Local museums offer online summer fun
Being active, informed and artistic can be difficult while social distancing. Arts and cultural organizations around Arizona are trying to make it easier for Arizona residents and people from outside the state to develop new skills, learn more about the area’s history and get crafty, all without leaving home.
Here’s what three Arizona arts organizations are offering this summer to keep people entertained and inspired. Curious visitors to their websites and participants in their Zoom meet-ups can learn to dance, make an uplifting craft or learn about Arizona’s art and history.
Arizona Broadway Theatre: Maker Mondays
While Arizona Broadway Theatre has been shut down, Mary Rooney, the company’s prop master for the past 15 years, has been sharing her crafting skills during Maker Mondays.
Rooney has taught art and tie-dye classes for children and a props class for college students, but this is the first time she has done a video series. She has created videos on rock painting, faux feather wall hangings, magic wands, planters made from recycled bottles, decorated journals and Victorian paper puzzles.
She plans to expand the series to in
clude outdoor projects when the weather permits. She hopes to offer families something new and different to do while they are at home.
“I’m trying to take a more sophisticated spin on projects. Instead of just getting out the construction paper and markers, I’m trying to do something of a higher quality,” Rooney said.
She tailors the videos to people of various ages and skill levels and uses simple, inexpensive materials that viewers can find easily or already have in their homes.
Parents and children can split up tasks and work together on the crafts.
Before she records each video, Rooney makes different versions of the crafts, in various stages, to show viewers how to make and personalize the projects.
She often connects her video projects to work she has done as prop master for ABT. She has helped create plants for “Little Shop of Horrors,” a Pegasus puppet for “Xanadu,” a barber chair for “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” and a foamy potion for “Jekyll and Hyde.”
While preparing for Maker Mondays, Rooney looks at what other artists are doing. This is how she found out about the Kindness Rocks Project, where participants leave rocks with positive messages on public paths. She hopes to instill a similar curiosity and artistic thirst in her viewers.
“If they want to keep investigating, there is so much more out there. As long as I can give them the first access of ‘this isn’t so hard,’ they can keep going,” Rooney said.
Along with Maker Mondays, Arizona Broadway Theatre offers other video content:
Tap dancing during Tap-A-Long Tuesdays.
Exercise sessions on Workout Wednesdays.
Talks with actors and directors on Throwback Thursdays.
“Quarantined” After Dark Cabaret on Fridays.
Story time with “Mary Poppins” actress Renee Koher on Saturdays.
Details: Video content is at https:// www.youtube.com/user/AZBroadway Theatre. To donate to the ABT Relief Fund, go to https://azbroadway.org.
iiiiiPhoenix Theatre Company: Summer of Dance
People of all ages and skill levels who want to learn to dance or improve their skills are turning to Phoenix Theatre Company’s Summer of Dance program, which is entirely virtual for the first time. In its 12th season, the program offers basic to advanced dance classes in technique, musical theater character and style, heels, tap dance, ballet, contemporary dance, classical jazz and hiphop.
The classes have an average of 25 students each and have attracted students from throughout Arizona and beyond.
Robert Kolby Harper, associate artistic director for Phoenix Theatre Company, said the company is learning how to better “harness technology to create, to reach out, to communicate, to foster new artists, to foster love of the arts.”
“We have found that we’re not relegated to our city anymore in our reach. I think that all arts organizations are starting to realize that. I’m really excited to see how access to arts education, to different kinds of artistic expressions, are going to change,” Harper said.
Offered weekdays through July 23, the classes are for people age 10 and older of all experience levels.
Instructor Molly Lajoie said students learn how to dance in a certain style as well as how to use their movements, facial expressions, gestures and other aspects of their performance together.
“That’s our job as teachers in Summer of Dance, to push them in a way that they don’t know that they can be pushed and see the result from that,” Lajoie said. “Summer of Dance allows us to push the limits of what they can do so that when they might be cast in something, we know what their level is.”
Harper says the program’s core mission of inspiring students, especially actors, to feel more secure with and enjoy dance remains the same.
“Summer of Dance has always been about getting people comfortable with moving their body, using it as a tool of communication and expression,” Harper said. “At the end of the day, I want people to not be afraid of how they look while they are dancing. I want people to know themselves, embrace their uniqueness, make it their brand and make it their contribution.”
The classes are taught via Zoom. In hip-hop classes offered by Nick Flores, students can communicate with their instructor through gestures, rankings of 1 to 10 or emojis if they are feeling OK to move on or need extra help with dance moves.
Flores said it is important that students are engaged in and help to run the class.
“I am very adamant in saying it’s not my class. I’m just teaching it. It’s your class,” Flores said.
While the students participate from home, the teachers are in a studio at the theater. Theater company staff help the instructors by assisting with sound and video, watching student movements, directing teachers on areas where dancers need assistance and relaying questions. Harper said having instructors in the studio helps make the students and teachers more comfortable.
“One of most important things is for it to feel as familiar as possible. I think it makes the students feel like there’s a semblance of normalcy. For the teachers, when they come to the studio, they have to do nothing but teach,” Harper said.
Details: Dancers can take one class for $10 or buy a weekly pass for $40.
https://www.phoenixtheatre.com.
Arizona State Museum: Online collections
Making collections viewable online has allowed educational institutions such as the Arizona State Museum to reach broader audiences.
The museum on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson is dedicated to anthropological and archaeological research, with a focus on the culture and history of the U.S. Southwest and northwest Mexico. The museum also is a repository for archaeological items from state lands.
The museum has offered virtual content since 2000, but has expanded its online collections after having to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The museum has been sharing content on its website and social media platforms.
Darlene Lizarraga, the museum’s director of marketing, said plans are to expand the online content, especially with more immersive and interactive experiences. Multiple curators are researching, gathering, photographing and organizing materials for the collections.
“It takes so much time and effort to create this really great content. It’s a shame to just put it up for few months or a year, take it down and nobody sees it again. The internet has been the answer to curators’ prayers for getting this information out to a broader public,” she said.
Lizarraga said the digital content allows the museum to reach audiences around the world.
“We are trying to just get everything out there so people can enjoy it, learn from it and be inspired by it,” Lizarraga said.
The museum’s online exhibitions include:
Hopi pottery by artist Nampeyo. Memorial Day founder John A. Logan.
Hopi kachina figures.
The Paleo-Indian and Archaic eras of southern Arizona.
Trader Goldie Richmond. Ancestral pueblo flutes. Paintings by 20th century American Indian artists.
Portrait-style photographs by Native American youths.
Hopi basketry.
Mayo and Yoeme Pasola ceremonial masks.
19th century Navajo weaving. Patrons can also view a digital comic book by Lisa Falk and Ryan Huna on healthy living called “It’s Up 2 You!” and explore the clothing styles worn by artist Frida Kahlo as part of the What Would Frida Wear? activity.
iiThe museum offers virtual tours of several exhibitions, including “Paths of Life: American Indians of the Southwest,” “The Pottery Project: 20,000 Pots, 20,000 Years” and “Woven Through Time: American Treasures of Native Basketry and Fiber Art.”
The museum also has been holding Friday morning lectures via Zoom on topics such as pandemics in ancient Greece and Rome and the archaeology of Tucson’s Tumamoc Hill. Upcoming talks include the history of migration on the Southern Colorado Plateau on July 10. Register at the museum’s website.
Details: See the exhibitions at https://statemuseum.arizona.edu.