RDT & Salt Lake Arts Academy to Perform 9 Site-specific Dances as Part of Green Map Project (SLC: Oct 25)

SALT LAKE ARTS ACADEMY AND RDT
PRESENT ORIGINAL DANCE

AT LIBRARY SQUARE


Monday October 25, 2010: 11:15 am
Library Square - Free to the Public

WHAT: Salt Lake City’s only arts-based public charter middle school, the Salt Lake Arts Academy, has collaborated with Repertory Dance Theatre as part of their Green Map Project, to create nine original site-specific dances, to be performed outdoors at Library Square. Three RDT dancers, Nick Cendese, Nathan Shaw, and Sarah Donahue have directed the students in collaborative choreography that explores the Library’s unique architecture, gardens and fountain areas.

WHY: Salt Lake Arts Academy Dance Teacher Karin Fenn wanted to provide the students a unique opportunity to creatively experience the special urban landscape at the Library. This learning experience will give students greater insight into the Green Mapping process and the extraordinary sites that exist within the schools extended neighborhood. This project compliments one of the teaching philosophies of the school, which is to utilize the sites in their neighborhood as part of their extended learning environment.

WHO: 60 5th – 8th grade advanced dance students

WHEN: Monday, October 25, 2010, 11:15 AM

WHERE: Main Library, Library Square

CONTACT: Karin Fenn, Dance Specialist, 801 – 214 – 4341 karin@slarts.org



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About Repertory Dance Theatre's Green Map Project

RDT’s GREEN MAP® PROJECT

Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) has created a transformative, community building project designed to create paths of inquiry, exploration and expression while inspiring young people to be thoughtful and productive citizens.

There is a growing need to help young people understand the concept of environmental sustainability through increased environmental literacy and recognition of where they live. RDT has created a unique Art/Environmental Education Residency Program for schools based on the Green Map® System, a global movement encouraging communities to take inventory of sustainability practices. Through “Place-Based Education”, inter-disciplinary activities and the arts, RDT will utilize the Green Map system tools to actively engage young people in the life of their community and inspire a dynamic understanding of “place.”

“Green Map® System” is a global movement mapping green living, nature, social and cultural resources in over 600 cities world wide. It focuses on sustainable living practices that are designed to help individuals investigate their community through the literal use of a map on which icons are used to identify places that feature nature preserves, centers for cultural and social growth, issues about climate change, environmental justice and activism, and efforts working to improve green enterprise. (www: Greenmap.org)

A Green Map® will anchor a community’s strengths, assets and challenges on an enduring, dynamic map and celebrate this map in art, neighborhood by neighborhood, school by school.
RDT is helping students to learn what make a “healthy” community as they develop “mapping” skills and participate in Creative Movement Classes relating to the natural environment, “green” buildings, alternative energy development and conservation, land-use, geography and history. In the process, students create choreography, poetry, essays, drawings, photographs and videos… a portrait of a community.

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Through a collaborative process, RDT will:
Ø Expand a community’s sense of “place”

Ø Encourage environmental responsibility and waken an awareness of what it means to care for our earth.

Ø Celebrate environmental progress.

Ø Inspire community action through the creative process.

Ø Reach new audiences and develop greater appreciation and understanding of the art of dance

RDT’s Green Map Project will require interaction, reflection, creation and awakening among students, teachers, the general public, visual artists, literary artists, and leaders in schools, neighborhoods, cities and states interested in promoting environmental awareness.

For more info visti rdtutah.org

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