I rarely chaperone field trips because school buses are noisy and other people’s kids are obnoxious. But sometimes my kids’ field trips go to places and events I really want to see. Case in point: Seattle Symphony.
The symphony’s Link Up program provides classroom curriculum before the day of the field trip to prepare kids for what they’ll see and hear. Then they attend an interactive version of an orchestral performance.
I took this photo when we first arrived, but the orchestra played to full house of third to fifth graders on that day. And the audience wasn’t even obnoxious.
I guess you could technically call the spring performance of Kaleidoscope Dance Company at the Broadway Performance Hall a “recital” since the performers are all children studying at the Creative Dance Center. But the performance is so much more interesting and entertaining than that word implies. Attending it is starting to become a tradition for me.
Kaleidoscope Dance Company
I admit, when I went for the first time last year, it was for the very recital-like reason that my family had friends who were performing. I first learned about the Kaleidoscope Dance Company researching an article for ParentMap that included the Creative Dance Center, a non-profit dance studio that teaches dance to infants through adults based on brain development theory. Kaleidoscope is the performance division of the school, and they’ve recently added a second performance group, Mosaic Junior Company, for younger dancers.
Bronwen Houck Photography c/o Kaleidoscope Dance Company
Even though my research made me curious and I knew two kids
who were performing, busy schedules and distraction kept me from attending for
years. Last year, I finally got tickets to the spring show (they also perform in
December) and I could have kicked myself for waiting so long.
Creative Dance
Since dance is almost synonymous with classical ballet in my
world, almost any contemporary dance company would probably seem fresh and
different to me. But the fact that Kaleidoscope dancers are all youth also
works in its favor. Whatever may be lost in technique and precision (which is a
lot less than you would expect, actually) is made up for in the avoidance of cliché.
The choreography (mostly by program alumni, and some by the
dancers themselves) takes advantage of the fact that the dancers are kids in
stages of development. This doesn’t just help to compensate for any pre-professional
skill levels, it also results in choreography that wouldn’t be possible for a
professional company of adult dancers with their relatively uniform bodies.
Themes and Variations
Good luck finding kids who want to dance a love story, so
you won’t find elegant pas de deux here. Instead you’ll find partnering based
on size rather than gender – in fact, the choreography and costuming is almost
completely ungendered – and it opens up a world of movement. The dancers are
more likely to team up in stacks like Jenga blocks than engage in soaring lifts
that require potentially embarrassing contact. When they do lifts, smaller kids
get tossed around like props and toys.
Bronwen Houck Photography c/o Kaleidoscope Dance Company
Eschewing romance opens up a lot of space for other topics,
and since these dancers are young it’s no surprise that many of the pieces
explore questions of identity and the role of the individual within a larger group.
In the opening piece, “Lotus,” the white-clad dancers almost resembled cells
under a microscope, growing, clumping, and dividing. The effect was heightened
when the dancers curled into balls, vibrating as the music faded. From the
bright blue socks in “Electric Feet” to the proliferation of snacks in “So
Whatta We Got Here?” there was a lot of humor in the dances as well.
Bronwen Houck Photography c/o Kaleidoscope Dance Company
A Mixed Bag
In an audience of mostly parents and friends, every piece
was a hit, but for viewers with no skin in the game, some pieces were stronger
than others. A couple pieces drew on African-American dance traditions. This
made me uncomfortably aware of the overwhelmingly white cast and raised a few
questions that I hope have good answers. A school of contemporary American
dance that doesn’t teach African-American traditions would be guilty of
erasure. But a white-majority company must proceed with caution.
Bronwen Houck Photography c/o Kaleidoscope Dance Company
“Falling Continuum” was my family’s favorite. The booklet
said it “explores the assumption that the opportunities we are presented with
will always be there.” I don’t think I took any thoughts about FOMO away from
the piece, but then again, all I could think was, “Beautiful,” while I watched
it.
Performance
Kaleidoscope and Mosaic are clear believers that every body is a dancer’s body, and for the most part, the performances bear that out. In a company of 47 performers ranging in age from second grade to seniors in high school (pro tip: A second grader will always steal the show) there was inevitably variation in the skill and talent demonstrated. But everyone remembered their parts and a few dancers stood out as particularly charismatic or committed – a couple even managed to sell the hokey final “Hoedown” number. Within that range, there was a unique delight in being able to see visible growth in individual dancers from last year’s performance (and not just my kids’ friends).
Bronwen Houck Photography c/o Kaleidoscope Dance Company
The music and lighting design for “Witness” were as
interesting as the dance itself, reminding of the lesson that I learned at Barnekunst.
Sometimes the difference between professional and childish is only
presentation.
This week the accidental theme of music I like is mostly solo artists: Nilufer Yanya, Christian Scott a Tunde Adjuah, Strand of Oaks. Exceptions include Falaise and Crows.
