VNM About -

For more information about Voices for the New Millenium, please contact

Pierre Tchetgen (co-founder)
30 E. Lake St
c/o Humanities Department
773 752 2451
pierre@voiceit.biz

Marvin Tate (co-founder)
773 588 0779
marvin@voiceit.biz

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:: youth art ::

We offer school- and community-based workshops in the following disciplines:

· Language Arts (creative writing, spoken word)
· Visual Arts (mural making, graffiti styles)
· Motion Arts (movement, capoeira)
· Media arts (video, digital music)

For teach-in performances and other special events, contact info@voiceit.biz

Fall 2005 Offerings

Urban Collisions (Marvin Tate)
Poetry is born from firsthand experience. In this workshop, students explore the metaphorical landscape of language by experimenting with poetry through the use of photography, found objects and jazz. Students learn about texture and polyphony by interpreting, arranging, and performing poems in groups, and craft pieces through new experiences, site visits, games, and discoveries. This workshop features the poetry of tupac shakur, nikki giovanni, gwendolyn brooks, sonia sanchez and more.

AfroFrench Connections (Pierre Tchetgen)
A language enrichment workshop in french via the arts and technology. Children learn the language in a natural way by exploring their physical surroundings, making art, playing music and games, and sharing personal stories with native french speakers of the African diaspora. Students learn to make art, receive basic french and computer instruction; communicate online with native speakers worldwide; and create their own e-portfolio.

Digital Studio | DeeJay Clinic (Jacob Luse)
Students work in digital studio environment to compose, produce and record their own original music. In addition to learning the basics of digital audio production, students are introduced to some of the science behind music making and recording. Students learn how to plan and work in collaboration as they conceive and record their individual and group projects. Workshop includes deejay clinic on mixing, sampling, and beat juggling.

Expressive Dance | Roots of Breaking (Logan Vaughn)
Capoeira is a martial art that dates back more than 400 years to sugarcane plantations, where African slaves disguised the art as dance to hide it from their owners. The martial art combines music, dance, acrobatics and fighting. The workshop introduces students to the history, music, and movement associated with this AfroBrazilian martial art.

Word.Sound.Life.
Participants workshop with teaching artists through a variety of creative community-based projects. The culminating projects include the publication of student projects via the web. Students create and manage their own online portfolio and join a growing community of young voices organizing for change through artistic expression.
Objective: to give participants a chance to use all of their creative and technical abilities to create new poetry, music and visual compositions for the 21st century.
Grade: Any

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Week 1

Why ethics?

What is ethics? Does ethics have true agency? Why study ethics?

We begin the semester in reflection and discussion of the above questions. Sharing our perspectives on these questions seems to me a natural way to approach the tumultuous terrain of ethics, as each of us already has his/her own sense of morality and/or ethical reasoning.
Most answers we provide to these questions are paradigmatic in that they reveal to us our basic conceptions and assumptions, but also make evident the complexities and challenges one must wrestle with in attempting to fully answer them.

Write a paragraph for each of the following questions in your class journal:

1. What are your own deepest moral values? What moral qualities do you look for in other people as well as in yourself? Are these values that you think everyone shares, or are some of your values ones that you feel are not always observed by our culture as a whole? How have your values changed, if at all? What influenced their development?

2.It has been suggested that ethics is about moral health. When you think of a morally healthful life, what sort of a life do you imagine? What would be some examples of lives that (at least in some respect) are not morally healthy? Give examples from your own experience.

Readings:
Metaethics
Glossary

Week 2

Dawn

This week, we will discuss Dawn, an illuminating novel that, despite its brevity, goes to the heart of our central moral dilemma: having to choose between conflicting moral obligations in a world of diverging loyalties. Reflecting on the assigned questions in your journal will help you prepare/conduct a far more critical and self-reflective reading.

. Read Dawn [chapters 1-5; pages 1-53]. As you read, mark/underline key passages you would like us to discuss. Also, make sure to look up any words you do not know.

. Journal - In what ways would you say that this story is symbolic? Contrast and compare the ethical principles contained in the novel? What is Elisha's conception of friendship? How does he view friendship in relation to morality? What about God and morality?

