Spectrum Hawaii; Youth and the Performing Arts; Storytellers and John Young

The following program is a production of Katie Chichi in Honolulu Hawaii Public Television. The following program is made possible by grants from the state foundation on culture and the arts and Chevron USA. In Hawaii. Today on spectrum. We join how why you see you as they partake of the performing arts. We'll find youngsters who are learning to tap dance. A chorus that harmonizes to Haydn. Handicapped children in their first steps toward creative achievement. And a young symphony. In addition. To.

The first. Let us see how the curriculum about who children is enrich by amusing songs and stories from Mother Goose. Since 1955 the one I'm looking at up for youth has been specializing in performances directed to youthful audiences throughout the state. Here to introduce us is the managing director James Campbell. And not just IT Director John Calhoun. I think that children are. A very demanding audience. I think that. They're not like adults in the sense that adults will be polite. Adults will sit and wait and and will accept what is going on. Children will not wait they will if they're upset or nervous or bored they'll let you know it's a con. In order to keep children's attention you have to be good in the script as good acting as you can.

Thought. With. The book. You need a real strong. Clear. Narrative. With rules. And exciting characters. Action clearly and I think allows through a lot of fun and I hate. Fluffy cutesy children's theatre was real cute I mean that and that is that is appalling to me that's horrible but the point is that children with

television with and with with everything that's happening around them perceive much quicker or are just quicker at Catching Fire to come school 416 or must reflect the time to care for children in the U.S. it's not snowing us. We are by far in NE by by any standards the largest theatre in Hawaii. With our audience which this year will be about one hundred forty thousand and the Honolulu theatre for youth budget is about half a million dollars. Now.

Virtually every elementary school in the state has children participating in the program at one time or another. Our audience this year will be about one hundred twenty thousand. School children. That's public school private school and teachers and then the rest of our audiences adult and family audiences on the weekend. There are about 30 good professional theatre for young people on name one Honolulu theater for youth is generally considered among the five or six top theaters and we're very proud of that. That's something that we've done here in Hawaii I believe serving the needs of the Hawaii. Theater must reflect the community that it's in. I believe that. That means using. Local actors local designers local playwrights local directors it's innocent.

It's not just that but it's also understanding what the community is about that's theatre resume and how to reflect that community's needs. Because the community comes to us to age to y. To be enriched. To learn something about themselves and consequently we have to be able to be receptive enough to understand what how to fulfill. I feel. Very strongly in that. We need to encourage and develop playwrights. Everywhere but as specially here in NY and I think that finding good American plays is difficult finding good American children's plays plays for use is even more difficult. That's part of the reason why children's theatre has a sort of second class status the sort of less than real theatre. Because there. It's so difficult to find them throughout. The. Week the.

End of the week. The. Theater for use has always tried to. Meet what we feel. Our children need to be to have a complete education. From an arts education is a part of the total education reading and math and geography and history. Is certainly vital but it if he's if he's only working in the kinds of academic subjects and has no kind of experience in art

he's not getting a completed cation. Art helps a child and we feel that we're making a very important contribution to the education. Of children and not education. Where he makes a zoo or bees or booze or absent school but a total education and that kind of education lasts forever. The. Question. It's not that. That's the word. But. When. They are. Done. With.

This tap dance class is one of many classes offered by the board that school. Noted choreographer Jo Flanders founded the school 30 years ago and directed it into her basement for time and. Marian Jane now heads the school of 800 students. The appeal. Of tap dancing. To little ones. Is simply. That tap dancing is a lot more physical. Other forms. For some reason I think they feel a little more sedentary. Being in one position one spot through all the class but in tap dancing they're all over the place there's floors in their top and they're down and they're. There scooting across the floor and I think. I think that's what it is it's the physical kind of form. I think at. That. At a young age that's appealing.

What is to be gained by that. Is. Discipline. I never quite understood that as a child of the guidance of my life. And. It certainly. Is a discipline in. More ways than one. You need to be first of all organized you've got to learn basics getting your dance shoes ready up preparing your dance bag the night before. Coming to class. Learning to focus. It's an enormous amount of concentration that's required even at age 5. We demand that they concentrate. On it today. It's a plan. That will benefit. From. In later years. Very truthfully I would say out. There. A small percentage. Will want.

