The AGS Happening is an annual event during which all the AGS arts areas collaborate. Given that this is an election year and, as such, will be the first time for many AGS students to vote, we explored the election as our theme. My plan was to have some students read their own reflections on voting for the first time and have other students read excerpts from famous historical speeches. When I pitched the idea to the students, several students who won't vote this year wanted to write from their perspectives as well. For the historical speeches, I choose Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman," MLK's "I Have a Dream," Cesar Chavez's California Commonwealth Club speech, and pieces of the Declaration of Independence. In their writings, students discussed their frustration with waiting another four years before being able to vote for a president, being forced to hope others will "stand" for them, the need to unite, the responsibilities that go along with the right to vote, and the plight of those who are "invisible to the system" among us. Once the students finished, I realized their writings conversed very nicely with the speeches. I then directed students to weave their writings with the speeches to play up the interesting ways they spoke to each other. We then created frozen images (pictured below) to add a visual element to our performance. What actually made our performance, however, was the choir's underscoring of "Jacob's Ladder." Their singing added poignancy to the important words the students were saying. Another happening happened and students got to witness how exciting collaboration across the arts can be!
RSS Feed
