Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Final Performances June, 2011

Spring 2011 Kids Creative After School

End of Semester Performances

9 Original Musicals and Videos!!!

5 Schools!!!

Over 150 kids!!!

Tons of awesome!!!

Each semester, Kids Creative's amazing kids create original pieces to perform for friends and family. Here are performance times and story synopses. Congratulations to the groups that have already performed and good luck to the kids who are going to perform this month.

"The Tale of the Beautiful Fairies and the Beautiful Sorcerer"

Rock N Roll Theater @ Ethical Culture, Thursday May 26

In our story, an evil sorcerer plans to steal money from magical fairies by taking it from their good friend Mrs. Murdow. Mrs. Murdow calls the fairies to help her, and eventually there is a confrontation between one of the fairies and the sorcerer. The two cast spells on each other at the exact same time, resulting in the fairy turning into a sorcerer and the sorcerer turning into a fairy!

Taja played a fairy named Stormy, as well as the Evil Sorcerer.

Juliet is played a fairy named Diamond, as well as Mrs. Murdow, the fairies' friend.

"THE UN-SAFETY VIDEO or ERR-TRAVEL"

Rock N Roll Theater @ The Heschel School, Friday June 3

When an international spy, an international rock star, an international hebrew-language rap sensation, an international know it all, and an international selection of special travelers board an international flight with a poorly adjusted intergalactic portal button, it's anybody's guess where they'll end up, and only their guess as to how they will ever return.

"THE POTION MACHINE"

Create-A-Tale @ The Heschel School, Wednesday June 15

Iridesca, who keeps watch from her tree nook, discovers that the Angels of Darkness want to steal power from the Unicorn so that they can fly faster and stronger. She flies through the forest to find and protect the unicorn. She doesn’t hear that the Angels are also searching for the potion machine to stop Iridesca from protecting the Unicorn.

Then there are the Wizards. The frog wizards have been cursed to live in a tiny hut. They don’t have enough room for equipment so they steal it from the germ wizards. The germ wizards have had it with the frog wizards taking their stuff, so they place bumping spells on the frog wizards so they can’t see well and keep bumping into things. Each team of wizards goes on a search for the potion machine to make a potion to stop the other team.

The super hero is stuck in the middle. He is everybody’s friend. Let’s hope that he can find a way to get everyone to stop their fighting before it’s too late, and they all place irreversible spells on each other for the rest of their lives.

"RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE"

LaRonda’s Rock Stars @ PS 102, Wednesday June 15

The Evil Queens want to control the whole jungle and send out their zombies to eat a thousand brains, because when there are no living things left they will rule the jungle! The jungle is protected by the ninja monkeys who stop the zombies by throwing exploding bananas. On the other side of the jungle lives the dark princesses who want revenge as the evil queens turned their parents into zombies. The dark princesses use a spell to bring some rockstars to the jungle. The singing will destroy the zombies. What will happen when the Rockstars, Ninja Monkeys and Zombies collide? Will the dark princesses be reunited with their parents? Will the Evil Queens be stopped? Come see on June 13th to find out!

"The AMAAAAAZIIING AMUUUUUUSEMENT PAAAARK"

Little Monkey Rockets @ PS 102, Wednesday June 15

A group of kids is so excited to go to the "Amaaazing Amuuusement Paaaark!" but when they get there all the rides are broken. The Wizards who keep an eye on the park come to investigate what happened, they interview the kids and discover an alligator is on the loose! They come up with a plan to catch the alligator, they make it rain candy! But all of a sudden the rain turns the kids into animals and brings the rides to life. They all eat the candy till there is just one piece left and they have a dance battle to see who will get it. What will the Wizards do now? What will happen to the kids and the park? What happened to the alligator? Come find out on June 13th!

