The University City Arts League (4226 Spruce Street) is offering 28 classes, including some new, in its second summer session.
Session II will run from August 1 through August 28 and will feature a variety of classes for adults and children alike. There will be some novelties, such as three new Capoeira Angola classes – one for adults, one for toddlers and one for parents and children together. The Capoeira Angola classes will focus on the traditional and slower roots of the exercise.
The new session also will offer a new creative dance class for 3-year-olds and a family pottery class. In addition to the new classes, the old favorites will be available as well, including Spanish conversation, yoga, Argentine tango, salsa, Flamenco, creative ballet, tai chi, modern contemporary dance, workouts, plein air drawing and ceramic jewelry.
The full class schedule, including pricing, is available here. Registration deadline is August 1. A 5 percent discount is offered if you register before July 25. For more information call 215-382-7811.
Students at the Henry C. Lea School (47th and Locust) returned from spring break today to find a giant rabbit hiding in a stairwell. This bunny stands about six feet tall and guards a little nook between the school’s first and second floors and is part of a program that organizers hope will transform Lea’s appearance.
Painted by muralist Jeremiah Johnson, the rabbit is part of Lea’s Mural Arts Program, a cooperative project between students, their art teacher, a former visual merchandiser and volunteers.
Like many public schools in Philadelphia, Lea’s interior has suffered as the school struggles to recruit and retain teachers and serve students’ educational needs on a tight budget. The school was built in 1914, two years after the construction of nearby West Philadelphia High School. Lea’s Visual Arts Program gives students a chance to leave their mark on the school, which serves grades K-8.
“It shows that people care and it gives students a hand in recreating their environment,” said John Try, Lea’s art teacher.
Last week’s spring break gave them a chance to do some major work on Lea’s first floor, where it’s kindergarten, first and second graders spend most of their time and where the giant rabbit, which looks like it jumped straight out of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, stands guard.
The rabbit fits well with the first floor theme in the beautification project – the ground. The second floor, where third through sixth graders learn, will be painted to look like a biosphere, complete with clouds. Seventh and eighth graders are on the fourth floor, where space will be the theme. The three levels are the visual expression of the overall theme of “ascendency”to reflect students’ movement up through the school.
“They’re ascending in terms of age, but also in terms of maturity so I wanted the theme to reflect that,” Try said.
The program is focusing on transitional and high-traffic parts of the building like hallways, stairwells, cafeterias and rest rooms, where research shows that students feel most vulnerable to violence and bullying.
Yvette Almaguer, a visual merchandiser for luxury retailers like Lancome and Baccarat Crystal for 15 years who is now a graduate student at Penn’s Graduate School of Education, is taking the skills she learned in the retail world and applying them to help improve the aesthetic climate at Lea.
“Everyone talks about school climate,” she said during a break from painting last Thursday. “Positive school climate is not just about behavior, it’s also what you see around you.”
Try, Almaguer, volunteers and a team of students have been meeting after school on Fridays to plan and work on a number of visual projects.
Try and Almaguer hope to oversee the installation of at least a dozen more murals in the school. But they need help. Almaguer has reached out to community groups in West Philly and hopes to attract much-needed grant money for the ongoing project. She also hopes to add a research component that will systematically investigate her hunch that the improved aesthetic appearance of a school may lead to improved student attitudes about being at school.
Eighth grader Gibron Wynne, a member of the visual arts team, spent his spring break days at school working on the project.
“I feel like I want to leave a little legacy here at my school when I leave,” he said. “They told me I didn’t have to do it for my spring break, but I wanted to do it.”
Wynne will leave his neighborhood school next year to attend the well-regarded magnet high school Academy at Palumbo in South Philly.
The goal of the Visual Arts Program is to get more students like him involved in changing the school. But the program needs adults too. Most importantly, Almaguer said, it needs Lea parents to participate with the students. They also need grant writers to help raise money to keep the project going and mural artists to help bring the “ascendancy” theme to life.
Wynne elaborated a little further on his ideas about what “ascendancy” means to him.
“If you make it to the third floor that means you made it to the stars,” he said.
Those interested in helping out can write Almaguer at yarecess — at — gmail.com or call 917-602-7998.
Here is video of the interview with Yvette Almaguer:
The Community Education Center, a non-profit and community based arts center in West Philly, needs your help. All you need to do is click a button. If enough of us do that the center will receive a $50,000 grant.
The voting is part of Kraft Foods/Maxwell House Drops of Good Community Houses grant competition. The CEC is one of 10 locations across the country vying for a $50,000 grant. Five will get the grants and the CEC is currently fifth in the voting by a fairly slim margin. Go to this page to vote. They will ask you for your e-mail address to make sure that you are a real person (don’t worry, no marketing) and then you’re done.
Rebuilding Together Philadelphia is helping with the grant. The community online magazine Flying Kite has a nice feature today on CEC Executive Director Terri Shockley.
Here is the CEC’s video pitch for the competition:
The Curio Theatre Company is gearing up for another performance. This time West Philly’s own theater will tackle Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, an absurd, tragicomedic twist on Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
We see Hamlet’s story unfold through the eyes of the courtiers and spies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters from the original work. But in this story Rosencrantz invents the hamburger and discovers gravity.
Liz Carlson directs the play, which features Eric Scotolati, CJ Keller and Brian McCann.
A recent post on the Curio Theatre blog describes the preparations for the run, which begins this week with a series of previews:
“It’s been an absolute inspiration to see Eric Scotolati, CJ Keller and Brian McCann work tirelessly to achieve the seeming effortlessness of Tom Stoppard’s rapier sharp wit; they’re at work when the rest of the cast comes in at the assigned time, and they remain at work when the rest of the cast leaves at the end of the night, perfecting every nuance and giving each movement the specificity it needs.”
Previews will run Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week. Performances begin at 8 p.m. each night.
Thank the gods for the cool weather. It has arrived just in time for the 2nd annual University City Arts League (UCAL) Chili Bowl Sale and Cook Off.
Here’s how this thing works: Come to UCAL (4226 Spruce Street) on Sunday, March 27, from noon to 6 p.m., buy a hand-made chili bowl and fill it up with homemade chili. The one-of-a-kind bowl will cost you $20 and the chili is free. Wash down the chili with beer and ale donated by Yards Brewing Co. Wine and soft drinks will also be available.
This UCAL fundraiser is also a chili cooking competition. If you buy a bowl you can vote for the best chili. The winner receives 10 pottery classes to figure out how to make their own chili bowls.
The University City Arts League (4226 Spruce Street) is offering 28 classes, including some new, in its second summer session.
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