UMS TalkOut Project: Hubbard Street Dance Chicago

By Omari Rush

Editor’s note: This post is a part of a series. View all TalkOut events.

Photo: Alison McCarthy from the Ann Arbor Open School (6th Grade) shares her thoughts.

Our TalkOut project for K-12 students involves speaking and listening (two core K-12 learning competencies) and creating a sharing ripple that allows the experience of a UMS School Day Performance to live on in the minds and hearts of young people and that helps students make connections between the arts on stage and their classroom.

This “TRIMTAB” pilot project was developed with guidance from Eric Booth at the Kennedy Center Partners in Education Program’s February 2013 Annual Meeting by the Michigan 1997 Team: Ann Arbor Public Schools (Robin Bailey), UMS (Jim Leija and Omari Rush), and the Washtenaw Intermediate School District (Jennifer Scott-Burton).

TalkOut encompasses the entire UMS School Day Performance experience. Prior to the start of the show an onstage host provides the entire audience with a framing question. At the end of the performance, two students (selected by UMS and school teachers pre-performance) are invited on stage to share their thoughts and ideas with the entire audience. The feedback is immediately celebrated, captured with photos and audio, and passed on to others for shared reflection.

Here, Lindsay Zinbarg (Saline High School, 12th Grade) participates in TalkOut at the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago performance (interviewed on stage by UMS’s Jim Leija):