That's what. I mean if you want the accurate numbers I'd say I could only give it a shot for me. But I would say. No one is. Out of. Balance. They. Might. Go. To Hawaii children's chorus office interest to deal with a choice opportunity the chance to learn how to sing under the experience to judge of that directo want to get a been. These youth have enrolled in her afterschool call program

here that made it and not own it the prominent selections of classic call literature by renowned masters but they are developing discipline poise and the confidence to present themselves. From. The. Sun. Was. Low. On. The on. The. On. The right children's chorus. Music education program. If it is extracurricular Where are nonprofit corporations who are not connected with schools when our children come from schools all over the island.

Number two. I'm. Sure that whatever the hell says it is that it helps the expression right. OK so. We're really making better people out of them. We're not just making better musicians which I hope to be doing. I really believe that we're making major people out of them because we're. Channeling discipline and. Harmony and unison and ensemble and teamwork. All those things and we're using the media of music. Her own.

Hand signals gives a physical feel. To. The No. Code I who was a hunk area musicologist who. Created this whole system based on the idea that by putting a physical feeling to the note the children would be able to do and her fault. And I say yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like. What are we seeing. Right now. Audition can be a very threatening thing. Just the word somehow is wrong. But. We run a program where the children. Attend a rehearsal.

In other words you don't come in to the room all by yourself and alone and away from friends. Singing is a learned skill. OK so you can learn to sing. Anyone can. Learn. The kind of parent that brings her child to our program is the one who values music in their lives values that kind of art and in their lives. Eat. Eat.

Eat. Eat. Eat. The handicap has become a nationwide and. Very special.

Program. One of these programs teaches children how to dance. At the elementary. They're really special. To them. Their patients. Treated them. There were some adjustments that you have to make but they responded. Remarkably. Just remarkably due. To the movement. Basically we were involved as teachers of creative movement employed by the GOP and the various special arts and that's what we can share with the children we wanted them to get in touch with their bodies and have a taste of the joy of movement. Traveling through space making shapes reacting

to rhythm it's. Falling down. Really. All the different aspects of. The. Dance and of. The giving of. The joy of. Relating to other people into music. From. Our own family with. I can see that we feel the grass so much not only in dance but how it's affected him in everything that they do how they carry themselves how they walk down the street I'm sure how they relate to other people. So I think the screening. Program. I think it would be to possible. End of the deal see what you. Do is. Make other programs like. This. Because I think. They will benefit from it. It will show in every aspect of their life really which is their goal. You. Can tell by their excitement about dance. They would tell us oh we love dancing. That was our day that great there was Artist Award.

We know that we had really been able to communicate to them higher love of dance and share with them the clustered together. So it's been a wonderful wonderful experience for all of us. Some years to come you want to keep dancing. Yeah. Exciting. Week. The how but. You. Simply. Demonstrate. How serious. These two. Systems. Practiced. This person for their. Annual Aloha. Concert. Was directed by that. RAT. Hole in. The hoist symphony does. While it serves the purpose of

bringing all custom music to the students of white and they basically are the best students on the essence. Right. A rehearsal is when mistakes may be made and then corrected. To get into the notes and. Yeah you would really have had to work a lot on your film and it would have to be developed to a. Very high degree. Of power. Right now.

The old concert. Is just what it says it's a concert to recognize our seniors. Say goodbye to everybody I guess. And at that time we put emphasis on some of the more talented of the singers. Showing you keep child. He's rehearsing a. Difficult Path. From the symphony Espanyol. By Lalo. With. The percussion section of the office right is one of the most

neglected and yet classical pockets for music. The. Old they are very bored at times. Because I was a percussionist also. In Oxford and there were times when I sat there counted three hundred measures and hit the cymbal once put it down and said to the rest of the whole concert you know just getting one though and thinking why am I doing this. This is the first time where in my five years that I've seen students actually

helping each other. Perhaps a weaker person will be sitting next to a very strong person. And. The person would actually. Ask. How do you do this. What can I do to. Play this or. The stronger person will be helping the weaker person. But in the past where you had a person that was the one line the other person owes them a 10. Obviously Number 10 is not going to ask them the night. How do you do this you know it's like oh. That's a normal. Competition it's just. But getting rid of that competitiveness was because a prime goldish A. Conductor Okamura commits the soloist to perform their favorite piece. Whatever selection they chose for their audition they shall play in bands. No one has studied hard and practiced long so that he may bring the

right touch this piano concerto by Mendelssohn. The. There are 11 pieces on the program. I get annoyed with you. We had seven rehearsals all. Conscious like this.

So which really puts. A clamp on put the rest of the students we have really come through in. The educational process is not only for survival. Not only to arm a person with. The necessary things to survive in life but. Is to enhance one's lives in the future. A person can sit at a desk and be very successful. But if he doesn't enjoy life and if he doesn't find happiness in it then. What is life. And I believe music is just one aspect of life that. Enhances one's living. With a jaunty gypsy like spirit.

