Busy October

• Faculty Michael "Sean" Harris sojourns in Spain

• School of Drama remounts dramatic double feature• JCDCʼs Jamaica Visual Arts Competition and Exhibition

• Rex Nettleford Arts Conference

In a recent discussion with a very young educator, I discovered that there are growing concerns

about the way our children are being taught in our schools. The conversation that ensued led to us sharing how the arts may be used to enhance the classroom. I took the opportunity to share that the Edna Manley College of the Visual

and Performing Arts (EMCVPA) has a Junior Department (ages 3-18 years old) that offers training in Music, Dance, Drama and the Visual Arts. I believe that the EMCVPA has a major role to play in ensuring that Jamaican children are exposed to some aspects of the arts. I stumbled upon a research some years ago called “Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning” (1999) which showed that students who participate in the arts and outperform their peers on virtually every measure. The research also revealed that “sustained learning” in music and theatre correlates to greater success in mathematics and reading.

The editorial’s ‘call to action’ is for all of us in the education system to advocate for a deliberate inclusion of the visual and performing arts in the teaching system beginning at the primary level. The benefits of this will be tremendous as we would be creating not just rounded individuals but a workforce that thinks creatively. Adobe’s report, “Creativity and Education: Why it

Matters” found that “85% of people agreed that creative thinking is critical for problem solving in their career” (2012). Let us play our part in creating a society of “creative thinkers” by initiating the discourse about a full integration of the arts in our education system.

Our second issue of the Collegiate is reflective as the principal shares her thoughts on the inclusion of dance education from Kindergarten to Grade 12 in Jamaica. We take a look at Campus living through the eyes of our Manager for the Hall of Residence and a peek at what member of faculty Michael Sean Harris is doing in Spain. We also have our regular Campus News that will share some of the happenings at the EMCVPA and we decided to share a special event the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission is currently promoting. Do enjoy this issue!

One loveColeen Douglas

Marketing/Public Relations Manager, EMCVPA

EDITORIAL

Photograph by Mark Samuels

From the Principal’s Desk

October 2013 is Conference Month, which brings to the fore for the College, the issue

of research in arts and culture and the meaningful discussions, and actions, to effect economic and social development.

The Vision 2030 Jamaica National Development Plan has been ever so often, a point of reference for me as I engage in my various activities in Dance education, and for the past year, in my role as Principal of this consequential institution. Two of the National Outcomes are outlined as “World-Class Education and Training” and “Authentic and Transformational Culture” (xvi). The Plan asks the question “what do we have to do?” in linking national strategies to these outcomes.

The EMCVPA, more so than any other arts-affiliated institution in

the island, is the engine for any development relating to arts and culture. Therefore, what do we need to do at the EMCVPA? I highlight three strategies from the Plan in which we can engage:

Ensure that adequate and high quality tertiary education is provided with an emphasis on the interface with work and school.Strengthen mechanisms to align training with demands of the labour market.Preserve, develop and promote Jamaica’s cultural heritage.

I also add other strategies that we need to undertake as a College:Develop and follow the short- and medium-term (5 year) strategic plan for the infrastructural and programme development of the EMCVPA.

Research-engage in literature

reviews, case studies, action research, document findings, present at conferences, publish.Engage in and/or drive policy discussions on the treatment of arts and [invariably] culture for national development.

Seek and/or develop opportunities for effective and mutually beneficial collaborations.

I invite you to join us for the second biennial Edna Manley College Rex Nettleford Arts Conference, October 16-18, 2013, held under the theme, “The Creative Industries: Sustainable and Social Transformation” as we discuss these and other strategies for the arts in national, and regional, development. There will be nearly 90 sessions in performances, workshop/lecture demonstration, video and paper presentations and exhibitions.

Also, look for my article on page 4 , where I introduce the topic of the inclusion of Dance Education in our national primary to secondary school curriculum as we must begin this dialogue for the further development of wholesome national arts education policy.

On a lighter note, thank you for all your comments and suggestions from our last issue of The Collegiate. Our Marketing and Public Relations Department will try to include your suggestions as best as possible. A big shout out to Rawle Gibbons in Trinidad and Tobago, and yes Rawle we had to!

Please remember you can reach me anytime by dropping a line to principal@emc.edu.jm.

SincerelyNicholeen DeGrasse-Johnson

Principal EMCVPA

The Inclusion of Dance Education in the K-12 Formal Curriculum in Jamaica

(Part 1)

Vision 2030 Jamaica: National Development Plan is produced by the Planning Institute of Jamaica in 2009 and outlines the vision for the development of Jamaica over twenty-year period between 2010-2030.

Part of the background of the UNESCO Position Paper for the First World Conference on

Arts Education in March 2006 states that Art Education—which aims at passing down cultural and artistic heritage to young people, giving them the means to create their own language, in one of the various art disciplines, and contributing to their personality development on an emotional and cognitive level—has a positive influence on a child’s overall development, including academic and personal. The paper further states that such an education, when it makes use of a child’s creative potential, strengthens the acquisition of knowledge and life skills including creativity, imagination, oral expression, manual ability, concentration, memory and personal interest in others.

