Prince and the Power of the Arts

Prince and the Power of the Arts

Arts Education Partnership had a conversation with Prince Nwankwo about his arts experiences with Everett: Company Stage & School while in the care of the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services (DYS) and the continued arts support as he made his transition...

The Arts and Literacies

This interactive and adaptive resource captures the insights and reflections of attendees who joined AEP’s Arts and Literacies Thinkers Meeting Series. It incorporates art and text to support different experiences and interactions as visitors explore the...
Dreaming of a Future Through the Arts

Dreaming of a Future Through the Arts

On August 2nd, Performing Statistics, a partner of Arts Education Partnership (AEP), announced the release of Freedom Constellations. This interactive public art project represents a new monument that asks youth to illustrate a road map toward freedom for all young...

State Information Request: The Arts in ESSER State Plans

An arts education organization asked about states that named the arts in their approved state ESSER plans and their proposed arts-related activities. Our response includes an overview of the the states that included arts in their plans, the states with plans that have...
For-Credit Arts Programs in Juvenile Justice

For-Credit Arts Programs in Juvenile Justice

In 2010, Austin Classical Guitar (ACG) expanded our 20-year school-based guitar education program to the Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center, a residential facility that houses a school within the Austin Independent School District (ISD)for middle and high school...
AEP_JuvenileJustice1_BlogImage_895x530 Branded

AEP_JuvenileJustice1_BlogImage_895x530 Branded

This photo is taken outdoors in the Norwegian countryside and is a landscape-style image. The photographer chose to focus on a large, partially rusted tin barn. On the front of the barn and centered in the photograph, a street artist painted a mural of a young person...
AEP_JuvenileJustice2_BlogImage_895x530 Branded

AEP_JuvenileJustice2_BlogImage_895x530 Branded

This photo was taken indoors and includes a blank, white backdrop and a white floor. The focus of the photo is a series of colorful musical instruments and colorful bells strewn across the floor along with confetti. Image Credit: Fifth House...
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This photo of a classroom is taken indoors and includes a teacher with close-cropped dark hair and in a short-sleeved plaid shirt in the background. The teacher stands near a projector at the front of the class and speaks to students. Students are seated at desks that...
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This photo is taken outdoors in the Norwegian countryside and is a landscape-style image. The photographer chose to focus on a large partially rusted tin barn. On the front of the barn and centered in the photograph, a street artist painted a mural of a young person...
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03042021_Field Trip Friday BTS-19 featured image resized

Wolf Trap Teaching Artist Natasha Mirny performs “Moving and Learning Through the Rainforest,” an installment in Wolf Trap’s “Field Trip Fridays” web series, created as a resource to help encourage at-home learning during the pandemic. Photo Courtesy of Wolf Trap...
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The photo is taken indoors in a room with natural lighting filtering in from the background of the photo. Viewers will notice in the blurred background a two-level plant stand with plants and a yellow chair or sofa at the right side of the frame. The main subject of...
New Study Shows Why Arts Education Matters

New Study Shows Why Arts Education Matters

As a theatre artist, no one needs to convince me that the arts have a powerful impact on youth. I have personally experienced and witnessed how the arts transform students’ learning experiences by fostering positive creative youth development outcomes such as...
This photograph features a youth string orchestra performing outdoors in a covered park amphitheater. The background of the photograph shows the park’s greenspace with manicured lawns and trimmed trees. In the amphitheater, youth are positioned in rows based on musical instrument and are angled around the conductor in a semi-circle. The conductor is in the foreground of the photo with back to the camera. Youth are wearing blue t-shirts, and the conductor and performing staff are wearing orange t-shirts. Photo Credit: Courtesy of EdVestors.

This photograph features a youth string orchestra performing outdoors in a covered park amphitheater. The background of the photograph shows the park’s greenspace with manicured lawns and trimmed trees. In the amphitheater, youth are positioned in rows based on musical instrument and are angled around the conductor in a semi-circle. The conductor is in the foreground of the photo with back to the camera. Youth are wearing blue t-shirts, and the conductor and performing staff are wearing orange t-shirts. Photo Credit: Courtesy of EdVestors.

