Centrum Youth Programs

Waterworld: Elementary School Workshops

[This post refers to our 2007 workshop. For information on our 2008 workshop, please view our "workshops" page at top left.]

Study an octopus.
Be an octopus.

Grades 5 and 6

• April 1–6, 2007 (filled)

Collaborate with artists and scientists and peers from across the state to explore water marine ecosystems and creative expression at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, Washington, on the Strait of Juan de Fuca!

You’ll find an octopus. Feel the grip of a sea anemone. Get to know the smallest and largest creatures in the sea and the largest, and use movement to learn understand how they are connected to each other. You’ll explore the beach, investigate a secluded pond, and a lagoon, that’s home to birds and fish all teeming with life.

Investigate a microscopic world, and assemble the skeleton of a real gray whale. Try watercolor painting, pull a huge seine net to sample shallow waters, use a refractometer to measure salinity, build beach sculptures, and create a journal of your discoveries.

These workshops are a partnership between Centrum and The Port Townsend Marine Science Center. Curricula, subject matter, activities, and projects have been designed to deepen and enhance your understanding of the marine world. You’ll work in small groups that rotate through activities in the field and the Marine Science Center. Every day offers a mix of workshops, all designed to deepen understanding and appreciation of water ecosystems. Group size is small to allow for maximum personal attention and minimum impact on fragile environments.

At the end of the week, take all that you’ve learned about the ecosystems you’ve studied, and discuss some of the challenges facing water environments. Evening programs include Native American storytelling, activities at the Marine Science Center, and a student presentation on the final night.

Renovated Fort buildings, including classrooms, dormitories, performance and studio spaces, serve as your home during your time at Centrum. Students stay in bunkrooms on the second floor that accommodate 4 to 10 people, and adults are housed on the first floor in single rooms. Dorm wings are divided by gender, and wing is supervised by an experienced dorm counselor.

Clock hours: 30
Tuition $60.00 (Out of state: $325)
Room & Board:  $280.00

FACULTY
You’ll work with the renowned staff of the Port Townsend Marine Science Center, as well as the following faculty:

Libby Palmer is co-founder of the Port Townsend Marine Science Center. Libby was Director of Operation SMART, a national program designed to encourage girls in math, science and technology. She has written science curricula for the US Forest Service, American Museum of Natural History and the American Museum of the Moving Image. Libby specializes in outdoor field experiences, helping young people and adults truly see the world around them and raising questions based on their observations. As a dancer, musician, videographer and writer, she merges art and science in her teaching and encourages students to do the same.

Christian Swenson is known for his pioneering work in “Human Jazz,” a global fusion of dance, drama, and music for body and voice. The Seattle Times has called him a “One-man Animal Kingdom.” He has performed and taught throughout the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Nepal. He was “The Monster” in The Minnesota Opera's production of Frankenstein, appeared at New York’s Serious Fun at Lincoln Center, and The New York Improvisation Festival with The Flying Karamazov Brother's New Old Time Chautauqua. His work has also been featured on NPR.

Gina Sala’s love of the human voice has taken her to stages throughout the world. She has performed at the U.S. Capital, the United Nations, and most recently finished a contract as principal singer for Cirque du Soleil’s O. With her ensemble of 2-6 musicians, Gina Sala offers an evocative set, spiced with humor, which leaves people humming songs from places they may not have expected to travel!

Martha Worthley is a painter whose figurative and botanical images in watercolor draw inspiration from arts and cultures outside the mainstream of modern art. She is a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, and for years combined working in schools with a position as arts editor for a weekly newspaper. She has recently returned from a year in Mexico teaching art to 530 elementary students in Guadalajara.

2007 High School Arts Master Classes

PLEASE NOTE:

THIS POST REFERS TO 2007 SESSIONS. CLICK HERE FOR CURRENT YEAR INFORMATION.

Grades 9-12

• February 16-21, 2007 (filled)

Delve deep. Immerse yourself in the artistic life. Whether your passion is writing, acting, visual art, multimedia performance, or all of the above, come to Centrum to challenge yourself and share your passion with peers from all across the state.

Live for a week with the arts in a way not possible in the daily school routine. Work with exceptional artists to take your art and creative spirit to new levels of excellence. Workshop days are intense, and there is also plenty of space for reflection and thought. Evening faculty presentations, craft discussions, informal gatherings, and great conversations all give new dimension to your art.

Clock hours: 30
Tuition $60.00 (Out of state: $325)
Room & Board:  $280.00
Financial aid is available.

Telling Your Story
Writing with Kathleen Alcalá
Stories are all around us, waiting for a storyteller to discover them. We will examine some of the stories that you already know, both big and small, and look at the elements they have in common. We will then learn how to change and refine them so that they become new stories, your own stories. At the same time, we will examine the techniques of the storyteller to see what makes a story compelling, exciting, and memorable. This workshop will involve group storytelling and exercises, as well as individual writing.

