#baxyouth

Happy fall, families and neighbors!

Our 2019/20 season is now in full swing and we recently enjoyed celebrating open classes with many of you during our family observation week. We opened the studio doors and had a chance to share the developing class practices, community, and culture taking shape as well as the seedlings towards our first performance shares coming up in December. We also recently kicked off our early childhood Playspace with our annual Halloween event. The nearly fifty participating families, children, and staff showed up in equally playful and imaginative costumes as they did spirit and we boo-gied down to monster mash dances, story, and singing time. Join us for more singing and music time for children ages 1-4 every Monday and Friday from 9:30-11:30 a.m. throughout the rest of the playspace drop-in season.

BAX staff and faculty at Halloween Playspace!

Next we look ahead to the month of November as we begin our first Intergenerational Workshop Series, part of BAX’s Artists Activated season, featuring Drag Performance, Interrupting Bigotry, and Bois (Boys) Movement. All of these mixed-age workshops (from ages 6 through seniors), draw on year-long BAX youth programs and are also inspired by many incredible community and BAX faculty conversations. Personally — as a granddaughter, daughter, middle sibling, parent, and now volunteer working with elders — I am continuously moved by the power of generations helping generations, and generations educating each other in wisdom and compassion.

Each of these upcoming Intergenerational Workshops is founded in that ideal and will explore complex concepts of identity as well as self-advocacy, allyship, and building understanding across difference through the playful vehicle of interactive performance. I hope many of you current — and hopefully also new — students and families will join us for one workshop or all as we embark on this discovery and exchange. We have so much to share with, and learn from, each other.

Dear BAX Families,

I am excited to kick-off our 2019/20 season with you! And I am pleased to announce that my leadership role at BAX is shifting and deepening to Director of Education and Community Engagement to better encompass the scope of all that we do in BAX Education and also what we aspire to do.

Those of you familiar with BAX know that our arts education programming takes place year round and consists of a wide range of services, both in the BAX Building as well as Beyond Our Walls. In particular, BAX has robust arts partnerships with public schools, community centers, and cultural institutions throughout Brooklyn. And these partnerships run deep, not just wide. BAX is committed to bridging its signature programs and talented faculty with partner sites in ways that genuinely build on the resources and reflect the needs of those communities. Similarly, we have invested in and enriched our Professional Development services over recent years and have set a goal to offer more public workshops that highlight our most promising equity building and arts education practices.

As a social justice organization whose vehicle is the performing arts, BAX uniquely embodies the ways in which artistic and social justice practices are similar — both require a long term commitment, to being-in-process, to wrestling with the questions, and to visioning new ways the world can be. To this end, we also look forward to offering new multigenerational workshops at BAX (see more details HERE) that will engage a greater spectrum of intersectional topics and complement our professional artist services events. These will include, for example, workshops, town-halls, and performance shares that explore race, gender, queer, and disability inclusion, and more. By creating space for critical interpersonal and community exchanges to happen at the local level, we better prepare ourselves to be the visionaries and actors needed to transform the crises of our time.  

Whether you’re new or returning to BAX, thank you for playing a part in shaping this space. I look forward to the many different exchanges that we will share in the season ahead. 

Sincerely,

Maya Gonzalez June 27, 2019

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of sitting down with our 2019 Education Intern, Aviya Hernstadt, and reflecting upon her time with us this year. Throughout the year, we had worked alongside each other at various BAX Youth Education events. I’d gotten to know her, and recognize the countless things she’s done to support the BAX community throughout her time here. We grabbed some coffees, found a sunny spot outside, and got to talking.

When did your internship start?

AH: I officially started in the beginning of February, with a two-week overlap training period with Brooke [our former Education Intern] at the end of January.

How would you describe your role in the EDU Dept. as an EDU Intern?

AH: So many things. I’d say it definitely requires wearing a lot of hats; for me I think the biggest part of the role is After School Pick Up and spending time with the kids on, you know, the weekday afternoons that I’m there, and Saturdays. Saturdays also include making connections with parents, and getting to know all of the families at BAX, which has been really cool ‘cause Saturdays are less structured; it’s pretty much just me and Roxy [BAX Education Assistant], sometimes a few other people, in terms of admin; so it’s really nice to do your own work then get to know families and provide support there for BAX.

