Empowering people

Respect, fun, a secure environment, being treated as an equal and with dignity-these are some of the ingredients of the Delaware Theatre Company's successful Totally Awesome Kids program, which works with children and young adults with mental disabilities. Theater staff direct participants in a publicly performed play. This innovative use of the arts to teach communication skills, self-esteem and teamwork offers a unique opportunity for individuals who are shut out of many mainstream activities to participate in improvisational theater at its best. The program also offers theater residencies in schools.

Art can be powerful therapy. The performer in a wheelchair or the artist who has difficulty holding a paintbrush steady can find freedom and empowerment in self-expression. Through the collaboration of art therapists, artists and volunteers, the Art Therapy Express Program brings visual arts, drama, music and creative movement to people who cannot benefit from traditional arts programming due to a disability. Because of this organization, individuals with Down syndrome or autism have taken art classes; nursing home residents have partnered with Boys & Girls Club members in a visual arts program; and individuals with cognitive disabilities have participated in a dramatic performance.

The arts excel at redirecting troubled lives. Teens with emotional or behavioral problems can stay focused and productive while participating in the Newark Arts Alliance's Arts on the Go art classes at the Silverside Day Treatment Center in Middletown. Self-esteem is boosted and hidden talents discovered at the Ferris School, a youth detention center, thanks to the Delaware Theatre Company's multi-disciplinary arts program and in workshops given by the Grand School of Music on such topics as music history and the business of music production. Arts organizations like these serve a critical need in the rehabilitation process, yielding lasting benefits by giving participants a practical and positive outlet for their energies.

Turning disadvantaged children into successful young adults with life goals and the skills to achieve them is what the Inner City Cultural League does through the arts. Young people from 8 to 18 years of age learn discipline, commitment and teamwork by training and performing together in the group's Sankofa African Dance and Drum Company. They also broaden their horizons with visits to museums or cultural events. Not only do they stay out of trouble as teens, but they also move the world prepared to meet life's challenges.

Movies are fun but they can also be a springboard for discussing serious societal and personal issues such as tolerance, perseverance and independence. The Rehoboth Beach Film Society introduces teens and young adults to both aspects of cinema. After watching a movie, the group explores the underlying message as well as the art of the filmmaker. The society also coordinates a children's program at the local library that screens films based on books.

Bright murals capture the eye and bring joy and fulfillment to patients who have poured their time and effort into creating them at the Veterans Hospital's long-term care facility. This is thanks to a VSA arts of Delaware artist-in-residence program, which just celebrated the completion of a red, white and blue wall installation composed of nearly 50 individual story tiles that represent the participants' wartime memories. It shares experiences that would otherwise be lost with the passing of generations. Other programs involve working with school children, cancer patients and institutionalized individuals with mental and physical disabilities to help them express their feelings and develop creativity through artwork.

Enriching lives

Imagine the buzz in a theater full of wide-eyed youngsters waiting for the curtain to rise on the first play they've ever seen. Each summer, the Grand Opera House brings this experience to children through its Pay What You Can Summer Children's Theatre. "Charlotte's Web" and "Rumplestiltskin" come alive right before the eyes of audiences from daycare centers and camps who might not otherwise be able to attend.

Added galleries, more exhibits and light-glorious light-flooding in from floor-to-ceiling windows that look out on a new outdoor garden terrace and an eight-acre sculpture park brought the Delaware Art Museum into the major league of museums. Double in size and with more people-friendly spaces, the museum serves its public better than ever and enhances the Brandywine Valley's reputation as a cultural tourism destination.

Maestro David Amado of the Delaware Symphony conducts the audience in the national anthem

Newark Arts Alliance provides crafts activities  at Newark Community Day

Mid-Atlantic Ballet's "Ludus Tonalis" photo by Nancy Breslin

Independent film buffs used to have to travel to Philadelphia to see the latest and best of limited-run flicks. Now the Rehoboth Beach Film Society screens "indies" and organizes a fall film festival that features everything from student works to award-winning foreign films and a children's series. The Schwartz Center for the Arts in Dover is another venue for independent films, and in Wilmington, the Office of the Mayor sponsors weekly screenings as well as an annual independent film fest at Theatre N at Nemours.

