Programming Spotlight: Joelle Wellington and Making Music at NYPL

 Photos and collages by Jamila Abdulrashid

The Blonde Dies First  . . . since when?  Well, since author Joelle Wellington wrote her young adult horror thriller.  Students from Passages Academy--Bronx Hope site attended an author talk and received a free autographed copy of this novel on a school trip to the Stavros Niachros Foundation Library (SNFL) in Midtown Manhattan.  

There the author discussed her process and inspiration for writing the book.  And while at SNFL  they also experienced the Teen Music Lab and created an audio recording of their raps which the sound engineer edited to create a single.   All of these activities were FREE!   You have to love the New York Public Library!--Jamila Abdulrashid

Programming Spotlight: Nuttin' But A Word

 On Wednesday, February 7, Passages Academy’s school library at Belmont hosted a delightfully energizing pre-theater workshop co-led by the talented Ugo Anyanwu and Hassiem Muhammad through the New Victory Theater.  

Ugo and Hassiem are working actors who also serve as teaching artists.  They taught our Belmont students’  Blum group about choreographer Rennie Harris’s take on hip hop.  Then they engaged us all in learning four dance moves and a theater game or two.  

Reluctant at first, the students were highly responsive to the duo.  By the workshop’s end Blum’s participating staff members, my enthusiastic colleague, Ms. Thomas,  and the students were animated with movement and laughter.  We are ready to see Nuttin’ But A Word tomorrow at the historic theater. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Halloween Papertoy Monsters Tradition Continues

photo credit: Jessica Fenster-Sparber

On Halloween we were happy to continue the tradition of offering a Papertoy Monster program inside of our school library at Belmont.  Students expressed their delight with this hands on activity and their enthusiasm to continue to craft the little creatures back at the house over the long weekend was infectious.  We are grateful to Literacy for Incarcerated Teens (LIT) for continuing to sustain this tradition with the book from Brian Castleforte.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Spotlight: Dance Africa 2024

image from BAM's website

We were thrilled to have recently hosted the returning teaching artist Jayson P. Smith  from Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Jayson conducted a pre-theater dance workshop with an exceptionally engaged group of students who spent a special hour in the library as it was filled with the joy of movement and dance.  The students were preparing for a trip the following week to BAM’s annual Dance Africa performance.  You can read a bit about the tradition here.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Spotlight: Playwriting with the New Victory Theater

 

The talented and charismatic Marisol Rosa-Shapiro and Hassiem Muhammad recently returned to Passages Academy’s Belmont site to reprise their mini-residency centered on playwriting and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun in collaboration with Mrs. Ernyey, Belmont’s English Language Arts teacher.  The  artists taught students from Abbott and St. John’s groups about the elements of playwriting and engaged students in creative writing activities that culminated in student-written dialogues performed in our school library today.  Students worked earnestly and had so much fun when it came time to perform!--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Spotlight: Field trip to the Jay-Z exhibit at BPL

photo credits: Jamila Abdulrashid

During September & October 2023, students from Bronx Hope took a trip to visit the Jay-Z Exhibition at the Brooklyn Public Library. On display were various artifacts from the career of the legendary rapper including magazine covers & Grammy Awards. In addition, for a limited time only, any New Yorker with membership to the Brooklyn Public Library can obtain any of the limited-edition Jay-Z library cards.  Click here to see them all.--Jamila Abdulrashid

Programming Spotlight: Mindful Coloring

On Tuesday, May 30  and Wednesday, May 31, the library hosted mindful coloring workshops led by Passages’  school psychologist Rebecca Fernandez.  All groups were invited and Ms. Fernandez played calming, ambient music throughout and encouraged participants to reflect on the experience after they had 15-20 minutes of practice.  Everyone present was noticeably calmer.  

Students received gifts of coloring books and mindfulness techniques for teens from our generous partners at LIT.  Most participants seemed eager to continue to practice mindful coloring to release stress and manage anxiety. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Spotlight: Dance Africa

                                                            image credit: BAM website

Ms. Bespalova and Ms. Ikawa in collaboration with Ms. Fenster-Sparber Ms. Tamika and the NSD staff arranged a trip for Richmond Hill to go to BAM to see the 46th annual Dance Africa Festival.  

We were in good company with 2,000 people in the audience dancing in their seats and enjoying the show! This year’s production featured music and dance from Ghana entitled “Golden Ghana: Adinkra, Anase and Abusua.” During the introduction, we learned that the people of Ghana welcome visitors with the wonderful word “Akwaaba” which literally translates as welcome! The students also enjoyed call and response with the words “ago," and "ame” which were first uttered from the BAM stage by Baba Chuck Davis, the founding father of Dance Africa. “Ago” means "attention" and “ame” means "you have my attention."  Well, Dance Africa certainly grabbed our attention! --Lori Ikawa