This Caprice he Cossack off is given of the finality as directed by conductor Okamura and rehearsed by the Hawaii Symphony the footman's. Utne. Originally from the Greek the word symphony literally mean sounding together. Performing together in stills lasting impressions upon those lucky you with the yachts with the singing acting dancing or playing. A white youth youth engages in opera bound together by that time and the life. Join us again on our next spectrum. Oh. In the preceding program has been made possible by grants

from Chevron USA in Hawaii and his state foundation on culture and the arts. The feel of the following

program is a production of key HPT in Honolulu Hawaii Public Television. The following program is made possible by grants from the state foundation on culture and the arts and Chevron USA. In Hawaii. Today on spectrum we'll hear a story being told by an expert storyteller. And will witness fine artist John Young paint horses in his studio. But first let's visit the two people who have given much thought to the telling of a story.

Are you going to catch a death of spicing there. And she drew wrong show him closer about her job. There are no signs come down from heaven no Jack straightened up a little bit hitched his trousers some more. I wish you could have seen that Bertie long time Howie residences Lucille and Bran Brennaman use language as our artist reviews clay paint or fabric. They weave together stories with words as a badge a nation. They are storytellers fell off of it lit in the stream I'm sure I heard the water. Tell your Bergy it's so short just why he is the friend of mine to join other members of the storytelling Association of Hawaii to tell their origin of Richard Kennedy's story isms isn't new I don't know any I would want to die and on my account you have a bad bird and the judge had watched his wife for she went up the path.

But then he continued in the story Bertie hung up part of soon over the fire. Sat down with some mending and about the time the suit began to agitate. She heard her husband shout out the other day I found it and Jack came running up the path towards a house in his bare feet. Bertie shook her head. She picked up a wooden spoon and knocked against the black pot to drive any evil spirits away that just might happen to be in there and then she turned to see her husband come stopping. In the Now mind you don't break your neck I'm suffering in the yard and Jack. He ran to the table pulled a chair out sat down in the hole. It's a part of a star. There's I must have a good story has been shot and by long association with The Atlantic she has taught storytelling at the University of Hawaii and Lee has already been a host who held out her say he was chairman of the Andromeda

lobby and the spoon she held it up closer to her eyes so she could get a better look at it. She sniffed and ladled it out in front of her husband again and then she turned to take the soup off the fire. Your phone jack. Why did I people tell store owner. Because stories they're the stuff of life. Really they've been with us since the beginning of man. It's actually the story telling that is the first the very first communicated of art that we have and it's been very important throughout history. Now it's been more important sometimes than others because storytellers were the record keepers at times. Then they became entertainers as well as record keepers. But stories have been told to to instruct to entertain to inform to use as an illustration.

Bertie set out the soup for both of them watching her husband all the time. So you have straight from the start I prefer him south. Oh could be but not for one of these trousers hot summers that has the blues Stone is a luckier than all the kings in childbirth. Let me see it again. A Jack gave his wife the stone and Bertie popped it into her mouth but I think it's a stone and I'm going to sort of always thought. Working languages with the stone do affect it to a great extent the way a storyteller will approach a story. Now stories are usually better handled by the storyteller. If he uses his own words to a great extent when he's dealing with folk literature or this is possible. When he's dealing with beautiful literate you are. That's very

very well written. Where the literature itself depends upon the style of the writing then the storyteller wants to retain the literature the way it is written. The White Horse Girl and The Blue Wind Boy by Carl Sandburg has always been one of our favorites. It's from his rutabaga tales. He's known of course as the great American poet but after all his prose is so poetic that we feel we must must hold to his language as he wrote it. When the dishes are washed at night time in the cool of the evening has come in the summer. The lamps or fires are lit at night for winter. Then the mothers and fathers sometimes tell the children the story of the