The arts—dance, drama, music and visual arts—contribute to educating the whole person and to development of human community. Our children need experiences in the arts as an indispensable component of their human development; this includes required skills for personal and invariably national consciousness or advancement. The arts are necessary for a complete education that prepares children to participate in the social, cultural and economic advancement of society.

Dance EducationFor the purposes of this article, I focus on Dance, as it is my area of emphasis and, because I believe it is now time to start the national dialogue to remove Dance from under the Physical Education curriculum.

It is in doing that we engage pertinent learning outcomes of cognitive-knowledge, affective-feelings, physical and social-relationships. According to a Chinese proverb:

“I hear and I forgetI see and I rememberI do and I understand”

Dance is a strong element of the Jamaican artistic, cultural and social expression, therefore its formal acceptance should be an integral part of curricular activities and ought to be encouraged if we are to fully educate our children to accomplish the Jamaican National Development Plan for 2030.

For the past three decades, dance educators in Jamaica have developed dance curricula for public educational institutions, but there is still a need to justifying the necessity of dance as part of the general school curriculum and the advantage of its institutionalization as a discrete subject to the wider society. Assuming the objective of our schools is to provide total education, then every child should be given the opportunity to participate in a structured, discrete dance programme. Educators and parents have the right, and even the duty, to ask what dance can contribute in making education better and it is also their right and duty to find the best means necessary to enhance the education process of the child. Dance allows children to appreciate rich and diverse cultures, beliefs, and societies. It involves the “whole child” while developing intuition, sensitivity, reasoning, imagination and dexterity.

Promotion of a National Arts PolicyHowever, for every child to be afforded the benefits of dance education, dance should be included into the formal curriculum as a matter of policy. By making a policy for dance education (the arts in education) there will be a

method of determining present and future decisions. Such a policy would address major issues like curriculum revision and teacher education, making dance education an essential part of the early childhood through secondary education core curriculum. A governmental policy on dance education will ensure its place at the education table in the school’s formal curriculum.

Paulson notes, “It is easy to lose sight of the most fundamental issue at hand—that students need opportunities to develop all of their intelligences, including the kinaesthetic, in order to be able to think and communicate in traditional systems and in artistic symbols.” Our teachers’ college and university education programmes should to prepare our teachers through kinaesthetic learning utilizing dance as a subject giving them a broad view of its creative process as core. Dance is important to the future of our children. Let us own the dance for them and make the whole. Nettleford says it well when he writes, “Exposure from an early age to creative responsibilities engenders in young people a spirit of independence, self-assurance, and a sensibility of excellence.”

National development depends on individuals who are confident, able to connect to their own feelings, respect others, are able to imagine and create new images from this consciousness, and who solve problems in innovative ways. It is important, therefore, to expose our children to creative means of transformative education and to include the arts in education for purposes of social and economic development. An arts policy is a necessary and reasonable next step to secure the place of the arts, specifically dance, in schools.

-Nicholeen DeGrasse-Johnson Principal EMCVPA

Vision 2030 Jamaica: National Development Plan is produced by the Planning Institute of Jamaica in 2009 and outlines the vision for the development of Jamaica over twenty-year period between 2010-2030.

• http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/files/40341/12650399675UNESCO_Position_Paper.pdf/UNESCO%2BPosition%2BPaper.pdf • Proverb from an unknown source.•Vision 2030 Jamaica: National Development Plan is produced by the Planning Institute of Jamaica in 2009 and outlines the vision for the development of Jamaica over twenty-year period between 2010-2030.• Paulson, Pamela. “New Work in Dance Education.” Arts Education Policy Review. 95.1 (1993): 30-35. Print.• Nettleford, Rex. Dance Jamaica: Cultural Definition and Artistic Discovery: The National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica 1962-1983. New York: Grove Press Inc., 1995. Print.

Living on campus anywhere in the world has numerous advantages including

convenience, forging lasting friendships and an opportunity for personal development as students learn to share and be tolerant of others. The Hall of Residence at EMCVPA opened its doors in 1996 and has the capacity to house one hundred (100) students. It means, therefore, that living on hall is a privilege and students who are awarded rooms must display good citizenship and a desire to participate in college events and activities.

Ninety percent (90%) of students living on hall are housed in

single rooms but they share bathrooms and kitchens with other students on their respective flats. The rooms are all equipped with a single bed, desk, chair, closet, and a bedside table. All the flats have a common area and kitchen equipped with stove, refrigerator, and a microwave. Students are expected to take their own utensils and linen as they are not provided with these items.Campus accommodations are similar to standard rentals as students renew their agreement on a yearly basis (September 1 –May 31). Allocation of rooms is not automatic and as such, students are required to apply for room each year.

