Opera and Theatre games - Round 2

Richard Blakeney, COT Teaching Artist

Hampton Elementary School

This year at Hampton is moving quite fast as we prepare for our Winter Showcase, December 13th at 2pm.  The students voices can be heard rehearsing The Boy and the Wolf and Se Vuol Ballare every Thursday morning.  They are ready to impress their parents and friends with their stage presence and teamwork, not to mention their Italian.  We have also been rehearsing for their Knightly News performance that was on November 19th.  It was a huge hit with the students at Hampton.  I would not be lying if I said that the Young Artists' Voices rang through the halls of Hampton Elementary during their visit.  They received applause and cheer from teacher and student alike.  We lost a week to Turkey Day, so now we have to work extra hard to get ready for the 13th.  Here is one game we have been playing to enhance student engagement and reinforce positive behavior.  It can also be used for classroom management and creative expression.  Call and Response, with clapping and voice cues are used every day in Hampton's opera class.

Duration: 10 minutes

Preparation: 

Before class, select a list of key phrases or sentences from the designated text. Virtually any lines can work, though the best choices are lines that carry an emotional or aesthetic punch and that are essential to an understanding of the text.

Procedure:

The class gathers in a large circle. Everyone in the room needs to be able to make eye contact with one another. Ask the students to pull their shoulders back, take their hands out of their pockets, and avoid crossing their arms during the vocal warm-up. This will help them to open their voices, to speak with conviction and clarity. Next, walk into the center of the space and call out lines of text. The students repeat the lines back in chorus. Read with emotion, matching the tone of the text and encouraging students to match the energy and quality of the reading.

You might then playfully point to individual students and challenge them to match your level of energy. The warm-up continues with many lines moving back and forth between you, individual students, and the entire group.

Reflection: Based on the lines you heard in the Call and Response, what predictions can you make about the text?  What was your favorite line of today’s Call and Response?

Cameron Elementary School

This year at Cameron, the students' and parents' participation has started off more like a Blast of Activities for All instead of Opera for all.  As Amanda said, their program just started in the beinning of November and since then they have had performances of Knightly News and the Chicago Opera Theater Young Artists.  The audiences for these two performances were comprised of parents and students alike.  Even with all of that activity, the students have been excited to start acting, singing, and writing their own opera!  We have a visit with the lyricist, Alyssa, on December 7th and we are preparing by brainstorming and writing about potential characters, settings, and plotlines.  We have asked the students to create Space-themed writings, the theme of this year's Opera for All.  Here are three games we will be playing as we create text for our Space Opera.  Check out artslit.org for more classroom games.

Duration: 45-90 minutes

Procedure:
Divide students in the class into four or five groups. Ask each group to answer one of the questions from the character’s perspective, in first person. Certain qualities help monologues to be effective including: use active words, ask questions, speak in the first person, and have a beginning, middle, and end. Give students about twenty minutes in class to develop the monologues. Ask students at the end of class to share their drafts.

Continue to work on and revise monologues. When the monologues are ready, adapt the scenes from the text (see adapting the text activity), and insert the monologues into various points in the scene. The final performance will then be a combination of scenes from the actual text combined with student-generated monologues.

Reflection: 

What are the qualities of an effective monologue? What are the best ways to combine the monologues with adapted scenes? What do you learn about the characters by creating the monologues? What do you need to know about a character in order to create a monologue true to that character?

Duration: 20 minutes

Procedure:

Jan’s students each took a piece of paper and pen and sat in a chair or on the floor in a place where they were comfortable. She explained, “There is not a right way or a wrong way to write. This is your life. These are your stories, your words. Write as fast as you can. Don't take your pen off the paper.”

Jan then gave students a series of prompts for which they were to write quick lists, allowing a brief time for each topic. The students began writing. After about thirty seconds she instructed, “Stop. Draw a line across your paper. Don’t worry if you didn’t finish. This is about generating quick ideas. Next topic.” She had her students brainstorm in rapid succession the following topics:

• Foods you love to eat
• Images or things in your neighborhood
• Things you did when you were a child, toys you played with, memories, places you went
• Music you like to listen to, music that rocks your mind, settles your soul, music you listen to escape, lyrics from songs that come to you
• Things you love, things you love to do, your grandmother, your best friend, climbing on mountains, taking a vacation, anything that comes to mind.

When students finished, Jan explained, “This will be your cheat sheet, the notes you will use. I will give you a poetry prompt. Begin with the words ‘I come from.’ Use that phrase as often as you like and fill in with words from your lists. Play with it. Add to what you’ve written. Change it. It just helps to have something to begin with. You have 10 minutes to create a poem.”

Students worked silently on their poems using the rough ideas from their rapid brainstorming page. After about ten minutes, Jan instructed the students, “Pick up your paper with the poem on it; get up on your feet; walk around the room; just walk. Now read your poem out loud. Don't worry about anyone around you. Just start reading.” Students walked and read their poem aloud.

After a brief time, Jan stopped them and explained, “The next time you walk, I want you to edit the poem down to a size you would be brave enough to share in the room. Choose the parts you want to keep, and those you want to throw out. This is what I call editing on your feet. Take your pen with you. Add something new if you like.” Her students walked again, reading their poems and editing as they walked.

Jan instructed, “Find a partner. Introduce yourselves. You’re just going to read a little bit of your poem. Choose person A and B. A will read to B. B, please be the most respectful listener on the planet. Make eye contact, I won’t let you read for longer than a few seconds. Go.” Students read until Jan said, “Switch so that B is reading to A.” 

