It costs over $1,000 to rent the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater for the daylong Spring Music Festival. 

Instead of charging admission, we will be “passing the hat” to collect donations. It sounds like a lot of money to raise but if each student donates $10 we will cover our costs. 

We will also have a bake sale to defray the costs, and provide sustenance  – so please consider volunteering to help throughout the day (call Norma at 412-441-3800 x11 to schedule a time). And of course, we need your delicious baked goods! Just drop them off at the theater. Thank you.

Our youngest Voices of Hope kids will be singing their favorite song, “Fireflies,” in the Spring Music Festival at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater on Saturday, March 27. Here is the PS 22 choir singing it — watch it and practice!

6 consummate performers from the field of dance explore the question
of who deserves…
A SEAT AT THE TABLE.
A series of provocative vignettes designed to refract our perspectives on that proverbial place of belonging and power — from the domestic dinner tables to the seats of social power. Who gets a seat? Who makes the offer? Once seated…then what?

24’ of table, a metamorphic game of musical chairs, transparent alliances, personal compromises … one’s relative position and perspective grows more  & more uncertain. What does a seat at the table really get you anyway?

“The first idea I’d like to suggest is that we all love music a great deal, it means a lot to us. But music is even more powerful if you don’t just listen to it, but you make it yourself…everybody, each of us, everybody in the world has the power to create and be part of music in a very dynamic way, and that’s one of the main parts of my work. So, with the MIT Media Lab for quite a while now. We’ve been engaged in a field called the act of music. What are all the possible ways that we can think of, to get everybody in the middle of a musical experience? Not just listening, but by making music.” (Watch Tod Machover’s lecture below, recorded March 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 20:35.)

Staycee Pearl’s dancers are beginning to make their own dances and adding Thursday evening work sessions (starting tonight at 6 pm) to the regular Saturday class schedule. 

Part of this process involves studying other choreographers and finding inspiration/meaning for your work. Last week we looked at a clip from Bill T. Jones’ Dancing to the Promised Land (you can watch the entire documentary on Netflix). Jones used the gesture of his mother resting on a hoe for inspiration, divided the part of Eliza from Uncle Tom’s Cabin between four dancers (each of whom connected to the character and the story in a distinctly personal way), and incorporated words/language. So you should be thinking this week about gesture, images, story and language. Please bring an idea with you into our 9 am session on Saturday in room 340, where we will continue our inspiration sessions before dance class.

Here is a clip of Bill T. Jones talking about his work, Fondly Do We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray (a dance about Abraham Lincoln) with Bill Moyers. And here is a link to a longer video of Jones giving a lecture about dance, choreography and life. Take an hour to watch it. You will certainly come away with some ideas.