Paper Mache
These past two weeks have seen a flurry of student arts related events, projects, and programs. Our Center Stage Productions youth performing arts group held a Saturday acting workshop. Founded by Corey and Morgan Kersting, Center Stage takes 7–18-year-olds through the many aspects of preparing to act on stage in front of a live audience. This workshop for beginners as well as experienced performers was designed to get young people ready for auditions for the group’s summer musicals, “Frozen” and “Newsies.”
We attended a recent performance of “James and the Giant Peach,” the musical based on the Roald Dahl book, in the café-gym-a-torium at Yuba City High School also known as the Backlot Theatre, I guess because you park in the back lot near the “theater” entrance. The production was remarkable and the performances across the board were solid with some stellar moments. The use of orange umbrellas to create the illusion of a giant peach was magical as James and his newly found insect family make their way across the Atlantic. If it’s any indication, the show held the attention of a friend’s four-yearold right up nearly to the end. It also marks the final show for retiring theater educator, Linda Robinson.
Last week, thanks to an invitation by Kellee Ford, Business Workforce Specialist with Sutter County One Stop, we convened an Arts, Media & Entertainment panel at the Tri-county Career Fair for high school juniors and seniors. The idea of hundreds of students coming together to explore the creative sector as a path to future employment piqued my interest, so I contacted friends in various aspects of the biz to be part of the panel. As a point of reference, the creative sector represents
14% of the California economy. Our group included working professionals representing the fields of visual arts, film and tv production, journalism, theater, music, and songwriting. After introductions and anecdotes by our eightmember panel, we were able to coax a few questions out of the students attending. One young man boldly proclaimed that he wanted to be an actor and would hear of nothing else as far as his chosen career. I encouraged him to audition for our upcoming musicals.
Last Saturday, we ventured to Miwok Middle School in Sacramento, formerly known as Sutter Middle School. Part of an initiative last year by the Sacramento School Board, it renamed schools originally named after people who “engaged in, perpetuated, and/or condoned racism, oppression, colonization and exclusion of others, even genocide.” We were there for the dedication ceremony of a 100’ long indigenous people-themed mural facing the playing fields. Students and families came together to create the mural during their spring break. The lead artist, Shane Grammer, is a California muralist known for his thought-provoking murals that often deal with social justice, environmental, and other current issues. He partnered with the Native Dads Network, the school district and his own Hope Through Art Foundation to bring the mural to life. It portrays a pastoral scene which includes an oak tree, other flora and fauna, native dancers, traditional bark houses, a burden basket with inspirational words and a river that runs through it. The mural includes a large red handprint, a symbol used to indicate solidarity with missing and murdered indigenous women and girls (MMIW) in recognition of the fact that Native American women are up to ten times more likely to be murdered or sexually assaulted. We were all invited to add to that part of the mural with our own red handprint. Very powerful.