Aimee Art Productions provides Interdisciplinary courses where you can learn anything from cooking to making your own MTV music video. Group classes are provided throughout Los Angeles and are a great way for your child and friends to delve deeper into their creative side. Teaching Artists approach writing, movement and film with an artistic flair providing classes such as storytime yoga, creative writing, using your own experience to write a play and studying art at various times throughout history such as The Harlem Renaissance. Film courses are also offered such as Teen Screenplay, Make your own Music Video and Making a Movie.
Interdisciplinary Cooking
Cooking with Character Teacher: Medea Reagan, Kristen Herbert, Staff
Grades: Pre-K and up What
foods create which experience? Or, “that tastes good, now why?” We
will explore what makes food special and how it can be enhanced through
special combinations and cooking techniques. We will make and taste
several recipes together and create a culinary experience. Can use
heat or no heat. Learn about Food Pyramid and nutrition, make aprons,
menus and a restaurant for families on last day. All recipes are fun,
creative, hands-on and nutritious.
Books For Cooks Teacher: After-School Days Instructor Grades: K-8 We’ve partnered with our friends at www.kitchenaid.com to bring you this yummy class. Reading has never tasted so good! In this class, your child will listen to a favorite children’s book and then create a tasty treat inspire by the story. Very Hungry Caterpillar snacks, anyone? All ingredients are supplied for our little chefs’ nutritious nibbles.
Shadow Puppets Parade the World! Teacher: Jasmine Orpilla Materials fee: $5 Grades: 1-2 (Ages 5-7) or Grades 2-3 (Ages 6-8). Kindergarten version also available Children will experience a shadow puppet performance of a different world folk tale each week. They will then create characters focusing on the themes and values of each folktale to build their own shadow puppets with black cut-out paper parts, colored tissue and sticks. They will manipulate shadows with their puppets behind a white sheet screen and lamp, while accompanied by a sound garden of percussion with local interdisciplinary and multicultural teaching artist Jasmine Orpilla, trained in the Music Center's Summer Institute in shadow puppetry and an experienced performer herself. Students will also have the opportunity to create imaginative "quick puppets" made of re-purposed materials to take home as a reminder of the world folk story of the day. Children will learn about puppet styles, movement and sound effects. Class culminates in a final performance of shadow puppetry parading the world's cultures with music, simple dialogue and narration by the teaching artist.
Film
I Want My MTV! Make Your Own Music Video Teacher: Adam Collis Grades: 1st and up Students choose their favorite songs and bring them to life in a music video. Students learn how to conceive of a music video, how to use a camera, how to properly compose a shot, hot to use the camera in expressive and emotional ways, and how to edit video (non-technological). Students will also act and/or lip synch the song. Class culminates in a film festival for the community.
Story Class and Storyboarding Teacher: Steve Loizos Grades: 1st and up When you can tell a story, you can do anything. Stories inform songs, books, films and every else. Who is it about? What is the story about? How do we make the audience care? We will do this through the cool world of storyboarding; the essentials of filmmaking. Learn to tell a complete story in two minutes. Learn shot angles and film vocabulary that is used all over the world.
Making a Movie Teacher: Scott Sayre Grades: 3rd and up Using materials around you students will create a short movie based on ideas in their own lives and imaginations. We will film our movies with handheld cameras and produce and edit them, culminating in a film festival for the community.
Teen Screenplay Teacher: Juliana Schiavo Grades: 10th to 12th In this class, teenagers aged 16-18 will learn which ideas to write about, how to make an outline, proper script formatting, and class story structure. Feedback will be given by the teacher and students will learn how to “pitch” their ideas to the class. With mutual support and the completion of writing assignments, students will have a finished screen play that reflects their particular point of view in an entertaining way.
Writing and Words
Make-A-Book Teacher: After-School Days Instructor Ages: K-8 The children will write and illustrate their very own 12-page hardcover book. The finished books will be mailed to the child’s home 4 weeks after completion. They are amazing keepsakes and parents wind up ordering reprints for gifts. In class, we develop a story board with each child and supervise their work. These books are written in their own words, although we do help with spelling.
Wiggles, Giggles and Zigzags Teacher: Staff Grades: Preschool to 3rd Students make their own instruments, such as a tambourine, drum, rainstick, or guitar, and then play them to different music and describe how the music makes them feel and want to move. We will write our own haiku poems, experience moving and dancing to music, and wear disguises by creating our own masks and then, wearing them, transform into characters using body language and voices. This interactive approach will activate each child’s imagination and keep them engaged in the creative process in new and exciting ways! The class will culminate in a performance for the school community.
