Arts Education Month in March is a month-long public celebration of the creative endeavors taking place in our schools and in our community arts organizations. It is an opportunity to demonstrate the role of arts learning in a complete and balanced education, while demonstrating the community’s impact in providing access to arts education for all learners. Mesa Arts Center remains committed to providing lifelong learning opportunities in the arts. We are pleased to share a variety of our programs taking place in the month of March. Read all of the event details and watch our video below to learn everything you need to know about how Mesa Arts Center is celebrating Arts Education Month!
Basic Arts at Lowell Elementary
Designed to activate literature through live theater experiences, the Basic Arts program at Lowell Elementary School enters its 6th year of sequential arts learning. Students attend Performing Live for Students theatre productions, paired with a complementary piece of literature. Teaching Artists work with students and educators by creating, performing, analyzing and critiquing dramatic works. Students individually and collaboratively explore, discover and define understandings and global perspectives. In March, Basic Arts students will experience the Erth’s Dinosaur Petting Zoo residency in their classroom (March 6th & 20th) and on stage (March 18-19).
Spoken Word Project
The Mesa Arts Center’s 2012 Education Artist in Residence is The Living Word Project, March 4-8. The Living Word Project (LWP) is the resident theater company of Youth Speaks, committed to producing literary performance in the verse of our time. This residency is conducted in conjunction with Mesa Arts Center’s Word Becomes Flesh performance, March 8-9. First performed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph in 2003, Word Becomes Flesh returns to the stage, re-invented with an ensemble cast from a new generation. A series of performed letters to an unborn son, Word Becomes Flesh uses spoken word, dance and live music to document nine months of pregnancy from a young single father's perspective.
The Living Word Artists will be here in March, and are performers from the Word Becomes Flesh production: Khalil Anthony, who used to be the Arts in Education Director at Youth Speaks; Daveed Diggs (specializing in performance aspects is a well-known educator and acclaimed actor); and Dahlak Brathwaite (who is a mentor for Youth Speaks in AIE, an accomplished playwright, and performer.)
In order to prepare students for the arrival of the Living Word artists, local spoken word poets of Phonetic Spit, Myrlin Hepworth and Tomas Stanton, will conduct introductory workshops with Junior High and High School students in Mesa and Phoenix. Phonetic Spit will engage participating schools in a performance by poets from Phonetic Spit to create excitement around the project and examples of poetry for students to experience. Each student will produce a poem aimed at discovering and defining their specific relationship to their world and environment.
The Living Word artists will build upon and enhance the skills built by Phonetic Spit. They will extend the parameters of the three-minute slam format and look towards developing longer performed narratives in verse. Students will be challenged to explore myth and contemporary iconography, using text, gesture and movement to create short pieces with definite shape and dramatic arc. Students will perform their pieces at spark! Mesa Festival of Creativity March 13-17 on Mesa Arts Center’s campus.
Young People’s Concert
Mesa Arts Center continues to build its partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center. Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, is performing a free young people’s concert that will be filled with dazzling jazz artistry on March 8, at 11:45 a.m., sponsored by the Act One Foundation. On March 1-8, local jazz artist, Devon Bridgewater will be conducting pre visits in classrooms attending the Jazz at Lincoln Center concert. There will be a pre-performance discussion led by Blaise Lantana of KJZZ with Wynton Marsalis before Jazz at Lincoln Center’s performance March 8, at 8 p.m.
spark! Intergenerational Dance
The Mesa Arts Center is working with community members in the creation of a one of a kind event. Participants from the age of 4 to 60 are collaborating on an intergenerational movement piece to be showcased at spark! Mesa’s Festival of Creativity in March 16-17. Led by nationally renowned dance artist, Elizabeth Johnson, these pop up performances will surprise visitors at the festival.
Creative Aging (at Sirrine Adult Day Health Services)
The Creative aging program seeks to uplift individual creative expression for older adults. Through artist in residence programs in adult resource centers, adult day cares and adult living communities, important issues are explored through movement, story, dance and engagement in art making as a tool in expression. Studies demonstrate arts participants have better health, fewer doctor visits, less medication usage, and increased activity and social engagement.