And then on the admin side,  it’s kind of filling in all the gaps, I would say, which gives me a little taste of everything; like just a kind of peek into every aspect of Education planning and everything that goes into that.

This conversation turned into a comprehensive review of the inner workings of the Education Department:

AH: Both Lucia [Scheckner, Education Director] and Ashley [R. Thaxton-Stevenson, Education Manager] supervise me and they have different roles so that’s also been interesting; learning the difference between their roles; between what  a Manager and a Director is, and the type of work that goes into that and the kinds of decisions that are made on each level. Seeing Lucia work and thinking about the decisions that she makes has made a big impression on me; she decides so many big picture things that trickle down into so many details;  and when the details come to me it’s easy to not see that big picture part of it. It’s interesting to think about that trickle-down of information and decision-making; and to witness what it takes to run a performing arts school. A lot of what BAX does was established before Lucia and Ashley stepped into these roles, but its constantly being re-thought, it’s not like they’re just repeating what past employees have done.

I’ve been a part of a lot of different conversations at BAX that have given me a taste of these processes. For example, after the Teen Arts Conference, Lucia, Ashley, Charlie [Community Outreach/Youthworks Intern] and I all sat down and discussed how the conference went, what worked/didn’t work, and what it all means for the future of the Conference.

Is there a project that sticks out to you that you worked on during your time at BAX? Any projects that you really enjoyed working on?

AH: Yes. In the waiting area on the second floor we have this inspiration board. There’s always some kind of engagement project on it. The most recent one, that’s still up there, was made during NYCDOE’s Civic Engagement Week. The week is about encouraging schools to have conversations with their students, asking questions like: what it is to be an active citizen? How can you help your community? We kind of BAX-ified this idea; we designed a project around the questions: What does it mean to be an active member of your community/how have you uplifted your community, who are some leaders in your community/ what communities are you a part of (your school, BAX, your religious center, your neighborhood, your family?) And kind of popping those kernels of what you can do to uplift your community. So when we first did it, I created and left out a mostly blank poster; I wanted to frame it as like a BAX community poster. I had some kids working on it in After School Pick Up, just kind of asking them different questions and encouraging them to draw something or write a story to add on to the poster. It didn’t really take off that way, so during Spring Break Charlie and I led a lesson plan with each age group (NanoBAXers; K-2nd graders and Mega/ GigaBAXers; 2nd-5th graders), prompting them to sort of write or draw something. We kind of hodge-podged it all together and it became this awesome poster. And that was a really cool moment. We had a really successful lesson plan; we started the conversation, then broke up into groups, and we framed it around one story they had when they helped their community, or someone in the community helped them, kind of making the simplest possible version of asking these questions of how we can support our community members.

As an arts educator it’s always nice to get more experience and to, you know, lead a structured activity, especially within the structures that BAX provides, and to get feedback on it. BAX is definitely the kind of educational environment that I want to be in.

Let’s talk a little more about the process leading into you starting here at BAX/how did you find us?

AH: BAX was somewhat on my radar; I took classes at BAX in high school; I performed at BAX once. So when I moved back home after graduating college, I found Dance to the People. I was in a piece with Maira Duarte [BAX in-house teacher and co-founder of Dance to the People], The Tampon Piece, and we had all our rehearsals at BAX, so I was around the building once or twice a week.  I remember looking at a board and seeing that there was a Drag class for kids and I was just like, this is awesome! What is this place? And that really got my gears turning. Then I saw that they had a job posting for this internship.

 Interns are invaluable at BAX. We have so much going on all the time and it’s so helpful to have people there who can sort of be around and be present for that and also be supportive pillars of it.

What as an individual do you feel you have brought to BAX?

AH: My independent study project has been looking at our language accessibility at BAX. I speak Spanish, and when I first started interning here, every once in a while I’d be sent an email that needed to be translated to Spanish.

It really got started when we got a new Spanish speaking family in the spring and I was the only person in the Education Department who could interact with them and translate meetings, e-mails and paperwork. So I started to wonder – do we have any systems in place for this?