The Harlem Renaissance! Learn About it, Experience It, Re-Create It! Teacher: Kathy O’Mara Grades: Preschool to 12th Through picture books, photos, and stories, we will learn about the radical artistic rebirth that took place in New York in the 1920's, when African-American painters, poets and musicians took the stage for the first time in U.S. history and began to have a voice. We will learn to dance the Charleston, and to sing songs with African roots such as "Funga Alafia," which later became the jump rope song of the American South, "L'il Liza Jane." We'll create and recite lines of poetry inspired by Langston Hughes, listen to and sing songs by Billie Holiday such as "God Bless the Child," and view and paint a cityscape of Harlem. We will tie our favorite threads together into one unique tapestry of child-led performance art, including spoken word, dance, song, and visual art. Come learn, create and experience a revolution with us!
Creative Writing Teacher: Scott Sayre Grades: 3rd and up Unleash your creative writer! Write about what happened, what you wish would happen, what never happens, and what you wish hadn’t happened. Write what is in your heart using the skills of the art form such as character, plot, story, setting, and more. Get the tools you need to write it all down!
Writing Your Experience as a Play Teacher: Scott Sayre Grades: 7th through 9th Ever have something funny, scary, or wonderful happen to you? We will take these anecdotes and learn the skills of the art form or playwriting in order to transpose these simple experiences into a play!
Mind Games Teacher: After School Days Instructor Grades: K-8 Before there were video games, there were crossword puzzles that occupied our minds. We have an assortment of word scrambles, brain teasers and other word games and we get together once a week and play games, have competitions, win prizes. We make this class so much fun that kids ask us for puzzles to take on long car trips because Nintendo is “boring.” FI UOY CAN DDEECO HSIT NSEECENT, EWL’L VIEG UYO 5$ FOF HET CRIPE FO HET ASSLC; EB URES OT NIBGR YORU TUNNAS TONOIL!
Newspaper Club Teacher: After School Days Instructor Grades: K-8 Who better than an experienced print journalist to teach your children every aspect of putting out a school newspaper? The students will be taught how to report the news in their school, cover live events like school plays, sell ads to raise money to support the PTA, shoot photographs and practice writing headlines. We hold mock press conferences and teach them how to ask a question to solicit the information they want. We work on doing research. The instructor will assemble a 4-page newspaper for the school to distribute.
Yoga Train Teacher: DM Osborne Grades: K-10 (K-1 are Yoga Fireflies, Grades 2-5 are Lions, Cobras and Dogs, and Grades 6-10 are Peaceful Warriors) Course Description: Learn Body, Mind, and Self. Yoga Train teaches about the body through posture, alignment, and breath. Students observe their own movements through the various yoga poses and learn to be aware of how their mind and body work together as one. A fun way to explore this age old tradition and build concentration, self-esteem an trust. Materials: Bring your own mat or $15 per child.
YogaEdTM Grades: K-2; 3-5; and 6-8 Teacher: DMOsborne Course Description: YogaEdTM courses support children in becoming fit, active learners with a keen sense of personal responsibility. 75-minute lessons include group discussion, yoga poses and games, and guided meditation. Children gain personal confidence and improve coordination as they learn to execute, hold, and flow through balance poses, backbends, twists, and inversions. Through kinesthetic games and partner poses, students build leadership skills and trust in one another. Along the way, students are challenged to contemplate topics like how to handle feelings, how to make mindful choices, and how to listen to themselves and others.
Evolution Through Revolution:Printmaking & Letterpress Teacher: Madeleine Zygarewicz 6-12 Explore various techniques of printmaking and letterpress aswe take a whirlwind hands-on tour of the history of printing. Fromreligion to the DIY punk zine, we will briefly look at the historical value ofprinting and how it mobilized various social movements. We will look atthe historical value of printing and how it mobilized various socialmovements. We will look at famous printed work by Andy Warhol, AlbrechtDurer, Vincent Van Gough and more. Discover ways to print from everydayobjects and tools in addition to using linoleum block carvings, letterpress,vintage printers’ blocks and wooden type. Share your prints withclassmates and leave with a portfolio of your evolution of print. Allstudents will have the opportunity to print on a hundred year old printingpress. Be a part of history as you reclaim tangible communication in anera of disposable digital information! Projects will range from personal artprints to promotional posters to handmade books.
Capoeira Teacher:Dana Maman, Sarah Peters Grades:K-12 Capoeira is anAfro-Brazilian art-form developed by slave communities in Brazil. Duringthe 16th century slaves who were brought from Angola have usedcapoeira as a way of resistance against the Portuguese slave owners. Thisart-form incorporates dance, music, and martial-arts and allows for thedevelopment of self control, discipline, and an understanding of one’scharacter and body. It has served as a community building tool whileeducating youth and reminding adults of their history. This class willhave children involved in music and movement while developing a sense ofleadership and confidence. The lesson will also educate students aboutrich afro-Brazillian culture and the context in which capoeira was developed.
Bohemian Ballet Teacher: Susan Linville Grades: 3rd – 8th and 9th – 12th For those who have the passion and desireto learn the classical style of Ballet with a rock’n’roll attitude! Thisclass is a great workout with great music and it will prove to you that Balletcan be fun! Ballet works on your core strength, balance, flexibility andit give you buns of steel!
