Project Destiny : Curricula

YOUTH ON THE MOVE!
As everyone who has ever seen a Destiny performance knows, movement and theater can be very powerful vehicles for expression and empowerment for young people. The groundbreaking Destiny Arts Center Youth Performance Company (DAYPC) has for the last 15 years taken that basic insight to another level: having young people create their own full-length, collaborative theater and dance productions, with facilitation and guidance from professional artists.

What will happen if you challenge artistically talented young people to achieve the highest levels of excellence in their performance and at the same time create performances that raise critical social, political and personal issues? How can you structure that sort of experience to make it work for the youth you’re engaged with? What sorts of tools and techniques can you use to make the experience as transformative, and the final performances as superb, as possible?

“Youth on the Move!,” Destiny’s curriculum guide, seeks to answer those questions. After more than a decade leading DAYPC, Sarah Crowell sat down to write out for other educators, directors, choreographers and organizers the process through which she and the DAYPC youth members conceive of, develop, rehearse for, and perform their amazing shows each year.

“Youth on the Move!” is an easy-to-use, comprehensive curriculum guide. It follows DAYPC’s collaborative model for putting together a new movement/theater performance from start to finish. But it is also designed in a way that allows readers to easily pick out the elements most useful to them.

The guide includes:
* Detailed recommendations for each stage of the collaborative process, from auditions to “debriefing” after the final performance.
* Sample materials – rehearsal schedules, audition flyers, press releases, production schedules.
* The full script (with production and lighting notes) from a DAYPC show.
* Group exercises – theater, dance and group bonding exercises.
* “Journal notes” providing insights and lessons learned from DAYPC director Sarah Crowell’s years of experience working with youth in collaborative creation.
* Two DVDs showing DAYPC in action.

To order a copy, call (510) 597-1619 or email info@destinyarts.org