It is quite possible that many of the benefits of this experience could happen long after it’s concluded and in ways that I wouldn’t have imagined…

Megan Szymanski: Observations from the Classroom (Planning Session)

2010-10-18T11:47:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago, I walked into a New York City Public School for the first time. I observed two great teaching artists-- Sasha and my mentor Lisa-- in a planning session for a very large unit in this school. Lisa’s group is K-2, the very young children, but that day we only met with the teachers. There were about 17 or 18 teachers in Lisa’s group, which means Lisa will be facilitating workshops in that many classrooms, for four sessions each! I imagine that the planning session had to be tailored from the usual routine to accommodate such a large group. Fortunately, there are two experienced and flexible TAs to make this a success.

The planning session began once school let out and the teachers were all able to make it to our fifth floor classroom. With about 30 teachers in one room, Sasha and Lisa led a warm-up activity for the teachers. The majority of the teachers already had some-- if not extensive-- professional development from LCI, so they all seemed to understand the process. The teachers had great ideas about the work of art (Mountain Music), and almost instantly came up with a “winning” line of inquiry. I took notes for Lisa’s group as they use the Capacities for Imaginative Learning to brainstorm curricular connections, key ideas, questions, and more. Sometimes, the teachers would have conflicting ideas, and our TAs reminded them to “live in ambiguity”. I noticed that they responded well to that, especially when the disagreement was not vital to forming the actual lesson plan or line of inquiry.

After coming up with the line of inquiry, the two groups (younger and older grades) split up to focus on activity ideas and lesson plans. I went with Lisa’s group (younger grades) into the library, and watched them as they worked extremely efficiently and productively. With Lisa leading the discussion, teachers brainstormed the use of musical instruments, key ideas such as a specific rhythm from the music, and the best ways to engage young children in music making around the work of art. At the end of the session, we made sure the resulting plan still aligned with the original line of inquiry, and it did. This planning session was a whirlwind of ideas and over in no time. I was so impressed by how well the teachers worked together. My mentor Lisa obviously has years of experience, which played a major role in pulling together all these ideas and forming a concrete (yet still preliminary) lesson plan.

I did notice some challenges and I certainly have many questions. It is different to observe a group of teaching artists from LCI brainstorm a work of art (as we did during the Fall TA Workshop*), and a group of classroom teachers who spend all their days with the same young children. I am still trying to figure out how exactly it is different, and I look forward to seeing how the teachers work individually when they are in the classroom with Lisa. I am interested in observing a different planning session and noticing the differences between managing a large group of people and only focusing on a group of maybe four or five teachers, or less. This planning session was different than my expectations, simply because usually when a planning session has been described to me, it was described as having a smaller number of teachers. I am also very excited to see the children and see how they respond to the workshops. Teachers seem to know their kids very well and even predicted how most of them would react to different projects or assignments, which only surprised me because I have not worked with a group of 20 first-graders since I was in first grade myself! It seems like the teachers and the TAs all have lots of experience to contribute towards the logistics of this unit, and I wonder how many surprises will arise throughout the unit and how they will be handled. All in all, my first experience in a NYC public school was a success, and I’m excited to start living the part of “Phase II” that we all have been preparing for since the start of the Fellowship.

*Note from editor: The Fall TA Workshop is the annual professional development event for LCI teaching artists to prepare for the school year by brainstorming the year’s repertory works of art.

Drew Madland on Self-Structured Time

2010-10-08T10:00:00.002-04:00

Self-structured time is one of the components of the Kenan Fellowship at LCI. This is time that is formally incorporated into their 40-hour workweek in which the Fellows are required to map out, and then execute, a personal regimen that develops their artistry and advances their careers.

