ARTreachUS.com BLOG

Winding up ARTreach classes in Appalachia. Julia Gregory basically charmed them all with a killer musical theatre class.
Tony ended his classes with a quote from Goethe.
Rene world combined in a major way with Job Corps students jamming out with ARTreach students in a killer improv of Lean On Me, featuring rap, country, hip hop, jazz and SOUL.
Lovely experience – interested, dedicated, hard-working students and a LOVELY group of artists.
Next stop for the APPY folks – Kay Cole in early fall.
Next stop for me – a good two day nap.

As expected, the days are so full that even I can’t find the time to blog.
Thursday, four great ladies from the Virginia Museum came down to see what their bucks were paying for. Lovely workshop and visit from Susan, Sandy and Twyla.
Barbara Lyn Belcher Morris is my new best friend.
I love the way she can listen to crazy art people and make sense of it all.

Our kids in ARTreach stood, one by one, and spoke their Shakespeare lines, with confidence and LOVE of it all.
I feel like a parent. SO proud of these kids and SO sure about this crazy and wonderful endeavor.
Other highlights of Thurs and Friday…
Little Chloe, age six, steals away and has a seat in the Shakespeare class because…she just loves it, and she promises to be good.
Al’Lea Day rocks Rene’s world…”she’s one of the best singers I’ve ever heard.”
Community member Edna wows the crowd with her pitch perfect performance.
Shan rocks out with the Job Corps peeps!
Conner sings with the very voice that freaked her out six months ago.
Ally Palmer performs Ophelia and Tony says…”she could play the part RIGHT NOW.”
What all this means, I don’t even know. We are experiencing something totally awesome and at the end of the day I’m left with –
Appalachian culture is amazing and should be cultivated and nurtured AND
Anyone from Appalachia can do anything they want to do.
Tomorrow we wind up summer ARTreach with the fabulous Tony Abatemarco and Julia Gregory.

Peace to all.

Ross charmed their socks off today. He was like Santa, everyone had their picture made with him.

Great day, Stage Combat with pool toys as swords, juniors doing an hour of barre work, yoga, jazz and tap with Shan, and Rene got to teach eight students privates, several of whom were on scholarship through the very generous donation of Bonnie Elosser, a local champion for the arts.
Melissa Wharton and her team at ACT have made this trip more than any of us had ever expected.

The students are AMAZING! More than one teacher today remarked to me that they were more focused, appreciative and enthusiastic than any of their students in LA.

It’s not surprising. The people of Appalachia are true and generous. They come to the table with humility but they leave the life of the party. I have not been let down!

Check out one of ACT’s young artists, Molly Slemp, a huge talent from the coalfields!

watch?v=Y5E09Us1iNE

With the arrival of Ross and Rene came a whole new energy today. A 9 year old asked when we were going to start doing the play with all the blood and guts in Shakespeare class. The same 9 year old discovered the joys of singing blues riffs about snickers bars.
Wild!
Stopped by a cop for forgetting to turn my lights on. He was obviously concerned about the height of my hairdo as well as the pictures of vocal cords we had in the car.
“They’re vocal cords,” says Rene, voice teacher.
“Well I figured they were body parts,” says he.
All good.
Waiting on some good video to post.

Day three of our ARTreach Appy tour and Shannon has developed a Southern Accent.
GOTTA SAY – these kids have got it goin’ on!
We staged the opening number and left no stone unturned – ballet dancers doing pointe on crutches, a rolling lemonade stand with Edwina as our Auntie Mame (at the age of 10), a marching band, and as many irreverent moments as we could possibly fit.
My favorite comment of the day…
“I can put my leg behind my head. Can we fit that in the show somehow??”
Edwina sang her big song with some purity of sound and spirit that puts us all to shame.
Hope we get to help more with the ACT production!
Tomorrow, Ross Hellwig, cutie patootie with a fantastic Shakespeare workshop

and the amazing Rene Urbanovich, one the truly great creative spirits in the world…

Peace out…y’all.

