WORKSHOPS
In winter 2019, a series of ten workshops in dance, sound recording, and visual art were led by University of Michigan faculty and students in collaboration with education specialists from the Belle Isle Nature Center for a group of middle school students from the Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the workshops, students explored Belle Isle's natural environments and learned about the water cycle, water quality and use, and connections between natural and built environments. They developed dance materials, created visual art collages, collected sounds from the environment, and generated reflective writing. The activities fostered their engagement with place and deepened their understanding of efforts to build a sustainable future for the Detroit River watershed. An exhibit about the workshops was on display summer 2019 at the Belle Isle Nature Center. The students performed a dance that was developed in the workshops entitled We're All Connected, choreographed by Jessica Fogel in collaboration with the dancers to a song of the same title by Stan Slaughter, Tall Oak Music. The dance was performed on the students' annual dance recital on May 9, 2019, at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. A video of that performance is below.