White Horse Girl the wimble the white horse girl grew up in the far west of the Rootabaga Country all the years she grew up as a girl. She liked to ride horses. Best of all things for her was to be straddle of a white horse loping with a loose Raven among the hills and along the rivers of the west Rootabaga Country. She had one horse that was white as snow another white as new washed. She and another white as silver. She could not tell because she did not know which of these three white horses she lie thickest. It's very important for the storyteller to use his imagination be able to create mental pictures of what's happening in the story or what's being described in the story. And the hope is that the way the storyteller does that with the words will cause the audience the

listener to create in his or her mind. The story the picture. Therefore you don't need a stage set you don't need the props you're using the words and the storyteller to create this kind of imagination. So. Why tell stories. Number one would be for the interaction of the human being I think and we missed that so much today because of so much being done on TV in film and so on. But people are coming together nevertheless much more now than they have for many many years and they recognize that you need to have a personal touch. And that's what storytelling is the intimacy of an audience and the other thing is it actually gives the person who's telling the stories to lift to. Listeners and storytellers burn the house down sparks flew over to the barn burned the barn

down field all the cows and the horses now after the fire cooled off and then a dog went and ate some of the bird forthwith. That's what the Dole camp. One day a college professor was having difficulty preparing a paper he was going to present it to someone. His little five year old boy was running around the room making noise in general and distracting his father frustrated. The father reached for a magazine picked it up to look through it quickly pinned to a world map and tore out the world map tore it into pieces placed it in a box handed it to his son and said Billy I'll take you to the zoo. If you put this back together correctly don't you don't. He said the little boy and he took it right up stairs to his room. Now the father thought it would take his son the least two hours to complete the project.

So he was much surprised when 10 minutes later the little boy came down the stairs and presented his father with a perfect picture of the world map. How did you do when we got this issue. How did you do it. You don't know the first thing about the world geography. Well dad on the other side was a picture of a man. So I think you're If I got the man to go right now world would go right and we figure somehow that storytelling helps to make the world go right. Have you ever asked yourself if only pictures could talk what would they say. One might try asking their office to a native of Hawaii painted John

Young joined spectrum to talk of his dog his pictures and his life. His paintings can be found in the permanent collections of the home of the Academy of San Francisco's de Young Museum. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art. And the Institute of Chicago. A stylus and a jet make. Quick strokes bold colors abstract and yet depicting scenes from life. Like his brushstrokes side Kansas. His collection of primitive and Oriental art is placed against a backdrop of flowers and trees from a Mexican carousel horses to a bronze time monk. The range

is at collecting. These images whether on campus or in the garden of man or of horse reveal the individual behind the painter and the collector. John Young is a pixie of a man. He enjoys his works and his life. His movements a quick fueled by unbridled enthusiasm. Born in Cali in 1989 John Young is still true to the dreams of his youth. His AAT was influenced heavily by his Chinese heritage. I'm Chinese and I've always been interested in the Chinese calligraphy factor landed in the early days in the Chinese goes from that point on I have

taken a great interest in calligraphy and I have used a great deal in my paintings particularly in an unobstructed work of art. Even doing my figures I'd use that calligraphy because it has such strength and such a fluid of lying and I feel that the character themselves is almost abstract in themselves a picture already been made. My education actually only high school McKinley High School and I was there for four years and in the end of prying you know the beginning of drawing the charcoal and the pencil drawing thing drawing the one that had a gallery of my own I'm coming over here and met a friend and he

had a liking to my paintings and one day he came to my studio asked says John I know and by the way and seen many of your painting that this one did you know from my knowledge. Where did you study. I said to him self-taught and he thought for a minute and said wait with that. State. Well it said well you know I'm self-taught. The horse. Is an animal that has great strength and big spirit. I want to capture the horse with the simplicity of lying. So that the Laiva had already had movement and in order to simplify it I like to just make a few lines and capture the whole animal in motion. My first pushes and because I like

you uses. Texter. And I'm always familiar with the media. So although I work in different. Mediums like and acrylic and water colors. In the early days there's been everything else from test of drawing charcoal and praying. And leads up to painting in oil. The decision is this as I work on a cavity developed in by themselves each stroke that I put on it it becomes a part of the painting. I work according to what I put on the canvas and it's true that I laid on the canvas. New direction adding a new shape my new color and that the bumps on the counters. Cause one that's got to be able to know the time when to

stop. And the. Use of color the color that lend themselves to one another. Either when laughing or putting one directly on the kinds of. I think is important that a not a should develop something of his own style and identity and becomes. A part of him his own character is own. Image. Such as doing a painting of a horse. And there are many many people of dead horse paintings and each has its own feeling about the animal. I would like to identify myself and those almost like gory yellowing telegraphic it is a freedom that I like to establish. I like you carry a certain amount of simplicity of line and movement and the use of color and just enough to carry the painting.

