Shakespeare Uncork'd Walla

Outline of programs related to sww education/outreach and community engagement thanks to the generous support of our community partners, in the past few years sww has continued its community outreach and youth education. We are reaching to margins of our community to target the most underserved sectors, while providing world-class entertainment, professional training and curriculum support to all. We are expanding well beyond the geography of Walla Walla to include the entire region, from pendleton to tricities and further afield. Fourth annual dia de los muertos festival the dia de los muertos festival is a collaboration between many local businesses and community partners, and is inspired by the day of the dead holiday where people throughout latin america gather to celebrate the lives of departed friends and family. The festival begins with a procession, from the first congregational church on palouse, down main street, and ending at the theater for a free concert featuring pasco high school mariachi, ballet folklorico. More than 100 local students participated in the procession with painted faces or masks they created ahead of time. At the center of the festival is the popular steamroller print project led by whitman college art professor nicole pietrantoni. Reliefs are carved into wooden blocks depicting iconic dia de los muertos images (skulls, skeletons, harvest, and nature), and a steamroller is used as a printing press to create giant prints which will be on display and for sale after the festival. Other free activities included face-painting, a shakespearean-themed "pageant of the dead" performed by local student groups, music, dance performances and more. Community altars (ofrendas) were also on display. In-school residencies living with Shakespeare our living with Shakespeare residency encourages students to experience Shakespeare as the elizabethans did: with dancing, fighting, music, collaboration, and wordplay. Students (and teacher) learn how to "pull" each other's hair on stage fighting day. Our teaching artists move Shakespeare's stories and language off the page and into the hearts, bodies, voices, and imaginations of students as they participate in theater games and activities. Our 4-day residency works alongside english curricula to introduce shakespeares works and time period to students in an engaging activity-based, theater-centered format. Students are on their feet learning poetry, history, staging, language, stage-combat, elizabethan dancing, self-expression, class divisions, and the correlation between Shakespeare and hip-hop. The high school curriculum focuses on romeo & juliet; middle school curriculum focuses on much ado about nothing. Romeo & juliet 4-day residency model: day 1: intro to shakespeares world, language, and iambic pentameter day 2: tableaux and staging day 3: shakespeares insults and stage-combat day 4: elizabethan dress, class divisions, and dancing r&j performers from seattle Shakespeare pose with over 250 students after the show. What teachers are saying: the Shakespeare Walla Walla in-school residency program consistently produces excitement in the classroom. Students enjoy having guest volunteers presenting new and interesting ideas. Here are what a few recent teachers had to say about our program: "as they read Shakespeare, the students are able to gain a mental picture of what is happening in the story because of what they learned in the residency. They learned that Shakespeare truly shaped our language and literature as we know it today, and as a result, they are loving what we are doing despite the density of the language." - college place high school "on 'learn how to fight day', 100% of the female students (rather than shy away and claim wearing a skirt as a reason not to participate, as many of them do in pe class) eagerly asked to be allowed to change into the pe clothes to be better prepared to engage in the activity the boys rose up to the challenge of medieval dance as well" -Walla Walla valley academy "the energy of the teaching artists frees the students to experiment and take risks. Combining information delivery with physicality creates and maintains interest. The two girls in my room right now said, 'we had fun while learning --i still remember the dance part -- yeah, on a scale of 1- 10, it was a 10." -desales high school "one little, quiet girl who hasn't really said much in class all year was chosen to perform one of the characters in romeo & juliet act 1, scene 1. By the time the scene was done, the whole class was in shock. She was an awesome actress she felt good about herself and the class had a new respect for her. Very cool." -Walla Walla high school from our signature four-day intensive "living with Shakespeare" program which brings Shakespeare alive in the classroom, to anti-bullying workshops to our summer theater camps, we are always striving to enrich the minds of our local student populations.