At different points there have been people in the office who speak Spanish and it pretty much always just works out. The Education assistant before Roxy (current Education Assistant) was a native Spanish speaker so she was doing all of this work, but it was kind of invisibilized because she was just doing it, and there weren’t other people checking or directing it because it was work that she was the only one able to do. What does it mean to have one person on staff who is taking on all of that work?

I’ve taken on the project of looking at similar institutions and seeing what their practices are, what kind of accessibility they have, and then thinking about what’s realistic for BAX in the short term, and speaking with staff to identify some pipe dreams that we have for the long term. So that includes talking to Lucia, Ashley and Fernando [Maneca, Marketing & Communications Director], and also translating specific documents; simple e-mail templates in Spanish that can be dated and sent out at different occasions.

It’s been really cool to be able to provide that service for BAX, interacting with families and putting effort into working with the families that don’t speak English. As much as all of our staff feels so strongly that all families are a part of this community, there’s a barrier there in relaying that message. I’m not a native speaker by any means, I feel confident in my language abilities but I am humble with that. Of course I can’t say everything; it would be helpful to have a native speaker on staff.

Challenges?

AH: Working with kids can be the most refreshing, light-hearted, easiest thing and then one question can kind of throw you into a tailspin:  how do I answer this, what’s my place in answering this. There have been a lot of those moments, of like ok what does this child need, how can I serve them, can I serve them, or do they just need to be alone. I think it’s about giving the kids respect, hearing out all sides, being able to say something constructive and something reaffirming to each kid involved.

It’s been rewarding getting to know the individual kids that I spend time with at BAX. I really care about them, I’m sad to leave this position. I’ll be a counselor this summer so I’ll see a lot of them; but it’s just been really special getting to know them.

And on the administrative side, I’ll have ongoing projects that take a few days, I have reoccurring projects, like something I do on a weekly basis, an then I ‘ll have short-term projects that take an hour to finish; keeping track of all of the work in a timely manner has been a learning curve for me.

I graduated college a year ago now. I’ve been working odd jobs, babysitting/working in a restaurant, and this internship is my first real experience with a workplace environment. I’ve had various summer internships, but this is my first time on the other side/in the real world. It’s very different being out of school than in school ‘cause in school you’re going back every fall, but at BAX, while I’m here, I want to soak up all this information and stick all these tools in my pocket, understand how an office functions-even though this isn’t your typical office.

What are you walking away with from this internship?

AH: Honestly, the knowledge that a work environment and a place like this exists, where people are so supportive of each other. I mean I have just felt so incredibly supported at BAX. There have been multiple times where I’ve been supported in my own personal practice by the Education Department. There was a dance workshop that I really wanted to take, a choreographer was visiting from Europe and it was kind of like a one-time thing, and Lucia and Ashley totally supported me in doing it. It was a really last minute thing but they supported me because they wanted me to cultivate and keep alive my own artistic practice, understanding that that directly feeds into a professional working practice, as an educator, as an admin, all of that.

So things like that, understanding what you’re worth; as an artist especially its really easy to get in the mindset of just like throwing everything you have into your work/job and letting all these different jobs/positions just take, take, take from you. Because the artist’s life is such an atypical life. It’s atypical to give value to your personal practice, and to spend an hour in the studio and recognize that that is work, that’s not just fun, its work; you know, naming that and giving that value. And that BAX supports that with every single person who comes through these doors, is worth so much. I’m so lucky to be where I am. I have friends whose employers don’t care about their personal lives, emailing them at 9:30pm with something that they have to finish. The amount of respect that exists at BAX is so special; now that I know how good it can be and how much I can be worth, I am worth that, and I shouldn’t settle for anything less.

It all comes back around and it all works because everybody’s all in, everybody’s committed.

I’ve also gained a ton of experience with problem solving, especially with kids. I’m really excited to be a counselor in BAX’s Summer Arts Program this summer. I’m not ready to say goodbye and I’m not done learning yet, and I’m really excited to step into a new role at BAX. I think that’s gonna be really cool; to see all the teaching artists in action; summer’s a whole different ball game and I’m excited to see that. As a counselor I’m gonna be in all the classes, helping support all the classes which will be huge for my own professional teaching practice, you know seeing the different skills that teachers use, different activities, different tools for your tool box. More tools please!

