BEYE Discovery: Performance with Visiting Artist Claire Ashley!

Post Contributed by Ally Bernstein, Assistant Teacher

Visiting artist Claire Ashley added flare and sass to our performance themed week with a special costuming and dance project. Claire has been creating art for more than two decades and currently teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her recent art practice involves painting enormous canvas sculptures, which are then inflated to become huge costumes for dancers. These hypnotizing sculptures resemble vast rainbow animals that bounce, sway and shake. Students viewed the following video to better understand Claire’s artistic practice:

http://vimeo.com/57076434

Claire adapted her working model for our lesson. The first step was to create costumes to wear during our own performance at the end of the afternoon. Pillowcases with cut openings for heads and arms were transformed into wearable canvases. We then used cut paper, dot paint and regular markers to create designs that popped off the fabric.

Anika

Some students even decided to make other props, such as paper horns, to transform themselves into fantastic critters.

Joseph

After carefully hanging our wearable art, Claire taught us some dance steps. We stepped, kicked, and shook our hands in time with the music. The choreography was so fun that we didn’t want to stop practicing!

Jordan and Claire

Wilson

Ginger

Beye students then donned their costumes for a dress rehearsal, before performing the entire piece for an excited audience of parents. The dance was energetic, and wearing specially created costumes allowed individual students to express their personality while participating in a choreographed dance. It was also refreshing to get active in the classroom, and to work on an interdisciplinary piece that combined design and movement.