Posts Tagged ‘Idaho Commission on the Arts’

Postcard from Idaho

Thursday, September 13th, 2012

September 13, 2012

by Rocco Landesman

A scene from Noises Off by Idaho Shakespeare Festival!

The name of the production I saw at Idaho Shakespeare Festival might be Noises Off, but the laughter was definitely on! Photo by DKM Photography

Last week I headed west to see how art works in Boise, Idaho. It was a great trip! I mean, when you get to spend the day with Esther Simplot, who’s just a smart and engaging arts patron, and Congressman Mike Simpson, how bad can it be? My trip started with a meet-and-greet with the arts community in Boise—the opera folks, the ballet people, the theater crowd, just people from all the different arts. It was especially nice to see the gang from the Egyptian Theater. Last time I was there, they greeted me by putting my name up in lights on the theater’s marquee. (And I’ve got the snapshot in my office to prove it!)

There was a lovely reception at the Esther Simplot Performing Arts Center. Our hosts for the reception were Michael Faison who heads the Idaho Commission on the Arts (ICA), Terri Schorzman who heads the Boise City Department of Arts and History, and Mark Hofflund, who runs Idaho Shakespeare Festival. Mark also chairs the ICA’s board and used to be on the NEA’s National Council on the Arts. It was great to visit with Kay Hardy and Gregory Kaslo from the Egyptian Theater, Marilyn Sabella who used to be a commissioner with ICA, and Ballet Idaho’s Paul Kaine and Peter Anastos who also brought along a couple of their board members. Opera Idaho’s Mark Junkert was also there with Marshall and Leslie Garrett from their board as was John Michael Schert of Trey McIntyre Project.

This visit really was like being back with old friends. I think that what you see in Boise is a great example of creative placemaking. For example, the Trey McIntyre Project, which is a nationally and internationally known touring dance company, received a 2011 NEA Our Town grant. They’re using that funding to engage more in their own immediate community directly. We’re talking schools, and hospitals, and the like.

One thing I noticed this trip was that on the street there were banners hanging that proudly proclaimed Boise as an arts city, and a home for the arts, which means that much of the identity of the city now is with the arts. The community is very proud of the vitality and vibrancy of the arts scene in Boise. It’s especially great to visit Boise with someone like Esther Simplot who is not just engaged with the community but does whatever she can to support it financially. Not surprisingly, one of the things we discussed was the importance of the collaboration of private sector support along with local governmental and political support, and how you need that kind of collaboration to have a vibrant creative community. (more…)

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An Inside Look at Idaho’s Arts-Powered Schools Summer Institute

Wednesday, September 5th, 2012

September 5, 2012

by Michael Faison, Executive Director, Idaho Commission on the Arts

Art teachers use rollers to make a colorful fabric piece during the Art Powered Schools professional development workshop

Participants at the 2012 Arts-Powered Schools Summer Institute get hands-on during their final collaborative project. Photo by Idaho teaching artist Mike Shipman

“We can all use imaginative thinking across every part of our lives—and we can all learn to do it better.” — Eric Liu

In 2001, the Idaho Commission on the Arts and the Idaho State Department of Education collaborated on a baseline survey of arts education in Idaho’s elementary schools. The survey results identified a need and strong desire by Idaho elementary teachers for arts education pedagogical training. The outcome was the long-term partnership between the arts commission and the state department of education called Arts-Powered Schools Summer Institute.

Now in its tenth year, with the invaluable support of the National Endowment for the Arts, Arts-Powered Schools’ residential summer professional development institute immerses elementary educators in strategies for teaching in and through the arts. From June 17-22, 2012, nearly 100 elementary classroom teachers and administrators, arts organization education managers, and Idaho teaching artists gathered at the College of Idaho in Caldwell to grow their arts education pedagogical capacity and design teaching-artist residencies for the benefit of Idaho elementary students.

