With support from the California Arts Council, the Arts & Enrichment Academy (A&E Academy) will fund the staffing for the Songwriters Workshop. The Songwriters Workshop is a performing arts program designed for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities in adult transition programs in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. This program helps students process their emotions, cope with challenges, and build resilience through writing songs in a safe and supportive environment. In the early workshop sessions, students play instruments, sing, and engage in creative music construction. In the later sessions, they write, record, and perform their original musical compositions. The A&E Academy’s priority is to provide immersive performing arts programming that intertwines personal growth with educational exploration.
Songwriters Workshop – In our most popular program, Songwriters Workshop, we explore basic principles of music to build a foundation of understanding through experience. These students play instruments, sing, and engage in creative and analytical construction of their own music. Utilizing the tools obtained, the students write, record, and perform their own musical collaborations!
•Theater Performers – In Theater Performers, we write, produce, and perform a complete theatrical performance. Children are engaged in the fundamentals of stage performance using and analyzing all types of theater, such as musical, comedic, dramatic, etc. This program takes students from story creation and developing characters, to making the props and
preparing the set, and ultimately performing and recording the performance for the students to own!
•Film Making Magic – In Film Making Magic, we present ideas for new and original stories and content. We analyze how great stories are told through the art of film. After an exploration into all areas of how film is made, we write, develop a crew, and shoot an actual film of our own creation that we screen & the participants get to own!
The Arts & Enrichment Academy also offers curricula in: Computer Coding, Science Arts, Reading Clubs, and more. With future funding, it is the hope that many more programs surrounding art and education can be developed. All programs are experiential and immersive for the participants. There is no lecture as all instruction is interactive and hands-on.