TNA Student Wins MLK 2012 Writing Award: Congratulations Jill!

The Neighborhood Academy’s very own Jilliam Root has been announced one of Carnegie Mellon University’s 2012 Martin Luther King Jr. award winners for writing.

Her poem, “Captain” won in the high school poetry division.  Congratulations Jill!

See more on her big win here.

And read her poem…

Captain
Jilliam Root,
9th grade, The Neighborhood Academy

Unnoticed by the captain of the basketball team,
As he talks to the other girls
With long blonde hair,
Pale skin and beautiful eyes.
Then there’s me.
What is so different about us?
The attitude of a queen
The sass in my looks
Unfortunately
Popularity is not in my curriculum.
Is it because I’m not of the same skin color,
Because I have
Tan skin and curly hair?
Real color,
Not fake, but real.
In my genes runs a string
Of different cultures
Intertwining with one another
Labeling me “different.”
I’m not white,
A part of me begs for it,
For him to treat me the same.
But until my true beauty is noticed,
The one with color,
I’ll just have to move on.

 

Fat Beckett, Improv, and Drama

Before the winter break, The Neighborhood Academy theater students participated in the Quantum Theatre Educational Program.

It was a cold, December day.

Puppet Silhouettes from Quantum Theatre's Performance

Scores of students assembled in the abandoned and lightly heated makeshift theater space.  Along with The Neighborhood Academy, students from the Pittsburgh Obama Academy and Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) packed the rafters to see the play, Fat Beckett and to share their own creations.

Gab Cody and Rita Reis in Fat Beckett

 

After 75 minutes of intense, bizarre, funny, trilingual, and engaging action, performed by playwright/actor, Gab Cody and collaborator, Rita Reis, the students were ready to show off their own work.

 

CAPA students present their work

CAPA and the Obama Academy performed several short skits written and created by the student theater troupes.

Drawing from their own life experience, CAPA students (at right) presented a scene set on a bus in which a particularly rough character highjacks the bus and goes for a drive.

Diva and John present "Borris"

 

 

 

The improv game gets intense!

The Neighborhood Academy theater students took a slightly different approach.

TNA hosted three improv games (see them practicing here).

Although all three improv games had been practiced by the students, each scene performed on Wednesday was with a brand new combination of prompts, context, and actors.

 

 

Basically, the students had to think on their feet.  And they did a fantastic job!

DIY for the Holidays: Take Two

Spoiler alert:

Student-made ceramic jewelry has been backed, strung, and wrapped.  You may find it soon under a Christmas tree near you.

Ms. Sandy and the students put on the finishing touches.

Three pendants for three special people.

Coordinating bead work

Choosing tissue paper

Wrapping: Step One

Wrapping: Step Two

Voila!

Have a happy holidays and we’ll see you after break!

Blind Contour Drawings Continued…

More examples of student work from the bind contour drawing activity.

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Building Outside the Box

At The Neighborhood Academy, it’s not just the art classrooms that are engaged in creative enterprise.  This semester, Mr. Cody’s computer class designed and constructed their ideal structures.

Here’s a sampling of student work.  Enjoy!

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Students Prepare for Citywide Theater Workshop

Tomorrow The Neighborhood Academy theater students will be meeting up with other student theater troupes around the city for an afternoon of drama.

Warming Up

As part of educational programming with Quantum Theater, the TNA theater troupe will first experience a Quantum Theater performance and then take center stage as they share their work with students from other schools.

Preparing

Today, the theater students warmed up and prepared for the big day.  Photos and video from tomorrow’s event to come!

Students practice their improv skills.

Blind Contour Drawings

Portraits on the Street

Among other skills, art students at The Neighborhood Academy have been learning about shape, form, and line through contour drawings.  Contour drawing involves drawing only the outside lines of an object.

 

Recently, a group of students and staff set out to do blind contour sketches of people on the street.  Blind contour drawings help the artist focus on what she is seeing.  The artist cannot look down at her hands, but must focus on the subject of her drawing.

 

 

In addition to being blind contour, these portraits are continuous line drawings, in which the artist’s pen cannot lift off the page  This technique creates a portrait out of one continuous line.

Can you tell which students were able to to use continuous line?

Decking the Hall

If you’ve been on campus lately, you were most likely greeted by big, bold, brilliant faces on the walls.

LaTaja notices the recent artwork

The Neighborhood Academy art students have been drawing and painting portraits of themselves and each other using false color and contour lines.

Pointing out the details...

Here are images of current works on view.

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More on the portrait process with Ms. Sandy to come!

 

 

Ceramic Installation Progress Continues

Arts Connection students working with teaching artist, Sandra Moore have been shaping the ongoing ceramic installation project.  See the students in action!

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Warming Up, Trust Building, and Stage Pictures: Drama with Bria

Teaching artist, Bria Walker has been working with The Neighborhood Academy Arts Connection students over the past few weeks.  The students have been working on getting more comfortable in front of an audience, teamwork, and building other theater skills and vocabulary.

This week students are learning how important building trust is to working together as part of a drama team.  After warming up with theater games, the group worked on exercises that demonstrate how to take care of each other as a group.  (See the trust fall exercise in the video above.)

 

These trust exercises have real life implications for how we treat each other outside of the stage.

Bria challenged the drama students to use their bodies to tell a story.  Focusing on spacial relationships, tempo, soft focus, kinesthetic response, duration, topography, and gesture the group worked on view points.

 

The class also practiced building new vocabulary on the difference between behavioral and expressive gestures.  Below, drama student Diva demonstrates both expressive and behavioral gestures.