It was called a night market, but looked more like a night mall. In any case, we foolishly visited during the day. There were no shoppers and hardly any stalls or shops were open. Maybe it’s for the best, because it was easier to appreciate the unique and slightly magical atmosphere of the place. It reminded me a little bit of the Night Circus.
We meant to go back at night but never did. Did we miss the magic? Or did we only miss the commerce?
If I was traveling with anyone else, I probably would not have gone there. But since my companion was a 10-year-old who asked for “chances to make art” for her special trip to Norway, the International Children’s Art Museum (Det Internasjonale Barnekunstmuseet) in Oslo was the first stop on our itinerary. I’m not going to lie. I didn’t expect much. People always underestimate kids.
The International Children’s Art Museum
Nearly every city has a children’s museum these days, and
sometimes art museums have sections or special exhibits for children. But as
far as I know, the International Children’s Art Museum in Oslo is the only art
museum in the world dedicated entirely to children. Even if it is not, this museum
is still unique because it’s not just showing art to children, it’s showing art by
children.
Established in 1986 by film director Rafael Goldin and his
wife, Dr. Alla Goldin, the museum (colloquially known as Barnekunst) collects,
preserves, and displays art by children. They have a massive collection of art
from over 180 countries. Only a small fraction of it is on display at any given
time in the museum, a large converted house in a quiet suburban neighborhood of
Oslo that houses the embassies of many small nations.
The Museum Experience
Nearly every inch of the big, old house is covered in art.
Some of it is original works on small, framed pieces of paper. Some of the
pieces have been blown up and printed on giant posters for better viewing. One
small room houses sculptures while other rooms are dedicated to rotating themed
exhibitions and displays from the permanent collection. The top floor straddles
the line between wonderland and creepy, with red walls and a huge collection of
dolls from around the world. The basement houses a gift shop and work room
where children can create their own art and participate in regularly held weekend
workshops.
Barnekunst was our first stop in Oslo after picking up our Bergen Cards at the tourist information center. We arrived in the late morning of an April Tuesday, just as some others were leaving. Aside from the woman working the front desk, they were the only other people we saw during our visit. You could easily view the entire museum in half an hour, but to really take it all in, you have move slowly. We ended up staying nearly three hours.
We left our shoes in the cubbies by the door and explored
the museum in our socks. The friendly staff person at the front desk gave us a worksheet
with a scavenger hunt of images from the museum – if you found them all, you
could get a prize. Starting from the basement, we worked our way slowly through
rooms, ending in the uncanny doll room. Along the way, we found a few of the scavenger
hunt items and marveled in awe at the skill of some young artists.
Then we worked our bay back down, looking more closely for the ones we missed. Several of the images on the worksheet were close-up details of larger works and gave us a real challenge. We had to get hints from the lady at the desk to find the last two.
Inspired, my daughter spent nearly an hour at the end of our visit drawing a picture in the work room. She drew a portrait of a gender-fluid child. Since I hadn’t noticed gender as a theme in the museum, I asked her what inspired the choice. She said she couldn’t decide whether to draw a girl or a boy, then realized it didn’t have to be one or the other. Again, I was reminded that youth is not the same as ignorance.
The Art
On our first pass through the museum, we were mostly struck
by the talented kids. We marveled at the technical skill and maturity of some
of the drawings relative to the age of the artist. My daughter’s ego took a few
hits as she repeatedly commented, “That person is my age,” or “That was done by
someone younger than me.”
But as we went back through more slowly, I began to pay more
attention to the way the work was grouped. Not all of it was technically
superior. Some 13-year-olds’ pictures looked like first grade scribbles, and after
a while, you even began to see that overall, a certain level of skill and
detail generally matched up with age.
But you also began to notice the way geography tended to influence style. Children from South Asia and Africa tended to use brighter colors, art in a cartoon style was more likely to be from East Asia. Regardless of technique or style, the pictures often revealed the inner workings of the artist’s mind. Whether it was a stick figure that somehow captured the anguish of getting lost or an impressionistic painting of a father’s yelling face, these images had just as much emotional weight as the work hanging in other museums.
The Impact
Sometimes the choice of subject matter revealed that childhood
is not the uniformly naïve and unburdened experience adults like to imagine.
Among the robots and superheroes and spaceships were also pictures of farm work,
hunting for food or hauling water, and anxiety for the future. Individual works
were sometimes very compelling, and sometimes Regardless of whether an
individual works was compelling of itself or became so through the careful
curation and context of museum display, the end result was as effective as any
exhibition of professional works. Perhaps it was even more so for being so
unexpected.
When we were done, my daughter got to pick a prize. She chose a postcard of one of the paintings that I had liked. It sits on my desk now as a reminder that anyone can make good art.
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