Jan then brought the class together in a circle. “First repeat after me ‘I' [everyone said ‘I’ in chorus], ‘Come,’ [chorus], ‘From,’ [chorus], ‘I Come From,’ [chorus]. Now we’ll go around the circle and you will share your edited poem with the rest of the class. Read as much of your poem as you are comfortable sharing. For you, maybe that’s just one line or one verse, or maybe it’s the whole poem. Share any part you want.”

That summer in Jan’s class, students read the novel Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. After the students read their own poems, and before they began reading the novel, Jan gave an inspiring speech that captured the essence of why we read and why we write:

These are very personal poems. We're doing this as artists, as poets. This is how poets begin writing poems. They begin at the very beginning, by just using basic language, introducing themselves, telling a little bit about their story. And when we get into the Bless Me, Ultima, you’ll hear another person telling a story; and it's a lot more words, and that's the only difference.

Jan’s process of rapid brainstorming breaks down inhibitions and encourages innovation. We’ve used this process in a variety of classrooms when beginning different types of writing from narrative to poetic.

Duration: 20-30 minutes

Preparation:

Prior to this exercise, the participants had been exploring the concept of childhood spaces. Robert asked them to think of places that were important to them as children. In pairs, they shared their stories.

Procedure:

Robert then handed everyone a standard size sheet of paper. He demonstrated, folding the paper in half, then in half again to form four equal parts.

Robert explained, “In the first quadrant write the name of the place from one of the stories you told earlier. When I say go, start drawing circles around that word until another word comes to mind. Then quickly write that word and begin drawing circles around the new word until you think of another. Fill the first quadrant up with words and circles. Don’t take your pencil off the page. If you can’t think of another word, then keep making circles. You have about three minutes. Go!” 

In the second quadrant, Robert asked everyone to write an important question someone else might ask about the story, “something that is missing from the story as you previously told it. A very important detail or perhaps some background knowledge that you didn’t explain the first time around.”

In the third quadrant, Robert asked the participants to focus on the senses. He instructed, “There are five basic senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. Write a word for each of those five senses that relates to your story so you will know the story you are telling by just those five words. A sight. A sound. A taste. A texture. A smell.”

In the fourth quadrant, he asked everyone to write a headline that captured the essence of the story.

Robert then instructed, “Using all this rough material, take out a fresh sheet of paper and begin to write your story.”

Variations:

Over the years we have added variations to the four quadrants, depending on when and how we have used this tool in the writing process. We have asked students to do the following:

• List the key objects in your story
• Write a mini-dialogue between two characters
• Sketch the setting of your story
• Describe the setting
• Describe one of the major characters in your story
• Describe one of the minor characters in your story
• List the major symbols in your story

A setback is just a setup for future success: Beginnings at Cameron

Amanda Compton, COT Teaching Artist

After much turmoil surrounding the teachers' strike and other various scheduling issues, we were finally able to bring our program to Cameron Elementary two weeks ago.  With a lucky twist of fate, we now have the students for an hour and forty minutes instead of just the normal hour, which will allow us to incorporate our lyricist, Alyssa Sorresso, this fall semester.  I have already had the privilege of working with Alyssa at Reilly Elementary to create lyrics reflecting everything from a heartfelt decision regarding divorced parents to a wacky language from outer space, and I am very excited to see what new ground we can explore at Cameron.

Cameron students with Teaching Artist, Richard

It is already clear that we have some seriously creative minds at Cameron.  Two of the children are veteran musicians of a local choir, two are percussionists in band, and a few others have shown us their enthusiasm for acting games.  But it is also clear that the group has some challenges to overcome.   We have one student that only speaks Spanish and needs our instructions translated during class.  We also have a few different age groups that are in different phases of their educational journey.  Therefore, my partner teacher, Richard Blakeney, and I decided it was most important to give the group a good foundation for working together and becoming a successful ensemble for their future production.  We made our expectations clear, and asked them what kind of behavior they thought would contribute to the production in a constructive way.  Together, we made this list of important elements:

Be respectful

Raise your hand to speak

Be courageous and participate during every session

Trust each other and work together to be creative 

Show responsibility by being prepared and doing what's asked of you

Be courteous and don't say bad words

Pay attention

Be honest

Once we all felt safe to express ourselves, the rest of the day was fun filled and energetic!  We began with an acting game that required the students to walk from their seat in the auditorium up to a lone folding chair.  The trick was to be a character other than yourself, and to show that character in your physicality alone.  The kids were already learning to take risks and add specificity to their motions when their character was not clear the first time.  Doctor Who was an especially and surprisingly popular source of inspiration...perfectly apropos of our outer space theme this year!

For the rest of class we honed in on rhythm.  I played some different excerpts of music, ranging from Black Eyed Peas, to Mozart, to Gershwin, and asked the kids to find the beat.  Most of the kids clapped to show the beat.  So I asked them to find the beat a different way, with a different part of their body.  Then silently.  Then "faster" or "slower" to get them attuned to different subdivisions of the beat.  They started to listen more actively, and became attuned to what their peers were doing with the directions until they were in sync with one another.  We delved even further into rhythm by learning the pulse of a quarter note, eighth note, triplet, and sixteenth note.  We related each note to a common, everyday object:

quarter note=phone

Eighth note=apple

Triplet=camera

Sixteenth=calculator

Once they got the hang of those pulses and different permutations of the order, we learned how musicians notate those rhythms, and created some original rhythms.  We then did solo and ensemble performances of the musical bars.  It was very inspiring to see the shyest children give it a try in front of their peers, and even better, to succeed.  I think we have a good balance of leaders and hard workers in this class, and I am looking forward to see where this unique and gifted group of children takes their show.  Be courageous, Cameron!  I will be there rooting for you!