. Read A Summary of Ethical Theories

Week 1

Stories in our lives

Monday
To study the humanities is to peer into the myriad forms and expressions of the human experience. It is a journey of discovery that can leave us transformed in powerful ways, as unsuspected connections between self (i.e., the world of personal experience) and the varied stories, histories, expressions and philosophies of the human family are revealed. As such, the humanities constitute, in a sense, a true path of self-discovery that is not solely intended to foster critical thinking and inquiry, but also to realize the deep moral, and personal, value of pondering such questions as "what does it mean to be human?" or "what is the meaning of life?"

Some have conceived of life as a play on the stage of existence, with the self as watcher (Bhagavad Gita). Others have seen themselves as prisoners in a cave, shackled in the shadows of illusion, forever blinded to the light of reality (Allegory of the cave). So, as a way to set the stage for a later inquiry into such exquisite metaphors, we will begin the semester with a discussion of the role stories play in our lives, here and now.

Wednesday
. Reflect on the following questions, in writing.

* Are there any stories that have truly informed your notions of life (self, world, family, morality, spirituality, purpose)? What are they? Write them down.
* What, would you say, is it about these stories that made/make you tick?
* What, if any, are the emotive, intellectual or spiritual messages in these stories, and in what ways did they evoke a new perspective in you?

Remember, it's your journal. Be thoughtful and creative.

Week 2

From Darkness into Light

This week we begin our discussion of philosophy by reading Plato's famous Allegory of the Cave in Book VII of the Republic.

Monday
. Read the Allegory of the cave
. Journal reflection - How do you interpret the stages of ascent and descent of the prisoner out of the cave? What do you think of Socrates' claim that most people live in a state of ignorance?

Wednesday
. Read Plato by Jostein Gaarder
. Journal reflection - Your choice

Note: From this point on, journal reflections are left completely up to you. You may share thoughts, ponder ideas, investigate claims, elaborate points, etc... Just make sure it's in relation to the assigned reading. At times, I may suggest questions worth thinking about, but remember, these are merely suggestions. The choice is yours, unless specified otherwise.

WEEK xxxx - "Music and the Self: Movement, Emotion and Thought"

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By this, I mean we will discuss, argue and ponder the following questions:

1. How do you understand music? In terms of its physical, psychological (ie, emotional/mental) and spiritual aspects?
2 . How does music help you understand or express yourself as a being having a human experience?
3 . In your opinion, what reflection does the music of today give of our values and beliefs?

ASSIGNMENT
1. Answer the above questions in your class journal.
2. Please bring a piece of music (whatever you listen to: instrumental, pop, funk, classical, hard rock, hip hop, spoken word, ...) that you would like to present and discuss in relation to the questions above.

Note: Given time restrictions, we may not be able to hear everyone's selection, but please, do bring something still.
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ANNOUNCEMENTS

READINGS/RECORDINGS

Assagioli: Music as a cause of disease and as a healing agent

ASSIGNMENT
Reflect on your musical experience by lingering on the following questions. Record your thoughts in your class journal, using the terminology in the readings as you see fit. Write freely.

1. What beneficial or harmful effects of instrumental and vocal music have you noticed upon your physical health, emotional life, intellectual activity and spiritual life?
2. Have you noticed that the same piece of music has produced on you different effects, according to the different physical or psychological states in which you were on various occasions?

Week 1

Music and the Self

I. Introductions

II. Exploring our understanding of music

1. How big of a role would you say music plays in your life? In what ways, would you say has music affected your view of life, self, and the world?

III. Music: a dual nature

1. Assagioli: Positive and negative effects of music
2. Documentary: Soundtrack to war

IV. For next week
1. Download syllabus
2. Questions for reflection:
* What beneficial or harmful effects of instrumental and vocal music have you noticed upon your physical health, emotional life, intellectual activity and spiritual life?
* In light of your answers to the previous questions, how would you define music, as an artform? As an experience? As a mode of expression?

Week 2

From Darkness into Light

This week we begin our discussion of philosophy by reading Plato's famous Allegory of the Cave in Book VII of the Republic.

. Read the Allegory of the cave
. Read Plato by Jostein Gaarder
. Journal reflection - Seeing the light is a common philosophical metaphor in many cultures and religions. Using what you have learned from reading the Allegory and from your own experience,
describe a situation in which you or someone you know was liberated from “darkness”
and now lives outside of the “cave”. Be sure to discuss this situation in terms of sight,
vision, blindness, truth, reality, self, illusion, good, evil, light, and dark as appropriate