March 4-9, 2012
Fort Worden State Park
Port Townsend, Washington
“I learned that dance class can be fun, that art is a fun way to express myself,
and that Theater is awesome!”
~ Middle School Explorations Participant.
Centrum’s “Explorations” middle-school workshop, in partnership with The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, is a week-long total-immersion residential experience. It’s a chance to converse, draw, sculpt, paint, dance, perform, and write in an intense, fun-filled time of learning.
For the last 37 years, Centrum programs have served tens of thousands of students and teachers from around the state with residential programs in creative education.
Work with gifted professional artist-faculty in the world of arts and ideas, creative risk-taking, and professional practices. Each day is divided into four workshop sessions. Choose your main interest as your core subject, and explore by learning about other art forms in your other three classes. Throughout the week there is time in the schedule to connect with nature and explore the trails, beaches and historic monuments at Fort Worden State Park.
Each evening, the artist faculty show and talk about the work they do; these presentations are followed by snacks and hang-out time in the dorm. On Thursday night, the student showcase takes the stage, with friends and family invited to see your work!
Tuition, room, and board for the week are $495; financial aid is available (scholarship deadline for 2012 Explorations has passed).
=====
CLASS DESCRIPTIONS
Make Your Mark:
Drawing (Lauren Atkinson)
Everyone can draw, but from an early age, many of us lose our confidence in our ability to depict the world around or inside us because our drawing doesn't look real or we compare our drawing style to someone else's.
This workshop will guide students in discovering or recovering their mark through play and exploration of many materials in a fun, physical and imaginative journey. Students will learn the tricks of the trade while being introduced to the drawing styles of many artists and cultures through history and develop confidence in making their mark.
Wooden Jewelry (Julia Harrison)
Tired of bling that doesn’t mean a thing? Learn to make your own jewelry so you can make it matter! This class will introduce real jewelry skills including sawing, wirework, chain-making, and knotting.
Our main material will be wood, which is lightweight, beautiful, and easy to find here in the Northwest.
Combining these new skills with personal designs, create custom one-of-a-kind earrings, pendants, rings, and bracelets that you will be proud to wear or give.
Finally, we’ll head into the woods to gather materials for making souvenir jewelry that captures the essence of our Centrum experience.
Hip Hop Dance (Rex Kinney)
This energetic urban dance style incorporates several different styles and techniques into a fun hip hop routine.
As a great cardio and conditioning work-out, learn some basic to advanced moves and dance combinations.
Come challenge yourself and build your dance repertoire or just have fun!
Japanese Taiko Drumming (One World Taiko)
Teachers Nancy Ozaki and Gary Tsujimoto of One World Taiko introduce you to Japanese culture through the study of Japanese drumming.
They bring traditional Japanese instruments such as the chudaiko (medium sized drum), shimedaiko (small, rope-tied drum), shinobue (bamboo flute) and atarigane (small brass gong).
Learn the history of taiko in Japan and the United States as they teach the intricacies of Japanese drumming. Learn from their drumming style which is energetic and athletic with a mix of modern and traditional rhythms and whole body movements similar to the martial arts.
Marimba (Dana Moffett)
Zimbabwean-style marimba music offers you a unique cross-cultural opportunity to explore an in-depth and wide range of music from Africa. Build your musical confidence and have the opportunity to experience success quickly.
Learning in ensemble form, on soprano, tenor, baritone and bass marimbas, encourages the importance of listening to each other.
In addition to hands-on instruction, Dana introduces you to the African culture, rhythm, song dance and language associated with the instrument’s origins. Theatre Ensemble (Beverly Thompson Lackey)
Beverly Thompson Lackey helps you become a confident, creative, relaxed stage performer. Beverly guides exercises that inspire an expressive body and voice, a focused mind, and an active imagination.
A typical session begins with an open-ended discussion, physical/vocal warm-up, then free writing/relaxation.
In the second half of the session, learn community-building and improvisation through ensemble work, culminating in the performance of an original theatrical presentation inspired by free writings, music, visual art, poetry, visualization and sensory exploration.
Writing: Words on Stones, Paper, Air
(Sierra Nelson)
Where do words live? They exist in our heads, and in our notebooks – we can say them, or sing them – and we can even write them (really write them!) on the physical world.
In this class we’ll explore different approaches to making our words materialize vividly on the page (and objects) through a variety of games, prompts, and collaborations. Then we’ll send those words into the wider world by experimenting with traditional and innovative techniques, including: readings, performance, interactive presentations, stickers, zines, secret telephones and text-based art installations.
Whether you already love playing with words, or are just curious to try some wild approaches to what writing can be – this is the class for you!
Connecting with the Creative Power of Your Voice
(Linda Waterfall)
Each day we will sing through dynamic group exercises that warm up the voice, develop resonance, enhance breath awareness and support, and extend vocal range.
We’ll also experiment with singing harmonic overtones. These exercises help to develop clear tone, strength and stamina, and at the same time help each individual to connect with their own unique vocal sound. We’ll learn some group song repertoire, singing both unison and harmony.
Using the voice as a starting point, we’ll compose song(s), experimenting with both a capella and creative instrumental accompaniment. Singers are welcome to bring their own instruments to use in the song creation process.
