Upstream Arts: Moments of Magic - Part 3

This week, the Minneapolis Arts Education Examiner is focusing on Upstream Arts, an arts education organization based in Minneapolis that is serving the Twin Cities' special needs community. The mission of Upstream Arts is to enhance the lives of adults and youth with disabilities by fostering creative communication and social independence through the power of arts education. This is the conclusion of a 3-part article exploring

1. the positive impact this organization has in our community
2. the ways in which Upstream Arts reaches out to its students and assists in their development
3. the experiences of two Twin Cities artists who teach for Upstream Arts

While most disability providers have a professional background in the care of people with special needs, Upstream Arts instructors are professional artists, specifically artists who are actively creating and working in the Twin Cities. Every teaching artist who works for Upstream Arts is engaged in ongoing training, including work with teachers from Minneapolis Public Schools Special Education Program. "We invest heavily in our artists," says Julie Guidry, Executive Director of Upstream Arts. "They bring their art form; we educate them on how best to teach to a diverse audience and to people of varied abilities."

Dylan Fresco, a Twin Cities actor and musician who has worked with Upstream Arts for the last year, explains that "the teaching artist helps to facilitate that process and to create opportunity for expression," but that it is the student who creates the art. "Each student has something to say, and by painting a picture, writing a poem, setting it to music, creating a dance, or writing a play, they speak." Fresco says that in every single class he teaches, "there is a moment of magic," when a student expresses him-or-herself or makes a connection in a brand new way. "It is so rewarding to watch people be successful," he says, "and to watch people watching other people be successful."

Norah Long is a professional Twin Cities singer and actress who served as one of the original artists when the organization was created four years ago. "(Teaching for) Upstream Arts is one of the most rewarding things I do in my life," says Long. She has found that the arts offers a flexibility to the education process that other inroads don't. "Language disabilities can be difficult obstacles to overcome." Long explains. "If someone can't speak, and therefore can't answer the question 'How do you feel?' in a traditional way, the answer won't come no matter how many times the question is asked. But, if that person is offered a paintbrush, or a choice of two pieces of music, or a set of colors, or the choices 'up' or 'down', or if they are allowed time to create movement, all of these things can be used as tools to communicate, and the potential for that question to get answered has increased exponentially."

In the work that Upstream Arts has done, Long believes that the arts offers "an endless capacity to create new tools," and that in the act of trying to identify those tools for each student, "we are showing this (special needs) community that we are willing to bend, willing to explore, willing to collaborate with them to increase their tool box for self-expression."

For more information about Upstream Arts, visit www.upstreamarts.org.