Chicago Opera Theater Young Artists Sing and Share

Jessica Lane, COT Education Assistant

It's as simple as the title sounds.  3 musicians from our Young Artists program (pianist and 2 singers) come with us for a day to each of the Opera for All schools and share what it is like to be them!  They sing arias and some selections from musicals for the students, connect it to what they are learning in the classroom, and talk about how they became opera singers.

In the past week I was able to see Matthan Black, Megan Williams, Catherine Spitzer, and Sarah Jenks (pianist) work with the students at Reilly Elementary, Chase Elementary, and Cameron Elementary.  There are two more days and three more schools to go and I cant attend, but I know the students will love their Sing and Shares as well.  (Loren Battieste is also performing for the students, but I couldn't make it to see him.:( )

Matthan makes Catherine, Sarah, and Cameron Elementary School laugh.

As far as I can remember, in childhood, I believed that whatever you became, you started working towards that goal in high school, or even middle school, or maybe even elementary school.  Now, I know that is not true, but as a kid, that is the perception of career that I held onto.  The students in our Opera for All program think the same thing about opera singers sometimes.  They believe that you are almost pre-destined to become an opera singer, and that it is not something they can attain.  Through the Sing and Share we were able to address some of the myths our students had about opera singers and how you become one.

Megan, for example, started as a ballet dancer and fell in love with opera when she danced in one.  Matthan started as a guitarist and rock and roll singer.  Sarah wanted to be a doctor!  Once the students heard how the path to becoming a singer was a choice that anyone could make, we started getting questions about how they could do it too.

Megan, Matthan, and Sarah talk to students at Chase Elementary School.

After the class at Chase Elementary School we had a group of about 5 girls asking what they could do now to become singers in the future.  It is so exciting to see them interested in opera, a type of music many of them didn't know anything about until this fall! 

I also want to take this chance to give a huge bravo (bravi tutti?) to our Teaching Artists.  In every school I was able to visit the students were prepared, knew what was going on, and were engaged in the performance the entire time.  All of the students are already familiar with opera and most of them are comfortable talking about it.  I am incredibly amazed at what they have accomplished over the last 12 (ish) weeks and cannot wait to see the final performance at the end of the year.  Our Teaching Artists travel all over Chicago, to places not that easy to reach by bus or train, every week to work with these students and teachers.  You guys are doing an incredible job and I am so thankful to work with you and learn from you.

We are finished with our fall semester on December 14th, but between now and then the students practiced singing and acting, created a storyline and written the lyrics to their opera, attended the Adler Planetarium, the Magic Flute, the Young Artist Sing and Share, Chicago Opera Playhouse's Knightly News, and performed for their parents in the Winter Showcase.  The first semester has been packed, but the students are soaking it all in and are already gearing up for their opera in June!

Violin classes at Reilly

Amanda Grimm, Violin Teacher

 

Violin classes at Reilly have gotten off to a great start!  These first weeks we practiced rhythms, sang melodies, and learned about the different parts of the violin.  We also made cardboard violins out of cereal boxes and decorated them to look like real instruments! 

 

Over the next few weeks, we will learn how to hold our "practice violins" as well as the bow. All of the students have been doing very well and I am excited for the months ahead!

 

 

The students' favorite part thus far has definitely been decorating their violins but a few have expressed excitement over learning to hold the instrument and practicing.  In order to learn to hold the bow properly, we have met our "bunny friends."  Our bunny friends are the shapes we make with our right hand in order to approach the bow hold.  We have also gotten to the point where a lot of the students can hold their instruments with no hands! This is a critical step as we move forward to prepare for the use of wood instruments.

 

We have practiced two different rhythms, the 'Mississippi-Stop-Stop' rhythm and the 'Strawberry-Blueberry' rhythm.  We are also learning the song "This is My Violin."

Supernova Scenarios - Script and Character Development

Lisa Golda, COT Teaching Artist

The students at Hampton and Clinton are coming up with some out-of-this-world, cosmically cool script and character ideas and are in the final stages of script writing for their operas! At both schools, I've been working with the kids for the past three weeks on guided brainstorming and written journal assignments that complement the teachers' curriculum for literacy while also resulting in characters, settings, and plot-lines for our students' scripts, and material that can be used in the future for songwriting when our lyricist and teaching artist Alyssa Sorresso comes in for songwriting sessions. 

I asked students to create characters, space scenarios, and motivations, which were then woven into stories utilizing logical feedback and random elements from all involved students during class discussions. This process emphasizes writing for the stage, which must establish setting, character, motivation, and plot line quickly and clearly for the audience without lengthy explanation or back-story; a good way to teach kids how to be concise and logical in every day writing.

One student's response to our writing prompt.

Clinton students have decided that their opera will involve alien child-princesses in disguise, a gang of alien-human supervillains, and a trip to a far-away planet. According to Mrs. Kobs' class, Princess Mega-Nebula of planet Nebula, fascinated by Earth and Earthlings, disguises herself as a human child on a dare and travels to Earth, where she impersonates a human teacher. She takes her students on a field trip to outer space, but forgets that she will revert to alien form when she leaves the Earth atmosphere. . .and suddenly transforms into her original, scary appearance (yet to be determined by Mr. Cieslik's class!) Her father shows up to take her home, and her students/peers, after initial horror, accompany her to her home world, where they are introduced to her culture and customs by her fellow Nebulanians. Mr. Cieslik's class will be studying ancient civilizations, so we decided to focus the kids in this class on this aspect of the story since it would complement his coursework. Ms. Kobs felt that her children would benefit from addressing both the students' and their alien teacher's perspectives, and so they were assigned journals on that topic. 