Self-structured time has been one of the most unique, difficult and pleasurable experiences of my life. Within this huge freedom and responsibility of “Go, be an artist, make it happen,” I have come up against considerable and deep-seated personal and social challenges. I am incredibly grateful for the flexible schedule of self-structured time that the Kenan Fellowship at LCI supports, which has substantially increased opportunities for me as a professional artist in NYC. However, I think the biggest opportunity for growth so far has been within myself. Given this great freedom and space to explore, my focus has become introspective, and I have often been confronted with the constraints that I habitually place on myself. When I am put in control of my own time and energy I cannot blame any outside forces, only my own fears. As a result of these revelations, I have been working on developing my ability to release into the moment and trust that I am making the best use of my time and that I can do anything when I commit to it. This is difficult but very rewarding. It’s the challenge of time management: When should I do what? What is most important to do first? How much time do I need to spend on this? There is never enough time to do everything, especially when you’re working with New York minutes (which are shorter than a normal minute), and developing the skill to evaluate all of the factors and move forward has been a constant challenge.

Another very real challenge is confronting the specter of authority within an environment where no authority is directly apparent. I have gone through life with a supervisor always checking my work, whether it was a manager, a teacher or a director. I never have liked this hierarchical arrangement, so I thought, “Well this will be great, I will be totally free!” But this is not always the case. I have started to become aware of the way I re-enforce an outside authority upon myself. I think, “Is this worth LCI time? Am I doing it right? How much time should this take? Do I really need to take a break?” The fear has been instilled, conditioned into me. I fear being disciplined or admonished, even though there is no one around to do so. It makes me re-evaluate how authority functions, and I recall John Locke, who asserted that those who are governed can only be governed if they consent to the governing authority; that it is, in fact, ourselves that give power to an outside force. I continue to delve into the roots of my habits. I realize the way our culture organizes schools and most of our business organizations puts the average student or worker into a habitual state of fear; the fear of getting the wrong answer or making a mistake or asking a question that costs one a passing grade, promotion or job. Is this good for art? No. Fear is, of course, not conducive to creativity. However, fear is not the only way. It is possible to base an organization on creativity and questioning (like LCI); when this is the organizing principle, many of the negative mechanisms of control are no longer needed, because the creative value of each individual is respected and developed, and communication becomes deeper and more reciprocal. I believe that when this level of collaboration is achieved, an organization becomes more diverse, adaptable and effective.

I am totally in support of self-structured time as a component of the Fellowship because it creates a safe space to struggle with what it means to be an artist, an adult and a professional; and overall, it nurtures the creative self. These experiences have generated some fierce, lingering questions and I will conclude with these ponderings:

What does it mean to be hungry for Art?! What is competition? When is it negative/positive? When is competition good for society the future and when is it anti-social? What role does the Ego play in this? What does the word “work” do to the feeling of Art? What is the true value of my work?

Announcing the 2011 Artistic Projects

2010-10-07T14:26:00.000-04:00

The Kenan Fellow Artistic Projects have been selected! Their working titles are:

     Aria: A Journey to the Heart, a music program presented by Megan Szymanski

     Everything Potent is Dangerous, a dance piece by Amanda Hinchey

     The Orchard, a music and dance collaboration by Kayla Herrmann and Kathryn Logan

     The Search for the Sacred, a music and theatre collaboration by Benjamin Garner and Drew Madland

They will be presented in the Clark Studio Theater this January. Congratulations, everyone!

Kayla Herrmann on Writing an Artistic Project Proposal

2010-10-05T13:28:00.009-04:00

“Warp 9---Engage!”

So I get the assignment from LCI that my next blog topic is about writing a proposal for my artistic project. What was the experience like? Visualize me running through Inwood Hill Park screaming for my brain back! I tried to add up the hours spent on the proposal but it became too hard. This may have something to do with the fact that even though three days have gone by since submitting the proposal, my brain is still stuck in a word document. LCI gave us very few limitations for the project: keeping in mind what is possible in the space provided and a budget. The theme of the project, however, can be anything.

I felt like I was floating in outer space with two options: set a reverse course for home or venture in any other direction and explore the unknown. (I watch Star Trek when I can’t fall asleep). As a musician, we can generally perform a traditional concert in any location, and the budget set by LCI would have been enough to get myself a pianist. So I knew how to get home, but what about the other options? I thought, “I have access to a theater! With lighting, and speakers, and a stage crew! What can I do with this?!” Sometimes I feel very connected to Captain Picard: full of so much curiosity and excitement to learn something new! I have always known that art-making is most fun when I am doing it with others.