In the beginning I started off doing landscaping the very realistic manner you know when you first began doing a painting you capture the details. My idea is the painting is change. I assume if I buy a caption on the essence of it the money I don't I mean instead of doing the details and going for the abstract shakes to give the feeling of the randomness of the mountain. I feel that the landscape itself in to a facility that I want to capture and if is there the earth. It's really there not just only a surface. I like to get back down to into the mountains. Everything to me I've thrown in the eye and say I'm surrounded that island every day

just can't help but seeing the sea in the sea means to me a freedom you know as free spirit. And that I like to do painting freely anyhow because. Having a freedom of will using your free breast rose intended to take me painted it gives much more verve and vitality into the painting particularly to see the seas constantly moving and just imagine if you draw it's very tight. You don't capture the movement and you see most of the green stroke up there in the high part of the painting. This is one. Of the green color that has much more to say than a thousand brush marks there. John Young is fascinated by people. He travels throughout the world to meet it on the streets and in their cafes. Children priests and women. When you use the word travel like to pack my bags and go away to Paris tomorrow. Traveling is a great

thing I think gives so much everything in the world in front of you and give you such great excitement and I like to carry with me my sketchpad when I go along to the market places particularly the marketplaces where I meet people and talk to them then they know me and I know them too. And particularly the foreign countries you know the language is not there there's no language barrier and painting. Now I get to doing a skit perhaps in the bus alone or without the bullfight and here we see a drawing of the movie. I catch it only this this is of the mind that by doing that I think there is much more activity next. I've done a sketch of the Balinese man in the market with baskets on his head and has a great deal of freedom of movement and the way how they move along that area in the marketplace is the expression particularly. When I go into the market particularly in the morning I spend

many hours there not only once but then the more times I visit the marketplaces the begin to know about the people themselves either captured or the end of their life and what did normally do marketing and shopping with the babies in the back. This is the scene on the left the Chinese with a baby. On the right hand side these are the monks of passes along the canal or in front of the temple. They walk in unison you know with beautiful robes. Colored great elegant. Children. To me as a citizen the naïve quality that I like and I like their freedom their joy Jollibee. Freshness and their happy feeling. And I like to capture them and I feel as do I get one time

was a chance to. I like to. Belong you know and at one time when I do a kid only fears are that I was that child. Myself. John Young's God offers him repose and a living palate. The artist becomes a god not a god and. My God is something else again is something that truly enjoy doing. You know be a part of the earth and get back to the soil. I like to see the growing plants. When you're playing. You has a certain information. Like the whites in the green. Rings a different color anywhere on the right rather than the state the one I think is one of the child or a different

color. Molly the sort of work together. Like they. Call it The mall. Will Young going door live up here. In a dry area. The feeling of. Feeling. That. Happened among. India's via a lot of pleasure a child to read and think about other things in life. As a child. Time for yourself. Being by yourself and being with the plants and working every day on the canvas. To young collecting is as fulfilling as creating and. Collecting is been the great thing for me. I've always been. Said in the

sculpture of the law for you from every country read Chinese Japanese We have all primitive. I have a fondness for all the work being done by mankind. Somehow a thousand years ago mankind that opinion that had the same ideas. You know. And put. Together. Very well. Some of the world's great works. Anonymous nobody knows who did them. But to put the stamp on that piece is a great work of art. He began his habit collecting most unexpectedly. Being a young officer that time I had an exhibition of gumps and how to move lives way back and I had a show of my own what a couple. After the show business but was it to me where has your check and made come a look at the collection of Chinese art.. And I said to his mom let me go back to the ship and let me have a piece of sculpture. Why not. So I gave her the check that the women don't starve to death. And selected a beautiful

horse. And that was the beginning of the collect. For me sell some paintings collect on. I don't believe that very young artist should follow the example of another artist I think they should use their own personal feelings of what they want to do in life. Personally I feel that in my way out of thinking a young artist should follow the old ideal. What do you want to achieve in life. You are not met any obstacles I point you from doing the things you want to do. Continue to follow your aim and keep on working at it. And with God is where you are. Successful in making any make and thats not that important that the most important part of it all

is that you are happy in what you're doing. The looking thing a paper I find the pain has always been my life and I'm glad that I had continued to be a painter that wasn't my only interest anyway and the only thing I can do better. I feel as though that I have achieved in the certain point of my life. The things that I want to do. From the beginning as a painter of this see and landscapes up to the present time to complete nonobjective. I find that the painting themselves give me the greatest joy in life. I don't think I like to trade you know for any other kind of work. If I were given a chance I'd like to be a painter again. Far far from the press of the urgent moment the artist is

traveling searching with his senses keenly aware by drawing up material. A piece is composed often with striking results. A new outlook is gained. It's an old story. Join us again next spectrum. The preceding program has been made possible by grants from Chevron USA

in Hawaii and the state foundation on culture and the arts.