Sherman Oaks, CA

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Video Clip: Click to Watch

Arts are alive in SoCal- It's so "beau" (said Bo) to see them thriving.

In California theater and school arts, this September, two performance programs porved that arts are very much alive despite conflicting economic signs. As events, the goals of these two live performance ventures, one play and one school program, are to draw in new audiences and bring playful attention to ideas through theatre and the Arts. It's so beautiful!

What happens when a large penguin, and children's musical theater instruction converge??? Silly patterns…..both have a "Bo" in common, both feature their neighborhoods, both use language to stimulate thought, both explore habitat and habit….and the resulting laughter promotes learning.

Event number one: is a North Hollywood in a short run, book based production at Actors Workout Studio. Entitled "Gott mit uns", the play includes a giant penguin which has just made its debut on NOHO's theater row. This quirky comedy questions humans attachment to their beliefs, starting with an ancient bird goddess that has many talents and throws fish. With brown bag tickets and low budget smarts, the program uses technology and players in multiple parts to mount something with fidelity to its book-based source. https://www.facebook.com/GottMitUns2/page_map

The play employs many local sound and lighting techs, actors, actresses, and costumers on NOHO's thriving theater row. As a part of a cultural creative micro-economy, NOHO. is following a city plan of maintaining unique neighborhoods in keeping with their historic character through the ongoing work of many civic and business leaders.

Both enterprises are in the San Fernando Valley. Both the performing entities, the play troupe and the nonprofit (NEO) that mounts the school project, are innovating by creating jobs. They both rely on a sense of humor. Using sight jokes, signs, symbols and mammals, they are giving adults and children each in their own setting a chance to ponder and express themselves.

In event number two: New Education Options, Inc.'s educating artist, Bo Lebo, is working in the Lake Balboa/Van Nuys area. In NEO's Water Buddy Curriculum, her "big bird" is an ostrich. As an arts and language instructor, Ms. Lebo uses lyrics from great songs including newer songs from The Green Songbook by Alfred Music with elementary students and with their teachers on site. (www.alfred.com/Products/The-Green-Songbook--00-35434.aspx)

In an example of lyrics excerpted from The Green Songbook, written and composed by educator performer Peter Alsop, children sing about manatees, chimpanzees, ants, bats, otters, and owls as well as buffalos, ravens, and other denizens of forests, fields, seascapes and mountain ranges.

This list of animals, birds, and insects includes some of the local wildlife and carnivores that will soon walk across a new 405 freeway on a "wildlife walk" when the freeway is finally completed. (Look at the activities this weekend in online archives about Carmageddon #2) http://www.wtsp.com/news/national/article/275387/81/LA-braces-for-Carmageddon-II)

Using traditional songs or new contemporary materials from publishers such as Roost Books by Shambala or imprints of Putumayo, she will use diverse genres and public domain materials. Drawn from daily classroom creations, as well as published songbooks, she will bring songwriter resources to new music apps to life.

While 'Ms. Bo's' existing audience continues to be K-5, at risk below and far below basic readers within the NOBLEKids childcare program, she will join a program under the aegis of a new California Arts Council Planning Grant for 2013-2014. NEO's newest instructional unit , planned this quarter, will employ Bo to build student success by involving classroom teachers in a dialogue about using the arts as a classroom intervention to reach students effectively using the lens of pending national standards.

This newest professional development program will encourage an artist in residence collaboration between content, practice, teachers, and technology. The activities include arts integration instruction for classroom teachers and childcare workers that enhance activities and lessons through a learner friendly classroom climate. Nature songs will be used to show how singing, playing music, and composing songs can be a dynamic active learning resource for making science more relevant to struggling students.

By rigorously blending, both music and science into English Language Arts classrooms, the program will demonstrate and then assess the use of music instruction as a strategic learning vehicle helping teachers to reach more at-risk readers. It will translate new research and revisit faithful professional practices that can lead to better classroom management and deeper student comprehension.

New Education Options will collaborate with Gault Street's Elementary School Principal William Albion and the school's K-5 elementary classroom teachers. In the first phase of the grant , there will be active coordination of key relationships, events, and activities for the following academic year. By aligning instructor input with hands on experience, ever stressed faculty will explore how to meet required English Language Arts federal standard benchmarks to accelerate student success at learning in and beyond classroom time.