Disaster is brewing in the background, meanwhile, as an interplanetary crew of space-villains led by Dr. Alien Abductor connect via a villains' networking website and decide to band together to pursue their nefarious plots: brain eating, core-stealing, alien slavery and planetary annihilation! Will a genius child, too sick to go on the field trip, intercept their communications with his evil detection tool, or will Princess Elastic infiltrate the evil band and foil their plans? We haven't decided yet. Ms. Breigshuit's class is learning how to "wrap up" a story so, at her request, they are in charge of that element of the script, and have decided that the kids will clone themselves and send the copies home so that their parents are unaware that they are gone. Mrs. Thomas' class invented the supervillains, for the most part, and their objectives. I couldn't make this stuff up. But the kids sure can, given the right steps and an encouraging, creative atmosphere. Many of our students are participating in opera for their second or third year, and that makes a HUGE difference in their comfort level, creativity, and the receptivity of their peers! 

Alien Girl

Students at Hampton are sending their characters on a journey to settle a new world because of an impending supernova that will destroy the Earth. They have populated their ship with a team of settlers including a space doctor, twin sister architects, the Unknown Assassin, a space mechanic, a gourmet space captain on the hunt for ice that will be the foundation of the galaxy's best ice cream, Cookie the ship's cook, and more. Ms. Paz's and Mr. McFarland's classes created these and many more fantastic characters to staff the ship on its exploratory mission. Mrs. Ochoa's class created the residents of Zrdak, the alien world where the human ship lands, and they are the warlike BeardNuggets, SpaceDogs, and Princess Roseberry and her court of Gardeners. When the human ship crash-lands in Princess Roseberry's garden, the aliens must decide whether to observe, attack, or attempt to communicate with the insensitive humans; a good exercise that is a parallel to the work Mrs. Ochoa has been doing on Native American perspectives in her class. This class is creating these potential scenarios in their journals this week, and we will vote next week on the direction of the plot. Mr. McFarland's class will create the "crisis council" scene on Earth, describing the conditions that lead to their decision to abandon our world; and Ms. Paz's class is creating the discovery scene, in which the human explorers land and observe their new world! All of the scenes will, despite this astounding detail, be short and concise, setting the stage for the songs that will follow, to be written in sessions with Alyssa Sorresso! Take a look at a student that was carried away with alien visualization! 

Oh no! He's become an alien!

Mozart Week at Reilly Elementary

Jessica Lane, Education Intern

For someone who loves the arts and wants to be an elementary school teacher, last week was awesome!  Before I tell you how wonderful I think Reilly Elementary School, Classical Kids Live, and the Oistrach Orchestra are, let me tell you what the students at Reilly Elementary School were able to experience.

The program is one week of a larger outreach program called Music Inspires!, a collaboration between Classical Kids Live, the Oistrach Orchestra, and Chicago Opera Theater to bring performances into schools throughout Chicago.


Music Inspires! from Hannah Goering on Vimeo.

Monday was a 1st through 4th grade assembly with the actors of Classical Kids Live, a string quartet from the Oistrach Orchestra, and COT Education Manager Linden Christ.  The student were introduced to the string instruments in front of them and the characters of Mozart and Mozart's son Karl from Classical Kids Live.

Then, each class got to spend a half an hour with Linden or I learning more in depth about Mozart, asking questions, and listening to music.  We spread this out over Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Finally, on Friday, the 1st through 4th graders got together again to watch Mozart's Magnificent Voyage with the entire Oistrach Orchestra and Classical Kids Live.

Students watch Mozart's Magnificent Voyage

The performance was wonderful but, by far my favorite part of the entire week were the 30 minute lessons I was able to teach each individual class.  It was just so much fun. The students were amazed by the life of Mozart, his music, and the musicians.  They had so many questions about who Mozart was.  Each student wanted to know him personally and asked where he lived, how long ago he lived, when he died, and about his family.  Many of the students are not native English speakers and speak Spanish at home.  The classroom teachers were so kind to translate for me from English into Spanish (I really need to learn Spanish!) and the students paid attention even when I knew they could not understand me.  Playing music helped a lot because they could understand the way it sounded and would even act out the instruments with me! 

Mozart week at Reilly was a fun adventure for me, and I hope the teachers, the principals, and the students had as much fun as I did!

Chicago Opera Theater For Teens

Chris Richard

Teaching Artist for Chicago Opera Theater For Teens

We just ended our 3rd week... 3rd WEEK!!!!!  I don't know where it went.  Marta & I have been really excited by the teens who we have in the group this term.  Everyone seems to be really participating and enjoying themselves.  I think for some learning the discipline it takes to sing this kind of music has been a struggle, but I get the sense that they are finding it rewarding!  Just in case you haven't read previous blogs, COT For Teens will put on our production this term rather than the spring.  We wanted to change things up.  We are performing another great Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, 'Trial By Jury.'  Of course it's completely ridiculous and fortunately it's a one act... meaning the whole show is only one act and it takes about 35 minutes to perform.  It's all sung with no dialogue.  Usually in the past we have done cut down version of full length shows.  So we are anxious about how this will all work out!

The first week is usually spent getting to know each other with lots of name games and theater games to get them used to being 'out there.'  They have been jumping in to those thing full on!  In fact, it almost seems like that's all they want to do!  We have been working on the opening chorus, 'Hark! The hour of ten is sounding!,' and we all seem to be having fun with it.  We are also working on two other larger chorus sections. Near the end of the first week and usually into the beginning of the 2nd week Marta & try to get to know our teens voice a little more in depth.  Our process is to have each of them get up in front of class and perform and everyone has to try it.  Some sing something classical, other sing something they learned in school chorus.  Others will sing some pop or R&B tune they know from the radio, we get an occasional music theater tune also.  It's fun and intimidating and the teens are incredibly supportive of each other.

