
RESIDENCY EXAMPLE 3
StoryFire
Residency
EXAMPLE 3
The Details
Residency Participants:
Middle-school student leaders from a). Caribbean/Latine lower income immigrant families attending an urban after-school program b). White-presenting middle-upper class families attending suburban private school
Residency Purpose:
To strengthen student leadership by honing storytelling skills focusing on personal stories that invite generous listening, empathy and curiosity using moving spoken word, music and hand-drawn animation.
To catalyze relationships and understanding between seemingly disparate student communities
Gatherings to Achieve Residency Purpose:
4-day lyric-writing workshop in urban after-school program with composers/performers Courtney Swain, Chris Baum and Guy Mendilow. The curriculum walks students through an easy-to-follow process to transform personal experience into compelling storytelling through multisensorial language and metaphor.
Students direct and produce a studio recording of their song, performed by professional touring artists, in a professional studio. Students use a consensus process to arrive at aesthetic decisions as a group, and learn about recording techniques.
7-10 session hand-drawn animation curriculum at suburban middle school with animation artist Pell Osborn. Together, students create animation for their peers’ studio-recorded song.
Digital pen-pal exchange between the two student groups. Students trade asynchronous videos to ask one another questions and establish rapport.
Culminating presentation in which the two groups co-present their work. Students speak about their experience, and answer questions, in a post-presentation artist talk (where the students are the primary artists). The event ends with a reception.
Repeat. Groups swap roles.