This photograph features a youth string orchestra performing outdoors in a covered park amphitheater. The background of the photograph shows the park’s greenspace with manicured lawns and trimmed trees. In the amphitheater, youth are positioned in rows based on...
This photograph features a youth string orchestra performing outdoors in a covered park amphitheater. The background of the photograph shows the park’s greenspace with manicured lawns and trimmed trees. In the amphitheater, youth are positioned in rows based on musical instrument and are angled around the conductor in a semi-circle. The conductor is in the foreground of the photo with back to the camera. Youth are wearing blue t-shirts, and the conductor and performing staff are wearing orange t-shirts. Photo Credit: Courtesy of EdVestors.

This photograph features a youth string orchestra performing outdoors in a covered park amphitheater. The background of the photograph shows the park’s greenspace with manicured lawns and trimmed trees. In the amphitheater, youth are positioned in rows based on musical instrument and are angled around the conductor in a semi-circle. The conductor is in the foreground of the photo with back to the camera. Youth are wearing blue t-shirts, and the conductor and performing staff are wearing orange t-shirts. Photo Credit: Courtesy of EdVestors.

This photograph features a youth string orchestra performing outdoors in a covered park amphitheater. The background of the photograph shows the park’s greenspace with manicured lawns and trimmed trees. In the amphitheater, youth are positioned in rows based on...
The photo captures an outdoor mural in the Las Vegas, Nevada, Arts District during a bright, sunny day. The artist painted the mural on the side of what appears to be an apartment complex. The mural depicts a headshot of woman against a rainbow-striped background. The woman has blue skin and has her eyes closed. Her long black hair flows from her head in all directions and transforms into computer cords with plugs at the end, evoking the Greek mythological character Medusa. Beside the mural on the right, the photographer includes a partial view of a palm tree trunk and palm fronds that seem to touch the mural. Photo Credit: Photo by Alex on Unsplash

The photo captures an outdoor mural in the Las Vegas, Nevada, Arts District during a bright, sunny day. The artist painted the mural on the side of what appears to be an apartment complex. The mural depicts a headshot of woman against a rainbow-striped background. The woman has blue skin and has her eyes closed. Her long black hair flows from her head in all directions and transforms into computer cords with plugs at the end, evoking the Greek mythological character Medusa. Beside the mural on the right, the photographer includes a partial view of a palm tree trunk and palm fronds that seem to touch the mural. Photo Credit: Photo by Alex on Unsplash

The photo captures an outdoor mural in the Las Vegas, Nevada, Arts District during a bright, sunny day. The artist painted the mural on the side of what appears to be an apartment complex. The mural depicts a headshot of woman against a rainbow-striped background. The...

Title: A Riddle | Artist: MJ Robinson | Medium: Graphite on paper with digital edits

Title: 2280 Pasos Bajo un Cielo Nublado | Artist: Hernán Jourdan | Medium: Film

Title: What Is Me and What Is Not Me | Artist: Alex Chadwell | Medium: Music

My thinking on arts and literacy centers around the concept of literacies and artmaking as both sense-making and meaning-making processes that organically and inevitably overlap, intersect, and reciprocate. Compositionally, What is me and what is not me is a sound collage of sorts (there is no notation for the piece, and I'd be hard pressed to recreate it accurately) that abstractly and aurally represents the relationships between literacies and artmaking.

When I was asked to create a work of art exploring literacy, I wanted to create a dance but I had no dancers or a studio, so I chose to use my own body in the space I had, my yard. Fluent Nature is video of micro-choreography that explores what cannot be expressed with words, how nature has its own language, and how placing the human body in nature changes the story.

Title: False Binaries | Artist: MJ Robinson | Medium: Graphite on paper with digital edits

Title: Tercera Llamada | Artist: Karilú Forshee | Medium: Audio

La Carpa Theatre is a project that I am currently directing in the Detroit Latinx community. The project aims to strengthen and uplift youth voices through devised theatre, in the style of the Mexican Carpas. This audio was created in the theatrical environment envisioned for our project. The ways in which literacies are re-defined are at the heart of La Carpa Theatre's mission.

Title: A Curious Honeybee | Artist: Gideon Young | Medium: Film

Offering welcome through traditional and digital elements of literacy, A Curious Honeybee provides an experiential learning environment by activating visual, musical, natural, and emotional literacies.

Title: Literaseas | Artist: MJ Robinson | Medium: Graphite and ink on paper with digital edits