We call it 'Death by Aria'!  It's a term I learned from a young artist stint I did with an opera company.  It just gets everyone over the nerves of singing in front of everyone.  Marta & I use this as a way to cast our show.

Last Saturday, the end of week 2, we took a majority of the teens to see Marta perform!  She has been the music director for Light Opera Works concert called 'Operetta's Greatest Hits.'  It's a stylized concert of lots of great tunes from the operetta world that was staged and arranged for a more intimate setting.  Marta was at the keys and there was a violinist, a bass and another instrumentalist who switched between flute and clarinet.  It made for a really wonderful evening for the students.  The performance was at Nichols Concert Hall is Evanston.  Light Opera Works graciously donated the tickets for us - THANK YOU!!!  On the way to the performance, the teens were singing on the train...mostly pop tunes and songs they know from church.  But then I 'made' them sing 'Hark! The hour of ten is sounding.' It was awesome!  The ending was a little rocky but they got applause from the few people that were in our car.  It was great! Our teens were really blown away with the performance and made several comments about liking certain performers. A couple didn't understand the story line.  I had to explain that there were many tunes from a variety of operetta shows and that this was a concert setting with no real story line.  It's understandable that they asked this because Light Opera Works director staged it in a way that made 'characters' and relationships between them so that the concert wasn't just a stand and sing.  I thought that was clever and it was a good teaching moment with our teens to talk about.

This past week, week 3, was a good week too.  We had really good attendance and the students have been really responsible about communicating with us - which is a huge lesson to learn!

We have announced the casting of our show and everyone seems to be even more excited about it!  We read through the score without the music as if it were a play.  This was done so that we could really delve into the story and talk about specific things that need further explanation.  After all, this is a play - it just happens to have music...the entire way!

Looking forward to the rest of the semester and year with our teens!

Making Progress at Marillac

Lisa Golda, COT Teaching Artist

Marillac students, ranging in age in both our after-school sessions from 3rd to 7th grade, are a loving but rambunctious group! Due to the CPS strike, they were the only students who saw the COT production of The Magic Flute at the beginning of the year; a creative and artistic advantage that we are returning to again and again as we work with the kids, who are not always in the mood to focus at the end of their long day! But they are participating, happily if a bit too exuberantly, for the most part, and that is a great place to start.

Students at the COT's Magic Flute

 After some trial and error, we have built enough of a respect and rapport with the students to start each session with silent theatre & sound games, such as clap/gesture mirroring (one student claps a rhythm and sits down; other students stand quickly, mirror it, and sit; repeat!, in SILENCE) to get them focused, looking and listening; and also to create an environment that emphasizes conduct expectations and routine. We have been able to leave that framework successfully for longer and longer periods of time to explore specific aspects of performance and creation focused upon their upcoming winter preview performance, and of course their year-end opera.

 

This picture is of students acting out the abduction scene from The Magic Flute; part of their preparation for attending that performance! 

 

 

We've started staging the Boy and Wolf fable with both classes; an activity that they have requested we repeat, even though we are still teaching them about rehearsal expectations and reining in the inevitable chaos that is part of that process. As usual, some of our liveliest students are wonderful actors and performers. But even our quiet students are supported by their peers in their efforts to express themselves dramatically, and that is really wonderful and unusual. Their attempts to guide and direct each other are well-intentioned, although sometimes disruptive. The first of our two classes is making excellent progress with the fable and will be ready to perform it for Winter Preview.

 

This week, Justin and I got the other group (a very feisty bunch) thinking about the setting for their opera by showing them the final portion of 2001: A Space Odyssey (dir. Stanley Kubrick). This portion of that landmark film features a chaotic operatic and symphonic score, as well as visual effects that were years ahead of their time and non-computer-generated. The kids watched this colorful kaleidoscope of "space" scenery, interspersed with cuts to the astronaut, in silence. We explained about mid-way through that this astronaut had been marooned in space and was exploring a new space frontier out of necessity. Justin pointed out the fact that computers did not create the effects, and that we had not even landed on the moon yet at the time the film was made. They finished watching the footage. Then we asked them to reflect in their journals upon how the music made them feel, and what they thought the footage represented, since there is no dialogue; and to tell us in words and pictures what they thought was happening. One child remarked thoughtfully that perhaps the astronaut was hallucinating all of the effects, given that he had been marooned and might have been hungry and dehydrated. . .!!! 

 

 

The picture above is of the students working--the girl in the background writes extensive reflections, and will probably be one of the primary authors for the script for that class. 

 

Student's aliens!

 These students are so delightfully positive and supportive of one another. I feel confident that we will be able to channel their initial fascination with The Magic Flute into a unique artistic creation, once we have channeled their energies into appropriate classroom conduct, the process of which is already underway

Chase Elementary Charms First Time COT Teaching Artist

Alyssa Sorresso, COT Teaching Artist

As a first time teaching artist for COT, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I had mainly worked with teenagers in the community and juvenile facilities prior to COT, so the thought of teaching 30 elementary school students each class threw me for a loop.  How would they act? Would they love us? Ignore us? Overwhelm us with their energy?

I was pleasantly surprised when Linden and I had our first day at Chase Elementary.  The students were so refreshing in their enthusiasm for music, and the teachers so supportive and involved.  I could see these kids wanted to get up and move! They loved playing a fun game called Zookeeper where they physically interacted with each other to form different animals. They were also captivated by the Magic Flute’s “Queen of the Night” aria and had thoughtful insights into what the Queen felt as she sang.

