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Late last year, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange and Brooklyn New School (BNS) collaborated on a performance workshop series entitled Interrupting Bigotry. This program highlighted issues of race equity, bias and bigotry in schools and aimed to interrupt the dialogue so as to empower individuals to step in and address these conflicts.

5th grade students at BNS were invited to participate in a bi-weekly rehearsal process for part of their lunch break, during which they discussed and devised a script based on Brazilian politician and writer Augusto Boal’s model Theatre of the Oppressed. The workshops culminated in two performances, one at BNS for peers and families, and the second produced for a public audience at the BAX Theater in a split bill with Epic Theatre Ensemble. The program was made possible by the 2017/18 Department of Education’s Office of Arts & Special Projects Arts & Family Engagement Initiative.

The creative process took place from October 2nd – November 11th, 2017. Directed by José Joaquín Garcia, BAX teaching artist-in-residence at BNS, students who had expressed interest met on Mondays and Tuesdays during lunch in the BNS Health Studio. The initial point of inspiration for this process was the following poem from the 1920’s:

INCIDENT By Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee; I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me. Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, "Nigger." I saw the whole of Baltimore From May until December; Of all the things that happened there That's all that I remember. 

Beginning here, students got to work developing and sharing stories of their own, pulling from personal experiences that face issues of bias and bigotry in our society.

Garcia spearheaded this project, in collaboration with BAX faculty Donna Costello. From October through mid-November, Garcia directed the process to follow Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed model. Developed in the 1950’s, this method of theatre is driven in interactive approaches to creating and performing work. The idea behind this model is to directly involve the audience in the story being played, so that they are a part of the narrative, and have agency in affecting the significance and outcome of the performance at hand. Boal coined the term “Spect-actor,” which translates the re-invented role of audience members as both observers and active participants in the scene.

Following this model, students came up with stories of conflict regarding race. One scene, which was performed, included a group of white students hanging out together. One of the girls in this group was approached by another group of her friends, all of whom were students of color. The group asked the girl if she wanted to hang out with them, and she agreed that she would meet them in a bit. After the group left the scene, the girl’s white friends judged her for being friends with kids of another race. At this point in the story, the scene was paused and the audience was asked how to resolve this issue. Spect-actors took the stage and tackled the scene.

Following this performance, Epic Theatre Ensemble took the stage. Epic Theatre is a company of high school and college students dedicated to creatively sharing a dialogue for social justice. As part of the Interrupting Bigotry program, the Ensemble performed a 30-minute play that tackled issues of race, opportunity and breaking the mold in schools. Their performance was the culmination of a year-long process of research and creative investigation. Students wrote their own play based off of information they gathered from interviews with various scientists and icons in the field of science. The synopsis of their play was based around proposing the implementation of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) in schools as a tool to integrate the arts in curricula. The story challenged age-old traditions in education, and questioned the hierarchical relationship between faculty in schools. The performance prompted conversation and confrontation of bias and bigotry.

The merging of performance and conversation offered an enlightening evening for all parties involved. Parents and students of various ages gathered in a space to discuss and exemplify problems we face every day. Everyone in the space was part of the conversation at hand: Identifying problems and developing strategies to interrupt and disrupt the normalization of racism.

Racial equity is an issue that blankets over every corner of our community, from public schools to political offices. Opening a conversation about race within schools is a foundational skeleton to changing the course, leveling the playing field, facing problems that cannot and should not be ignored, within any context in our communities.

On June 21st, BAX took part in an emerging tradition at PS 172: Multicultural Day. As part of the NYC Department of Education Office of Arts and Special Projects Arts & Family Engagement grant, the school, in partnership with BAX teaching artist Kate Bell, spent a day declaring and celebrating each other’s culture and the cultural diversity that the school’s student body holds. Students performed and presented research and creative projects about their own family’s cultural background. Parents, children and teachers came together in one room to share different cultural experiences with their grades.

Throughout the day, each respective grade came into the auditorium to take part in the program. The gathering would begin with a big cultural declaration, during which any student could come up to the microphone and name their cultural background (a powerful demonstration by the young people in today’s world). Following the sharing, Bell directed each grade in singing a song that she had taught them, “Multicultural is Cool.” Catchy and colorful, this song named different aspects of diversity as a unifying force. Echoing throughout the room, students sang “we may sometimes speak/different languages or eat different foods/all our cultures come together and make/this amazing school.” Following the chorus, the song’s verse gave individual students an opportunity to highlight different aspects of their own culture; be it something they eat, a holiday they celebrate, clothing they wear or a language they speak. Individual students on stage would dance as everyone sang about a part of that child’s culture.