A visual lesson on the evolution of American art is free at the Biggs Museum of American Art in Dover, with a special emphasis on the fine and decorative arts of the Delaware Valley. For 13 years, the institution has filled a unique and important niche in the state's diverse community of outstanding museums.

There's nothing like the excitement of live theater, and Delawareans must agree because the state has more than 10 theater companies presenting a year-round panoply of comedy, drama, dinner theater, Broadway musicals, new works and premieres. Volunteer community groups like the Wilmington Drama League, Possum Point Players and Chapel Street Players thrive alongside professional companies like the Delaware Theatre Company, City Theater Company, and Contemporary Stage Company. Clear Space Productions, which also runs a community theater-training institute, combines professional and amateur talent. For every kind of production and every serious actor, there is a stage-and an enthusiastic audience.

OperaDelaware entertains audiences with an experience that rivals the best of national touring companies. The group has made quality opera affordable, and it has reached out to audiences of all ages through its education programs. The repertoire includes well-loved operas as well at least a dozen original works commissioned for its Family Opera Theater.

Cool jazz, hot nights. It's the largest free jazz festival on the East Coast, and it's dedicated to Clifford Brown, Jr., a jazz trumpeter from Wilmington who was on the road to fame when he died in a car accident at 25. The annual DuPont Clifford Brown Jazz Festival attracts thousands of fans to Wilmington in June to hear both local and international artists bring their sound back to where a legend was born. It's organized by the City of Wilmington Office of Cultural Affairs.

Brass band, jazz, chorus, or symphony—music as varied as the instruments that create it. Audiences across the state have access to it all, from Delaware's three orchestras—the Delaware Symphony, Newark Symphony and Dover Symphony—to smaller ensembles such as Brandywine Baroque and First State Strings. Vocal talents are showcased by the Delaware Choral Society, the Southern Delaware Choral Society, CoroAllegro, Delaware Valley Chorale and the Chorus of the Brandywine. Professional concert series are offered by Coastal Concerts, the Arden Club and Delaware Chamber Music Festival.

Bodies leap and pirouette across the stage, twist, stretch and freeze in impossible positions. It's the exciting culminating performance of the annual Delaware Dance Festival, hosted by Mid-Atlantic Ballet. The event brings together groups representing different dance genres from the region to learn from master teachers and each other and to share their impressive talents with the public.

Motivating students

The joy of music knows no age boundaries. And for this reason thousands of children have thrilled to the experience of a Delaware Symphony Orchestra concert. As many as 6,000 young people attended a symphony performance last year, and 3,000 elementary students enjoyed a personal introduction to music prior to a concert. Through the symphony's In-School Ensemble Program, small groups of musicians visited classrooms to demonstrate their instruments and describe their lives as performers, then played together for the youngsters.

Grades are up, school attendance has improved, and kids are reading better after participating in Pegasus Artworks at Boys & Girls Clubs throughout Delaware. From silk-screening to movie making, this after-school program has introduced at-risk young people to the arts through classes and field trips and has made a significant difference in their lives both in and outside the schoolroom. Work by participants is displayed in local Starbucks coffee shops.

Excitement is contagious in a classroom where the arts are integrated with other core subjects like language and math. Creating a mural for a French class, a three-dimensional tabletop based on mathematical concepts and a stained glass work derived from sketches of a science experiment are not just permanent artworks; they are some of the superb learning experiences provided at Gauger-Cobbs Middle School by the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts' Contemporary Connections program.

Better reading skills begin with an imagination. Pretending to be an animal in a storybook or thinking up ideas and words for a song can help children build the critical skills that lead to reading success. Artists working with the Delaware Institute for the Arts in Education's Delaware Wolf Trap project and Read Aloud Delaware introduce books to kids enrolled in pre-school programs across the state through a variety of art, movement and music. These creative exercises get youngsters to think abstractly and grasp how symbols are used to communicate ideas in preparation for reading.

