3rd Annual Open House — Community, Learning, and Fun!
High school students, parents, staff, college students, board members and special guests all enjoyed an amazing Saturday at BCAL.
It was the BCCP’s 3rd annual Open House. This year the goal was to have guests experience a typical BCAL Saturday. Six artists offered workshops ranging from electronic music to fashion to culinary arts to drawing, photography and product design. BCAL student ambassadors took guests on tours of the space, answered questions and talked about their experiences at BCAL and with BCCP in general.
Steve Ausbury, BCCP’s Program Director spoke eloquently about the philosophy and practice that drive the organization and result in teens feeling respected and heard in a supportive environment in which they can explore their interests and try their hand at a wide range of artistic endeavors.
Guests who had not been in the space since BCCP first took it over 5 years ago were amazed at the transformation from dreary old gymnasium to vibrant teen friendly arts and technology center.
The range of people who attended the Open House was as diverse as the workshops offered. They came from as far away as Larchmont, Yonkers and New Jersey and as close as down the street. But all the feedback was positive. Adults enjoyed the hands on experience of the workshops and sharing the space with the teens who attended. They especially enjoyed talking to the students and hearing what they had to say about BCCP and BCAL.
Guests were heard to remark on the fact that so many students would choose to come to BCAL on such a beautiful spring day.
All in all it was an extremely successful experience for everyone involved.
A student focuses on her fashion project.
Good times in the illustration workshop.
A self-portrait for the photography workshop.
Preparing food for the culinary arts workshop.
In Room 3W58, an After School Musical Journey
Bassam Saba, dressed in chinos and a white dress shirt, sits tuning a stringed instrument with a smooth wooden base, turning the keys on its bent neck. In one corner, a student is passing out plates for those interested in a slice of pizza. In another, Kemah Keita sets up a tripod as she and her film class prepare to tape the performance, the third in a series of six workshops presented by Musicians for Harmony in collaboration with the BCCP, in which performers and teaching instructors introduce high school students to world music.
This is the inaugural year for the program at the Erasmus campus. April Centrone, lead teaching instructor for the educational workshop program, hopes to build on the musical and cultural knowledge gained through this program by bringing the students and their parents to a world music concert following the last workshop.
The students sit in a semi-circle around the performers as Centrone introduces Bassam Saba, a musician originally from Lebanon, who begins to strum on the Oud, an instrument he describes as “the ancestor of the guitar”. The song he plays is an introduction to this week’s lesson, Music of the Arab World. Centrone joins him on the riq, a tambourine-like instrument, and it is not long before audience members begin to nod their heads in rhythm with the beat Centrone slaps out on the riq.
The whimsical beginning gives way to an hour and a half in which the cultural nuances of Arabic music are explored through a set of mini-lessons on universal musical concepts.
Centrone builds on the concept of rhythm, explored in a previous workshop, by having the audience stomp out rhythmic patterns common in Arabic music. Saba explains the role of the beat, likening musical rhythm to a “heartbeat”.
Saba continues with the concepts, playing songs to demonstrate ornamentation – in which musicians interpret a song by adding their own chords and notes — and improvisation.
For the next section, Saba switches to a new instrument, a bamboo pipe resembling a flute called the nay, used by civilizations that date as far back as the ancient Egyptians. Saba recounts the legend of the nay, said to have been discovered by a young shepherd who heard music passing through reeds on a windy day.
Arabic music, Saba explains, is used to “paint a picture with song”. Songs are often associated to specific times of day or particular events. Angling the Nay, Saba breathes in and begins a song, lilting and carefree. He asks the audience what they imagined as they listened. “Feels like a celebration,” is one response.
This week students discovered music played on instruments with a long historical lineage, used to evoke a world of camel caravans crossing through a desert, of suns setting on wedding celebrations that extend long into the night, of songs in which every component has its own unique name and purpose in the place of the composition.
For some, this uncommon musical education has a practical purpose. Mohammad, 16, has attended all three workshops so far. A guitar player, he was originally drawn to the workshops for the opportunity they allow him to learn new musical styles. Today’s workshop has inspired him to learn more about the music of the Middle East so that he can incorporate it into his guitar playing.
While students may have never previously sat down and knowingly listened to a piece of Arabic music, the global intermixing of cultures ensured that it wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar experience. “I heard it [Arabic music] in movies and video games,” says Mohammad, “now I know where it comes from”.
Being at Bushwick
Where is it written that art can’t be fun? For everyone in the BCCP after-school program at Bushwick High School, art provides an outlet for creative expression: Some students might produce hip-hop jams on the computer, others might capture the rugged cityscape in a colorful drawing.
There’s a lot more to the program than that, though. Every weekday afternoon from 3 to 6, students come here to play games, study for tests and work on activities together. Everything here feels remarkable in its own unique way – it would be hard to think of another place where you can find teenagers listening to Jay-Z and debating over chess moves at the same time.
Ivan Katz, a percussionist who works in the music production lab, says that “the best way to teach yourself is to experiment and mess around.” Everyone here seems to think so: They’ve been using computers, keyboards and microphones all semester to record their own music. Using software programs like Reason, they can add eccentric sound effects to give their music more quality and depth.
Students like Ishmael Forde work hard on their music, but he says that coming here can “make the school a little more fun.”
After spending some time in the music production lab, students can try their hand at painting and sketching with Andres Martinez, a teaching artist whose fingers are usually dripping with paint.
“They’d never gone out and drawn from real life,” he says. “They’d never drawn another person, except maybe themselves in a mirror…I was able to teach them that, which I felt pretty good about.”
Although everyone says they admire his artwork, Andres seems to admire theirs even more, and he encourages students here to find themselves. Was it Picasso who once said “I do not seek. I find”? Maybe he was onto something.
The Edges Project: Defining, Exploring and Transcending Boundaries
What is it like to be a tourist in your own neighborhood? Ever want to explore your borough and wonder what’s beyond? Over the course of three weeks this summer, 8 Brooklyn teenagers converged at BCAL to participate in an ambitious video project and do just that. Co-produced by BCCP and the Manhattan based Children’s Movement for Creative Education (CMCE), “Edges” was based on the idea that we all have conscious and unconscious boundaries and designed to help students identify, explore, and go beyond theirs. Led by BCCP & CMCE video artists Kate Chumley, Amy Khoshbin and Tokumbo Bodunde, the students completed three distinct projects — all the while getting experience in shooting, recording, and observing their environments through a camera.
In project 1, “Mapping the Edge of Your Territory,” the students were given maps and asked to identify their “stomping grounds” up to the point where they always turn back. Two students and one instructor then travelled to that location and taped what they were familiar with, and explored new ground. Project Lead Kate Chumley, stated, “Everyone got the experience of making a decision that they were going to go somewhere and see what’s there.”
The second project, “Touring Places that Matter to You,” required the students to travel to places of their choosing: Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, Canarsie Piers, Wingate Park, and former homes. At each location, the students divided into three teams, each with a different focus: people, physical details (texture, shape, color), and signage. After each journey, the students went back to their maps and made notes.
For their last project, “Getting Out of Brooklyn,” the group elected to go to a place none of them had ever been: City Island. “It was a transformative experience for all,” said Chumley, “The students made a very pure connection with nature and each other.” After a week of editing 20 hours of footage into 1, the students presented their work at a screening, which was attended by 30 of the students closest friends and family.