Any post summer plans?

AH: I’ve been teaching with Wingspan Arts so I hope to continue that in the fall, maybe take on more classes than I had during the spring I’m also gonna continue working with Dance Action, Carmen Caseras. I’d love to be able to stay at BAX in some capacity if I can. I know that BAX is the kind of environment I want to be in.

Summer is here and on July 1st we kicked off our 2019 summer arts program. In anticipation, we have spent the last two weeks training and preparing with over thirty middle and high school counselor staff, early professionals, and seasoned arts educators. Throughout this time, we have discussed BAX’s core commitment to radical hospitality and what it truly means to welcome people of many different backgrounds, ages, and interests into one space for personal and artistic exchange. From a training on “understanding and working with children with disabilities” to “building equity,” we have looked inwards and asked ourselves what we need to show up as our true selves, to feel comfortable, and, more, feel courageous and inspired to build new social and creative skills. We’ve then drawn connections between our personal needs and the needs of the young children with whom we will work, a process that has built compassion and prepared us for taking on the important role of caretaker.

Throughout this training, my heart and mind have been in dialogue with our political climate. As the parent of two young children and as a citizen in this country, I am despondent over the escalating news of child abuse happening due to our immigration policies. As a leader in BAX education and community engagement, I feel challenged like never before to take action. It is our responsibility and our honor to prepare children to step into the leadership roles for which they are destined. I believe strongly in action at a local level. I believe our communities are truly a microcosm of the greater society that we live in; we must look at the deep rooted challenges and solutions that exist right in front of us. It is for these reasons that I am an eternal optimist. When I observe the ways our summer staff (again, ranging from ages 13 all the way up) interact with each other — how they provide each other with mentorship, demonstrate empathy and sincere interest in each other's differences, and show such a rich capacity to vision and act creatively — I am filled with hope for the future. In two short weeks, these young  professionals have transformed into a genuine and generative collective staff, they are working together to cultivate solutions and care for our incoming summer students, and in them I see clearly the world we can shift towards.

Wishing you all a rejuvenating and joyful summer.

Dear BAX Families, 

We are in the throes of our year-end performance season. We just wrapped up our Dance Performance Workshop (DPW) showcases for all three levels and next we look ahead to our AcroBAX I and II shared showcase and student concerts. It's an inspiring time of year when we get to witness BAX's core teaching and learning values (community, creative choice, collaboration, skill-building, and performance) come together as a whole arts center. One of my favorite moments in the performance workshop shows is when the young choreographers sneak into the theater to watch their work come to life by their peers. This is everything! It's when they experience the magic of seeing an idea manifest into full dimensionality. 

At BAX we support artists-in-progress at all ages and stages and our young artists are given the same tools of support (space, time, resources, mentorship) as BAX's professional Artists in Residence. We believe that performance experiences are not only an important culmination, but they are also key to the generative process in which artists get to observe and reflect on their work. In these moments of exchange, we realize the power of sharing our unique stories and making new connections. 

I look forward to celebrating these beautiful "artists-in-progress" with you over student concert weekend and hope we get to connect as well. Warm regards,

April 2019 Maya Gonzalez

Throughout the year, BAX hires two interns to work in the Education Department: a Community Outreach/YouthWorks Intern, hired to help facilitate our YouthWorks Festival & Teen Arts Conference and assist with our public school partners/teachers in residence as part of our Arts in Education programming, and an Education Intern, chosen to work closely within our walls and with our teachers and students on a day-to-day, internal basis, assisting with classes, student concerts and the like.

BAX strives to bring people who are transparently moving through the world in socially equitable ways into the community. This mirrors BAX’s work with organizations like the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB) and Race Forward. Our staff members attend meetings, seminars, and workshops dedicated to developing and improving upon racial and social equity within organizations, especially through the lens of serving the arts community.

Two of our interns for the 2018-19 Education season are Brooke Rucker (Education Intern) and Charlie Fischetti (Community Outreach/YouthWorks Intern). At this point in our season, Brooke has left after being here from August through January, and Charlie has just extended his stay with us to continue working with BAX until this summer. The two had a slight overlap, however did not work side-by-side on a lot of the same projects, as they have had different timelines here.

