AUDITIONS FOR: "I.M.A.G.E.S" (Inspirational.Movement.Art.Gestures.Emotion.Silence.)

Auditions for I.M.A.G.E.S will be held at:
STETSON New Haven Free Public Library Branch
200 Dixwell Ave. New Haven (Across from Foote St.,Wexler-Grant School)
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 3, 2010 @ 5:30pm-7:00pm

I.M.A.G.E.S. stands for Inspirational. Movement. Art. Gestures. Emotion. Silence.
It is made up of groups that convey the lyrics of songs by creatively using their bodies as an artistic tool. It is an artistic bland of mime, sign-language, music and dance. It is open for participants ages 8-18yrs. Classes are held on Mondays and Fridays. Placement of members in groups will be made after the audition/enrollment. Please see the previous blog for more information on I.M.A.G.E.S.
Final Performances will be held at the New Haven Public Libraries and other New Haven locations during the spring.

"LOVESICK" (TEEN I.M.A.G.E.S.)
Peer into the life of typical teenagers as they experience different aspects of LOVE. Powerful, captivating, and unique, New Haven teens tell the story in silence by using their bodies and facial expressions.

SIGN-UP ON THIS BLOG!
You can sign-up ahead of time by leaving your name and child's name under comments.

Being a member of Artistik Xpressions Amateur Youth Drama Group helps build confidence and creativity. The students have a chance to be seen and heard in New Haven, something this city really needs for it's urban youths. It helps train, discipline, and empower eager artistic youths who want to do more. You don't want to miss this audition!

For more info, please email Sharece directly at:
artistik.xpressions@gmail.com or call 860-840-2877.

"How do I sign my youth up to be a member of Artistik Xpressions?"

If you are interested in enrolling your youth in Artistik Xpressions Amateur Youth Drama Group, you must request a registration form by emailing artistik.xpressions@gmail.com or call 860-840-2877 to have it sent to you by mail. The form must be completed and returned to the NEXT MEETING FOR ENROLLMENT. There will be two projects the group will be focusing on during the winter and spring months-"I.M.A.G.E.S" (mime-to-music) and "Feelings & Footprints." Enrollment for "Feelings & Footprints" is currently closed and will re-open at a later date. However, an enrollment for I.M.A.G.E.S. will be held in MARCH of 2010. Classes are held at DeeDee's Dance Studio in New Haven, CT.
*Fee information included on the registration form.

Requirements for enrollment:
Must be 8-18 yrs. of age
Must maintain an upstanding school record both in academic (at least a C average) and behaviorial areas.
Must have a positive attitude and willingness to learn!
Must be allowed to wear face-paint.
(Girls)Must wear black long-sleeve leotard,black stretch pants, and black socks to each class.
(Boys)Must wear PLAIN long-sleeve black shirt, black cargo pants with elastic waist (not sweat pants), and black socks to each class.

MLK Day Conference: Saving Our Communities 2010 YES WE CAN!

http://uwgnh.org/post/mlk-day-conference-2010-saving-our-communities-yes-we-can

Damian Henderson Jr. will perform as Dr. King
Ms. Sellem will be conducting " i.m.a.g.e.s." workshops

MLK Day Conference 2010 Saving Our Communities: Yes We Can!
Monday, January 18, 2009--8:30 am to 1:30 pm
Wexler-Grant Community School- 55 Foote Street, New Haven, CT

You are invited to attend The Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Conference, on January 18, 2010 from 8:30 a.m. -1:30 p.m. at Wexler-Grant Community School. The conference will celebrate the legacy and honor the dream of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The event will feature youth and adult workshops covering topics such as storytelling, life skills, arts & crafts, healthy living, economic empowerment, political awareness and much more. In addition to our workshops, there will be performances, a keynote speaker, entertainment and a continental breakfast and hot lunch will be served. The Conference is FREE and open to the public. Join us and bring your family and friends.Please email mlkday@akanewhaven.org if you have any questions or visit http://www.akanewhaven.org/ for more information.


If you or your family is interested in volunteering at the MLK Conference, please visit the link above. We will be having a volunteer orientation on January 16, from 12pm-2pm at Wexler Grant and we also ask that all volunteers report to Wexler Grant School no later than 7:30 am on the day of the event (January 18), to ensure that everyone knows where they will be stationed and to go over any questions you may have before the event.

All volunteers will receive a LIVE UNITED t-shirt as well as breakfast and lunch. For questions about volunteering please contact Cecily Jones, Volunteer Engagement Coordinator at cjones@uwgnh.org, or call (203) 691-4211.

Volunteer registration for this event is CLOSED, however you are still welcome to attend as a guest!

