Photo Friday: Creative Solutions

Last week, Big Thought's Creative Solutions program ended its seven-week summer program with an original play Super Solutions. The play - a comedy that featuring five super heroes who step in to guide teens to take the right path in life - was written, choreographed and performed by the nearly 50 teens in the program with the support of a team of teaching artists.

The incredible team of adults who worked with the teens included Camille Haley, Will Richey, Alejandro Perez, Marques Phillips, Allison Caldwell, Mario Garcia, Tom Gelo, Jeffrey Moffitt, James Justinic, Aneesha Kudtarkar, Jonathan Tyler, Catherine Hopkins and Lisa Schmidt! 

A huge shout out to the following:

• SMU Meadows School of the Arts for hosting the program at their campus for five years!
• Olive Garden for catering the opening performance luncheon for 100 people and providing "Lasagna Fridays" to the 50 teens for five years!
• Embrey Family Foundation, Dallas Association of Young Lawyers and National Endowment for the Arts for supporting Big Thought's Creative Solutions program
• The Dallas County Juvenile Department for partnering with Big Thought for 18 years so that together we can show the at-risk teens that where they have been does not determine who they can become. 

Photo Friday!

As promised, here are the pics from the mural unveiling by students in the Thriving Minds after-school program at Comstock Middle School. They began the mural in February as their SLANT 45 project, and had a special event to show it off to everyone for the first time on May 5, 2010. Congrats, Comstock, on your beautiful and poignant new addition to your cafeteria!

SLANT 45: Future of the World

Alexis, Veronica, Anthony and Alyssa (pictured above, left to right) are students in an afterschool program for at-risk kids at George C. Clarke Elementary in Fort Worth. These four students are the leaders of four SLANT 45 projects taking place at the school which all tie into the theme "Future of the World."

The students themselves decided what their projects would be and with whom they would partner: Veronica is leading a graffiti cleanup project; Alexis is concentrating on gang prevention; Alyssa is leading a beautification/trash pickup project and is working with Anthony, whose group is creating a recycling program the proceeds from which will go to charity.

On Wednesday, these children and their school were host to a meeting of the SLANT 45 Action Team, a group of business professionals, educators and others who help with outreach. Each student spoke briefly but passionately about why they feel these issues are problems in their community and their plan to address them. Members of the Action Team were particularly struck by how these children are so quick to give back even though they themselves are in need - and that is the beauty of SLANT 45. It gives elementary school children the chance to get to know more about their community, identify and fill a need and spark the spirit of giving that will follow these children through their adulthood.

If you know an inspiring group of youngsters who are ready to give back to their community, sign up at www.slant45.org/. All kids who participate will be invited to attend an extra-special celebration event at Cowboys Stadium in January 2011. Register today!

(Moving) Photo Friday!

Today's extra-special Photo Friday is a preview of what you'll see if you atttend DaVerse Lounge at the Backbeat Cafe in Dallas tonight! DaVerse Lounge is an open-mic under-21 spoken word event that encourages youngsters to speak their minds in a healthy, positive way. Join us tonight at 7:30 or check it out on the second Friday in February and March to see what it's all about.

(Belated) Photo Friday!

Better late than never, eh? Here's a special Photo Friday slideshow of screen grabs from the DaVerse Lounge performance at Backbeat Cafe last Friday. People of all ages showed up to the open-mic spoken word showcase, hosted by Big Thought artist Will Richey and including backup by the band Melody Memory. For more information check out the Daverse Lounge MySpace Music page - and join us at Backbeat the second Friday of December for the next performance!

Photo Friday!

Time for another Photo Friday! Today's slideshow: Creative Solutions summer '09 students performing at Thanksgiving Square.

Intern Stephanie checks out the Creative Solutions dress rehearsal!

August 5, 2009
I got to see the dress rehearsal for the Creative Solutions today. I was so excited to see it all come together after sitting through some rehearsals and talking with the kids throughout the program. While there were still a few kinks to work out in the performance and not all of the art was up in the gallery, you can definitely see all the hard work that went into pulling these off.The performance, which is called “The Switch,” showcases all different kinds of talent: dancing, percussion, spoken word poetry, acting, singing. The kids really can do it all. Six of the kids played “angels” and “demons” and they stole the show with their hilarious performance! I was also blown away by the spoken word poetry that was performed. The way that the kids talk about their own lives and the way that they’re channeling their experience into performance is powerful.

The visual art is equally impressive. After spending a couple days in the gallery helping to hang some of the pieces, I actually took the time to step back and really look at the pieces. There's glass work, ceramics, charcoal, watercolor, and acrylic work – a little bit of everything. One of the coolest pieces was a group project of a tiger. It’s an amazing stippling project that took a week to create and the artists were so excited to tell us about their work and how everything was created. Though they’re a little more reserved than some of the performers, you can see their talent and passion just as clearly.I know they’ll all do an amazing job at their first official performance tomorrow!

-Stephanie
ps - check out our mini CS videos at http://tinyurl.com/BTMovie! More to come...

Intern Stephanie checks out Creative Solutions

Hi! I’m Stephanie, a student at SMU that's interning here at Big Thought. Last week I had the opportunity to go visit Creative Solutions, a Big Thought program for at-risk teens. Here's what I saw!

For three days I helped a photographer (who currently serves as a Big Thought Board member) as she took portraits of all the kids in the program. I was absolutely blown away by these kids! Having the chance to interact with them and watch them have their pictures taken was amazing. Some of them had never had their portrait taken before! The kids came in two at a time and while one was having their picture taken, the other would crack jokes or make faces to make them laugh. You can just see their personalities shine through the photos and how they interacted with each other and with us. Some were very particular about how they looked in the pictures; others weren’t all that comfortable having a camera lens in their face. But the really amazing part about observing them was seeing that all their energy was going towards whatever project they were working on. Peeking in the visual art studio, hearing a student’s poem, or feeling the drumming from the percussion rehearsal just proved how creativity is really changing and challenging these kids. I can’t wait to attend their final show and see just how far they’ve come!

To give you a taste of what's going on behind the scenes over at SMU with the Creative Solutions students, I made some video clips of the dancers, the visual art kids and the percussion ensemble! Check them out at http://tinyurl.com/BTMovie/.

Stay tuned for more...
-Stephanie