Above: Charlie Fischetti, Community Outreach/YouthWorks Intern. 

Below (L to R): Roxy Gordon, Education Assistant/Birthday Party Coordinator, and Brooke Rucker, former Education Intern.

Charlie, Brooke and I recently sat down for a quick sip at a café nearby BAX. On a sunny day, we had a joyful little reunion (as neither Charlie or I had seen much of Brooke since January).  We settled in for a moment, grabbed some coffees, and got into it.

What was your general experience throughout the season working at BAX?

BR: BAX’s principles of racial equity and gender equality were already aligned with what I was interested in. [And] then being with the Education Department, I was really able to start practicing these things, especially with children, because they’re already so young, and still so impressionable…I began to really start to notice the language I was using with children through that lens. When I entered [this position] at BAX those were the conversations we just kept having: how are we engaging with these kids, and how are we engaging with these parents?

CF: Yeah, I had the same sort of experience. All of my admin work became informed by those values and I kept kind of going back to them, in things that are beyond, like, strict data entry.

We got into discussing the differences between having these kinds of conversations with kids and adults. Something we’ve all started to notice when working with or around children is that they are often much more intuitive about these things than we might have expected them to be. And yet along with that, we’ve all witnessed or heard about moments where their learned social conventions are challenged and we see a glimpse of curiosity, or are met with questions rather than confirmations. It’s quite eye-opening to think about this comparatively between conversations we’ve had with adults and with children.

BR: I feel like it’s so engrained in us…like we don’t even realize how deeply our gender roles live in us…I remember reading [a teacher]’s post, and they were talking about how they were trying to introduce themselves to their students: you can call me, you know, Ms., Mr., Mx., it’s like those little things you don’t even think about, like when introducing yourself; what do the kids, you know, call you?

CF: And the teachers have really good insight into those things… gender is something that affects everybody, and race also affects everybody, but people often only think about those things affecting people who are marginalized by gender and by race. But it really is a part of everybody’s experiences, and I think [it’s important] if you have privileges or disadvantages, to bring those up; that [privilege] doesn’t mean you can’t talk about it and that it doesn’t affect you.

I find these conversations easier to have with kids [than adults].

We began recalling moments we’ve encountered where kids say things or respond to prompts in a conventionally gendered manner. For example, asking kids to assume a character and noticing that all the girls chose feminine archetypes, like princesses or fairies, and all the boys chose more masculine archetypes, like superheroes. How do we approach and respond to these moments?

CF: It’s not like you can’t be princesses, but think about the other options!

BR: I feel like it’s more like, opening their awareness; like its ok if you wanna be this, but you can also be this too, it is acceptable.

CF: I think especially in creative things, especially with kids, it really reveals a lot about things that kids are learning and are exposed to at early ages. And it’s never too early to talk about those issues, because they’re already being exposed to it… Yeah I mentioned something, about having a boyfriend once; this kid was like “my hair is purple,” and I was like, “oh yeah that’s my boyfriend’s hair color,” and a lot of the kids were like, alright that’s fun, but then there were a few who kind of challenged me on it, or would say, “that’s weird,” and I said, “why is it weird?”

What as individual people did you bring to the table in your position?

BR: For me, it’s definitely being a black woman. I feel like anywhere I go, when I’m entering a space, bringing that, is like bringing everything. I think it was great for kids to get to see that in the space; black kids and white kids, because I feel like we are always “oh the black people, you know cater to the black kids and they’re their role models, but it’s also important for the white kids to be able to see that black people are in these positions [and spaces].

CF: I’ve brought more video and photo knowledge, and I think that has extended beyond education, which has been really fun. I’m working towards making changes in how…especially in education, like opening up documentation conversations with young kids, like there’s no correct answer but I think having sort of base line, ethical rules is a good place to start, ‘cause it can get, complicated and voyeuristic and seem like taking advantage when that’s obviously the opposite of what we’re trying to do.

