This year we will have a free and open to the public Summer Storytime at two locations!

• August 23, 2pm you can enjoy a Hands-On Interactive Folktale at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

• August 26th, 1:30pm you can enjoy an interactive folktale S.H.O.W at the Hamtramck Public Library.

That’s right, the Hamtramck Public Library is having a Sustainable-Hands-On-Workshop!  We will teach you to make instruments out of recyclables before we tell our story.  We would like to give a special thanks to the Grosse Pointe Trader Joe’s for donating recycled products for our SHOW.  We will make drums, rain-sticks, shakers, and tambourines!  I look forward to seeing you at the DIA and Hamtramck Public Library.  Come back after you see the SHOW to see pictures of all the instruments we make.

Matrix Theatre Co. has invited us to Our Diverse Arts Summer Camp!  Our mission at Hands-On Folktales, is to promote literacy through appreciation of the arts.  I can’t imagine a better place to immerse your summer in art, than at this camp. Check out information below, go to the Matrix Theatre website and sign up for a summer full of fun!

I’ve updated this post with a preview of our Summer 2015 gallery.  Here are some highlights from Our Diverse Arts camp 2015  🙂  Enjoy!

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FOR AGES 11-14,   “Our Diverse Arts”

Cost: $200

July 20 – 31, 2015

Detroit has no shortage of art- visual, musical, and theatrical. During this camp, students have the opportunity to learn about the arts in Detroit, and explore the ways we use art to express ourselves. Through this camp, aspiring artists use playwriting, poetry, music, and movement to create original theatre pieces to be performed both at Matrix Theatre Company and at the Starr Summer Youth Festival. For the first time, students in this age group have the chance to attend an overnight camp where they will swim, boat, and hike as they put the finishing touches on their work.

This semester Hands-On Folktales participated as an artist in residence for two Oakland County Schools through VSA Michigan and Matrix Theatre Company.  One of the residencies was in the classroom of Lisa Barnett, MT-BC.  You may know Lisa from Songs to Grow On, as she has worked extensively throughout the community to provide inclusive music therapy to a wide range of students.  You can find more information on  programs and events from Lisa by liking  facebook page.

Lisa created a Caribbean themed musical showcase for her students. Hands-On adapted a Little John tale, and the young storytellers learned how to share this interactive story with an audience.  Both classes worked hard to learn and perform for their families and friends. The day of the showcase came, and it was a Caribbean dream!  We had Caribbean songs, music, and a projected presentation. The evening was made complete with steel drums, bird puppets, and an interrupting Pirate.  Everyone had a lot of fun!  The crowd followed our young storytellers, and we told the story together!  One of the classes created visual art of the characters in our story.  Here are the pictures made by the students in class.

Giant Mongoose!

Giant Iguana

The sky was green and the grass was blue.

Sun and the Moon

Giant Bee

If you’d like to learn more about Little John tales, follow us on Twitter @handsonfolktale and look for our upcoming series of “Did You Know” tweets.

Two of our four classes from Oakland County Schools were able to attend the festival.  All year long, the students have been collaborating to create their own work of art.  We learned about the parts of a story, theme and plot.  One class worked on a theme of changing seasons, the other class wrote a play about community. All of the students learned how to perform or present in front of an audience. Under the guidance of Lisa LaMarre (artist in residence from the LaMarre Dance Company), our young artists learned about movement, focus and rhythm.  Lisa taught such great dances, that it made perfect sense to combine dance and drama to share our story.  Our plays became a musicals.

After months of work, we finally had a chance to use our new skills in front of a real audience.  Yesterday we attended the VSA Celebrate Abilities Festival (an audience of well over a hundred people)…  We had so much fun!

Bright and early, we began our festival fun with a mask-making craft exercise.  An African Drumming workshop filled the air with music. Soon after, we filled the floor with dancing!  We painted a student made mural, watched professional jugglers, enjoyed a small gallery of visual art, listened to beautiful songs, and shared our art with lots of different schools and participants.  We did all that before lunch!  What a day!!  Here are some of the pictures from the festival.

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Through VSA Michigan and Matrix Theatre Company, Hands-On Folktales was given the opportunity to team up with four Oakland County elementary school classrooms.

This semester we will:

• Write a play and perform for a festival
• Create an Interactive Story to perform at a showcase
• Learn about acting, theatre, and how to perform in front of an audience.

Hands-On Folktales has created process oriented inclusive arts education programs for these students (grades K-5).  We will be attending the VSA Celebrate Abilities Festival in early May.  Be sure to come back and read about our big performance!

We debuted our work at the Senate Theatre in Southwest Detroit on March 21, 2015.  It was such a success!  Hands-On would like to give a big THANK YOU to Matrix Theatre company for inviting us to lead the Celebrate Your Story course for young writers. We had so much fun creating this story.  Check out the video below to view the entire “Book of Detroit!”, narrated by our young authors.

Spring is in the air and Hands-On Folktales is busy as a bee! Southwest Detroit’s Matrix Theatre Company asked Hands-On Folktales to lead their students in a Picture Storybook course.
Celebrate Your Story is a class for 5-7 year old artists and storytellers. Our students decided to spotlight different aspects of their experiences in Detroit. They learned about the parts of a story, heroes and villains. Each student created a short story and translated some of the ideas into visual art. They were asked to consider texture and color using different techniques: collage, watercolor etc.
The result is an anthology of action, fantasy, memories and daydreams.
Stay tuned for more information on their “Book of Detroit”.

created by the 2015 Celebrate Your Story class