The EMCVPA Hall of Residence is not just a place for students to sleep, but a living learning community where they are exposed to out-of-classroom learning experience, through various developmental programmes. We also facilitate co-curricular activities on the Hall which promotes discipline, time management, and team work. The management team here on the Hall believes that “housing isn’t just a need or service; it is an opportunity to learn”

-Rudolph Rowe Halls of residence Manager

CAMPUS LIVING

EMCVPAat the

Assistant Director of the School of Music and Lecturer in Voice and Music Technology, Michael Sean Harris, was one of the recipients of the CHASE Fund scholarship to EMCVPA. He is one of 20 students selected out of 3000 applicants for the programme - a Masters in Music Technology Innovation at the Berklee College of Music, Valencia Campus, Spain.

The programme provides students with a deep knowledge of innovations and contemporary

developments in music technology, electronic musicianship, and music production. Students are mentored and guided by faculty in, among other topics, hybrid arranging, composition, recording, editing, and manipulation techniques, live interactive performance systems, and the means of forward-thinking musical innovation.

Michael describes the facilities and faculty “as first class and they strive to provide anything you might need to accomplish your goals”. Speaking

of the course, he shared, “the course is designed to keep us on the edge of our comfort level at all times and each assignment is set within certain limitations to spark our creativity”.

Graduates of this programme are better prepared for rapid changes in the music industry and adaptable to new creative directions.

We can’t wait to have Michael back here at the EMCVPA to share his knowledge with our students!

Plans for graduation 2013 are fully underway and in true EMCVPA style, special

guests will be treated to a world class production as we send off our graduates in style.

Under the theme, “Growing the Arts…breaking boundaries to the imagination”, Graduation 2013 will have as guest speaker Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Smithsonian Institution National

Museum of Art. Dr. Cole is a distinguished educator, cultural anthropologist, and humanitarian and was the first African American Female President of Spellman College.

the Vine

GRADUATION 2013

Michael “Sean” Harris one year sojourn in Spain

CO•A•LES•CE, certainly the only word in the english lexicon that aptly describes the

natural way in which the School of Drama at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts has brought together the plays God’s Door by Russell Watson, School of Drama alumnus, and Crave by British playwright Sarah Kane. The juxtaposition of these two distinctly different yet thematically similar productions into a double feature presentation forms an exciting opening to the School of Drama’s 2013-2014 year of theatrical productions.

Still on a high from their success in the Actor Boy Awards, earlier this year, the Schoool of Drama is not known for dabbling in the mundane and with the joint mounting of God’s Door and Crave, with their similar themes, motifs and an exploration of human nature, albiet in separate social contexts, they continue to push the boundaries of theatre while developing well accomplished theatrical experts. Two of their burgeoning theatrical experts on display in this production are directors Rachel Allen and Cyprian Fuller.

Speaking on the process of remounting Gods Door, director, Rachel Allen, notes that ... continued

“this play has contributed a good deal to my personal

growth and development as a student of the theatre, given

the complexities of our modern world and the need to make conscious choices as a young

emerging female artist.”

Described as expressionistic, God’s Door, which was first mounted in the 1990s while Watson himself was still a student at the School of

Drama, is an ambitious and unabashed portrayal of the themes of religion, hope, sexuality and personal choice. The play concerns itself with the interaction of four characters, who, after an unfortunate accident, find themselves in a purgatorial realm faced with their individual moralities and history of personal choices. The plot itself focuses on the contestations, testimonies and confessions of characters ‘Clove’, ‘Joel’ and ‘Keith’ as they seek to justify the lives they have chosen to live while trying to dissuade the central character, ‘Maria’, from her quest for salvation.

Crave, on the other hand, first mounted in 1998, presents four characters, ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, and ‘M’, on the brink of their emotional and

psychological ends or, as some interpreters of Kane’s material posit, it perhaphs presents four contrasting aspects of human nature all of which are reeling from the experiences of a traumatic life. It explores how each struggles to cope with the falsehood, deception and ignorance of society along with the personal demons and insecurities they are struggling with.Crave director, Cyprian Fuller, discusses the characterization in the play,

“the characters’ anguish they utilize intense language and

physicality for a means of expression. The rawness of their

expressive quest proves to be futile, thus pushing them even

further over the edge.” Fuller continues,

“in my interpretation, the production shows each character

as a descendant of a single traumatized mind reflected through separate lifetimes.”

The stage will be officially lit on this hotly anticipated double feature as part of the College’s second staging of its international Rex Nettleford Arts Conference on October 18, with shows continuing for two weekends only, ending on October 27, 2013.

Contributors: Elton Johnson and Karel Smith

REMOUNTS DRAMATICDOUBLE FEATURE

REMOUNTS DRAMATICDOUBLE FEATURE

The COLLEGIATE is a monthly newsletter published by the Marketing and PR Department of EMCVPA