Dressing for Success II at the New York Institute for Special Education

What a wonderful show the students from the Institute gave us. On Monday April 2, students from both Schermerhorn and Van Cleve concluded the Art Beyond Sight program by performing songs they had written and choreographed in class. This followed 16 weeks of work, during which students discussed their personal styles, dress codes, and visited museums to learn more about fashion history. Students developed their show from A to Z, creating costume pieces, murals, the stage set and lighting.
Students gave a fantastic and energized performance that everyone greatly enjoyed. Congratulations!

The 2012 Art Beyond Sight Awards at the Lavelle School for the Blind

The Dressing for Success II program focused on fashion choices, personal style and dress codes. Students from the Lavelle School for the Blind had lively discussions about what’s appropriate to wear at jobs, at church or at a party. They created their own clothing designs, they wrote songs about their personal style, and tested perfumes and accessories. On March 28th, students celebrated the end of this program offered by Art Beyond Sight. After weeks of rehearsals, they performed the songs they had written and choreographed in class. The show, emceed by Juan Gil, a senior at Lavelle and an amateur rapper, drew family members, friends and classmates.
At the end of the performance, students were presented with a diploma marking the very stylish end of 16 weeks of hard work.

What's that smell?

Thanks to a generous gift of perfume samples from Sephora, Art Beyond Sight was able to offer an olfactory feast to the Lavelle School students!
each students explored a few scents, discussed with Ms. Shawna which one they prefer and why. They selected a perfume for each particular occasion: school dance, a birthday party, theater show or a lighter smell for school days just to feel good about oneself!
Students also came up with names for their perfumes: "Broadway Light"; "Midnight" and much more.

The end is near...let's get ready!

The students at the Van Cleeve program of The New York Institute for Special Education are getting ready for their final performance at the end of March. They have created their own rap song based on the “dressing for success” theme, relating most of their lyrics to stylish hats and reflecting upon their own personal style. Their teamwork skills are coming into play as well, as they are learning how to critique their performance and learn choreography from each other. All of the students are participating in creating a great final performance which they will perform in front of the whole Van Cleeve program. It’s an exciting time here at Van Cleeve!

From one museum visit to another...

The students of The Lavelle School for the Blind had the wonderful chance to visit both the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET). At FIT, students learned about fashion pieces from different decades and from all different designers. This allowed the students a great chance to learn more about dressing for success! At the MET, Lavelle students had an opportunity to actually be a part of the art, to recreate certain outfits and touch some of the scluptures, while also addressing the idea of standing tall! Thanks so much to the art educators from each museum for teaching these students so much!

Hats for All !

The extremely talented first graders of The New York Institute for Special Education have been busy creating different types of accessories - mainly hats! Shaylin, James, Melanie, Shuiabu, Gypsy, and Diogo have all been wiggling their hands and getting ready for their final performance by learning about all the wide variety of hat styles. They then created two hats - a cap and a fedora, adding different jewels, designs, and stickers to their hats! They’ve also been exploring the different roles that the hats represent - keeping our ears warm, protecting our eyes from the sun and also how they are soemtimes part of a uniform and tell something about who we are.

PS 201 at the Queens Museum of Art

Ms. Agati and Hertler's classes visited the Queens Museum of Art last Thursday. What a day students had with Ms. Mitra and Ms. Jen, their tour guides. They first explored drawings -- but not the typical kind of drawings, but rather drawings that had been ripped apart and then reassembled in unexpected ways. After studying these works, the students were given pieces of a drawing and created their own new artwork from them (see picture).

Students also looked at sculptures that looks like "tents" and took a walk around the Queens Museum's famous New York City panorama, where they tried to locate their own homes and various city landmarks. To top off the visit, students went to the art studio and, using a similar artistic process similar to that of artists observed during the tour, they created their own drawings (see picture).