Today rocked!
Shannon and I worked with about 30 kids from all over the Southwest Virginia area, beginning the process of a ACT production of DEAR EDWINA to be performed in the Spring here in the mountains.
The coolest thing…these kids totally get it. They get the fun of the show, they get the sensibility and most importantly, they get the heart. A chorus of 30 kids ages 6 – 11 sang their guts out to the beautiful anthem, Sing Your Own Song. You’d have to be dead or in a coma to not have some kind of response.
Our little Edwina is AMAZING, Madison Chandler. She’ll be huge, if she wants to be.
Tomorrow, we finish our work with the DEAR EDWINA kids, and Rene Urbanovich and Ross Hellwig arrive. Stage Combat, Shakespeare and Singing are on the next few days’ agendas with all the ARTreach participants.
Hopefully, there will be no honky tonks/mexican restaurants waiting for them tomorrow night. but then again….

Shannon Levy-Heath

Last night’s flight wasn’t the prettiest – two hours on the tarmac and lightning. Shannon and I needed food and a drink by the time we got to the airport at midnight and not a thing was open.
We ending up having a drink in a honky tonk on highway 23 that served as a Mexican restaurant by day. Not a bit to eat, but good music and smoky environs. I suddenly wished I had never chosen that electric blue nail polish in honor of Adam Lambert….
Today – Dear Edwina auditions. Shannon and I are working with ACT’s Dear Edwina production before starting the ARTreach classes. These kids are great! – We’re gonna put a cloggin’ number in this show.
Here’s a great kid who sang Blowin’ in the Wind, one of many young talents we saw today!

Many more pics and video (once I join the 21st century) to come.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A gesamtkunstwerk (often translated as universal artwork, synthesis of the arts, comprehensive artwork, all-embracing art form, total work of art, or total artwork) is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so.

So I am a geek, but this in one of my favorite words, and one of my favorite concepts. Wagner used this oh so fun word to pronounce to describe his ideal art form – a work that incorporates music and theatre and dance and art and design.

Think…

Cirque Du Soleil or the opening ceremony at the Olympics, or the Ring Cycle OR….

an awesome collaboration ARTreach is doing with Appalachian Children’s Theatre and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Gezamtkunstwerk 101….

Press Release
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to Support
ARTreach Program at ACT

In June, the visual arts meet the performing arts with a collaboration between the Appalachian Children’s Theatre ARTreach workshops and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

In addition to providing financial support for the summer program, Virginia Museum will send a teaching artist to present a June 18th workshop “The Life and Times of Shakespeare,” featuring images from the museum’s collection.

“Arts organizations nationwide are seeing the value of partnering in this economy. By joining forces, we can keep programming alive and continue to reach new audiences,” says Melissa Wharton, president of ACT.

A group of ACT students traveled to Los Angeles last year to study with theatre and film professionals. In order to give more students the opportunity, Wharton made the decision to bring teaching artists to Wise through ARTreach, an LA based company producing master classes, workshops and larger theatre conventions.

ARTreach artists will work with over 40 local students during the week of June 15 – 21. Assigned a Shakespeare monologue, a contemporary monologue, and a song, each student will attend workshops in Acting, Shakespeare’s Language, Singing/Musical Theatre, Stage Combat, Classical Acting and Dance. Teachers include Julia Gregory (Broadway’s Show Boat and LA Coach to Corbin Bleu), Tony Abatemarco (Director of Broadway’s Lucifer’s Child with Julie Harris) and more.

The program culminates in the fall with a workshop from Broadway’s original Maggie in A Chorus Line, Kay Cole, and a public performance of the students’ work.

Alex Nyerges, Director of Virginia Museum of Fine Arts says,” As the nation’s most comprehensive statewide arts museum, the Museum is enthusiastically collaborating with its newest statewide partner the Appalachian Children’s Theatre in Wise. Together we are providing this intensive ARTreach Shakespeare Workshop for middle and high schools students in far Southwest Virginia. We are pleased to support this SOL-based initiative not only with funds from our Statewide Artist Workshop Program but also with a lively Virginia Museum of Fine Arts staff presentation linking Shakespeare and the visual arts.”

Director of ARTreach, Mark Salyer says “I believe it’s important to create a culture of art in a community. The collaborative process is how that culture is fostered.”

“We aren’t islands,” adds Wharton. “We rely on each other to make great things happen and we’re thrilled to be working with ARTreach and the Virginia Museum to bring this experience to our local students.”

For information about these classes and other opportunities for community members through the summer programs, please call ACT at 276.328.5000.