Sharing my ideas and learning from others gives me so much energy! I put it on the table for the other fellows in case they were thinking the same thing. At the end of the summer, I got a phone call from Kathryn Logan (contemporary dancer, musician, awesome friend, and a fellow Fellow) saying that she was putting her desire to collaborate on the table as well. We both left our offers to marinate for a week. When we got back to NYC, we decided to take a walk and talk about some project ideas and see if any of our ideas overlapped. (Our walk become even more interesting when we ended up right next to a pier that caught on fire!) As usual with Kat and myself, our conversation quickly turned from project ideas to deep conversations about existence and awareness! That is what happens when two philosophers sit on a rock I guess. We had many more of these conversations before a project proposal finally appeared.

You should have seen our first attempt at writing a proposal! I think it was at least ten pages. (My dad is fisherman and a story teller, so when I say it was THIS long, it was probably more like this long). We showed our first draft to Kathryn’s mentor Lynn, and her main comment was “less and clear are good things to keep in mind!” My cello teacher suggested that we also try not to make up words or add “ness” to the end of everything. Hehe… We finally took our idea and narrowed it down to the most basic way to say it. This was the hardest part of the proposal writing process. When everything is so clear in my head because I’ve been living with the idea for weeks and visualizing it, how do I know if I am being clear to the reader? Have I explained it enough? Too much? I noticed how easy it was to skip over details because they seem natural to me. For example, we put a sound and lighting designer in our budget, but never wrote about why we needed one or what they would do! We never said that the musicians would be on stage. It was unclear if the music was being improvised. These details we knew so well that we forgot to explain them.

Our first proposal was not accepted. However, unlike the normal situation when writing a grant, we got another chance to write it with comments from LCI about what was unclear. What an amazing opportunity! Their comments basically said “we need more description. What are we actually going to see in this performance?” Kathryn and I realized that we had spent so much effort and space describing our philosophical ideas that we left out what the piece would actually look like. Off to work we went, spending hours at coffee shops (like all philosophers, we do our best work with a cup of coffee!).

We had four days to revise! Four days to prove that our piece should be chosen! We emailed our mentors and friends every day with updates and questions and each morning we read their feedback and got to work! (Special thanks to everyone for reading our revisions and providing valuable insight!).

The short amount of time added another challenge. Kathryn and I found that we tend to forget about the proposal writing when we start talking about the piece itself.

Every time we got together to edit the proposal, we ended up engaged in discussions about human behavior and the word document turned into a screen saver. These discussions are definitely relevant to the creation process, but they also take up a lot of time and the coffee shops usually close… We found that if we worked over video chat, we couldn’t ignore the computer and proposal sitting in front of us! Good to know for future deadlines!

Overall, this process was very helpful because it required me to thoroughly examine my idea in order to communicate it to others. Being able to revise the proposal is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that taught me so much!

I learned that:

Editing the final product for spelling and grammatical errors as well as formatting (aka: how can I get this to fit on two pages?????) takes longer than 5 minutes.
I have to split my brain into what I know, and what the reader knows. Meaning, just because I’ve lived with this idea for a month doesn’t mean the reader has all of that information. I have to be clear enough for anyone to read the proposal and know what the performance will resemble.
Don’t take too long getting to the point. The reader shouldn’t have to study the philosophers you quote in order to understand what the piece is about. If you can’t say what the project is about in one or two sentences, the reader will probably toss it out for one that requires less work and time on their part.

I’d like to say that the hard part is over. I’ll get back to you on that! Coordinates are set for the rehearsal room at warp 9--Engage!! In the meantime, for all of my friends who write grants every day, some tips on how to recover my brain would be greatly appreciated!

