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.