Students at Rio Bravo-Greeley School enjoy diverse art lessons

One morning last April, I sat in Rio Bravo-Greeley School’s beautiful old auditorium with Dr. Wilma Poage, Director of Kern County Superintendent of Schools Special Education Programs, and two other Special Ed teachers. We were about to see something extraordinary.

We ‘officials’ sat in the middle seats while teacher, Anthony Goss, and his small class filled up the first two rows and met Jennifer Barber (one of the Arts Council’s Artists in Residence for theater studies). Jennifer and Anthony had been working for a week to put the day’s 90 minute event together for his students, all of whom have Downs Syndrome or mental retardation. The Arts Council and the Special Education Department have been discussing an Artist in Residency program for several months. Mental retardation, autism, deafness, blindness, and all manner of emotional disorders fall under the Special Ed umbrella. One of the things this dauntingly diverse student population seems to have in common is that none of them have received art services in many years.

Nothing came to fruition, however, until Dottie Johns, the ACK's outgoing president, brought her friend, Anthony Goss, to one of our gallery openings. "Here's your man," she told us. She was right. With a dancer, a musician, an actor, and a painter, I visited his class and we all very soon realized it was the perfect starting point for us.

All four of the artists set dates to share their art with the class. For Jennifer's visit, the class would make large cards upon which they would write things like "S is for Stage" and "A is for Actor." Each visit would form the basis of an Arts in Special Ed program to launch this fall.

Jennifer led them through all aspects of theater beginning with appropriate audience behavior and continuing with theater's terminology (stage right, stage left, etc.), tools (costumes, sets), and conventions (tickets, programs, applause, an intermission, flowers). The students had attended performances in the theater before, but Jennifer's presentation offered insights that could greatly enhance and enrich their theater experience of theater. The arts are for everyone.

Jennifer had a box of animal masks. Each of the students donned a mask of their choice and acted the part of that animal on the stage. Without any of the reservations that plague most people, they roared, mewed, pounced, howled, cackled and charged around the stage. Long before scripts and dialogue, ancient actors were fascinated by animals and strove not just to imitate, but to become the other living beings in their lives. It probably looked a lot like what I was seeing on the stage at Rio Bravo-Greeley. If Special Ed students are very needy, they also have a lot to give.

The other visiting artists were bluegrass musician Paul Barton, painter Christine McBride, and dancer/choreographer Dawn Mallory.