Great Small Works at Ecorama: "Sandy, Sandy, Sandy"

Great Small Works is a local theater troupe that works in equal parts to delight audiences with drama and puppetry and to provoke them with thoughtful, edgy commentary about current events. At Ecorama, for the 4th and 5th grade, GSW transformed room 323 into a spooky underwater enclave complete with mini enclaves (fishtanks) used for the puppet play. Therein was told the tale of Coral (sea coral), Salty (a 400 year old pirate) and Lucia (a blue heron) struggling to manage life's challenges post hurricane Sandy.

The "rich people" puppets who employed private fire fighters. The one on the left is about to lose his head!

For every class, the fact that one of the puppet's heads came off fascinated the children. Roberto Rossi aka "Coral" explained that a few days before the show, the puppet broke! Ack, what to do?? He decided to work with this new, two part iteration of the puppet and weave a decapitation into the play. So resourceful!

Following the performance, students asked the troupe many excellent questions: How old is Salty? And why is "Salty" his name? How did you create your costumes? How did you create the characters? Is that your real hair? Where were you during the hurricane? What are you doing about climate change? (Wise kids we have). When and where can we see more GSW puppet plays? (Click here to find out more about GSW's where and when-abouts). As much as GSW put out for our kids, our kids in turn put out for them with their knowledge and bold curiosity. 


Thank you, GSW, for your wisdom, ingenuity, humor and hard work!

Meredith Holch as Blue Heron

Roberto Rossi as Coral

And, thank you, Barbara and Johanna for facilitating the event's production in conjunction with Ecorama, Mia for videotaping the whole thing from every angle possible, Justin Weiner for his awesome photography, and all the volunteers and teachers who participated.

The final words of show and overall gist of the event in its entirety? Whether you are dealing with environmental destruction, political action, or making and producing puppet plays, success depends on working together. Viva!

Jenny Romaine and Salty

Honoring Ann Rosen

Are these the last days of school, or the first of Summer? With ceremonies and celebrations -- and watermelon – in the offing, we take a moment to honor and thank Ann Rosen, who has helped enrich the BNS community for almost two decades. A practicing artist and a devoted teacher, Ann inaugurated the school’s art department, and later the first floor art studio. And she worked with classroom and department teachers to integrate visual arts programming into their curricula at every grade level. Only a few recent examples: Beautifully re-imagined Gowanus landscapes, part of the 4^th grade’s sustainability and social studies unit. 

The 1^st grade’s bug study, happily infesting the halls of 610 Henry Street. 

Mayan masks with the 5^th grade, the 3^rd grade’s clay figures and bamboo drawings. The list goes on.

BNS prizes the arts as a vital component of learning, and Ann Rosen has worked steadfastly to nurture and celebrate opportunities for our kids to dig in with their hands and their hearts. A hearty kudos to you, Ann. And many thanks for your generosity, spirit and dedication!

Brown-Earthy and Rich Botanical Bas Relief. Beautiful!

In Paola's class the kids completed a year long botany study. They did planning drawings to scale of original plants with specific qualities. In response to all of the green spaces they visited this year they also created a series of planning/mappings sketches of their ideal green space. These were re-envisioned in a 3d model then built out of clay using a square base sculpture and bas relief.

These pieces were made of brown stoneware that was fired to cone six to get a rich color.

What does your ideal green space look like? If you send an image to bnsartalive@gmail.com, I'll post it!

Over and Under Everything!

Andrew's class has been exploring weaving all year in collaboration with Rachel S. First Rachel worked with students to learn the basic stitch: over, under, over, under. 

They worked with paper first then made a giant loom to crawl through to get the "over and under" feeling into their bodies. How cool is that? Then students experimented with the "over and under" stitch on varied surfaces: sticks, straws and fingers. 

They wondered, what else could be a loom?  Looking around the classroom, kids thought about weaving on radiators and book baskets and the fence around the playground: anything that could be a recipient for their strings, yarns, and ribbons. Seeing possibilities everywhere, we sought donations from the people at Philadelphia Salvage. A collection  of "recycled looms" grew to include tennis rackets, baby gates, old shutters, and pickle barrel hoops. The kids set to work preparing "weavers" from strips of fabric, ribbons, caution tape and yarn. One student, AJ, really enjoyed being a "fabric ripper," tearing bolts into many useable strips.

 Working with partners over the course of many weeks, the class discovered the potential for unexpected objects and materials to be transformed into color and texture-filled beauty of many sizes and shapes with nothing more than the "over and under" mantra guiding the way. 

What can you find that can be a loom? Thank you, Rachel, for giving our kids a chance to experiment with this process and for taking these wonderful photos. Bring on the over, under...