Programming Spotlight: Percussion Workshops with Mike Ramsey

Mike Ramsey at Bronx Hope 12/22/22 photo credit: Jamila Abdulrashid

Happy 2023! While we are looking forward to what’s ahead in  the new year we didn't want to forget to tell you about last month’s percussion workshops with the brilliant percussionist and music educator Mike Ramsey.  Mr. Ramsey visited with all students in all groups at both of Passages’ non-secure sites, Bronx Hope and Belmont and students drummed their hearts out.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Spotlight: New Victory Residency + ELA collaboration

This month students at Belmont participated in a New Victory residency program that brought two extraordinary teaching artists from the theatre into our school library for a week.  The gifted teaching artists were Marisol Rosa-Shapiro and Ugo Anyanwu who led the series of workshops at Belmont  which were bookended by two trips to the New Victory theater where we saw productions of both Romeo and Juliet  and The Three Musketeers.  

Our two wonderful teaching artists played theater games with us,  taught us to give compliments and Shakespearean insults,  facilitated the drafting of an original soliloquy, and had us read and recite pieces from the classic texts connected to  the two plays we saw at the New Victory. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Spotlight: Word. Sound. Power. 2022 at BAM

 

Students from the Blum group home attended Word. Sound. Power. 2022, Brooklyn Academy of Music’s poetry celebration for teens.  Participants had the pleasure of experiencing live music and performances presented by Drew Drake, Dizzy SenZe, Freakquencee, and Amyra, including dance choreographed by Jade Charon.  

The event was emceed by Mikal Lee, and the students participated in a follow-up session in our library with Mr. Lee himself.  Students learned about Lee’s role as producer in crafting the show and the teaching artist elicited reflection, shared some of the lyrics performed by SenZe, and engaged students in a creative writing exercise. We are grateful to everyone at BAM for including our students in this special experience. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Spotlight: Author & Activist Jamal Joseph

Dr. Joseph reads to students at Belmont from his memoir

Humanitarian, activist, veteran Black Panther, professor, director, playwright, filmmaker, author, poet,  screenwriter Jamal Joseph visited with students at Belmont yesterday.  It was impossible not to feel moved by his brilliant storytelling, hard-won insight, and deep compassion.  Two groups of placement students who have been studying the Black Panther Party for the last six weeks with their Social Studies, ELA, Art teachers and reading specialist, speech language pathologist and school librarian as part of an interdisciplinary collaborative unit participated in the program. 

 

We are extremely grateful to Dr. Joseph for making the time to visit and to Dietrice Bolden for all of her assistance, and to Robert Galinsky for connecting us and Literacy for Incarcerated Teens for generously supporting the visit.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Spotlight: Mindful Coloring

Last month during the week of December 20 the library at Belmont collaborated with Rebecca Fernandez, School Psychologist, and Michael Morgan, Social Worker, to offer a mindful coloring program to all seven of the groups currently at Belmont. 

Unfortunately, two groups went into quarantine at the start of the week,  but the remaining five visited the library as a regularly scheduled part of their week and were introduced to mindfulness and mindful coloring.  While we played ambient music in the background, we distributed coloring books and gel pens,  and then and there staff and co-teachers were invited to join the students in mindful coloring.

All the students who participated were gifted with the coloring book they had been using to color,  and were encouraged to use it as a coping tool during the break or whenever stress was getting to them.   To the houses of the two quarantined groups we sent coloring books and directions for mindful coloring for each student.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Spotlight: Hispanic Heritage Month

Today at Belmont four groups of students engaged in multi-dimensional learning in a program honoring Hispanic Heritage Month.  

Kicking off four weeks of study, we asked students to activate schema around Latin America, and then challenged them to put together a Latin America geography puzzle.  When the puzzle was completed we asked students what they noticed and then instructed them to generate a list of questions they have about Latin America and its people.  --Lori Ikawa and Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Spotlight: Pre-theater and Post-Theater Visits from the New Victory Theater

Stepping during a pre-theater visit on 11/6/17.

A gallery walk during a post-theater visit on 11/13/17.

On November 8th we teachers and our administrators took all of our students at Passages Academy--Belmont to the New Victory Theater to see Step Afrika’s The Migration: Reflections On Jacob Lawrence.  The performance blended step, jazz, and African choreography with jazz, African, and gospel music to bring panels from Jacob Lawrence’s essential Migration Series to life for a young audience.  When I asked students what they thought of the show one student, D., responded by telling me the next time I take her to a dance performance, it needs to be longer.  Presumably so that she may enjoy it all the more.

We weren’t able to take pictures inside the theater, but here are a couple of moments we captured of the New Victory’s excellent pre-theater and post-theater workshops provided by teaching artists Chad Beckim and Janet Onyenucheya.  Pre-theater workshops  included step dancing exercises which helped students identify what they would see and appreciate the depth of performers skill and preparation.  Post-theater workshops invited students to engage with Lawrence’s artwork and recreate poses from selected panels, and think about how it feels to experience the poses of the figures from the paintings.  Click here for more photos and more about the interdisciplinary collaboration--Jessica Fenster-Sparber