=====
ARTIST BIOS
Lauren Atkinson is a founding member and teaching artist with Arts Corps, an innovative and nationally recognized arts education program in Seattle, WA.
Lauren’s creative practice has evolved and developed over a 20-year period as a collaborative visual artist and teaching artist working with people of all ages and backgrounds.
Lauren’s work is grounded in the power of learning by doing. She prefers to use materials that are readily available to students, integrating an experimental and intuitive approach to making art that is similar to methods she uses in her own studio practice. Julia Harrison is a Seattle-based artist and educator specializing in wood jewelry and sculpture. Having been blessed with many generous teachers, Julia is thrilled to be able to share their skills and her own with students in her workshops.
While she loves to see students whip up something great in class, Julia’s real goal is to set them up to succeed outside of class. She strives to give students solid skills, in-depth knowledge, and confidence in their own abilities and creative vision.
Julia has shown her carved wood sculptures and jewelry at galleries on both coasts and in England, and was included in Metalsmith magazine's 2006 Exhibition in Print. She has taught wooden jewelry workshops at the Penland School of Crafts and the 92nd Street Y in New York City.
Rex Kinney grew up in Seattle and was introduced to hip hop at the age of 14. He has performed and choreographed for events and venues such as Seattle Seahawks, Sonics and Storm Half-Time shows, Experience Music Project, Kube 93.3 FM's Summer Jam Concert and more.
He is currently the director and choreographer for the Shorecrest High School Dance Team, where he has led them to 6 straight District Titles and three WIAA State Dance/Drill Championships, and three National Titles in 2010.
Rex has danced with several Seattle-based hip hop groups and is an instructor through UW Experimental College and Westlake Dance Center. Dana Moffett has undertaken a long journey into the complex and beautiful music of Zimbabwe, resulting in her creation of Rubatano Center on Whidbey Island. The center's focus is marimba instruction and a direct exchange of instructors from Zimbabwe.
In addition to teaching in the Northwest, Dana has taught at numerous camps and festivals including the annual Zimbabwean Music Festival, Nhemamusasa North in Canada, The Canvas in Juneau, Alaska, and Matanho Project in Zimbabwe.
Dana is a performance artist with Ruzivo, touring in the United States, Canada and Zimbabwe.
Sierra Nelson is a poet, performer, and text-based installation artist based in Seattle. As a founding member of the literary performance art groups The Typing Explosion and the Vis-à-Vis Society, for over a decade she has collaboratively written and performed across North America and at the Venice Biennale, as well as produced numerous multi-media shows and handmade poetry books.
Her collaborative and solo text-based installations often feature audience-interactive elements and have appeared at Bumbershoot, The Project Room, the Vermont Studio Center, and the SIM Gallery in Reykjavik, Iceland, and her on-the-page poems have appeared in Tin House, USA Today, Poetry Northwest, and Crazyhorse.
She has taught creative writing to people of all ages through the Richard Hugo House, University of Washington in Rome and Friday Harbor, and through Seattle Arts & Lectures WITS Program.
One World Taiko is a professional Japanese drum ensemble that captivates audiences with their heart pounding beats, dynamic movement and rhythmic grooves. Founded in San Francisco, CA, One World Taiko is led by Gary Tsujimoto and Nancy Ozaki.
Their music is drawn from Japan's tradition of lively festival drumming along with their own creative rhythms, arrangements and choreography, adding their energetic spirit to the ancient art of taiko.
Their repertoire includes arrangements of traditional pieces and original compositions which are infused with contemporary rhythms. Beverly Thompson Lackey graduated from Hendrix College in Arkansas with a B.A. in Theatre and Education. She spent two years at the St. Louis Black Repertory Company, performing five shows that toured throughout the Midwest.
Since settling in Seattle almost ten years ago, Beverly has kept busy by working as an actor, director or teaching artist with the Seattle Repertory Theatre, ACT Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Freehold Actors Studio, Empty Space, On The Boards, Seattle Public Theatre, 5th Avenue Theatre, GAP Theatre and Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center. Linda Waterfall grew up in a musical family with early training in classical piano, music theory, composition and voice. She graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in visual art. When she performs, she accompanies herself on both guitar and piano. Her original compositions reflect both classical and many vernacular influences.
Her choral compositions have been performed by The Esoterics, and choirs at Western Washington University, the University of Washington, and the Evergreen State College, as well as numerous community and church choirs.
Linda has released twelve albums of original compositions. She tours periodically as a solo musician, composes choral and vocal music, and works in the studio as both a record producer and session musician. She has been songwriting instructor at Cornish College of the Arts since 2005.
=====
CHAPERONES
For this program, student groups of four to six sign up with an adult chaperone. Groups may come from school districts, with teachers and school staff chaperoning, or they may be formed by parent committees looking for extra opportunities in the arts and sciences for their children. Tuition, room and board is free for chaperones.
=====
This program is generously funded by the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Additional sponsors include the Washington State Arts Commission, Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, The Baker Foundation, The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation, Poncho, The Forest Foundation, Rayonier Foundation, the Congdon Hanson Family, and nearly a thousand individual donors whose generosity celebrates the power of creativity to change lives.