Principal Finds Place for "Magic" New Haven Independent News Article by Paul Bass

TO SEE THE ACTUAL ARTICLE, PLEASE GO TO:
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/a_principal_finds_a_place_for_magic/

Hurrying down the hallway of Davis Street 21st Century Magnet School, Sharece Sellem ran into a roadblock named Kaison Mims.

Kaison, a Davis Street fifth-grader, had been refining a monologue about a comic day at Six Flags with his little brother. He wanted to perform it for Sellem. Sellem stopped, cocked her head. An impromptu critiquing session began.

Since the school year started at Davis, Sellem (pictured) has planted roadblocks like Kaison throughout the school. She makes a point of running into them.

Sellem, who’s 25, doesn’t have a full-time job at Davis. Technically she’s a $50 a-day part-time sub. She waitresses at night at Chili’s in Hamden.

In reality, she has become a daily presence at Davis. She comes in for free on days the principal, Lola Nathan, doesn’t need a fill-in for an absent staff teacher. Sellem has had fifth and sixth-graders writing scripts based on their home lives, developing characters, memorizing parts, performing for the rest of the school.

As Kaison performed in the hallway, Nathan observed Sellem from behind a glass wall steps away in the principal’s office.

“She’s like magic with them,” Nathan said. “She doesn’t stop ‘til she gets it done.”

Nor does Nathan. She wants Sellem inspiring and teaching Davis students as much as possible. Even though Sellem doesn’t have a teaching degree.

The Independent is checking in on Davis, one of the school system’s star performers, throughout a transitional year. (It inhabits temporary quarters on Legion Avenue as its Westville home is being rebuilt.) As New Haven embarks on a reform drive aimed at making its struggling public schools the best urban district in the nation, Davis offers clues to what works.

Among the reform drive’s goals: Attract and develop talented teachers. The way, for instance, Lola Nathan is working within the confines of budgets and work rules to make an energetic, talented young woman part of the Davis team.

“1 - 2 - 3 ... Action!

Nathan discovered Sellem last year when Sellem came in to sub. Nathan spotted talent. She encouraged Sellem to start an after-school arts program. Sellem asked for permission to stage a spring play.

“Tell me what you need,” Nathan said.

Sellem didn’t need much. She got the kids excited about the show, rehearsed with them. She bought costumes herself. She convinced a local company to donate T-shirts.

Over the summer Sellem attended a monologue slam in a Manhattan nightclub. “When I saw that,” she recalled, “I said it would be awesome for the kids.”

“There’s so much talent here” at Davis, she said. “I know some of these kids have it rough at home. This is great for them.”

She got to work as soon as the school year started. Nathan called her in to sub in fifth and sixth-grade classrooms. Sellem asked the students to write stories about a summer experience, one that evoked “strong emotion.”

“When they heard ‘strong emotion,‘“she said, “most of them thought of their parents.”

Once they wrote out narratives, Sellem told them to pick a single character. Develop the character, she said. She taught them what monologues are. She told them to write some.

After they refined their scripts, Sellem worked with them on performing. They memorized the lines. They practiced delivery. She coached and critiqued them along the way and helped them trim their performances to 30 seconds. She set up a contest for the best monologues.

“A lot of the kids didn’t even know they could act,” Sellem said.

The results were on display last Friday when Davis held its first school-wide “town meeting” of the year. It featured Davis’s first monologue slam.

(Click on the play arrow above to watch highlights.)

There were no alcohol served, no bouncers outside the door. The yelling voices were for the most part preadolescent. But given the electricity in the air, you could have closed your eyes and imagined yourself in that nightclub Sellem attended over the summer.

Seated on the floor of the school’s cafetorium, magnified shouts ricocheted off the walls with the intensity of Superballs. The students hailed the performers as they raced to the center to deliver their monologues.

“One ... Two ... Three ... Action!” the students cried out. The performers responded with rapid-fire monologues.

Laughter nearly drowned out Justice Willoughby’s account of wrestling with boredom at home: He can’t go outside. He can’t play Wii. So he invents a football game.

Egged on by the crowd’s delighted giggle, Justice stretched out a runner’s imaginary gallop downfield. “The crowd cheers!” he announced. And it did.

The laughter took on a knowing tone as sixth-grader Nijae Flower piled on complaints about mom. (“I’m not my sister! I’m tired of her always trying to compare me to you!”)

Daily domestic frustrations emerged as a theme, as in “Messy Room,” Vanessa Hansen-Quartery’s monologue in the voice of a character named Melissa:

Auggh! I am sick and tired of cleaning this room! ... Next time I find a room like this, I will drag his lazy butt up here and make him clean it up. Hats, belts, pants, it’s such a mess! ... What are my new skinny jeans doing in my trash bin? ... Now, I have to wash them again! ... I do everything! I do the dishes, I do the laundry, I vacuum, all Jason does is sit behind the computer all day! He’s worse than Jeremiah!, well sorta ... At least the mess isn’t that big ... I’m almost done cleaning the room too ... (pause )...There ... done. Now to go find Jeremiah.