As a new CAC artist in residency recipient through New Education Options, Bo will bring phonemic awareness, vocabulary comprehension, decoding and blending, and music/arts theory concepts to daily practice. State approved vocabulary content, the program expects to capture important teacher response to using the arts with and without new consumer electronics to speed reading success.

The Gault program will explore how integrated arts instruction makes academics more interesting. Making words more useful and palatable to word stumblers, special needs populations, and second language learners, the NEO program will add a musical dimension to an ongoing conversation of national interest in the arts community and at Hamlin Elementary in its next stage bring its findings to more schools.

Both Los Angeles "Bo's", divine and mortal, are challenging old conventions by uncovering tightly-held beliefs. Their Fall runs will challenge their audiences to look anew at how the arts drive culture, commerce, and productivity through creativity and performance. In keeping within the fine tradition of their name sakes elsewhere like "Bo" the Fedex Amazonian Frog and "Bo", the White House mascot, they will use the world of imagination to inspire, inquire, and instigate wonder through words and theater interactions.

In both endeavors, the play is the thing. Both art and the process of art have terrific contributions to make in each L.A. neighborhood. Meeting the cultural arts plan or the educational aspirations of the District of keeping the arts in classrooms…this bo-dacious love of arts as enterprise mirrors the character of Los Angeles and its denizens.

Bo in NOHO and Bo in Lake Balboa will be continue to draw audiences and acquire important feedback to improve their programs this month.

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For more information about the instructor, the play, the Gault Teacher Training Program or the CAC planning grant, and upcoming events such as the Pasadena EEI curriculum Summit, please click on some of the links below or in the body of this text http://www.green-technology.org/gcschools/eei.html).

For information about Parents and the Arts, the Arts Council, or nonprofits working to restore arts and music programs use the links below.

To find out about how you can invite Bo Lebo and her New Education Options' Water Buddy or teacher programs to your school and how songs will bring Nature and the LA River revitalization into your auditorium or classroom, please call 818-742-5099 and ask for more information.

Noho Play:

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/260583

http://danmclaughlin.info/gott_forms.html

Produced in Association with The Actors Workout Studio

http://www.examiner.com/article/fun-things-to-do-los-feliz-this-week-sep-21-28

California Arts Council Awards:

http://www.cac.ca.gov/newsroom/prdetail.php?id=140

Arts Impact:

http://artsusa.org/information_services/research/services/economic_impact/default.asp

http://artsusa.org/information_services/research/services/creative_industries/default.asp

http://www.artsmarketing.org/conference

Parent Information:

http://dabecalifornia.com/ (coming soon)

http://www.childrensmusicworkshop.com/advocacy/toptenparents.html

School Music History:

http://www.angelfire.com/ego/cobbist/mason.html (Lowell Mason)

Content:

http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/vpastandards.pdf

http://www.sandi.net/site/Default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=407&PageID=2961&ViewID=7b97f7ed-8e5e-4120-848f-a8b4987d588f&FlexDataID=50988

http://www.rsvpbook.com/event.php?413317

Arts in Education Research:

http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/Arts%20in%20Education/

http://artsusa.org/pdf/networks/arts_education/10_ways_to_support_arts_ed.pdf

http://www.pz.harvard.edu/Research/Research.htm

http://www.artscorps.org/about-us/why-arts-corps/

State Standards:

http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/sciencestnd.pdf

Education and the Environment:

http://www.calepa.ca.gov/Education/EEI/Contacts/default.htm

http://www.cac.ca.gov/

http://www.calepa.ca.gov/Education/EEI/Aligning.htm

http://www.lastormwater.org/about-us/about-watersheds/

Local and Regional:

http://lacountyartsforall.org/

http://www.artsforla.org/arts-la-progress-report-2006-2011

http://lacountyartsforall.org/for-school-districts/grants-and-opportunities

http://www.nohoartsdistrict.com/

http://www.lacountyarts.org/

http://www.aieac.org/

http://lakebalboanc.org/

http://empowerla.org

Arts and Sciences:

http://www.onwardcalifornia.com/

http://sierratosea.ucdavis.edu/ca.html

http://lariverexpeditions.com/

NOBLEKids:

http://mynoble.org/mynoble.html

Song Title:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%27est_si_bon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEuVYnMM8wI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BvL-i--8Ws&feature=related

Cynthyny Lebo

Director

New Education Options, Inc

Sherman Oaks, CA

First Url: Watch for Opportunities

Second Url: Technology that helps artists reach out