Artists hone their foundation by employing the technical skills of a particular art or field of endeavor. These courses are Prime specific, unless otherwise designated as open to students from all primes. Students should focus their Applied Arts choices in their prime arts area, but may explore outside of their prime in some cases.
16 M/W SESSIONS (20 HRS POSSIBLE)
Theater: Acting
Teaching Artist: Johnny Weissgerber
Contact: jweissgerber@aacps.org
Mondays & Wednesdays at Studio 39
2 days per week
Theater: Acting Primes
The First Folio, printed in 1623, is the first published collection of Shakespeare’s plays, produced seven years after his death. Its title is Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories & Tragedies, and it groups his plays into those categories—comedies, histories, and tragedies—for the first time.
This class will focus on learning how to identify and use the acting clues embedded within the text of the First Folio Edition of 1623. It is intended to teach the actor how to demystify Shakespeare’s rhetoric, while giving them strategies for rehearsing. Students can expect to learn and memorize monologues and scenes.
Visual Art
Teaching Artist: Barbara Bustard
Contact: bbustard@aacps.org
Mondays & Wednesdays at Studio 39
2 days per week
Visual Art Primes
Clay is a material rich in history and possibilities for art making, and handbuilding pottery is the oldest use of the medium. Handbuilding is a ceramics technique that allows you to create forms with clay and your hands, without using a throwing wheel.
This class offers a place to learn the different handbuilding pottery techniques of pinching, coiling, slab rolling, and molds. Artists will create fun, functioning teapots.
Pieces will be photographed for portfolio building, and may be displayed in the gallery.
Visual Art
Teaching Artist: Robert Schumacher
Mondays & Wednesdays at Studio 39
2 days per week
Visual Art Primes
In this class, you will learn how to draw portraits. We will explore proportion, geometry, and basic anatomy. We will be working primarily in charcoal. Don’t be daunted! Portraiture will be broken down into bite-sized pieces.
Learning portraiture is a useful skill to develop for any art style. Knowing basic proportion and anatomy can be applied through any type of art and even strengthen your skills in other areas.
20 TU/TH SESSIONS (25 HRS POSSIBLE)
Visual Art
Teaching Artist: Robert Schumacher
Tuesdays & Thursdays at Studio 39
2 days per week
Visual Art Primes.
In this class you will learn to illustrate with pastels. We will explore bright colors, shading and texture, icons and symbolism, and learn how to tell a story through a single image. We will learn design layout basics, meanings behind certain icons and shapes, and the feeling certain colors and combinations can evoke. This is a great class to learn in beginning to understand creating full works of art, and how different works can be interpreted in different ways. Learning shading, light, and color through pastels is a fantastic gateway into honing these same skills with acrylic and oil paints.
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL
Visual Art
Teaching Artist: Barbara Bustard
Contact: bbustard@aacps.org
Tuesdays & Thursdays at Studio 39
2 days per week
Visual Art Primes. Experience recommended. Space limited.
Beginner session will be held during Spring Trimester.
In this course you will learn the basics of throwing on the potter’s wheel. The techniques of centering, lifting, opening, collaring, and trimming will be covered. Students will need to become proficient in centering the clay in order to move on to creating vessels. Students will be expected to successfully form a bowl, a straight cylinder (straight vase or cup), cup with handle, and a tall vase or vessel which demonstrates skill in lifting, opening and collaring a vessel.
Choreography and Performance
Teaching Artist: Niaja Diggs
Tuesdays & Thursdays at Studio 39
2 days per week
Dance Primes only, or significant dance training.
The study and performance of choreography using three approaches: learning excerpts from the repertoire of selected choreographers, analyzing through reconstruction of classic repertory works, and understanding the choreographic process by working in a creation from initial concept to finished dance.
A key aspect of the course involves the creation and performance of dance works in order to practice technique, understand compositional structure, and engage in creative activity with culminating performance opportunities for participants.
The ensemble will record choreography for portfolio use. They may also be invited to perform as part of the Fall Festival, or to represent the Apex Arts Dance Program in invited performance opportunities.
Creative Writing
Teaching Artists: Margaret Heemstra & Lynn Schwartz
Contact: mheemstra@aacps.org, laschwartz@aacps.org
Tuesdays & Thursdays at Studio 39
2 days per week
All Primes welcomed and encouraged.
A Generative Lab: 20 Prompts to Kickstart Your Writing (5 Sessions)
Dates: December 1 - December 15
A line of dialogue, quote, song, work of art, or photograph – all of these (and more) can function as a writing prompt. The prompt’s goal is to spark a beginning idea and to translate that idea into words on the page. It’s a stream of consciousness process of discovery. Prompts work well for any genre of writing. They stretch the imagination, unblock creative barriers, and push aside your inner critic. This workshop is designed to recharge, refocus, and generate new and innovative writing. We’ll use a variety of prompts for inspiration, including the written word, painting, sculpture, photography, short film, dance, and song.
Scene Exploration for All Artistic Media (8 Sessions)
Dates: December 20 - February 2
Most work in the arts, including literature, song lyrics, plays, screenplays, and dance tell a story. And regardless of your discipline, your essential tool is scene. Scene is the foundational building block of a larger story. Learn the components and function of scene, how to identify the many scene types, and how to convey your specific intention so that a reader or audience will feel engaged and satisfied with your storytelling.
Micro-Memoir (7 Sessions)
Dates: February 7 - February 28
This short form (under 750 words and often shorter than 500 words) focuses on one moment in a life. Like full-length memoir, these tiny, true stories engage a reader at an emotional level and offer a new understanding of what it means to be human. Micro-memoir stories can stand on their own and are also a great way for writers to explore ideas for a larger work.
Creative Writing / Music
Teaching Artist: Athena Hiotis
Contact: ahiotis@aacps.org
Tuesdays & Thursdays at Studio 39
2 days per week
All Primes welcomed and encouraged.
In this course, we will focus on the lyric aspect of songwriting. You'll have access to a database of instrumentals ranging across different genres as musical foundations for your ideas. We'll explore different ways to draw inspiration from what's around us; we'll learn new techniques of song writing; and we'll learn how to take previous work (poems, notes, unfinished songs) and turn them into finished songs!