Budding playwrights are taking their first bows at the Delaware Theatre Company. Kudos abound for the young talents honored at the Delaware Young Playwrights Festival, where middle and high school students get to see the best works they've submitted being read or performed before a live audience by professional actors from the theater company. No reward short of a Tony could be more prestigious.

Cape Henlopen Elementary School has been able to provide free musical instruments to band students because of Coastal Concerts' Toot Your Own Horn project, which collects and donates used instruments to the school. The Cape Henlopen School Board awarded Coastal Concerts a Certificate of Recognition for these and other activities that benefit students in the district.

First State Ballet Theatre gets city school kids out of their seats and moving with DanceWorks, a first-hand experience in training and performing. The company's The Making of the Ballet program takes students to the next level, going behind the scenes to watch a choreographed ballet class and to talk to dancers and then seeing a staged performance of "Peter and the Wolf."

Art Therapy Express brings art into the lives of kids and adults	A piano lesson at the Wilmington Music School	Clifford Brown Jazz Festival
Ronny Cox performing at Delaware Friends of Folk Coffee House	Deborah Barr's "Spirit Path" on exhibit in the Division of the Arts Mezzanine Gallery	Children learn pre-reading skills with the arts in a Delaware Institute for the Arts in Education program

Building communities

Give a grand old building a new lease on life, and it can stir rebirth for the extended community. Examples: the beautifully renovated Schwartz Center for the Arts in Dover, The Grand Opera House in Wilmington, the Smyrna Opera House, and the Milton Theater. Their audiences need travel only a few short miles (or even blocks) to see nationally known performers and art films. Local groups have a luxurious setting with a rich history in which to present their events. And by bringing people together, these theaters have been catalysts for further downtown revitalization.

Telling the story of a neighborhood by pulling people together in a creative effort can have a profound impact on individuals and a community. Under the joint leadership of Community Bridges and the Wilmington Mural Arts Collaborative (WMAC), school classes, neighbors, volunteers, civic groups and others worked with Philadelphia artist Ras Malik in creating the mural "Road to Knowledge" inside the North Wilmington Library Branch. Collaborating with the City of Wilmington Office of Cultural Affairs, the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts and Howard High School of Technology, WMAC turned inexperienced youth into planners, painters and apprentice mural leaders.

Building skills through artistic expression is the corner stone of the Christina Cultural Arts Center. As a community school of the arts, its innovative approach that brings urban families together to celebrate creative expression reaches out to all segments of the community. By developing one child at a time, the center is building a stronger community.

Every August thousands of people crowd the Millsboro Little League complex for the annual Festival Hispano, sponsored by El Centro Cultural in Georgetown, an organization that serves the growing local population of Spanish-speaking residents. For some, it is a reminder of home; for others, it is a new cultural experience, providing insight into the lives of their neighbors and fostering understanding within the community.

There's no excuse for not picking up a paintbrush or exploring other media. Artists' groups exist in communities large and small throughout the state. The door is open at the Rehoboth Art League, which welcomes members of any skill level, reaches out to pre-schoolers and low-income children, and complements its classes and exhibits with lectures and performing arts presentations. The Newark Arts Alliance, Dover Art League and the Mispillion Art League in Milford fill a similar role in art education and promotion of artists' work in the areas they serve.

Libraries throughout the state make great partners with the arts-and not just the literary arts! The Corbit-Calloway Library in Odessa welcomed Celtic, African-American, Native American and Hispanic artists, opening up a world of possibilities. The Wilmington Library's Culture for Kids program provides a wide array of music to children attending day-care and pre-school programs in Wilmington. In Dover, the public library is turned into a performance space on Saturday nights for a monthly music series featuring everything from classical piano to steel drums. Children at all of Delaware's 33 community libraries enjoy live performances in conjunction with the statewide Summer Reading Program.
 

 
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