Welcome to the Citizen Artist Blog!

The Citizen Artist is a new 6-credit service-learning course offered by the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) designed and taught by faculty member Kate Collins. Our community partner for this course is Libbey High School, a diverse urban high school in the south side of Toledo in the Toledo Public School District. The development of this new service-learning course at BGSU reflects our commitment to giving students (both in high school and college) an intensive opportunity to explore the significant ways in which art can enrich civic life in America.

For this new Spring 2008 project, eight BGSU undergraduate and graduate students will partner with 32 11th grade American Government and Economics students from Libbey High School and together they will use theatre as a means to explore the concept of citizenship - in particular, the rights and responsibilities that come with it. Together we will work to become informed on public issues, partake in civil discourse through research, discussions, and interviews with friends, family and community members and with all of this, we seek to create a compelling theatrical performance encompassing all that we’ve learned in the hopes of promoting further public dialogue with the surrounding community.

During the first week of February the Libbey students identified bullying and school violence as the particular issue they would like to tackle this semester. Frustrated with the perpetuation of bullying within and beyond the walls of America’s schools, some Americans feel that society is not recognizing the seriousness of the problem. Some want to see harsher punishment and are suggesting that this is a grave problem that should be treated along the same lines as a hate crime. Others point out that like a hate crime, bullying is a very insidious offense often difficult to define or prove. This is further complicated by those who deny its impact, often suggesting that bullying is (an unfortunate) part of growing up that kids simply need to go through as part of adolescence. No matter how you see it, it seems clear that bullying and violence in schools is a pressing public issue and this semester BGSU and Libbey students will work together to explore the complexity of this issue. We will use theatre as a means to exercise our role as citizens by sharing what we’ve learned and promoting further dialogue in our community.

This blog is meant to document our ongoing work over course of this spring semester at Libbey High School. You can expect week-to-week updates to track our progress. We hope you’ll check in now and then over the coming weeks to see how it’s going! We have a culminating performance scheduled for April 16th.

Funding for this project has been provided by The Learn and Serve America, Great Cities Great Service grant led by Otterbein College, Ohio Campus Compact, and University of Cincinnati. We are also grateful for the support of the Department of Theatre and Film and the Office of Service-Learning at Bowling Green State University.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

April 7th and 9th



Monday, April 7 - Fieldtrip Day

Today both the American Government and Economic classes came down to BGSU for another fieldtrip day. Today's fieldtrip was about extensively developing the performance piece. The students arrived at 8:30 and after a brief re-introduction to the central question and some warm-ups, everyone got right to work. The BG students performed the opening piece for everyone and then everyone divided into their work groups. Each class developed two pieces, for a total of four central pieces. The Economics class had already begun working on their two pieces (one that gives voice to bullied victims and another that examines what is being done now by our government and policies). These two groups continued working on what they had already begun to develop. The American Government class found out what pieces they are working on (one that explores why bullies bully and another that examines what we as citizens can do). The four different performance pieces utilize different styles of theatre, from image theatre to shadow imagery to a radio talk show format to traditional scripted scenes. Everyone made a lot of progress and the pieces really developed. In the late morning, everyone regrouped and shared their performance piece with the entire group. The pieces were well-performed and well-received!

Around 11:30, pizza arrived and everyone had lunch. Right after lunch, one of the BGSU Men's Barbership Quartet arrived and performed a couple of songs for the group. They were amazing! After they finished, four Libbey students went over to the School of Art and helped screen print 60 t-shirts for our final performance. While they helped make the shirts, 8 or so other Libbey students worked on creating images with the shadow screens for the opening piece while everyone else worked on making posters. When the students who made the shirts rejoined the group, everyone worked on the conclusion piece. By that point, everyone was tired and it was time for the Libbey students to head home. We made a lot of progress on the performance pieces and it was a highly successful day!


Wednesday, April 9
Today the BG students traveled back up to Libbey to work with the American Government class on their two pieces. After a quick warmup to wake everyone up, the class split into its two groups. One stayed in the art room where we normally work and the other group went down to the student's regular classroom. The two pieces (why do bullies bully and what we as citizens can do) continued to strengthen and progress. Some of the BG students will return on Friday to continue to work with the students on their pieces. Everyone is getting excited and nervous for the upcoming performance!
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