My body is gliding through the water, elbows leading the charge as they rise out of the water to sweep each arm around, almost hugging the space in front of me before slicing back into the water. Face down, hips driving both the kicking and the gliding. Swimming.
Underwater, I think: “Whoah, I’m getting good at this…amazing what a teacher who knows her subject matter can do in just two quick sessions!” Then I thought about the teaching artists at Upstream Arts and how awesome it is that professional artists teach our residencies…amazing what teachers who know their subject matter can do in a 12 week residency!
Take a look at our roster of teaching artists. These people know their stuff! And all of us have a couple of years (if not more!) of Upstream Arts teaching experience under our belts. We’ve worked in classrooms from pre-K through transition age (after high school) and with adults of all ages. We’ve worked with a wide range of abilities and know how to adapt our amazing curriculum across that range. We’ve worked in two and three person teams and know how to play on each other’s strengths while doing so. We’re good.
Personally, my professional theater expertise comes from directing and stage managing. Organizing, facilitating a theatrical vision, remembering details, taping nearly perfect circles on the floor…I’m your gal! But a specialty that makes me the director that I am, and in turn the teaching artist that I am, is my experience with Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. I did some workshop training with Boal and also with the Theatre of the Oppressed Laboratory in NYC while writing my honors thesis in college, and it has set the tone for my directorial approach ever since. In Upstream Arts classes we do a lot of scenario work, which is based on Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. That scenario work is my strong suit as a teaching artist and not because I’m a natural at it, but because I’ve spent years training and working and making art in this fashion.
So I’ll keep swimming. To train for the triathlon in August for sure, but I imagine it’ll be something that I do from here on out. And I hope to find other skills to add to my repertoire. Amazing what good teachers can do, but also amazing what perseverance can do. Swimming, biking, running, all together on the same day? I never would have thought I’d be training to do such a thing, but I am so thrilled to be doing this! Because it feels good to realize, as our participants do week after week of Upstream Arts classes, “Whoah, I’m getting good at this!”
Underwater, I think: “Whoah, I’m getting good at this…amazing what a teacher who knows her subject matter can do in just two quick sessions!” Then I thought about the teaching artists at Upstream Arts and how awesome it is that professional artists teach our residencies…amazing what teachers who know their subject matter can do in a 12 week residency!
Take a look at our roster of teaching artists. These people know their stuff! And all of us have a couple of years (if not more!) of Upstream Arts teaching experience under our belts. We’ve worked in classrooms from pre-K through transition age (after high school) and with adults of all ages. We’ve worked with a wide range of abilities and know how to adapt our amazing curriculum across that range. We’ve worked in two and three person teams and know how to play on each other’s strengths while doing so. We’re good.
Personally, my professional theater expertise comes from directing and stage managing. Organizing, facilitating a theatrical vision, remembering details, taping nearly perfect circles on the floor…I’m your gal! But a specialty that makes me the director that I am, and in turn the teaching artist that I am, is my experience with Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. I did some workshop training with Boal and also with the Theatre of the Oppressed Laboratory in NYC while writing my honors thesis in college, and it has set the tone for my directorial approach ever since. In Upstream Arts classes we do a lot of scenario work, which is based on Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. That scenario work is my strong suit as a teaching artist and not because I’m a natural at it, but because I’ve spent years training and working and making art in this fashion.
So I’ll keep swimming. To train for the triathlon in August for sure, but I imagine it’ll be something that I do from here on out. And I hope to find other skills to add to my repertoire. Amazing what good teachers can do, but also amazing what perseverance can do. Swimming, biking, running, all together on the same day? I never would have thought I’d be training to do such a thing, but I am so thrilled to be doing this! Because it feels good to realize, as our participants do week after week of Upstream Arts classes, “Whoah, I’m getting good at this!”