The 2012 Institute focused on “Imagination, Creativity, & Innovation.” Throughout the week, teaching artists led elementary-school teams from around Idaho in active, art-making sessions that stimulated imaginative thinking, which led to creative action and ultimately to innovation. In other words, educators learned how to model—and teach through—the creative process. They learned how to apply experiential learning to instruction supporting Idaho Humanities Content Standards. Then they pulled together learning objectives across multiple areas of inquiry with an essential understanding—in other words, a “Big Idea.” And what was the Big Idea for this year’s institute? We can all use imaginative thinking across every part of our lives—and we can all learn to do it better.

Participants received early inspiration from Eric Liu and Scott Noppe-Brandon’s Imagination First: Unlocking the Power of Possibility, and the first day’s keynote by Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein, authors of Sparks of Genius, the 13 Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative People. Building on the Liu and Noppe-Brandon concepts, all institute presenters modeled the authors’ “29-½ Practices” in their sessions, ultimately offering a field manual for ways to spur imagination in our lives.

(more…)

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Postcard from Idaho

Friday, April 9th, 2010

April 9, 2010
Washington, DC

 RoccopodiumBoiseWeb

During an event at the Esther Simplot Performing Arts Academy in Boise, Rocco spoke with representatives from Idaho’s arts and culture community as Mayor David Bieter looked on. Photo by NEA staff

Thanks to an invitation from Congressman Mike Simpson, Monday morning found me more than 2,000 miles away from the Old Post Office building in Boise, Idaho. So what?s Idaho doing right when it comes to the arts? In a word: everything. Boise Mayor David Bieter has been a leader in using the arts for urban revitalization. In fact, in addition to expected municipal departments such as Police and Public Works, Mayor Bieter has created an Arts and History department. Just one example of how art works in Boise is the Egyptian Theatre, which Idaho Arts Commissioner Kay Hardy has refurbished and renewed. It?s a stunning place now and a magnet for tourists with arts presentations of all kinds.

Also on the topic of the Idaho Commission on the Arts, Executive Director Michael Faison is one of the most dynamic arts leaders in the country. He covers a vast territory—I think every day he must be traveling some 100 miles. He?s a very enlightened guy, very passionate, very smart, very dedicated to what he?s doing. The arts are in great hands there. I also had a chance to meet Mark Hofflund who?s the chair of the arts commission and recently finished his tenure on the NEA?s National Council on the Arts. Somehow Mark also finds time to work as the managing director of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival (and write posts for the Art Works blog). What a beautiful theater space! You can look through the stage and you see the mountains and the prairie, and it?s a great setting for theater. They?ve attracted an audience that?s about as diverse and widespread as you could imagine, all income groups, every kind of audience component that you could imagine is there.

I should mention that it?s critically important to supporting a vibrant cultural community to have an arts reporter like Dana Oland who I met in Boise and who?s been involved with the NEA Arts Journalism Institutes. She really understands the arts and really covers the beat and, when you have a paper that supports the arts, it makes all the difference. One of the most alarming trends in journalism is the same thing that?s happening at schools?the arts seem to be the first thing that goes. The Idaho Statesman is very enlightened about this, and it?s one of the bastions of progressive outlook about the arts, there?s no question.

On Monday, we also ventured to Twin Falls and Jerome, Idaho. In Jerome Congressman Simpson and I took in a wonderfully frenetic, highly physicalized, 50-minute ?Shakespearience? production of Othello. Shakespearience is an arts education program of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, and it receives support through our Shakespeare for a New Generation program. The performance was a delight. The actors were very accomplished, and the kids loved it. They totally engaged in it. I think it?s really important to give kids access to programs like this one. First of all it will be a passion of theirs all their lives in many cases. And it?s creating future theatergoers and future patrons of the arts. And to the extent that the kids are engaged in the arts in the schools, kids tend to stay in school.

And speaking of arts ed, I?m looking forward to sharing a podium with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan this afternoon. We?ll be speaking here in DC on ?A Well-Rounded Education in the 21st Century? at the spring conference of the Arts Education Partnership. We?ll post a link on the blog when my comments are available online.

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