Kathleen Alcalá is one the nation's premier writers of magic realism. Bilingual from childhood, she describes herself as a translator--not necessarily from one language to another, but between worlds, times, cultures, and contexts. Alcalá is the author of four books: Mrs. Vargas And The Dead Naturalist, Spirits Of The Ordinary, The Flower In The Skull, and Treasures In Heaven.Her awards include the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, the Governor's Writers Award, and the Western States Book Award for Fiction, and most recently, the Washington State Book Award. She is also co-founder of and contributing editor to The Raven Chronicles and is Writer-in-Residence for the Richard Hugo House in Seattle. more

Slash, Burn, and Rip:  The Metaphorical Language of Materials
Visual art with Susie J. Lee
We will engage in an intensive exploration of materials. Whether it is burned, dripped, ripped, smashed, melted, fused, pushed, or broken, the active transformation of materials creates potent metaphors for artistic expression. Through playfulness, experimentation, and a streak of boldness, students will create an artwork inspired by a specific material of their choice.  In the process, they will begin to develop a material language that expresses emotion and stories in an engaging and powerful way.

Susie Jungune Lee was born in  Hershey, Pennsylvania and grew up in Grand Forks, North Dakota. She was awarded a Bachelors of Science in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and a Masters in Education at Columbia University. In 2006, she received her MFA at the University of Washington. She is a current member of the SOIL cooperative and resides in Seattle. Lee is represented by Lawrimore Project. One of the Pacific Northwest’s most talked-about artists, Lee was named Best Emerging Artist 2006 by the Seattle Weekly. more

Performance Poetry
Poetry with Anis Mojgani
This class will explore the vitality of poetry as an oratory form. You’ll work on both the craft and the delivery, learning how important the balance is between the two. As a writer and performer you will use your thoughts, experiences, and observations to honestly connect with your audience simply by having the courage to present yourself in a vulnerable way, and how beauty comes from such places of vulnerability.

Anis Mojgani is the 2006 and 2005 National Poetry Slam Individual Champion, one of only two people to win the competition consecutively. A sixth season Def Poet for HBO's Def Poetry Jam, he has shared the stage with such performers as Jill Scott, Beau Sia, DMX, Sage Francis and Buddy Wakefield. Anis is also the 2006 Seattle Grand Slam Champion, a subject of the documentary, Slam Planet: War of the Words(www.slamchannel.com). A visual and performing artist, he graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design with a BFA in comic books and (99.3% of) an MFA in performing arts. Mojgani has written and published four books of poetry and produced the spoken word album aeroplane. He currently lives in  Portland, Oregon, in an art gallery called couch (www.couchstuff.com) that he and his friends run together.  more

Seeing Place
Visual art with Ellen Sollod
In this workshop, we’ll create, through a variety of media, an expression of the sights, sounds, smells and textures of  Fort  Worden. We will experience the challenge of making artwork that reflects our own sensibilities while capturing the essence of the park. We’ll use photographs, sketches, sound recordings and more to begin. Through individual and collaborative experimentation, we will use a range of two and three-dimensional media to explore the history, landscape, and culture of the park. Students can expect to learn about alternative photographic processes and artist book forms as well as thinking in sequence and with a cinematic mind.

Ellen Sollod engages in an extensive process of inquiry and discovery for each project. Social, political, historical and environmental considerations inform her approach. Through a wide range of materials selected in response to the conceptual idea and the environment, she often reveals the hidden history of a site or works with elements such as light, shadow, and wind in the final execution. Sollod's work has been recognized by the US Department of Transportation with a 2004 Design Excellence Award for her collaboration on the Olympia Gateway Corridor. Other notable projects include From the Laws of Man to the Laws of Nature in Olympia, Washington; Bella Figura and The Throne Room, located at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle; and In the Grove at Morrill Meadows Park in Kent, Washington. more

Improvisational Theater
Theater with K. Brian Neel
Face your fears, fry an egg on your belly, and take over the world. Improvisation is making it up as you go--acting without a script. Learn the verbal and physical techniques that will give you the power to stand and deliver. Working together, we’ll discover that everything is justified, that there are no bad ideas. We’ll make bold statements get to the heart of ‘who, what, where,’ this class will go as far as you take it--from games to forms to long forms. It is the ultimate self-expression. It is life itself.

K. Brian Neel has been creating a bold and unique style of physical theater for over twenty years. From his published writing to his award-winning stage directing to his dynamic multiple-character solo shows, Brian captivates and inspires. He began his career in America's premiere experimental improvisational ensemble, King's Elephant Theatre, and became Artistic Foreman of the internationally renowned Seattle Mime Theatre. He has performed and taught all over North America--including Alaska, Alabama, California, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Dakota, Washington D.C., and Wyoming--as well as in Australia, Edinburgh and Hong Kong. more