Drew Madland Reflects on Phase I

2010-10-01T10:00:00.002-04:00

This month, Phase 1 of the Kenan Fellowship at the Lincoln Center Institute has been a spinning palette of new experiences and surprise, a leap of faith between the security of seventeen years of school and the working world. Some days I feel like I took a rocket ship to another planet; this city is a pulsing beast all its own. It is like a flux bubble full of a constant surge of humanity. The streets, the trains, the steel shot straight into the sky; it is an enormous scaffolding for the life of the human; these ubiquitous buildings are empty shells filled with sprawling life, sucking up energy needed to sustain millions.

Amidst all of these new experiences, LCI and our work with Imaginative learning has provided a true sanctuary where I can let down my shield and explore. LCI is fertile ground for my creative, imaginative, artist self to grow. As I navigate through this new life, new territory, New York, LCI is my anchor. LCI has become my first home here in New York City. When I step into the elevator to ascend, I am filled by a spirit of creativity that soaks into the walls, ceilings and people at the Institute and the Lincoln Center as a whole. I love being on the campus, and I feel privileged to be a part of something so grand and excellent. The Lincoln Center campus is conquered territory, space carved out for freedom, beauty, truth and expression. The Lincoln Center is a 17-acre beacon for the arts and culture, a great achievement on Manhattan Island where space is more precious than platinum covered gold-diamonds. I am so fortunate to spend my workdays at the Institute surrounded by people with creative minds and free spirits. I am inspired by so many talented people who are eager to solve problems and grow the human potential; to contribute in a real way to the world around them through imaginative education, for the greater good and human evolution.

Two of the Capacities for Imaginative Learning* have been central to my experiencing of the City: Noticing Deeply and Creating Meaning. These tools have put the innate diverse vibrancy of this place into relief. A single building or a child’s wondrous gaze piercing through culture and race, a rusted ancient tricycle ignites my curiosity and the imagination takes over. I am constantly and consistently catapulted into possibility fantasy, discovery.

All of this new information from LCI, my fellow Fellows, and NYC has conjured a lustful restlessness and rattled some recurring questions that are slow-roasting, stewing in my insides: Is there a difference between creativity and artistry? If so, what are the differences? How fast can I gestate my experience into art? What is the difference between sequential and linear? Do LCI’s Capacities and experiential learning naturally breed artists/artistry or is there another factor(s) that produces an artist? If so, what are they? What is the difference between an artist and craftsman? Is it a certain quality of attention in completing tasks/creating process’s that makes someone/something art? Could this process of education also be called body learning?

I’ll think “on’t” and you can too, and maybe we can find some new knowledge for the both of us.

*Note from editor: The Capacities for Imaginative Learning were created by Lincoln Center Institute to articulate outcomes of the practice of imaginative learning through aesthetic education. The ten Capacities are: Noticing Deeply, Embodying, Questioning, Identifying Patterns, Making Connections, Exhibiting Empathy, Living with Ambiguity, Creating Meaning, Taking Action, and Reflecting/Assessing. For more information, visit: http://www.lcinstitute.org/.

Benjamin Garner Reflects on Phase I

2010-08-31T10:00:00.002-04:00

The Kenan Fellows completed Phase I of their Fellowship on July 21st and have just returned today from their hiatus to begin Phase II. Below Benjamin reflects on the first phase at LCI.

I go into the city daily. I find answers. I make problems disappear. I draw conclusions. I get the wrong idea. I get the right idea. I find my way. I lose my way. This was my lens of perception. This was my conception of the city when I arrived in New York.

Let me say that I am glad to find myself immediately in the company of artists and educators! My first welcoming experience occurred just outside Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Center. Here, I brought with me the refinement of listening and comfort with music being played by others, students, professionals. These skills, having been passed down by my teachers and mentors of UNC School of the Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Richmond (where, I concede, I never actually attended but was found there on more than one occasion due to their high quality tastes and my particularly dry palate)-- these skills I carried with me everywhere. Music, my friends! Public Music being performed on a, by George, public instrument! What a welcome; a crowded public piano being pounded on by kids, and adults, and virtuosos alike! These were the Sing for Hope pianos. I hope some of you recall; I assure you it was not a dream! It was certainly music to my ears!

