A Note From Redmoon Theatre:

When we started the formal planning process, almost three years ago, this is what we (Redmoon Theatre) said we  were looking for:

The ideal partner school has strong leadership at every level:  a strong principal, a cadre of strong teacher leaders, and strong, well-organized parent and community leadership.  We hope to see evidence that the school’s leadership is united in a desire to work with Redmoon .

We hope to work with a school where the staff has experience with arts-integration work, but, given the scope and depth of the envisioned program, Redmoon hopes to be the lead arts partner.  In general, the partner school should be executing a well-thought-out program already, but should not already have so many other commitments that this partnership would end up being a distraction; Redmoon hopes that, over time, its multi-disciplinary approach to the arts will work its way into the heart of the school’s curriculum and community.

At the time, we didn’t know if we would find everything we were looking for in one school:  we hadn’t yet met the staff at Audubon: strong leadership at every level, eleven years of arts-integration work, and a deep desire to bring arts-integration to new, more focused heights.  We couldn’t be happier to have found Audubon.

Celebrating its third year of programming, The Redmoon School Partnership Program at John J. Audubon Elementary School has taken its commitment to community partnership and education to a new level. Continuing on from the past two years, Redmoon artists will work with classroom teachers at Audubon School to create vibrant fine-arts curriculum that is fully integrated with the school’s academic program, collaboratively planning and executing curriculum units that provide a rewarding and empowering aesthetic experience while addressing state learning goals and assessment requirements.  

The components of Redmoon’s artwork—dance, music, adapting literary texts for performance, and the creation of masks, puppets, and Redmoon’s trademark fantastic stage objects—call on many of the skills that form the core academic curriculum and state goals for learning: 

·        Language Arts: Adapting a literary work for performance calls on students to become deeply fluent readers and writers

·        Mathematics: The design of fanciful and functional stage equipment requires students to apply principles of geometry, scale, and proportion;

·        Science: State standards in this area call on students to study and experiment with technological design—a goal directly addressed by the creation of functional art objects.  

Redmoon is looking forward to creating an arts-integrated curriculum that supports instruction to meet state standards, improves student achievement in reading, expands performance-based instruction and assessment models, deepens learning opportunities for students, enriches the school culture and builds community. 

This year we have deepened the commitment to the school partnership.  In addition to the First and Third Grade classrooms that participated in the prior years, we have added the Seventh and Eighth Grade split level classrooms to our roster.  We have hired new exciting teaching artists to the program, who bring a wealth of talent and expertise to the program.  Redmoon Teaching Artists and Audubon School Teachers will work side-by-side to create challenging and engaging curriculum based around the theme of “Nature in the City”.

The School Partnership Program at John J. Audubon School is a very dynamic one and we hope to continue working with this partnership for years to come.

About Redmoon

 “Anyone in doubt about the power of art to galvanize a community and create a miraculous, peaceable kingdom would have been transformed into a believer.”
Chicago Sun-Times, November 1, 1999 .

Redmoon Theater, one of the city’s leading companies, creates innovative multi-disciplinary performances that garner critical acclaim and large, devoted audiences.  The company has a long-standing commitment to collaboration and exchange with the broader community.

Redmoon ’s productions can best be described as theatrical spectacles, and they literally span the divide between the city's leading stages-- including Chicago Shakespeare and Steppenwolf -- and the streets. The company’s work has earned 15 Joseph Jefferson citations, rave reviews, and annual audiences numbering in the tens of thousands.   

All of Redmoon's work is visually stunning: trademark elements include giant masks and puppets, elaborate and imaginative costumes, and fantastic set pieces/props/objects that are part sculpture, part machine, part cartoon. Original music, movement, drums, and fire are also regular parts of the spectacular mix. Redmoon often performs outdoors, transforming public spaces into sites of creation and celebration.

Redmoon aims to use art to build community, and the company has a tradition of long-term collaboration and exchange with community groups and neighborhood youth. Since 1996, Redmoon’s after-school Dramagirls program has given fourth through eighth grade girls at Chase Elementary the opportunity to create their own original productions, participate in Redmoon performances, and receive one-on-one mentoring from adult women artists.

More information about Redmoon Theater can be found on our website: www.redmoon.org