Music and Movement Unite! High School Students Meet Top Musicians and Legendary Choreographer This Saturday in North Hollywood to Learn Their Craft
ROWLAND HEIGHTS AND NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CA -- This Saturday, September 17, 2011, a busload of advanced theatre and visual arts students from Rowland High School in Rowland Heights will learn from professional improvisational studio musicians and L.A. legendary choreographer, Shirley Martin.
“Our students will get the chance to be exposed to studio musicians (including Big Black, who has worked for many years with Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis), and choreographer Shirley Martin and her dance troupe, The Martin Dancers. This will enable our students to have a greater understanding of movement and different creative processes and approaches as they begin to work with 75 elementary students this fall in a comprehensive arts education program to expose elementary students to the arts,” said Rowland High School Teacher, Patricia Doublet De Lion.
Thanks to two grants – the Art Education Partnership Grant from L.A. County Supervisor Don Knabe, and the FOR US Foundation – educators Doublet-De Lion and Mala Frank-Gavin are bringing Killian Elementary students to visit the Rowland High School campus two days a week for four weeks to learn theatre and visual arts. Students will learn selections from “Seussical the musical” from the instructors and their advanced high school students. It will culminate in a performance that parents of the elementary students can attend.
“We aim to give students, both advanced and elementary, a comprehensive arts education through the integration of visual art, music, theatre and dance,” said Frank-Gavin.
Rowland Heights was named “2011 Best Place to Raise Kids in California” by Bloomberg Businessweek. Rowland High School is a National Blue Ribbon School, a World International Baccalaureate School and was named in 2011 as one of “America’s Top High Schools” by Newsweek Magazine. It is located at 2000 S. Otterbein Avenue in Rowland Heights and the website is www.rowlandhs.org.