Back to my lenses, over the next four weeks at the Lincoln Center Institute, I would increase my sense of perception. I would listen and empathize, not because I’m required to, but because I’m compelled to do so by noticing deeply. The other Fellows and I grouped together to discuss our experiences and reinforce the meaning that was being created daily where we worked. Meetings and introductions had some striking similarities; each person had a tone of admiration for their art and their workplace!

The Fellowship then transitioned into the workshop format. This functioned as a tool for facilitating groundbreaking ideas, which were stated in a most discernable manner. It also became a meeting place for collaborators to explore new ideas and roles in the classroom. Educators of core subjects, music, art, language, special education, and, of course, Fellows, actively took on the role of students. The daily meetings turned into a mutual exploration of questions, as opposed to a lecture. An important part of each workshop was to allow oneself to take on a different lens; in most cases, the introduction to a new work of art was enough to spark creativity and perspective.

The Fellows and teachers and facilitators were then introduced to the core of imaginative learning, outcomes that result from successful education with this method. These outcomes, called the Capacities for Imaginative Learning, for me framed a new lifestyle. In particular, ”living with ambiguity” hosts a sense of humility for your surroundings and patience for your problems. In “reflection”, another Capacity, I arrived in New York with patience for practicing my instrument; however, what I have taken away from the first month at LCI is the patience for any challenge, no matter how big or small.

As a pianist, arriving without a piano, the question of “my place” came into light. What am I outside of a pianist? In the past month I have grown fond of exploring that question. I love to compose. I am excited by the thought of collaboration. I find humor and enjoyment in developing myself as an actor, a comedian, a dancer, a painter, a writer! I watch. I listen. I wait. I utilize tools I already have. I create tools that I need. I make meaning out of problems. I don’t understand. I understand. I have not lost my previous sense of self-image. Imaginative learning has expanded and enlightened my self-image. I realize that I am much more than a pianist.

Amanda Hinchey Reflects on Phase I

2010-08-26T10:00:00.004-04:00

The Kenan Fellows completed Phase I of their Fellowship on July 21st. Below Amanda reflects on this first phase at LCI.

During this first phase of the Fellowship, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much I have been able to personally accomplish as far as opening my mind to a new way of thinking and understanding the Aesthetic Education principles of LCI. Before the start of this fellowship I had, of course, done research on LCI’s philosophy and had already encountered the Capacities for Imaginative Learning, but I still felt that I had very little understanding of how one would go about putting them into practice in an education setting. Because of this I went into the process thinking that I might only begin to comprehend some of the basic principles of Aesthetic Education, and I underestimated how much information could come from having the chance to experience the process first-hand. I was amazed at how much of an understanding I was able to gain over such a short period of time, and while I am still very much a beginner, I can confidently say that this experience has shaped the way that I will look at both art and education from this point on. It has literally opened my eyes to noticing all there is to be noticed in anything I do, from looking at a specific work of art to walking down the streets of the city. I have also become more aware of my own thought process when I am experiencing something such as a work of art, for example, when I am drawing upon contextual information or making connections to past experiences when I am shaping my opinions of it. I am now taking more time, in general, to question and analyze how I view works of art overall.

Experiencing LCI’s learning philosophy has been a very natural progression for my overall education in the arts after having spent four years in the conservatory setting of UNCSA. During those years, the emphasis was skills-based training, but I was also exposed to more styles of art and dance than I had ever seen before. In particular, I was given the tools to begin to learn how to express myself through my artistry, and through the generation of my own movement as a choreographer. My time at LCI has given me the opportunity to take my growth to the next level, allowing me to explore even more creative ideas that I was not yet equipped to explore while I was still in school. It has also helped me to begin to trust my own artistic voice, and now, more than ever before, I can believe that my opinions are valid and important. This was something I would sometimes struggle with while at school, as I would feel sometimes that I wasn’t yet well-enough informed to have a valid opinion on art in general. I will always be grateful for the time that I have spent at UNCSA, which has laid the groundwork for everything that I am able to now experience at LCI.

