YOUTH ON THE MOVE!


A Teacher’s Guidebook to co-creating original movement/theater performances with teens
(package includes 2 DVD’s)

Curriculum Guide Introductory Pages – click for sample

Click here for ORDER FORM

The Guidebook
We have designed this guidebook to share the process that the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company uses to create movement/theater pieces as a collaboration between high school students and professional artists, in hopes that this process will help to design, expand, transform and/or improve a high school level performance program that you already run or want to create. The guidebook is formatted so that each chapter represents a distinct phase of the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company 5-month process of forming a group, creating and producing a show, and debriefing the experience. While we will offer some suggestions about how to do things, the guidebook primarily describes the process through which we created our show for a 5-month period starting in December 2003 and ending in May 2004.

The DVD’s
A Place Named Destiny (70 MINUTE DOCUMENTARY)
We highly recommend that you and your students watch this documentary as it gives a personal context in which to understand the various exercises and lessons in this guidebook, and inspires both teacher and student to begin the creative process. It follows the process of creating the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company show, Soul Dust, which was performed in the spring of 2001.The film premiered in June 2002 at the Mill Valley Film Festival in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Watching it offers insight into the lives of some of the company youth and demonstrates their personal journeys as they work together to create the show.  Watching the film makes this curriculum come to life.

Vision to Action (SHORT PROMOTIONAL VIDEO)
This short piece features current Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company members and professional artists and educators talking about how the performing arts are an important instrument for personal transformation and social change.  The interviews are combined with exciting footage of the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company in rehearsals and performances.

About Destiny Arts Center
Destiny Arts Center exists to end isolation, prejudice  and violence in the lives of young people.

Destiny (De-Escalation Skills Training Inspiring Nonviolence in Youth) Arts Center is a unique arts organization devoted to the safety, creativity and empowerment of young people.  Through a deep-seated philosophy of nonviolence, Destiny uses martial arts, dance, theater, youth leadership, conflict resolution and self-defense training in after-school, weekend and summer programs, as methods to motivate youth to discover themselves and one another as significant, powerful and peaceful people.  Our multicultural community allows youth to come together in an atmosphere of love, inspiration and respect that celebrates and transcends different backgrounds and experiences. Destiny Arts Center was founded in 1988 as a violence prevention program in a public elementary school that served 30 youth.  Today the Center serves over 250 youth per year in onsite and outreach programs, and another 12,000 youth and adults through performances and workshops throughout the Bay Area and nationwide.  Over the years, Destiny has become a potent manifestation of both arts education and youth development in a community-based setting.

About the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company
The work of the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company (DAYPC) inspired this guidebook. The Company is a multicultural group of teens that have auditioned annually since 1993 to create original performances, in collaboration with professional artists, that combine hip-hop, modern and aerial dance, theater, martial arts, song and rap.  The productions are a dynamic, creative forum for young people to express their fears, hopes and strategies for confronting challenging personal and social issues, including racism, sexism, homophobia, violence, poverty, and the environment. The DAYPC gives youth opportunities to bear witness to the crucial power of art and culture as mediums for self-_expression, agents of solidarity and means of working toward peace.

What People Are Saying About the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company

“I saw the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company do their thing and they were dazzling!  A combination of wonderful talent, high energy, and social consciousness.”
— HOWARD ZINN, historian, activist and author of A People's History of the United States
 
“The Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company is a politically astute, talented and visionary group of young people who combine political activism with cutting edge cultural _expression.”
— ANGELA DAVIS, author, scholar and activist
 
“Destiny is dynamic visual diversity: rhythms, colors, voice, dance, _expression, emotion, flight and all of the characteristics we know as gender, race, ethnicity, sexual identity. How lucky  we all are that an agency and community such as Destiny exists. My hope is that the Destiny movement will spread across our country.”
— RANDOLPH CARTER, Former Director, Office of Diversity & Multicultural Services, National Association of Independent Schools

“Thank you Destiny Arts for providing the direction and support for these students to get them to this level of performance. I know you must be proud of each one of them—I know I am!”
— SHEILA JORDAN, Alameda County Superintendent of Schools

“I was blown away by the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company. There are lots of people out there talking about youth development, but the Destiny folks are really doing it. It was one of the most honest and compelling productions that I've seen in years.”
— JILL VIALET, Executive Director, Sports4Kids