And also as a trans person, I’ve been enjoying navigating that, especially since this is my first work experience where I don’t have to—people will gender me correctly if I don’t say anything, so it’s interesting, now I have the option to bring it up. I’ve not always been in spaces like that. And I think there’s also a balance between wanting to be a representation for kids but then also knowing that my experience is still a slim representation of the trans experience, so I think having other trans and gender non-conforming people in the space has been great, because I’ve always been like, the trans person in the space.

What were some challenges/questions you came up against?          

BR: I think for me, my only challenge, per se, was that I didn’t know how to advocate or ask for more, ‘cause there were some times where I felt like I wanted to take on more or I wanted to learn more in the admin world. Everyone is super busy, and you don’t always have time to just sit down and teach someone things, but looking back at it now, I wish that I would have. Because that’s what the internship is for, like for you to learn from this organization. I don’t know if it’s necessarily categorized as a challenge, but just looking back it’s something that I wish that I would have done more of.

CF: Yeah, I think the fact that my internship has been extended now, going in I wanted to be more involved with marketing, and that is happening now, which is really great. Cross-departmental collaboration and things like this [are some things] I think a lot of organizations struggle with.

I didn’t really have any experience with kids before, so I think that was one of my biggest—I don’t know if challenge is even the right word, it was just new for me. There’s no like, if this situation happens, here’s what to do, you just, gotta roll with it…sometimes kids come up with things and I’m [not sure] how to respond.

Highlights, favorite part of your job, any moments that stood out?

BR: I do have this one moment. For [two of our After School Pick Up students, we’ll call them Ella and Jake for these purposes], their parent personally spoke to me when I first started picking them up and requested that I hold their hands, when we cross the street. So [Ella] like, always would hold my hand, like she loved holding hands but you know, [Jake] wasn’t really about it. [Laughs] So anyway one day we were walking back and I had Ella’s hand and all of a sudden, I felt this hand, reaching for mine, while we were crossing the street, and it was [Jake]; he had just put his hand in mine and I was like, my heart right now! [Chuckles] I was like, “don’t say anything Brooke, just keep walking.” [Laughs]

CF: In YouthWorks, there were these two kids waiting for their dress rehearsal, it was maybe a day before the show, and this one girl was really panicking like, “oh no I don’t know my lines, I don’t know the positions…” and I just leaned down and sat with her and was just said like, “Well, what can I do to make you more comfortable?” I really didn’t try to impose; I just said, “Communicate to me your needs,” which I think is an important practice for kids. We kind of talked through what her actual worries were; because sometimes kids will say something but they actually mean something else, but they don’t know that they mean something else. We worked through communicating her actual needs.

Pieces of advice for the next person stepping into your position?

BR: I told Aviya [our current Education Intern] to take agency in the position, to make it her own. Go in there to help, but also to take. Take everything that you can, and don’t feel bad about really showing that you’re hungry and you’re really doing this to feed yourself.

CF: I think both of our positions, there are definitely tasks that you have to do throughout, but don’t be afraid to go beyond those, and bring your experiences, your passions…everything is valuable, and being honest about what you need is important, whether that is being underwhelmed or overwhelmed. I’ve always felt like if there is too much on my plate, [at BAX] I feel comfortable going to somebody and asking for that, asking for prioritizing certain things which has always been an issue for me, I’m usually just like, “well I’m just gonna handle it on my own and try to do all of it. But that’s unhealthy…it’s a point of growth.

BR: it was a really great internship. And it came exactly when I needed it. I had just moved to New York, and I was just looking for something to grab a hold of, and it popped up; and I met so many people through it who have now become my community.

CF: BAX really is the intersection of a lot of organizations.

Brooke is currently working as Visioning Partner Assistant for Urban Bush Women, and writes for her blog, (Brooke)lynn. Check out her work on her website: brookerucker.com.

Charlie will be joining us as a Lead Counselor for our Summer Arts Program. This year, he was an Assistant Cameraperson for "Overstigmatized 2: The Stigma Stops Here," a feature-length thriller produced by Global Action Project about the role of criminalization and police violence towards trans womxn of color. (see the trailer HERE). This summer he will also be resuming production as a cinematographer for a film directed by his friend Ashley Turzio. It's the story of a single immigrant mother who leaves her child behind and moves to New York to give her child a chance at a better life.