DreamShapers Performing Arts Assembly Programs and Artists seek to meet the California Educational Standards for Performing Arts in the following ways:

1.0 Artistic Perception
Artistic Perception - Processing, Analyzing and Responding to Sensory Information through the Language and Skills Unique to the Arts

DreamShapers, through its various performing arts programs will demonstrate skills unique to each discipline and art. Each program will enhance students' knowledge about the art form through vocabulary and educational content. Dance programs will feature descriptions of basic skills as well as concepts that will be presented. Theatre and storytelling programs will demonstrate artistic skills and discuss basic components to theater like plot, story structure and preparation. Music programs will discuss rhythm, rhyme and demonstrate various styles from folk to jazz to rock and roll and from American music to ethnic music from many different places around the world. DreamShapers believes that arts programming is an essential part to all core curriculum and that all students, as they become aware of performing arts, will channel this insight into following their own artistic path and use this creative energy as part of their own learning process.

2.0 Creative Expression
Creative Expression – Creating, Performing and Participating in the Arts

DreamShapers artists and assembly programs help teachers and students to view performing arts as a way to enhance learning and support core curriculum. Artists will demonstrate how knowledge, ideas, creativity, imagination and self-expression can all be communicated through the performing arts. The assemblies model art forms, some new and some that have been used by mankind for thousands of years, to impart knowledge and provide cultural connections. The live performances will provide an artistic experience that will give students and teachers more creative possibilities to discover, express and augment the learning process.


3.0 Historical and Cultural Context
Historical and Cultural Context – Understanding the Historical Contribution and Cultural Dimension of the Arts

DreamShapers artists provide students and teachers with excellent assemblies that demonstrate the wonderful diversity of cultural traditions found in Los Angeles, throughout North America and around the world. Each tradition is authentically represented and often presented in a way that demonstrates how they developed as a result of historical influences.

DreamShapers dance programs demonstrate the relationships between historical periods, cultures and customs and ethnic heritages. The Native American Dance and Culture program, for example, demonstrates dances from across North America. Each dance is placed in its historical context and is explained with regards to origin, steps and costuming and where it fits into daily life. Students and teachers are encouraged to observe, experience, enjoy and discuss the dances and cultures they represent.

DreamShapers storytellers provide theatre programs that introduce students and teachers to international folklore that demonstrate mankind’s unity and diversity as found in story. Storytelling is one of the oldest art forms that humanity has been using to entertain and educate for thousands of years. Students will be encouraged to connect the folktales to the stories, books and knowledge they will be learning throughout their education.

DreamShapers theatre artists bring to life American Icons and historical periods. From cowboys to Thomas Jefferson and from Puppet Melodrama theaters to Magical Drug Free Programs, students and teachers alike will see how performing arts can feature historical and cultural information that affect their lives and the world around them everyday.

DreamShapers music artists demonstrate how music is an ageless human tool that will enhance the learning of almost any subject. Students can discover and enjoy traditional music from specific ethnic backgrounds. They can learn and listen to traditional music’s influence on historical development of American / Western Music and can see how has changed with the advent of technology. The programs will expose student’s variety of instruments from ethnic to modern computers. They will enjoy and learn about a wide variety of musical styles along with new and traditional songs from around the world. Artists will demonstrate how music, from countries and regions around the world, reflect history and cultural influences.

Additional Standards are met with these programs:

• Language Arts Standards
  • Reading Writing and Rhythm
  • International Folktales
    
    
• Science Standards
  • Ocean Adventures
  • Peter Small – Thomas Edison
    
    
• Social Studies Standards
  • American Cowboy
  • Native American Dance and Culture
  • The Bog Skippers
  • Latin American Song & Culture
  • Pacific Islander and Asian Folktales
  • Peter Small – George Washington or Thomas Jefferson