After the students finished, Sellem announced a surprise performer: Principal Nathan, who ran to the mic and picked up on the “why me?!” trope.

She played herself in the monologue.

“Why did you choose me to be the principal of Davis Street Interdistrict Magnet School?” Nathan implored the audience. “I never understood why you chose me to do this!”

“Yay hoo!” The cafetorium erupted in laughter. You could barely hear Nathan when, after a comic pause, she delivered the punch line. She understands why she’s the principal, she said—because she works with the best staff and students around. She meant it.

After the monologues, Sellem handed out prizes to the student winners: notebooks and mechanical pencils. She paid for them herself.

Mentor & Mentee

Thrilled with the results, Nathan prepared after the town meeting to post photos of the winners and their winning essays on the bulletin board outside her office.

Sharece Sellem, in the meantime, is working on a new after-school program for Davis this year. She’s also organizing a later-afternoon program in Newhallville for students citywide. She wants them to develop monologues based on characters from African-American history.

Sellem was the oldest of five children growing up in Hartford. She said she adopts a “big sister” approach to working with students. She encourages them, pushes them to do better. “I’m also very loving.”

Lola Nathan, who has been Davis’s principal for 19 years, plays a mentoring role for Sellem, too.

Sellem studied video production for two years down south after high school, then returned to Connecticut. She worked as an administrative assistant at a Hartford arts organization, where she picked up ideas she brought to Davis.

As she finds ways to keep Sellem on the team, Nathan is also encouraging her to complete her undergraduate degree and obtain her teacher certification. She has big plans for Sellem, at Davis—and beyond.

"Feelings & Footprints...A Walk through African-American History" Coming up this FEBRUARY! (During School Winter Break)

Get a small glimpse into the lives of great African-Americans who have made footprints in American history. Young actors of Artistik Xpressions Amateur Youth Drama Group perform these characters as children, teenagers, and adults.

Jordine Jean as "Madame C.J. Walker"
Kevin Armstrong as "W.E.B. DuBois"
KiShon Shields as "Duke Ellington"
Justice Willoughby as "Louis Armstrong"
Damian Henderson Jr. as "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."
Tyriq Woodson as "Michael Jackson"

This is a monologue series of characters in African-American History. Young actors speak and imitate in costume, African-Americans that have had a prominent place in America’s history. Each member has thoroughly researched and studied their assigned character's role in order to successfully execute their performance. The objective of this series is to inspire and educate others. The audience gets a chance to see how some African Americans in history felt, what their thought process may have been and what struggles they may have gone through. Members are given a *monologue of a character and also create their own monologue of an everyday person living during that character’s time period.

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION!
Comedy
The audience will also have a chance to participate as a "Feelings & Footprints" press conference is held and the characters give brief speeches. Audience members then have a chance to ask them questions.


*“Monologue,”is an extended uninterrupted speech by a character in a drama. The character may be speaking his or her thoughts aloud, directly addressing another character, or speaking to the audience, especially the former.

SHOW LOCATIONS, DATES & TIMES

WED, FEB. 10, 10'
6:30-7:30 pm
MITCHELL LIBRARY
37 HARRISON ST.
NEW HAVEN

TUES, FEB. 16, 10'
2:00pm
WILSON LIBRARY
303 WASHINGTON AVE.
NEW HAVEN

WED, FEB.17, 10'
2:00pm
STETSON LIBRARY
200 DIXWELL AVE.
NEW HAVEN

THUR, FEB.18, 10'
2:00pm
FAIRHAVEN
LIBRARY
182 GRAND AVE.
NEW HAVEN

FRI, FEB. 19, 10'
2:00pm
MAIN NEW HAVEN
LIBRARY
133 ELM ST.
NEW HAVEN

We're Putting On Performing Arts Workshops This January!

This month, Sellem will be conducting performing workshops for children, teens and young adults.







MONOLOGUE WORKSHOP
The monologue workshop will help participants perform for the first MONOLOGUE SLAM to be held at Lyric Hall in Westville New Haven, CT. on Wednesday January, 27, 2010 @ 6:00pm.

i.m.a.g.e.s. WORKSHOP
(Inspirational. Movement. Art. Gestures. Emotion. Silence)
The i.m.a.g.e.s. workshop is an introduction to a new project for Artistik Xpressions. It is a "mime-to-music" performance where participants learn how use their bodies and facial expressions to convey the lyrics of inspirational songs. Examples of inspirational songs: "You Gotta Be" by Desiree', "Will You Be There?" by Michael Jackson.