We discovered Mr. Dzja’s class had been hard at work on opera vocabulary during the strike. Each student made and decorated an opera fan with a musical term! Super adorable, and boy, did they know their vocabulary! This extra step by Mr. Dzja is the kind of involvement we feel from all of our Chase partners.  The school had even procured a movable keyboard for us so we could practice Solfege and teach our first song, “Se Vuol Ballare”. 

I’m really looking forward to continuing our journey into opera with this school.  The students have already demonstrated a growth in confidence with their performance skills; we had one girl in Ms. Martinez’s class volunteer to sing a song out of the blue! Her voice was wonderful and her bravery set a clear bar for her peers.  I’m excited for more risk-taking and creation from our Chase students!

Me posing with the student's fans

How to Play Zookeeper:

Participants are animals in a zoo, and the lead facilitator is the “Zookeeper”.  Participants are instructed to mingle about the space, filling up any space they see.  The Zookeeper has 5 commands, 4 of which are animals that participants have to create with each other:

1^st animal: Octopus. Requires 2 participants to stand back-to-back, link arms and wiggle arms like a 4-armed octopus.

2^nd animal: Centipede.  Requires 3 participants to stand in a line, each placing their hands on the shoulders in front of them.  Participants them move together like a centipede.

3^rd animal: Bird. Requires 4 participants , one forms a beak, two form wings behind the beak, and the 4^th creates the tail behind the wings.

4^th animal: Beehive (concededly not an animal).  Requires 5 participants, 4 join hands in a circle around the 5^th who is in the middle.  The 4 participants on the outside spin in one direction, while the person in the middle rotates in the opposite direction.  Everybody buzzes like bees.

Participants who fail to link into an animal, or if there’s a group forming an animal with too many participants, are “out” and become Zookeepers with the facilitator.

5^th Commend: Zookeeper.  The Zookeeper can shout “Zookeeper” at any time and all participants MUST freeze.  They cannot move except to blink or breath. The Zookeeper will then, without touching, try to make the each participant laugh.  Whoever laughs becomes a Zookeeper with the facilitator, and will help the make other participants laugh the next time the command is used.  Because of this, the “Zookeeper” command is usually used after a few rounds.  All of the “out” Zookeepers will help with this command.  The last person standing is the next Zookeeper.

COT Opera for Teens 1st Day

Jessica Lane, COT Education Intern

How lucky COT Education Manager, Linden, and I are to have a job where we can pop into class with 25 high school students who are excited to study opera! 

Yesterday was the first day of the After School Matters COT for Teens program.  Linden and I went to help out Teaching Artist Christopher Richard as his teaching partner, Marta Johnson, couldn't be there.  They went through their normal first day stuff of going over the rules, writing down phone numbers, taking attendance, getting everyone signed up online, and finding everyone.  We passed out scores for the one act opera the students are doing this semester, Trial by Jury by Gilbert and Sullivan. 

 

The students were excited about the opera and it was obvious that some of them had done their homework on the operetta and who Gilbert and Sullivan were.  One student was in a past production of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera done by COT Opera for Teens, Pirates of Penzance.

After all the work was done we got to have fun.  Chris introduced us to a singing chant that can help the group learn names and gets all of us singing and creating motions to go along with our name.  It was so much fun and you can find the chant below.

Linden and I also get the pleasure of taking some of the students on a field trip this Friday to a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience.  Its a one act operetta like Trial by Jury and there are some COT for Teens alumni in the production.  We will be taking the El from downtown to Savoyaires in Evanston so there should be plenty of time for pictures then.  

My only regret is that we all got so into spending time with the students that we didn't take one picture yesterday!  That just means we will have to go back another time. 

The Chant!
This chant is done as a call and response with everyone in one large circle.  The leader starts with going through the lines a couple times just getting used to the words and melody.  Once everyone is comfortable  then you can go around the circle and have everyone sing their own name line.  The entire group repeats the name and then you move onto the next person.  When the entire circle is done you go back to the lines again.  Each time around the circle you can add new rules like using a motion with your name, singing the name of the person next to you, or changing the melody. 

Lines: Freedom is sweet. (Freedom is sweet)
          It's on the beat. (It's on the beat.)
          It's got freshness. (It's got freshness.)
          It's got zestness. (It's got zestness)
Name Line:  It's got ____(name)______ (It's got ___(same name)___)

It also helps to keep everyone together by clapping on the 2 and 4 or making up your own beat!

Opera and Theater Games

Richard Blakeney, COT Teaching Artist



At Hampton we have gotten the year off to a great start. The students at Hampton are learning lots while having fun. Building an ensemble in the classroom creates a safe place for discovery and exploration. At Hampton we are eagerly learning “Se Vuol Ballare” and “A Boy and Wolf”. Memorization and rehearsing can be boring and cause student to loss interest if not done in a fun way. Please enjoy the passage from Dr June Cottrell’s book” Creative Drama in the Classroom, she decribes the importance of “Reinforcing Bi- Modal Learn” in the arts classroom. Translation- get students out of their seats and imaging, role playing while memorizing or doing logical activities. They will be more engaged and learn more. Much to this end I offer two games we have been learning at Hampton. The Singing Opera Circle is a game that requires the Instructor to model good practice techniques for student while they are still learning the text.  It reinforces bi- modal learning and creativity in young performers. Sequencing the Story is a game that teaches students to work in a group, while using rhythm. Students learn to focus better on their line and when they should be delivered. The instructor challenges the students to “pick up the beat” or “cue pick up” to better tell a story. These are theatre games I have modified over the years to enhance performance for young actors and singers.

