Saturday, February 28, 2009

Gate C87


...As we went through the door, the air filled our souls and released the stress of the unknown. New Orleans welcomed us with open arms. The sun shined and the rain started to come down. It was a sign that a cleansing was happening, that we were all here as a group doing something that means more than anything to us at this present time. I am at a time in my life where I should be auditioning for companies, I should be working on my self, I should, I should, I should... I am so tired of always thinking of my self. The world is so vast and the sole purpose of the arts is to share to the community. We need to remember that! I am so happy to be surrounded by people who are so talented, passionate, and artistic in the way that they only see pure happiness when they see someone smile. Our goal here is not to impose, its to share, to give all that we can, and to  empower the creative minds of the community and ourselves. Life is great as a young adult, an artist, one who is full of joy and compassion. I am looking forward to this week. The unknown is always great, you may think it is an edge of a cliff, but we never think it could be a soft bed, a place of comfort. 
p.s. 
I wanted to point out how 24 individuals have come together to seek a common goal. Its Amazing!
Jamal Rashann Callender

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

2009 Team!!



Alli Job (left), Co-Chair
4th Year - Double Bass


Chelsea Ainsworth (right), Co-Chair
3rd Year - Dance







Leah Walsh 
4th Year - Drama









Alejandro Rodriguez 
4th Year - Drama










Christina Moore
4th Year - Drama





Kris Bowers 
3rd Year - Jazz Piano












Steph Amurao
3rd Year - Dance





James Burton
2nd Year Masters - Jazz  Trombone








Mike Cottone
1st Year Masters - Jazz Trumpet











Breanna O'Mara
2nd Year - Dance









Ryan David O'Byrne
2nd Year - Drama










Jeremie Harris
1st Year - Drama










Pippa Soo
1st Year - Drama










Jeff Sykes
2nd Year - Dance










Jeremy H. Beck
1st Year Masters - Composition






J. Clint Allen
1st Year - Drama











Miran Kim
1st Year - Violin









Jamal Rashann Callender
4th Year -Dance









LeBaron McClary
3rd Year - Dance










Melissa Jean
1st Year Masters - Jazz Trombone 










Yvonne Chen
1st Year - Piano











Virginia Veale
1st Year - Drama

2009 Mission Statement

The New Orleans 2009 team will return to New Orleans to engage the community affected by Hurricane Katrina. Sharing everything we know, we will embrace hope and open a dialogue with the intention of transcending daily struggles and empowering the creative spirit.



a personal reflection...



Hello! My name is Alli, I am forth year Double Bass major, and one of the co-chairs of the New Orleans Project 2009. This will be my third year involved with the trip, and I couldn't be more excited to go back. 

This is a brief reflection I wrote shortly after returning from the 2008 trip. I hope you enjoy...

*I have changed names to insure anonymity 
____________________________________

APRIL 30, 2008

This past march, when I was more than half way done with my third year here at Juilliard, and felt that I was very much at the cross roads of my musical career with graduate school auditions and graduation looming near in the future. I decided to forgo a spring break full of catching up on practicing and work, to go to New Orleans with ARTreach the student run organization here at school. I went because I felt the personal need to go, get my hands dirty, and try and make a difference, however small. I knew it was a city in the midst of a vast transformation and I hoped to be a part of that journey towards a brighter future, little did I know it was I who would leave the beautiful city of New Orleans transformed and forever on a voyage of rediscovering and redefining my own personal meaning of art.  

            In the past I often found myself thinking about the role of the arts in our society – and how that role was constantly changing, evolving, and sometimes even disappearing. I would try to predict how that role would change in the future – and how that transformation would affect me. However that all changed when I meet Michelle and Sarah, two of the girls we taught at the YMCA near the lower ninth ward of New Orleans – ironically within sight of where the levees broke.

            I believe my colleague on the trip, drama student Finn Wittrock put it best “getting to know the children was exhilarating but keeping order was exhausting.” And our first day proved to be both of those things. Within the first few minutes of our class a fight broke out between the girls, and it was getting very violent very fast. We immediately scraped our lesson plan and decided to start by performing for the students. My teaching collaborator Alex Rodriguez got up and presented a monologue that immediately brought the room to a silence that just moments before I didn’t think would ever exist. It was one of those powerful silences that says more than most conversations could every hope to do.  Alex then opened the floor to the students – one by one they started to open up in their own way. After they started to get more comfortable and realized that it was a safe environment to share their ideas, something really amazing happened. They started to bring in their own work, free writing, poetry, lyricss. That is where Michelle and Sarah come in, these were the two girls who tried to start a fight in our first class, and these two girls both brought in poetry, poetry that they had written will they were waiting out hurricane Katrina in the superdome. They were only 10 when the storm hit but their words and the wisdom their language communicated was well beyond their young age. When they got up to share their work with the group, that silence I mentioned before came back. I looked around and there were tears streaming down the faces of almost all of the children in the room, including all of the girls who were just days before trying to harm each other. There was a newfound comradery in the room that was more powerful that anything I had ever experienced. It was at that very moment I realized that art isn’t about missing a note in an audition, or getting front row seats at a popular concert, its about Michelle, Sarah and others just like them. Art to me now is not in a constant state of transformation, it is in fact very constant. It is the perception of art that is constantly transforming – and that should have nothing to do with my own experience and love for my music.

Michelle and Sarah taught me that Art is not an privilege for the wealthy it is a necessity to human kind. When it came down to a situation of true desperation these children turned to art – and I believe that says something very very powerful.

It amazes me that a city that physically shows so little transformation holds so much hope and optimism in the hearts of it’s people and the people it touches. 




2008 Documentary

Please enjoy the documentary from the 2008 trip....



a look back....


As we get ready to leave for our third trip to New Orleans, it is important to look back at the history of the trip, and remind ourselves why it is imperative to go back....



 the lower 9th ward March 2008....



teaching and performing at the Dryades YMCA...

The New Orleans Project 2009

a view of the destruction from the levees three years later...

The Juilliard New Orleans Project 2009 is a team of Juilliard students who will spend their spring break volunteering to help the hurricane devastated community of New Orleans. The team will empower local youth by running arts immersion projects and providing free and accessible arts education, as well as rebuilding homes.  We will simultaneously provide free public performances.

         As students at The Juilliard School, we are dedicated to the mission of utilizing artistic expression in community outreach efforts to demonstrate the vitality of the arts as a teaching tool for initiating and establishing a greater sense of social understanding and acceptance. By empowering individuals through the arts, our Juilliard team strives to build strong communities in New Orleans that mirrors the beauty of the city’s spirit. We will combine music, theater and dance to reflect the necessity of community and to exemplify the act of working together for a better world.

         This project was originally conceived in fall of 2006 by the Juilliard student group ARTreach. Realizing the need for help in the Gulf Coast region, our team decided to volunteer for a week of community service and outreach in New Orleans in March 2007. The project continued to grow in 2008 with a return trip, this time shedding even more light on the desperate situation within the city and, more importantly, the effects left upon its children.

We are proud to say our team plans to return for a third trip with the hopes of creating an even greater impact.  In the wake of one of the worst natural disasters in United States history, there is a great deal of work to be done; both in the physical reconstruction of buildings demolished and in the revival of communities ripped apart by Hurricane Katrina.  Your help and support would be greatly appreciated, and help us illustrate the power of the arts as a universal tool for initiating change, and offering hope for a brighter future for the children of New Orleans.