Although BAX is located in Park Slope, our Arts in Education program has reached Sunset Park for over 15 years through PS 24. The neighborhood houses a Mexican, Dominican, Puerto Rican and Arab community, most of whom are first and second generation immigrant families. Witnessing these and many other cultures coming together to raise each other up is exemplary for all schools, in this city and beyond. Especially during such a tumultuous political climate against immigrants, giving kids the opportunity to not only learn how to define and understand what culture is, but to also identify it for themselves and celebrate what it is to them, is a powerful and affirming move.

PS 172 has been engaging in Multicultural Day for a couple years now. Founded by the school’s Arts Liaison and Dance Educators Concert Coordinator, Emily Todras, the program develops more every year.  As part of this year’s program, Bell came into the school on several consecutive Saturdays starting in October of 2017 to hold workshops with parents and children. During these Saturday mornings, Bell facilitated activities that helped K-5th graders to “define what we mean when we say culture.” Culture is a many-faceted thing; it affects so many aspects of our lives and it dynamically defines different parts of us. We should celebrate those parts, and share them with one another.

BAX and PS 172 have a long-standing relationship through after-school programs facilitated by BAX teaching artists. This project has deepened that relationship, and hopefully this partnership will continue to expand and grow. There is potential here for a longer term in-school residency, during which more work and discovery like this could be done throughout the school year.

In the last weeks of her internship at BAX, Community Outreach Intern Sophie Tibiletti reflects on her time working within the Education Department. Tibiletti has been working closely with Education staff and throughout our community of partner schools, contributing teaching assistance, administrative work, documentation, and countless other things, not to mention a fresh, enthusiastic perspective on the work that is done at BAX and beyond its walls.

When Tibiletti started 6 months ago, she hit the ground running by playing an integral role in BAX’s annual YouthWorks Festival. YouthWorks is a free, 6-week program offering young artists the opportunity to conceptualize, create, develop and produce their own works. Under the wing of Donna Costello, long-time teacher at BAX and YouthWorks Director, Tibiletti worked diligently to organize resources for each group of young artists, and she moderated YouthWorks coaching sessions to ensure that everyone got the most out of their creative process and that works were developed in a supportive, nurturing environment. Working so closely with Costello, Tibiletti witnessed a seasoned creative director and her exemplary leadership at work.  “[This was] definitely one of the coolest experiences I’ve had with youth education. I’ve never really gotten to experience children making their own work; it was really rewarding work being able to witness their process. To see them get to choose their lighting, their costumes, what they wanted to present…I realized this is the kind of thing I want to be a part of,” Tibiletti remarks.

Unique to her time working on the Festival, Tibiletti was able to meet and learn from two previous Community Outreach Interns who coached for YouthWorks this year: Rachel Freeburg and Kelindah Schuster. “I’ve met both of them, they’ve both worked with YouthWorks as coaches, they are both faculty at BAX,” she muses. They served as a personal and valuable resource for her, offering advice and insight into the work she’s done this season. “I hope that I meet whoever is in this position next year.”

As the Festival came to a close, Tibiletti began her work with partner schools. Once a month on Saturdays, she traveled to PS. 172 with BAX teacher Kate Bell, to assist with Bell’s Family Arts & Engagement Program at the school. Still ongoing, this program invites parents, siblings and other family members to the school to celebrate and recognize each family’s cultural history. Serving a range of kids from ages 4-12, Tibiletti recalls the challenges and rewards she’s witnessed: “Kate is awesome at reading the room and and altering what she has planned to fit the needs of who is there. She approaches the room strategically and finds ways to establish a common ground and dynamic roles for each student.” Once her internship at BAX is over, Tibiletti plans to continue working with Bell through to the end of the program; “I’m trying to learn from the teachers at BAX, because I’m trying to be a teacher myself someday.”

Tibiletti also traveled to PS. 24 in Sunset Park and PS. 154 to provide documentation of BAX’s teaching artists in residence at work. Tibiletti observed BAX teacher Maira Duarte in the classroom, which provided a lot of insight and inspiration to her own path as an aspiring teacher in public schools. “I had never seen a dance teacher in a school before…there are things I didn’t know about it,” she says, reflecting on the opportunity to be around schools where children have access to dance and performing arts. “Something I want to be a part of is making sure dance is accessible to young people.” Tibiletti also jumped in on some of Freeburg’s Saturday classes. She embraced the Education Department and took ownership of her resources to learn countless different approaches, teaching styles and creative strategies.

The relationships Tibiletti has forged during her time as Community Outreach Intern will continue to grow. Having moved here after graduating from University of the Arts in Philadelphia with a BFA in Dance, this was the one thing she was sure of in her post-grad summer. A first step in the network of New York City arts and education, she will move forward in pursuing her professional dance career in the city and work to find more opportunities in education.