"ORIGINAL VIDEOS"

Rock N Roll Theater @ PS 11, Monday, June 20th and Tuesday, June 21st – Parent Share Day


"JELLO IN THE SKY AND THE WORLD’S UPSIDE DOWN"

CAP’S ROCK N ROLL @ PS 87 Wednesday, June 22, 4:00pm

When the evil witch thinks her daughters were taken she covers the sky with Blue Jello to punish the offenders. It's up to the sewer mice to eat through the jello and show her the error of her ways, and save the day!!!


"THE AMAZING QUEST TO SAVE THE CATAPULT HAMSTER FROM CERTAIN CRAZINESS"

Create-A-Play @ PS 87, Thursday, June 23 @ 4:00pm

Catapult hamster gets lost in a video game of old Create - A - Play stories and her superhero friends need to rescue her from certain Craziness!

"THE GIANT’S SNEEZE"

Rainbow Stages @ PS 87, Friday, June 24 @ 4:15pm

Lola is lonely. She has no friends because she is so mean no one wants to befriend her. When she falls asleep and starts to dream she suddenly is filled with friends! That is until a giant comes and eats them up! Lola teams with the superheroes to get the giant to sneeze out her friends. When she wakes up, she realizes that she needs to change her ways to have friends.

Peace Education in Action: Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams

Kids Creative's Peace Education in Action highlight for June, 2011 is Board Member and Doctoral Candidate Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams, a true practitioner of peace education. We asked him to discuss the incredible work he is doing in the field of peace education in New York City as well as his birthplace of Trinidad and Tobago. Please read on:

I grew up in one of the poorest and most violent parts of Trinidad & Tobago (TT); I was fortunate to have had a family that believed steadfastly in the potency of education. I do not however view education as a neutral sphere, but one that is politically charged, and has the potential to either socially reproduce inequities or to empower learners. Driven by the oft-cited Gandhian mantra “that we must be the change that we wish to see in the world”, I view my research as advocacy for students who have been forgotten by society, for students who attend stigmatized and under-resourced schools, and for students who are incessantly pathologized by the media and society at large. My overall research aim is dual-purposed: to flay the increasingly thick cover of de-historicized structural violence that suffocates many schools within postcolonial educational systems, and to eventually reframe the narrative of pathologized, violent youth to one of resiliency.

From late November, 2009 to June 2010, I spent 7 months at a secondary school in Trinidad & Tobago collecting data on school violence. My research centers on differentiated conceptualizations of school violence, its causes and interventions. I interviewed students (focus groups), teachers, deans, safety officers, the principal, vice principal and guidance counselor and a few national officials. The case study was based at a school that has been categorized by the Ministry of Education as a ‘high risk’ school. Many of the students hail from single parent homes and poor, violence-stricken communities. As a native of TT, I believe in utilitarian research; since school violence is a major issue on the twin island republic, I perceive my research both as a way of ‘giving back’ to my country, and as peace activism.

As regards my current research project, I am still analyzing mounds of data, with the intent to defend my dissertation by May of 2012. Research and practice ought not to be divorced, thus my insistence on keeping my feet straddling both of these worlds, for I firmly believe that research and practice should reflect a mutually symbiotic relationship. Working with Kids Creative is sufficient inspiration for me that peace education work is not only requisite in this very violent world but that it can be very capably implemented under the right conditions and visionary leadership.

About Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams

Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams is a current member of the Board of Directors of Kids Creative. He is a doctoral candidate at Columbia University, studying International Educational Development, with a focus in peace education. He obtained his Bachelor’s with honors in Psychology from St. Francis College, and two master’s degrees in International Educational Development, focusing on peace education and in Comparative and International Education, focusing on philosophy of education.

He started working in after school programs at the YMCA, and has worked on several research projects. At present, he is the research coordinator at the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation Conflict and Complexity (AC4) at the Earth Institute, Columbia University. AC4 is in its second year and aims to be a hub at Columbia that fosters interdisciplinary research and practice around conflict resolution, violence prevention, sustainable development and peacebuilding. Hakim oversees AC4’s student and faculty research grant programs.

To find out more about Hakim's work in Trinidad and Tobago or with AC4 in New York City, feel free to contact him: hakimwill@gmail.com.