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Sharing the Arts With Children
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Sharing the Arts With Children By:
Nissa Freed
http://www.nwbaby.com/l8.html
The dancers of the Pacific Northwest Ballet have remarkable concentration.
Their leaps and pirouettes are executed with effortless grace—even
with the noses of ten small, wiggly children pressed up against
the glass of their practice room. Our group of two to six year-olds
is taking a fall tour of the Pacific Northwest Ballet School.
“Wow, they’re beautiful!” my daughter says. “See
that guy jump?” says my son, seeing for the first time that
ballet isn’t just about girls in pink.
Next we enter a practice room of our own where the children take
a dance class to live piano accompaniment. The children hop and
twirl, stopping and starting with the music. For the finale, they
sit in a circle and pass around real costumes from the ballet’s
performances, handling the worn point shoes of the ballerinas and
looking out from behind the eyes of the actual mask of the Nutcracker.
All around the Puget Sound, families are fortunate to have remarkable
access to the arts, from local library programs to some of our region’s
most prestigious museums and concert halls. Most programs for children
are surprisingly affordable, and many are completely free. For our
small group, touring the ballet school cost about the same as taking
the kids to a movie, but the opportunity it offered the children
was priceless.
The Seattle Symphony, located at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, offers
free tours twice weekly as well as periodic free organ recitals.
Their hands-on museum, Soundbridge, invites kids to feel and try
out instruments for themselves, and offers story times and classes,
as well as a children’s symphony series all their own. There
is something wonderful about a roomful of toddlers laughing, singing,
and enjoying music amid the Chihuly glass and plush seating of the
very grown-up recital hall. It speaks highly of the value we in
the Northwest place on our littlest citizens that they are welcome
here.
All young children love to sing, dance, and move, and they don’t
need expensive materials or instruction to make music their own.
Encourage your children to put their own words to music with a few
simple rhythm instruments and a tune they already know. You can
do this yourself, by singing your children’s names to the
William Tell Overture or a bit of your favorite tune. Or check out
the CD, The Classical Child at the Ballet from Music for Little
People and have ballet dancing in your living room. Giving your
children the power to express their own words and feelings through
song and dance is the start of a life- long love of music. It teaches
that music is accessible, that music is familiar; music is something
they can do.
Sharing the arts with children can be as simple as reading a good
book of poetry together. Libraries are a fantastic resource for
poetry and music from around the world. A quick search online can
result in a stack of treasures awaiting you at he library hold desk,
allowing you to relax during library time with the kids and take
advantage of the wonderful programs they have to offer.
Storytelling is one of the arts children most enjoy and the libraries
attract a wide range of artists throughout the year. One storyteller
from India told tales from his own childhood, as well as stories
centuries old, and finished by teaching the children how to wrap
a turban. A West African group shared stories and music. The children
joined in chanting and percussion as rattles and shakers were handed
around.
For all children, the best way to experience the arts is by doing
it themselves. The arts should enrich our lives, and bring us joy.
For children, this means at least 90 percent doing for every 10
percent watching or listening quietly.
Don’t be afraid to try out arts activities in the community
that welcome families. The key to sharing the arts with a young
child is in taking them to places where they will be happy, and
where the proprietors don’t mind seeing small children. Keeping
the activities low cost or free ensures that you’ll be willing
to leave and try again later if something isn’t working for
your child.
On the way out of the Pacific Ballet School the children stop again
to watch the dancers practice. This time, however, they had just
had the experience of dancing themselves.
They see the dancing stop as the director gave some instruction,
then start up again, with leaps and jumps. “Look! “
my daughter squeals to her brother, reaching for his arm, “We
can do that too!”
—©2005 Nissa Freed
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