The Art in the Open performances were amazing!! Great job!
You can see photos on AiO's Facebook in addition to the gallery here.

An enormous thank you to Leah Stein and Danielle, Juma, David, and Jaamil from the Leah Stein Dance Company for making this project possible.

Performances will be in the Schuylkill River Park on Wednesday, June 9th between 11:00-1:00!!
Click here for a full schedule of performances. See attachment below for printable version.
Click here to see more photos from the project.

Free Dance: Philadelphia Youth Create the "Hidden City Festival"

by Abe Louise Young

Walkers in downtown Philly must have been astonished. On a rainy day in May, the streets were alive with dancing teenagers.

Sixty-five students in teacher Joshua Block’s English classes at Science Leadership Academy teamed up with Leah Stein Dance Company, to “make dances spontaneously, rigorously, on location, in collaboration, in connection with the moment.”

Click here for complete story and video. Congratulations all for creating an amazing experience!

Philadelphia Young Playwrights and Temple Theater will be performing winning monologues by SLA 11th Graders Marshall Johnston and Aimee Leong. Marshall's monologue is titled "The Way I Think." Aimee's is titled "Torn Between." Each deals with personal reactions to a changing world. They are great!!

Performances are:

Thursday, Oct 15th at 7:30 PM

Friday, October 16th at 8:00 PM, 

Saturday, October 17th at 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM

For more details and directions go to the Philadelphia Young Playwrights website.

Copper and Iron streams are taking part in an incredible collaboration with Leah Stein, founder of Leah Stein Dance Company. Students took part in a two hour workshop at the Armory on 23rd Street where they were introduced to the process of “tuning” to a site, creating movement and sound that connect to a site, and using these elements to create larger performance pieces. The process was quite awe inspiring to watch.  

One of the units that was the most engaging for me to teach this year connected themes from the book Night by Elie Weasel to the modern day prison crisis in the United States. Night is an incredibly powerful book that draws in readers and raises many universal issues. I find that the book lends itself to thoughtful class discussions and creative expression. Of particular interest were readings and discussions about indoctrination in Nazi Germany and connections to examples of torture sanctioned by the US government.

Congratulations to Marshall Johnston, Aimee Leong, and Mary Altamuro who were all First Place Winners in the 2009 Young Voices Monologue Festival sponsored by InterAct Theater Company and Philadelphia Young Playwrights. Their winning monologues will be performed by professional actors at InterAct Theater Company in April!  

In 10th grade English students read Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston. As we completed the book we began an inquiry of language in our lives. During this inquiry the main question we were investigating was "What are the relationships between language, power, and culture?" To investigate this question we analyzed the language in Their Eyes and then we read several different essays that relate to issues of language, identity, and power. For a complete list of the essays click here.

Students were then given the Language Autobiography assignment: