shannon

[shannonbrinkley]

Happy Monday, friends! We’re looking forward to spending the week with some wonderful young people. These are some of our Grade 9-11s working together on unpacking signs and signals, with @whatsjanetlindley @shabba_the_ghost and @tatu963 . #dramaticneed #createchange #creativechange #artseducation #visualliteracy (at Rammulotsi Manyanya Viljoenskroon) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtdI8JwgbVX/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=y5er5aqf35jm

[shannonbrinkley]

Welcome to Dramatic Need’s new Grade 8 group in Rammulotsi! Many of these young people will be part of our creative community for the next five years and beyond! Let’s go! . #artseducationmatters #CreateChange #DramaticNeed #NewFriends #NewFamily #NewYear #CreativeChange #rammulotsi (at Rammulotsi Manyanya Viljoenskroon) https://www.instagram.com/p/BspfDBwgGKV/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ln1hu3kha7l6

[shannonbrinkley]

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Between 25 November (The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women 2018) and 10 December (Human Rights Day), the South African government (amongst others) marks 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children. This campaign aims to raise awareness of the ubiquity of violence within households and intimate contexts, which in South Africa is primarily directed against children and against women, female-identifying and non-binary individuals. Dramatic Need works with many vulnerable adults and children using arts-based advocacy and community theatre to build awareness, self-confidence and help them to speak out against abuse and abusers. We also work with boys and young men to encourage them to better communicate and to express their anger and frustrations in a non-violent way. This form of psychosocial care is crucial if intimate partner violence is to be obliterated in future generations. In support of all those who are vulnerable to domestic, intimate and carer-inflicted violence, we will be posting short videos of individuals from all walks of life, from all round the world, highlighting the appalling extent of this problem in South Africa . Please share these videos with people you love. It’s time for awareness and it’s time for change. #16daysofactivism2018 #dramaticneed #creativechange #nomoreviolence #thisneedstochange https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dramaticneed Thank you to @msrazzb 🧡 https://www.instagram.com/p/BrCuZZVg_I0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=5kyiin873tbn

[shannonbrinkley]

We are SUPER excited to announce that on 20 May the historic and multi-award wining MARKET THEATRE in Johannesburg, South Africa are staging The Dramatic Need Children’s Monologues in aid of the charity. They are using a combination of both the 2010 and 2015 London Monologue scripts so the show will be a unique version of The Children’s Monologues, not seen before. Performing are some of the finest actors on the African continent, including Lesedi Job, Sonia Radebe, Robert Whitehead and Masasa Mbangeni with music from Tshepo Mngoma. But most importantly of all (for us at Dramatic Need), some of the children we work with who contributed the original testimony will be travelling to Johannesburg to perform on stage in their professional theatre debut. We have taken these stories around the world and we COULD not be prouder that they are now coming home…. Please share and if you are in South Africa, or know someone who is, make sure you/ they don’t miss the show!

[red-lipstick]

Obie Oberholzer aka Petrus Cornelius Jacobus “Obie” Oberholzer (b. 1947, South Africa) - Diesel & Dust, South Africa      Photography

[shannonbrinkley]

Siobhán Shiels Does Voluntary Work at Dramatic Need

  This year we hit the ground running. 

Our first volunteer this year is Siobhan Shiels from Ireland and she specialises in choral conducting and compositional facilitation. She says that being a musician is a highly rewarding job that enables her to flex many musical muscles, for example in the past few months her work has been; vocal coaching, piano tutoring, song writing, composing score for film, recording in the studio for the e.p. of her band Great White Lies and arranging and conducting a combination of choirs from across Donegal and Derry to perform enmasse as a celebration of the song tradition in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England.

She loves her work and adores the diversity and the many peoples she encounters along the way. She chose to come to volunteer with Dramatic Need as she wished to immerse herself in a totally different culture and demonstrate an outlet of expression and creativity. She believes engaging people in the arts creates a way of coping with daily life, builds character, strength and confidence.  She has been involved in  some wonderful projects in Ireland, both as a leader and participant, and knows the glorious benefits being a part of the arts can bring, and hopes to encourage others to join her on this path. 

[africanstories]

Young woman, Zleh Town, Liberia, 1968

Photo by John Atherton

More on africanstories.tumblr.com

[shannonbrinkley]

Fading Dreams

[mama-bebe]

[shannonbrinkley]

Children - they deserve: protection, education, nutrition, medicine, tenderness, support, encouragement and love. It's a long list, but not much to ask....

[shannonbrinkley]

Angee and Colin's Bios

Angee Lennard

Angee Lennard is an artist, art administrator, and teaching artist. As founder and Executive Director of Spudnik Press Cooperative, she oversees a range of community-based arts programming including open studio sessions, classes, a residency program, keyholder memberships, consignment printing, collaborative projects, youth programming, and exhibitions. Angee Lennard is also a teaching artist, primarily through Marwen and Spudnik Press. As a Marwen Fellow, Angee acts as an advocate, role model, and researcher for Marwen teaching artists. Her own artistic practices includes printmaking and illustration. Her work is often narrative, incorporating comics and illustration. Past clients including Green Lantern Press, WBEZ, and musicians Jonas Friddle and Sunnyside Up. Recent group exhibitions include Expo 72 and Chicago Urban Art Space. She has been an Artist in Residence at AS220 and Ragdale. Professional affiliations include the Chicago Printers Guild, Southern Graphics Council, and Mid America Print Council. She received her BFA with an emphasis is Print Media from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2005.

Colin Palombi

I am a print-maker, video artist, and educator. My work focuses on themes of repetition, discovery, and interpretation of documents and found materials through story telling. As an educator I recognize teaching as a creative process in its own right. I am interested in integrating my teaching practice, my art, and their respective processes in rewarding and inspiring ways. These interests have deep roots beginning in High School. When I was 18, I was involved with a group of young artists that founded a not-for-profit organization whose mission was to provide creative outlets and resources for teenagers identifying as artists. The Association for Young Artists and Musicians (AYAM) played a big part in my decision to stay in Chicago after graduation. I went on to earn a BFA with an emphasis in film and video from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004. Through these years I worked as a youth group mentor, and founded a national touring film series that was in partnership with Chicago’s Ice Factory, a shared artist space and collective.  It was through these experiences that I began to see that art making, working with youth, and facilitating space for expression and the sharing of ideas could be integrated. Upon gradation I was hired by the Montessori School of Lake Forest (MSLF) to teach art, art history, and media literacy. At this time, MSLF was just starting a new farm based adolescent program. By joining this emerging program, I was able to work with and learn from established teachers to develop a syllabus that integrates both academic work and practical life skills that fulfill the developmental needs of adolescents. I have been teaching at MSLF now for 8 years and have expanded in my role by working with students to sell and market produce grown on the farm, as well as to oversee a lunch program funded and run by entirely by the students. My classes cover basic art skills from drawing to video editing, as well as provide a context in history and human development. I push my students to not only understand the elements of art, but also come to see that they are creative thinkers with their own unique strengths and approaches. Over the years I have continued to hone my teaching practice through continued education. I completed the Association Montessori International (AMI) Assistants to Infancy training in Denver, CO in 2007. The following year I completed a Masters Degree in Montessori Education from Loyola College in Baltimore, MD. Most recently I have completed the Orientation to Adolescent Studies program offered by The North American Montessori Teachers Association (NAMTA) and AMI. I have also found importance in pushing myself outside of Montessori education to experience other avenues of teaching. In addition to teaching at MSLF I have become an involved member and instructor at Spudnik Press Cooperative, a non-profit print studio, as well as a teaching artist at Marwen, another non-profit organization which offers free art classes to Chicago’s under-served youth.  It is through these two organizations that I have been able to teach in depth to my artistic strengths – printmaking and video. I’m excited as ever to further develop my skills and insights as an artist and teacher. I’m interested now in expanding and building on what I know by learning from others and moving out of my comfort zone. I feel that I am poised, professionally and personally, for new challenges and experiences. In 2010 I was asked by a literary publication, Artifice, to create a time-based companion to a poem. This spawned my current interest in animation as a collaborative process to tell stories and explore repetition and rhythm. I have since taught several workshops and classes in optical toys, animation, and its history. I recently collaborated with Angee Lennard to expand our understanding of the medium and found in her a creative partner. We have come to realize that animation is an exciting medium that draws on our individual strengths. By collaboratively teaching through Dramatic Need, we hope to supplement each other’s specialties, and learn from each other as well as our students.

[ipekinlondon]

Art therapy is a mental health profession that uses the creative process of art making to improve and enhance the physical, mental and emotional well-being of individuals of all ages. It is based on the belief that the creative process involved in artistic self-expression helps people to resolve conflicts and problems, develop interpersonal skills, manage behaviour, reduce stress, increase self-esteem and self-awareness, and achieve insight. Art therapy integrates the fields of human development, visual art (drawing, painting, sculpture, and other art forms), and the creative process with models of counseling and psychotherapy.

American Art Therapy Association (via ipekinlondon)

[good]

Illumination Intermission: When 6,000 Light Bulbs React to Your Movement - Pete(r) Karinen wrote in Creativity, Video and Intermission

Artist Muti Randolph explains the concept behind his amazing, interactive installation.

[shannonbrinkley]

2012 Art show prep!  Exciting times are ahead as our all-girls class helps prepare artwork for a finally "gallery" style show - with all work labelled and mounted.

[shannonbrinkley]

[shannonbrinkley]

Enkosi kakhulu Tata Madiba! 

Happy 94th Birthday Mr Mandela from all of us at Dramatic Need!

[shannonbrinkley]

In anticipation of the African continent's largest design show, the Design Indaba, featuring in March, we stumbled across this beautiful artwork displayed in a design show in Milan last year.  The beaded vases are better known as Story Vases and are a testament to the lives of the women who carefully craft their words into beaded form.  We couldn't not share this amazing work, seeing as it's a ingenious collaboration fostered between Swedish design collective Front and the Kwa-Zulu Natal women's entrepreneurial initiative Siyazama Project.  Read more about the work created here.

Image Credits: Design Indaba

[shannonbrinkley]

THE CASE FOR CULTURAL LEARNING

The Cultural Learning Alliance, (CLA) a powerful, UK-based advocacy collective which works to ensure that arts and culture are not sidelined from Children's education and development in the United Kingdom. The CLA has recently published a groundbreaking paper entitled    which effectively argues for arts and culture to be a major part of every child's education. We at Dramatic Need couldn't agree more! 

To read the paper click HERE.

And here is what the CLA has to say about themselves:

The Cultural Learning Alliance is a collective voice working to ensure that all children and young people have meaningful access to culture in this difficult economic climate.

Arts and culture are a life-enhancing and essential part of our existence. They bring pleasure, participation, self-expression and essential skills into children’s lives. By speaking with one voice and working together, we can realise our ambition for all children and young people to have an entitlement to quality cultural learning. The Alliance brings together the diverse parts of the cultural sector to work together – including museums, film, libraries, heritage, dance, literature, new media arts, theatre, visual arts and music – with the education and youth sector.