2017 LEAP: Learning Experiences through Artistic Performance

By Hayley Ho

Throughout July, Bronze and Gold Visioneers became unique creators – dancers, painters, actors and rappers through the LEAP (Learning Experiences through Artistic Performance) program💪.

The sessions were built on core values of the Teachings of the 7 Grandfathers - Wisdom, Love, Respect, Bravery, Honesty, Humility, Truth by Daniel Kim, a long time instructor. Each session was creatively designed to be dedicated to one or two of the values and highly fostered a student-centered learning environment, allowing Visioneers to be very engaged and free in their own creations.

Values of Wisdom and Humility were introduced in the first session. Visioneers were challenged in a pair and group to build sculptures and create a dance choreography through a method called flocking to portray questions one would ask to a 100-year-old elderly in representation of wisdom.

In the second session, Love and Bravery were emphasized on by asking Visioneers what is something they love about themselves and what their gifts and talents are. Many found these to be difficult questions to answer but throughout the session, it was beautiful to see how the paintings acted like a window into the Visioneers themselves as they showed reflections of who they are proud to be.

How does respect look, feel, taste, smell and sound like to you? In the third session, values of Honesty and Respect were dug deep upon by Visioneers. In a group, Visioneers had the opportunity to become actors in showing their interpretations of respect followed by discussions of what respect is. Through performing monologues and watching clips, Visioneers learnt the importance to speak with honesty and passion when using our words to communicate and influence others.

“Truth is to know all these things, Speak the Truth.” In encompassing all the values Visioneers have learnt in the past sessions, the last session challenged Visioneers to practice them by writing a rap about themselves, people they are thankful for or issues they feel are unjust to them. What a great opportunity for Visioneers to practice self-reflection, creativity and to recognize their own and their peer’s uniqueness. All of them showed great traits of being risk takers in being willing to present their rap in front of everyone and to not be afraid to fail.

The LEAP program has pushed and fostered Visioneers to practice a wide and fruitful range of meaningful skills – teamwork, communication, high levels of self-reflection and exploration, acknowledgement of their uniqueness, respect and open-mindedness towards themselves and their peers, in taking comfort to fail harder to learn and to step out of their own comfort zones.