For the past four years, El Teatro Campesino has partnered with the San Benito County Arts Council to put professional teaching artists in the classroom in order to make seventh grade history accessible to students. Made possible through funding from the California Arts Council, “Artists in the Schools” is a 12-week artist residency program, currently serving two San Benito County schools which focuses on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico. The residency carefully interweaves the arts and world history by utilizing Luis Valdez’s play, “La Conquista de Mexico,” (featured in his “Early Works” book) to immerse students in art, music, culture and Puppet Theater. The program kicks off with a performance for students by El Teatro Campesino professional artists of a puppet show based on the Valdez play. Fully aligned to Visual and Performing Arts and World History curriculum, four sessions of the program are dedicated to the discipline of Visual Art, which connects students directly with historic record keeping codex techniques employed by the Aztec culture. The next four sessions are taught through the discipline of Music, where students explore Aztec drumming and understand the dramatic power struggle with the foreign Spanish Guitar. And the last four sessions (which happen to be starting this week in our currently running program) use theater to bring student’s history studies to life with student made puppets that are based on key players of the Conquest. All of which culminate in a student re-telling of the Conquest of Mexico through puppet theater. #SVGives
Posted on: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 21:43:13 +0000
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