The Aesthetic Education LEAD Project makes it possible for each of the school’s classroom teachers to team with professional teaching artists (theater, visual arts, and dance) from our community for four units of instruction in the arts this year! Each unit will provide our students with lessons (6) that will prepare them to view and appreciate a quality work of art being presented in our community. Fortunately, all of this year’s works of art will be available virtually! Students will engage in the artform themselves and be asked to make the same kinds of decisions the professional artists would have made when creating their own work of art. These experiences will build each student’s capacity for appreciating the arts and the impact they can have on our community.

The students have already completed their first unit, which prepared them to see the KIA’s guest exhibit “Cultural Encounters: Art of Asian Diasporas in Latin America & the Caribbean, 1945-Present.” The remaining three units will prepare students to see the stage shows “Adventures in Storytelling” and “Storytelling: Orpheus & Eurydice”, performances by “SOLE Defined” and “Inlet Dance Theatre,” and the KIA’s exhibit “Framing Moments: Photography from the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts.”