In-Residence Theater Company Inspires Creativity, Innovation

  Hawken Upper School students and faculty were treated to a unique performance by music and dance students at an assembly last Friday – the culmination of a project undertaken under the guidance of GroundWorks dancetheater, a Cleveland based contemporary arts organization that has been working in-residence with Hawken students for the last four weeks.   The “I Am” project is an interdisciplinary exploration of how the creation of music, art, dance enables and inspires us to learn from and listen to each other as we seek to communicate through a variety of media and art forms.

  Part of Groundworks’ purpose is to “engage and enliven the community” – and they did exactly that during their time at Hawken, both in the classroom and on the stage.   Music and dance students collaborated in innovative ways, culminating in the performance of several original contemporary dance studies aptly titled “Lost and Found,” “Reflections,” and “Thinking Outside the Box.”  In creating these pieces, students incorporated original visual art work to help communicate their message.

 The project was designed to encourage students not only to create fresh, original art in a group setting, but to experience empathy and other points of view on a more profound, experiential level.  In doing so, Groundworks lived up to their mission of “embracing risk and imagination, exploring human experience, encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration, and expanding the parameters of how… dance is presented.”