Summer School 2013

No, That's not for you,

Soon you'll find the bright places,

Where Boombands are playing' 

- Oh! the places you'll go - Dr. Seuss

For brighter and greener patches - We are flagging off the centre with Summer School 2013

This year, summer school was designed with the intent to explore various art forms and material. We combined disciplines to observe the lines blur between them and have lotsa fun while we're at it. The facilitators are given a flexible structure with their various groups to play with the content according the their level and response to the material and form.  

Well, to make sense of what that actually means, this is what we came up with...

(image: facilitator's workshop for summer school 2013 - Music and Sculpture)

Movement and Mosaic

The twirl of a skirt, ribbons in a wave, a photograph in motion, a jump, skip, hop and stillness! Consider that stillness to assemble fragmented pieces to create movement on a static form. Children will be exposed to a wide range of activities with music and props to explore movement and patterns through repetition.

Music and Sculpture

These art forms may appear to have very little in common, but they share the same vocabulary -   scale, form, structure and shape all have similar meanings and functions in both art forms. Both are constructed, built and shaped. Many artists have attempted to combine these elements to create a new form. Most often when we listen a good piece of music we forget ourselves to it, it has its mysterious relationship with time, while sculpture defies time and might outlive us. Our dynamic engagement with a static piece of work goes beyond the relevance of time itself.

Our children will be exposed to the basic elements of these two art forms in-tandem to each other. 

Cooking and Weaving 

The various processes that make a pickle just tangy enough or a jam not too sweet is the balance between attention to the finer detail and of course practice, with a dash of love. The warmth of a shawl or a mat comes from the many stories it has heard from artisans who painstakingly spend months to weave them. Attending to every thread that makes a whole mat and owing to summer memories of grandmothers across India making goodies for their little ones,  to finer elements and minute influences. Our children will experience the art of weaving and cooking at its basic level.

Terrace gardening and Painting

Just as there so many specialisations for all the special things around us, there exists horticulture therapy for children and adults with special needs as well. We will merely be touching through this concept in these three weeks. We will be looking at simple people-plant relationship – plants purifying our air and supply our food; plants meet our demands by providing nourishment to all our senses. Painting works with all our senses as well – this summer we would be exploring Eric Carle’s style of painting and mural making. His works also are centred around nature as a theme. 

Structured Play/ Theatre and Making Toys

Unfurl those colourful cloaks and put on those magic lenses, get on the flying carpet for a ride into the unknown. 

Playing comes very naturally to every child, as adults we need to learn to loosen up to play. Play therapy works on many levels for both children and adults involved in the process. Children identify and associate to objects around in a very inhibited  This series will look at opening out these possibilities into actual spaces and try and enter these uninhibited streams within the child and ourselves. 

Caught in uncertainty

"Prejudice is a burden that cconfuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible...We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated." - Maya Angelou 





hold on...

let go...

Over the days of inaugurating our arts based therapy centre for children and adults with special needs, between March 23rd and 29th, I've been told - 'The most important things in life never come easy', I've been asked to 'wait' with hope and I've learned that ‘it is important to allow ones emotions raise and fall’.

Caught amidst uncertainty, I wonder, what happens when some individuals respond solely from a space of prejudice? Would an understanding of importance to anything ever make that difference?

On 23^rd a mob of neighbours along with the local corporator made a racket outside the centre demanding for licences and permissions without any legal standing.  Their complaints ranged from-‘visual distortion’,  where they claim by even looking at children with special needs ‘could’ mentally be traumatising to them, their children and people around’ to ‘noise levels’ and ‘traffic issues’. The later half, we are in the process of putting systems in place to reduce that stress on the local community. As concerns this has been addressed in a public meeting with them. But when it gets to a state of ignorance and prejudice, I have come to believe, it is a journey of the community to unlearn.

On the day, we explained ourselves endlessly. We have followed govt. protocols with regards to permissions and licenses; we have approached the State Commissioner for Persons with Disability for advice. Nothing seemed to make sense. They continued to protest with baseless arguments.

I wonder have we become inaccessible as conditioned humans. Aren’t we losing sight of the self, the other and the possibilities? Do we live in unfriendly societies that will always remain closed?

It has now reached a point of conflict not just with the local community but local politicians, local BBMP officers and the cops. We have been forced to ‘shut down’ all operations on account of a baseless notice issued to us.

In the light of all the things happening over the last three months, I do not know whether I want to spend more time and energy in cushioning that ‘time’, ‘waiting’ for people to start using their hearts while they attempt to use their heads in making absurd comments and selfish decisions. At the end of the day, I do not know whose ‘ego’ we’re fighting for.

One is forced to consider options of whether to – give-up or fight.

Is it worth to ‘hope’ for a time of acceptance for our children? I wonder.

Pallavi Chander
for Snehadhara Foundation

Language...

Everything we know about the world and ourselves has come through our senses. All our knowledge therefore is the product of what we have seen, heard, smelt, etc. Though individuals in the spectrum live in the same physical world and deal with the same ‘raw material’, their perceptual world turns out to be strikingly different from the others.

We think about the world in a way we experience it and perceive it to be. Differences in perception lead to a different perceptual world that inevitably is interpreted differently.Bob Morris calls it a different set of SPATS - Senses, Perceptions, Abilities and Thinking Systems. Of course, it is very difficult to communicate with someone who uses a different ‘language’ .

Anything is possible within the drama, and the dramatic play gives permission to do things that in everyday life would not be permissible or wholesome. (Jennings 2002)

Although children in the spectrum do not have extensive verbal skills to express what they have stored within themselves, they do have an alternate language which allows them to express their experiences and tell stories fairly effectively. For instance, if there is a hill in a story , it will be made up of a symbolic shape of a hill and not in the form of the word, hill. Hence, for children expressing themselves through the language of arts forms is more satisfying than doing so by the language of words .Mental imagery is an essential part of the thinking process.

Art based therapy that encompasses music, drama, play and visual art is a form of expressive therapy. In drama, training of the eye, hand, body and voice is only a tool; the objective is to build a creative, fulfilled and well balanced personality. The integration of the senses, body and the brain is necessary for experiencing learning.

The body is the primary means of learning (Jennings 1990), all other learning comes through the body.

Children in the spectrum have an ability to think visually - "in pictures." That ability can be turned to good use in processing memories, recording images and visual information, and expressing ideas through drama and artistic media.

Drama as an art form is a vehicle of communication that would allow one to be "heard," and understood, empowering one to be a part of something larger than oneself. In being a part of a larger whole, self-awareness and consciousness expand allowing one to experience new ways of being.