In Physical Education classes for grade 7, 8 and 9 students, Movement With A Message artists worked through athleticism and dance to create choreography and explore connections to the Health curriculum with dances styles such as Hip Hop, Break Dance and House. The company's focus in the dance sessions is to foster collaborations and relationships in a safe and encouraging environment. Movement With a Message Core Values, Our 3 C’s: Courageous to face adversity Compassion to see one another Community to build and restore strong connections transcend culture with courage and compassion to build strong communities. Here is a link to the Movement With a Message website.
Cathy Beveridge lives in Calgary and is involved with schools, conducting writing workshops for students, giving author talks, and doing professional development presentations on teaching creative writing for teachers. Story has always fascinated Cathy and words and language mesmerized her. Cathy worked with our grade 5 and 6 students in March on the narrative process. She had the students start with a problem and solve the problem in their writing emphasizing a showing not telling technique. Here is a link to Cathy Beveridge's website.
On Wednesday, February 22. the grade 5-9 students listened to Omari Newton's presentation that highlighted the intersection of protest and popular culture in celebration of Black History Month. Contemporary examples included former NFL Quarterback Colin Kaepernick, and NBA player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf before him, rapper Kendrick Lamar, and actor Jesse Williams. Muhhamad Ali famously went to jail in protest of the Vietnam War. Men like superstar athlete, actor and singer Paul Robeson and the late great Dick Gregory dedicated their lives to advocating for equal rights. Same goes for brave women such as Nina Simone, Lorraine Hansberry and Ruby Dee. Students enjoyed a performance of an original slam poetry piece, they engaged in an interactive freestyle Hip Hop activity and participated in discussion about the roots of Jazz, Montreal-born artist Omari Newton is a professional actor, writer, Slam poet and MC whose work can be found on television, film, stage or radio. He is currently a City of Vancouver funded Artist in Residence (Playwright) with urban ink productions. Here is a link to Omari Newton's profile on IMDb.
On February 14, 2018 Gr. 8 and 9 students were able to listen to the musical ensemble Rotary Park. Rotary Park is a Calgary based band playing a special brand of harmony driven, alternative bluegrass. Their music is a combination of ambient folk music with powerful vocal harmonies and banjo ripping bluegrass. They are musicians, balladeers and story tellers. Rotary Park is a band created with long-time friends and fellow buskers. They have toured across Canada several times and they have two full length albums (available on itunes, Spotify and Google Play. Here is a link to Rotary Park's website.
Nicole is a professional artist and improviser who has been working professionally across Canada since 1998. As an improviser and comedian, she has written and performed her own shows across Canada, and along with the Kinkonauts, she can be seen regularly working with Dirty Laundry the Live Improvised Soap Opera and the Improv Guild (Women in Improv – International Improv Festival 2010, 2011, 2012). Nicole worked with grade seven Drama students on long form improvisation creating performances for grade five and six students on the subjects of healthy relationships, forms of addiction and bullying from their Health curriculum. Nicole will be working with the grade eight Humanities classes in February on Sonnets and Iambic Pentameter. Click here to learn more about Nicole Zylstra.
Nick Johnson is a Calgary comic book artist. Nick guided the grade nine students to create mathematical stories in graphic form. Nick is involved with projects like Canadian Pulp which he created for Fast Forward Magazine and he is the artist on the very fun web comic called Wolf Hands, written by Justin Heggs. Click here to read an article about Nick Johnson.
![]() The grade six students had the opportunity to work with Calgary artist Terry Reynoldson in October. They did plaster casting with their CSI unit. Terry taught them the importance of symbolism with their art and using AMerican Sign Language the students formed letters with their hands, dipped them in wax and casted their hand sculptures in plaster. ![]() Chester Lees has over 25 years of experience in the field as an artist with an expertise in painting and water color. In addition to being an artist, she is also an educator and motivational speaker. She conducts workshops for the Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts, the Telus World of Science Creative Kids Museum and the Glenbow Museum. She has held many art residencies in many Calgary Board of Education and Charter Schools. Chester is also an instructor at Alberta College of Art and Design in their continuing education program. Chester Lees has held numerous exhibitions in Britain, Hong Kong, Germany and Canada, including a solo show at the Medicine Hat Museum and Art Gallery. Chester worked with our grade seven students to create an animal metaphor for current influential Canadians using through the medium of mask. Here is link to Chester Lee's website.
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Artists in ResidenceWillow Park is committed to giving our students and educators opportunities to experience encounters with artists and art making. Artists in Residence provide the space for the community to work with artists from all mediums. Archives
June 2017
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