“Traditionally, most classroom learning emphasizes the logical, rational, linear, and verbal functions of the left hemisphere of the brain, yet many children(and adults) learn best when they can employ visualization, intuition, imagination and metaphoric, and spatial thinking- processes resident in the right hemisphere. Ideally, all students ought to use and strengthen their abilities with all functions, with teacher’s recognizing that for some learners the emphasis on left-hemisphere learning does not fit their preferred learning style. Opera learning in the classroom, offer experiences in which both hemispheres play major roles, with a considerable amount of traffic, both directions, over the corpus callosum, that remarkable bridge that connects the two halves of the human brain." “(June Cottrell, Creative Drama)

The Games:
 
The Singing Opera Circle

1. Students take their chair and make a circle in the center of the room.

2. The instructor tells the group, to copy every word exactly the way it is called.

3. When the students are responding to the instructors call, students must stand up and move to the next seat to the right.

4. Students repeat both vocal and physical gesture offered by instructor.

Instructor side notes:

- Calls must be over exaggerated to receive best response from students

- If the students have a problem repeating a word or phrase, clap the phrase while making the call and have students repeat with the clap.

- Once the calls are fluent and fast the instructor should start sing or rapping calls

- Instructor models good singing technique with call - For best responses no vibrato should be used and singing in head voice with no weight - will receive best response for the groups of young learners

- Instructor should model different gestures that enhance physical storytelling of the poem.

- Instructor repeats until 90% of students respond together

Sequencing the story

1. Students stand in a circle

2. Students are assigned a line of poetry

3. Students establish a sequence, when the first student recites their given line of poetry, then making eye contact and pointing across the circle to the student with next line in the poem.

4. Students continue until all the students in the circle have recited their given line.

5. Repeat until the students are Fluent with sequence.

Instructor Side note

-Students are told that this is a rhythm game, and that they should pick up the beat. There should be no beats between sequenced line responses.

-Students are encouraged to speed up the sequence or slow down by responding after or before the beat.

-Some groups of students require a few rounds of “Sequencing with Numbers” to get the gist of the game- same rules, simply replace numbers with lines of poetry.

-Students should repeat this game until no one drops a beat

- Larger groups work best when learning this game.

Add- ons

- Once students have established a great sequence, have them add a gesture. Once each student has chosen a gesture for their line of poetry, have students work to make a statue of the poem.

- Each students repeats their line of poetry and gesture and freezes before the next student in sequence begins there line of poetry. When each student freezes they make physical contact with the person before them. Then process continues until everyone has delivered their lines and gesture and the statue is built. Student repeat and try to use different gestures to tell the story.

Young Artists sing at New Trier High School

Jessica Lane, COT Education Intern

Hello blog readers, I first want to introduce myself.  My name is Jessica and I am the Fall Education Intern here at COT.  I have been here for about a month and am loving it!  How lucky I am to not only work with the Opera for All program and COT for Teens, but I also get to tag along with the Young Artists.

Yesterday we went to New Trier High School's Freshman Campus to work with their choirs.  Many of them had never been to an opera, and were far from calling themselves opera fans. Their director, Tim Estberg, wants to change that.  He invited the Young Artists to perform (a slightly shortened, 1 act, version of) The Magic Flute for his choirs and the choir and Young Artists sang the finale together!  The Freshman Choir only had a couple weeks to prepare, but they sounded amazing.  If they sound this great at the beginning of the school year, I cannot wait to hear their concert in the Spring. 

The students loved the performance and the Young Artists are so talented, the entire group watched in silence.  When Papageno was looking for Papagena at the end there were some Freshman students who wanted to volunteer to be his Papagena if the real one didn't show up!  They were just so funny, and really enjoying themselves.

The Queen of the Night tries to win Tamino over.

Sarastro comforts Pamina after his guard threatens her.

After the finale, students were given a chance to ask the Young Artists questions.  Instead of the silly questions I was expecting, the students really wanted to know what it was like to be an Opera singer.  I could tell some of them were considering it for their future.  Having a great choir director like Tim is a step in the right direction!

COT Young Artists answer the student's questions.

Being in a school and seeing how students view the experiences COT offers them reminds me of why music and arts education is so important.  All of the students are going to see The Magic Flute at the Harris Theater on Sunday with their teachers and families and I can remember what it was like for me to be at the opera for the first time.  They will see the stars of COT's Magic Flute as well as the Young Artists they met Thursday on stage.  For some of them, like it was for me, it could be the moment they decide to be an opera singer.  How exciting!

-Jessica

PS: You still have two more performances left to see COT's Magic Flute, so don't miss out on this really awesome re-imagining!

Week 2 at Saint Vincent de Paul and Opening Day at Marillac!

Justin Callis, COT Teaching Artist

This week was our first day with our new students at Marillac!  It was really wonderful to see how excited our students were to be in the classroom, and just how energetic they were.  They really amazed us with their operatic singing and their enthusiasm.  We got right to work teaching them our opera gestures for the Magic Flute and getting them pumped for the performance!  It was so much fun taking them to see the opera the next day.  The bus ride was a bundle of energy and excitement, and the kids really enjoyed the field trip.  They ate lunch in Millennium Park, were interviewed for a video about Opera for All, and then sat down to the first act of the Magic Flute.  It was amazing how much they remembered about the opera from what we had taught them the day before, and it was truly rewarding to know they were paying that much attention to what we had said.  The kids were amazed.  So many of them had never seen an opera before, and watching them discover that it was fun and accessible was a real joy.  I can't wait to see them again on Tuesday!

Week 2 at Saint Vincent DePaul Center was a lot of fun.  We spent the first half of class playing games, and getting the kids excited to be there.  Even after such a long day at SVDP, the kids still had so much energy, they were doing handstands every time I looked away!  The games we played, Zip Zap Zop and Boppety-Boppety-Bop highlighted teamwork and focus, and I think the students got a lot out of it while still having lots of fun.