Prior to starting this Fellowship, I had already spent about a year living in NYC, and while I had slowly begun to establish myself in the dance community, much of my time was taken up with simply learning how to survive on my own for the first time in my life. For me, this fellowship has been a welcomed and much-needed opportunity to once again focus myself completely on why it is that I moved to the city in the first place, which was the chance to make art and be surrounded by a variety of creative individuals. Getting to know my fellow “Kenans” has not only given me a wonderful new group of friends, it has helped reshape the way in which I express my opinions on art. In the past, I usually shied away from having any lengthy conversation on the subject of art on the grounds of it being pointless, because there could be no definitive right or wrong answer. I also hardly ever felt the need to have to articulate my own feelings on the subject, as I reasoned that they were my own private conclusions. However, the many discussions that we’ve had as a group, both during and outside of the Fellowship, have made me understand the importance of such conversations as a means of helping to clarify for myself my own opinions, as well as many other valid opinions and viewpoints that I might never have thought of on my own. These group experiences have also made me feel more comfortable with “Living with Ambiguity”. I no longer feel such a great need to find definitive answers to every question, and I value the process of inquiry much more than I previously had.

I still believe that there is much more to be experienced through the process of Aesthetic Education. I am particularly interested getting the chance to see an AE lesson plan taught to children, as all of my experiences thus far have involved participating in activities with adult educators. I anticipate the process to be very different, and I am especially interested in seeing how a situation in dealt with when a child is uncooperative or unresponsive, as it would be valuable information for me as a relatively inexperienced dance teacher for young children. I know that the second phase of the Fellowship will be very different from the first, and although I have no particular questions about it yet, I am already beginning to anticipate how different the process of learning will be once it begins. For me, right now there is a lot of general uncertainty…

Kayla Herrmann Reflects on Phase I

2010-08-19T10:00:00.006-04:00

The Kenan Fellows completed Phase I of their Fellowship on July 21st. Below Kayla reflects on this first phase at LCI, including activities that the Fellows did together outside of their Fellowship time, such as practicing yoga.

Downward dog. Plank. Lower your knees, chest and chin to the mat. Slide forward to baby cobra. Tuck your toes and use your hips to move back to downward dog.

These moves are not unfamiliar. In fact, I did them every day with the swim team when I was a teenager. But I am relearning them. Now, I practice them while noticing the smell of the sand slipping between my fingers, while feeling the warmth of the wind and picturing the shapes it makes as it blows past my face. I practice them with thanks for every deep breath that fills my body. I allow thoughts to enter my mind, I notice them, notice where they came from, what part of my body they are lingering in, and when they are ready, I let them drift onwards.

Noticing. That is the big word from Phase I. Not only has that word changed the way I understand yoga, it has changed the way I practice my cello, ride the subway, talk to my friends. There are so many layers required in order to notice deeply. The first step for me begins with opening my imagination. Allowing my brain to free itself from what I have learned this far. To break away from the obvious and traditional. If we fail to notice from every angle and every possibility, how can we truly understand and give meaning? How else can we create and innovate?

In the past month, I’ve found ways to increase the efficiency of my cello practicing. By noticing why things work they way they do, I’ve been able to understand patterns and recognize what I need to do to correct something. This saves me time because I am finding the problem right away and addressing it without repeating the same mistakes.

This can translate into my Suzuki teacher training. Already I have so many new ideas about how to incorporate aesthetic education into the Suzuki method. Honestly, they are not very different approaches. I was encouraged by my private music teachers to look for colors in sound, or dance to the music in any way that I feel. This is non-skill based. It wasn’t teaching me to play the piano. Rather, it was teaching me to open my imagination to the endless possibilities of the way music effects our brain and body. But just like my new yoga experience, the idea of noticing deeply has increased my ability to articulate what is happening in my imagination and then experience a deeper understanding.

I want to share with you my favorite part of the International Educator Workshop that the Fellows attended in mid-July. Jean, the lead facilitator, opened the first day with a statement that absolutely blew my mind. She said that asking a student, “What do you notice?” will open their mind, but asking, “What did you like or dislike?” can make them feel like there needs to be an answer that falls into those categories and can limit their response and limit the way they think about it. This is going to change so much about the way I approach teaching and the way that I talk to myself while practicing!