MONOLOGUE WORKSHOP TIMES & LOCATIONS:
STETSON LIBRARY - JAN. 19, 2010 TUES @ 5:00-6:00pm
JAN. 20, 2010 WED @ 5:00-7:00pm
WILSON LIBRARY - JAN. 21, 2010 THURS @ 5:00-6:00pm

i.m.a.g.e.s. WORKSHOP
MLK Saving Our Communities Conference 2010 YES WE CAN!
Day Event 8:30am-1:30pm

Damian Henderson Jr. of Artistik Xpressions as "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr." JANUARY

New Haven Free Library Branches:
STETSON LIBRARY JAN. 13, 2010 - Past
NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT NEWS REPORTS: http://newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/damian_debuts/
MITCHELL LIBRARY JAN. 14, 2010 - Past
IVES MAIN LIBRARY JAN. 16, 2010 - 1:30pm
WILSON LIBRARY JAN. 16, 2010 - 3:30

MLK Saving Our Communities 2010 Conference YES WE CAN!
Monday, January 18, 2009--8:30 am to 1:30 pm
Wexler-Grant Community School- 55 Foote Street, New Haven, CT

10 yr. old Damian Henderson Jr. of Artistik Xpressions is a serious student that has done thorough research of Dr. Martin Luther King and impersonates this wonderful man in American history. Damian allows you to peer into what Mr. King would have thought as a child, a teenager, and an adult. This program is followed by arts & craft activities. So come along and celebrate Mr. King’s legacy with the New Haven Public Libraries this January!

The video: "The Children's March" from teachingtolerance.org is also featured after Damian's performance

*Damian was recently placed in an indie film by Anthony Difonzo of Garwood NJ entitled, "The Boyz of Summer" follow the trailer on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze9KsR_sFLI

NEWS ARTICLE ABOUT DAMIAN BY ALLAN APPEL of NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT:

The “I Have a Dream” speech rang out of the Stetson Library as a new local 10-year-old talent and a new black history program were launched.
The speaker this time wasn’t the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. It was Damian Henderson Jr.. In addition to reciting the famous speech, Henderson Jr. dramatically captured King as a child as well as a freshman home from that first year at Morehouse College, when he was disturbed at all the talk of race in his native Atlanta.

The new program was an amateur youth drama group called Artistik Xpressions. Henderson attends Davis St. Interdistrict Arts & Academics Magnet School where he was “discovered” by his drama instructor and the group’s director, Sharece Sellem.

Damian delivered his monologues with confidence at an event at Stetson Wednesday. He provided the quiet revelation that before King was the MLK of the iconic speech, he was first a regular kid disturbed that one day the mother of his white friend forbid her son to play with him.
In Damian’s evocation, King was also once a teenager who put his suitcase down at home and called out, a little miffed that his parents were not at home to greet him.
Thirty kids and their parents gathered at Stetson to see Damian preview the MLK section of a larger work titled “Feelings & Footprints,” and to get an early start on the celebrations of the Martin Luther King holiday.

“Feelings & Footprints” is a dramatic tour through African-American history written by Sellem. It will be playing at the other branches and at schools later this month and throughout February’s Black History Month.

An "A" student and all-around athlete, Damian had never acted until he took Sellem’s class at Davis. His naturalness and memorization ability were so outstanding, he caught her attention even though his role was not a major one in the school play.

The text was written by Sellem (pictured with Damian). The Georgia accent, complete with long “ah”, is all Damian, which he practiced in vocal and other acting exercises.
After the performance, Damian was asked by a reporter what the experience of acting was like for him.
“When I go up there to act, Damian Henderson, it’s like I don’t even know him,” the young man said.
His mom, Nicole Robinson ,said she liked the history lessons her son got out of the experience as well. “It was his first time seeing what segregation was like,” she said. “‘Mom,you really couldn’t eat with white people?’” Robinson remembered her son asking him. “He really had no clue as to how it was. The [acting] activity made it real for him.”It also made him come down with a serious case of the acting bug.

During December, while rehearsals for the show were under way, through a contact of Sellem’s Damian was cast as an extra in a wedding scene in Boys of Summer, an independent film shot in New Jersey to be released later this year.

On Sunday he has a casting call in New York. But first, after he gave his MLK blazer to his mom to hold, the two of them were off to basketball practice.

The one-hour show will be performed Feb. 10 at the Mitchell Library in Westville at 6:30. It will be performed on Feb. 16 at the Wilson Branch; Feb. 17 back at Stetson; Feb. 18 at the Fair Haven Library; and Feb. 19 at the main branch. All performance are at 2 p.m.