Justin teaching Boppety-Boppety-Bop

Then, we talked about Mozart.  Only a few of the students had heard of him, and they were all astounded that someone who lived so long ago was still so important to the world of music today.  We also taught them the opera gestures all of the other students were learning, and they found the story exciting and interesting.  And they were only a little disappointed when they discovered that the story was all made up!  I can't wait to get back in the classroom with them to continue our work on tableaus!

Justin

A New Adventure at St. Vincent DePaul Center!

Bryna Berezowska, COT Teaching Artist

A group of students filed onto the stage in the St. Vincent DePaul Center not knowing what to expect from their first day in this “Opera Class”. Bryna and Justin, the Chicago Opera Theater teaching artists, enthusiastically sang their introductions to the somewhat startled kids. They were met by a few giggles, applause, and a lot of wide eyed wonder that these regular looking people were opera singers. They played a name game that incorporated rhythm with clapping. The students sang their name to the beat followed by something that started with the same letter as their name. Bonus points were given to anyone who could think of something relating to music, dance or acting!
A brief video of the performances from last year’s student groups was played for the kids and you could see the excitement building on their young faces. Over the next year they will get to create their very own show!  

 Through the games and exercises played during the class, it was revealed that there were many budding dancers, actors, artists and singers in the mix. For example they played one ‘question’ game that allowed students to raise their hands and demonstrate skills in a fun way. Some of the questions were as follows. “Who has been in choir? Who has taken a dance class or loves to dance? Who can make the best funny face? Who can beat-box?” The students enjoyed participating in the game and the teachers learned a great deal about the students and their backgrounds! The students also enjoyed acting out the first act of Mozart’s Magic Flute with props and costumes! At the end of class they brainstormed some brief ideas for the final show! You could tell they couldn’t wait to get started on their new adventure in this class!

Here is a picture of the Teaching Artists Justin and Bryna, joined by their partner teachers Carl and Dominique! They are having a great time playing with the props used in the first class! 

 

New Challenges at Hampton!

Lisa Golda, COT Teaching Artist 

We've had two sessions thus far at Hampton with Ms. Paz, Ms. Ochoa, and Mr. McFarland, and so far, the year is off to a magical start! We have two classes of lovely and lovely youngsters, and our oldest group is chatty but creative and very musically talented. Although Richard is new to this school, and the kids can be tough, he has already captured their trust, fascination, and respect with his amazing teaching approach. I have a video in which the kids cannot help but dance for joy and excitement as he sings with them, but yet are behaving and in total control of themselves. Sounds like a contradiction, but it isn't!



I am learning so much from the way Richard models and communicates expectations through theatre games, rather than lecturing about them (which NEVER works, anyway; but how else can one establish the rules? This way!). Richard also reminded ME, through his example, that students are fascinated when we perform what we are trying to teach them, rather than talking about it!

We know, though we forget, that a gesture, a sound, a facial expression, are worth a thousand words. This is the basis of theatrical performance, of course. And, everyone has heard about those teachers who can get a room of students on their side and in their seats with a LOOK. Try to explain that process mechanically (this is what you do with your body, your energy, etc. etc, blah blah) and you'll lose a group of elementary school kids. Communicate that to the students both through modeling of standards and by showing them with your own performance how exciting gesture and sound can be, and all of a sudden, you have a roomful of enthusiastic, impressed, inspired young actor-singers!

We used this concept in two ways. I taught two of our classes Se vuol ballare, a song they will be presenting at the Winter Preview in a few months, in just one class period, in this way. First, I explained the situation between Figaro and his boss the Count that precipitates the aria in age-appropriate terms. I had the students, many of who speak Spanish, find the Spanish cognates, such as ballare/baile and signor/senor. Then I performed it for them, in character as the Count, with all the menace and disrespect I could muster! They were instantly hooked and wanted to sing it with me because they were fascinated by the dramatic tension of the situation--Figaro is furious!--that I did my best to model in gesture, vocal inflection, and facial expression. Just teaching it to them by rote would have been boring and a chore. But they were, I think, fascinated by the angst in the situation. And I think they liked being entertained while they learned.

Richard had introduced the gesture/sound concept to them the first day by giving them five or six gestures and sounds to associate with characters in the Magic Flute; such as a pantomime of a flute for Tamino, or an outstretched hand and the famous theme (from Die Holle Rache) of the Queen of the Night. They will attend a dress rehearsal of the COT production of Mozart's , Die Zauberflote, The Magic Flute, next week (and base their own opera upon the themes of adventure and exploration evoked by COT's intergalactic setting of the work). This week, we reviewed those gestures, then had the kids act out other scenes in the opera as we gave them a synopsis of the plot. They were eager to act in the second class; which is quite unusual; and their choices were often quite clear and appropriate. This gets us off to a great start. They will no doubt be super excited after they see the show!

As we attempted to assess their takeways from the second day, we realized that themes of family communication (dysfunctional in the opera!) and tests were present in the work. We hope that the kids will understand that challenges in life, though they test your character, prepare us to tackle the next stage in our growth. Their comments on Pamina and Tamino's troubles included : "What kind of dad kidnaps his own daughter?" (Indeed). and "Maybe they had to take all those tests to prove they were worthy of each other." It will be fun to hear, after the opera, how they interpret what they see and hear; and also to take those observations and interpret them in their own story of challenge and discovery! We plan to ask them, again: Tell us, in a sentence or two, what the Magic Flute is about? What is the MORAL of the story? We'll see what they have to say!