Spring 2005

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Saskatchewan Artist in Residence Pilot Program

Discovery, Process and Creation for Every Child

Meredith LaRocque

When I began my job as Artist in Residence for the Melville-Deerpark School Division in Saskatchewan, I had a number of ideas about what I would like to accomplish in the six schools I would travel among, but I had no idea how the program would proceed and neither did the schools! The program, being a pilot project, was unique to each school division. The job was a real work in progress.

The Artist in Residence Pilot Program is jointly funded by the Saskatchewan Arts Board and Saskatchewan Learning. Its purpose is to promote the arts in schools and to develop personal and professional experiences for both the artist and the educators. In turn, these two agencies have a hands-on process in which to study the benefits of the arts to artists, teachers, students and their communities. Currently there are six artist residencies in schools as well as various artists in community settings, in business environments, and in a healthcare facility.

The school artists work closely with students and staff as a resource person, a facilitator and a teacher in the art form of their expertise. Theatre, literature, visual art, music and dance professionals are interspersed throughout various school divisions.

I am the only dance residency, which makes my position unique. I travel from school to school, linking dance to existing themes and units the teachers are teaching. Anything from community and school performances, teaching workshops to teachers, and bringing parents and children together to dance at a Family Literacy Day celebration become ways of introducing and energizing dance as a subject.

At first I found that the community equated dance education with studio lessons that many students already participated in. Tap, jazz, ballet—the staples of most dance studios—will attract many students, but they are not for everyone. I remember a group of boys in grade five, avid hockey players in jeans and team t-shirts, eyeing me with hesitancy and distrust as I entered the gymnasium for the first time. “I don’t dance,” one boy adamantly stated with his arms crossed across his chest.

And so my journey began to rewrite dance in their eyes....

I knew I could not use dance techniques as my only resource. I was to teach students from kindergarten to grade 12, and they would have mixed feelings about dance, from fear and dislike to stereotypical ideas. Part of my job was to break down misconceptions, and to make dance available to a wide range of student abilities and ages and to the teachers with whom I worked. Because dance is a portion of the curriculum, teachers were eager to have me teach in their classes, facilitate workshops and give them advice on how to implement dance in physical education. “How do I teach the creative part of dance? I can teach folk and social dances, but I have no idea how to get to the creative parts.”

I encouraged teachers to give me themes and ideas they were already working on in their classrooms. Initially, I got very little response. Dance is an intimidating subject for most, and even more difficult to imagine integrating with other subjects. It is natural for me because I speak the language of dance, but I had to find a way to make that language accessible to others. Using basic concepts that are common to the physical education and dance curriculums, such as levels, travelling, balancing and actions, I wove units together, showing teachers how kids could be creative, while simultaneously using elements from both. Progressively, teachers and students began to see how dance could be an artistic process, integrated into other areas of study. Now I had more responses to my request for themes and units.
  
One primary school teacher was working on an environmental unit. I involved her students in the creation of a dance entitled “The Little Animals” based on Schim Schimmel’s books on animals, their environment, and caring for our planet. The “little animals” travelled through their environment—burrowing, hiding, climbing, crawling, scurrying under, over, around and through their habitats. By the end of my six-week stay, these little dancers could talk about their dance using the vocabulary words in their science/language arts unit. The students internalized the vocabulary because they heard the word and articulated it simultaneously. We also created two beautiful mosaics based on Schimmels’ illustrations to hang in the hallway for education week. Working together, the teacher and I had created an integrated unit using science, language arts, visual art and dance—both of us using our areas of expertise.

I find that dance is an easier sell to younger students. Culture hasn’t jaded them to believe that dance is only fun for girls. On my first day at St. Henry’s Junior with grades three to five, including the avid hockey fans, I played games using skills that any child would dive right into. Running, jumping, rolling and the tricky act of balancing and falling were tossed at my hesitant pupils. Using imagery and ideas common to kids anywhere in Canada, we explored movement and dance concepts using analogies of Lego blocks, ninjas, football players, aliens, tree-climbing, favourite cartoon characters, super heroes, snowflakes, popsicles, jello and a variety of other examples to connect kids to dance. The same kids who initially eyed me with suspicion, performed a five minute piece in Regina for the Premier at an annual Saskatchewan Arts Board function, and to this day still ask me if they can do it again. At the end of my stay, my tough hockey players treated me to a special gift that I will always treasure. After practising over many noon hours, the class performed a dance for me they had created themselves—a gift like no other.

Because I am an interdisciplinary artist, I try to encourage students to integrate dance with other art forms and disciplines. In my work, I incorporate dance and digital technology such as graphics and video. At one of my schools of only fifty-four students in a small town, I introduced my first interdisciplinary unit. The grade eight and nine students were a tough group of teenagers whose gym period I hijacked! They were not overly impressed, to say the least. I tossed a complex unit of graphic arts, choreography and photography at them to keep them busy, interested and intrigued with the arts.

First, I had the kids bring to class an action picture of a person from a magazine. The students mimicked the poses in the photos with their own bodies. After talking about abstraction, I asked the students to abstract their magazine image by changing the position and direction of their bodies, or by using a different body part. By the end of class, they had created a series of positions that they could link together with movement. Teaching their positions to a partner, they combined the positions to make a short dance. 
I gave each pair of students a disposable camera and we headed outside to take photographs of their dances. It was my turn to be hesitant! Would they take their photography seriously? It turned out they surpassed my expectations and proved my fears 8 wrong in every way. The camera angles and shots we practised in class were explored and developed.

They experimented with perspective, lighting and shadow in their own process of making art. After scanning the photos, we created digital collages of their dances in the school computer lab. They turned their photos into digital masterpieces by playing with overlapping, cutting, pasting, copying, colouring and digital effects. Although they were only required to hand in two artworks, I received three or more pieces from most students.

The Artist in Residence program gives schools the expertise and resource base to broaden the existing curriculum by tapping into the power of arts education. Not only has it expanded the ideas of the students, but my own ideas as an artist and arts educator have taken new directions and methods. As I near the end of my second year as Artist in Residence in the Melville School District and reflect back on my work, I know that I have been enriched just as much as my students have by the wealth of our shared experiences.

"Learning is not the accumulation of knowledge. Learning is movement from moment to moment." J Krishnamurti

Meredith LaRocque graduated with distinction from the University of Regina, obtaining her Arts Education degree, with a major in dance. She also has her certification in Multimedia and in Early Childhood Education. She has performed and choreographed in Saskatchewan and as far a field as Ontario, California and Finland. Meredith is also the illustrator of a recently published children’s book titled, Dance on the Move. rocqme@sasktel.net 306-728-5329 www.mere.name