Finally, I want to say Thank you to everyone who makes this experience possible. We are often influenced the most by our peers and colleagues, and I have already learned so much from the other Fellows. Our conversations encourage me to think outside the box and give me ideas for further exploration. The time we spend together outside of our days at LCI help me grow as a person and see myself and my surroundings differently. I am also thankful to find that the people who work at LCI are constantly learners themselves. This helps break my stereotype of “office behavior.” Everyone there is deeply committed to the philosophy and education process, and part of that is living with ambiguity. Allowing the unknown to shape itself over time, and when that happens, go with it! What a great atmosphere to be in every day. I am excited to see where this takes me as a performer, teacher, and human being!

Kathryn Logan Reflects on Phase I

2010-08-17T10:00:00.005-04:00

The Kenan Fellows completed Phase I of their Fellowship on July 21st. Below Kathyn reflects on this first phase at LCI.

When my friends and family ask me what I’ve been doing these past few weeks at Lincoln Center, I tell them I have been frolicking amongst superheroes at work. I think, as artists, that we all go through moments of disenchantment: “What does this mean?”, “What am I doing?”, “Why don’t I just go to Africa and help starving children where I will really be actively doing something good with my life?”,“How selfish AM I?”

It’s a strange world, that of the artists. But the Lincoln Center Institute has reinstated my love of the arts and reiterated how vital they are to the world. Not that I ever really lost it-- how could I be following the life that I follow and have really lost it? I think it is just easy to lose sight of the reasons to believe in our work. Beyond the fact that we love our crafts-- the skills we have nurtured all these years, the ego of the artist is a force with which to be reckoned. And for those of us who are very conscious of our egos and work to keep them in check, these questions of “why” arise regularly. The love resonates always. Ah, but “why”? What is it doing for anyone outside of myself?

The brilliance is that through this process I have realized that the arts hold a completely unique gift of eye-opening, thought process, and imagination. Something I have always believed an integral part of growing human beings-- but the connection has been so clearly made here. Imaginative people, creative people, make for more understanding people, more empathetic people. Which leads to harmony-- peace-- I mean, it sounds over-the-top, I guess. But the more imaginative the people, not only the more innovative and forward-moving a society, but the more appreciation we will have for our differences and similarities, both. The more open the minds. The more caring the folk.

This Awake-ness, wide awake-ness, that Maxine Greene speaks of speaks directly to my insides. As a yoga teacher and practitioner, one of my great tasks is to cultivate presence and now-ness within myself and to help others along the path to pure awareness. The similarities I have found between LCI’s philosophies and my own life philosophies have been truly remarkable. The Capacities for Imaginative Learning speak sincerely of the qualities I have always held myself to with great importance. I have for years been setting aside daily time to notice deeply.

All of the workshops have been brilliant, but City As Art really stuck out to me. Part of it, I think, was that it was an advanced-level workshop, so we were in a group amongst teachers who were familiar with the LCI philosophies and were having, as such, incredibly informed and deepening conversations. Not that the International Educator Workshop or the Teacher Education workshop we were a part of were any less informative, but to be in a group of students who already knew the philosophy so well… I so enjoyed learning from them. I feel like I got an inside look into minds which have already been so affected by this approach.

Learning first-hand, I believe, is incredibly important to this process: embodying, really, in a sense. In order to truly learn something you must have the experience o it yourself. We can be led, but not told. And the thing that is really hilarious about this, in a way, is that I know this. I have ALWAYS known this. All of these things. But it is noticing it, recognizing it, becoming AWARE of it that is what is so difficult. That is the process and the goal. The noticing. The awareness of which Maxine Greene speaks.

The same thing in my dancing, in my yoga practice, my music-- in all art. And it comes full circle once again. It is all combined, this. Because it is the art which allows us to cultivate these qualities and these qualities which allow us to be artists.