La MaMa Kids: Creativity for Kids | Connect Through Play
Art brings meaning and inspiration to the way we experience the world around us. Children are naturally predisposed to the Arts with their rich imaginations and love for storytelling.
As a teaching artist, Leah Lawrence offers drama classes that enable children to strengthen their performance skills and their ability to work collaboratively in a group. To quote Antonin Artaud, “the actor is the athlete of the heart” and therefore learns to be vulnerable and authentic with fellow actors and in front of an audience. The benefit of exposing children to acting at a young age is the increased confidence they feel in expressing their own unique voice and presenting it. In order to nurture creative and innovative minds, drama classes can provide the space for children to enter a state of play, the bedrock of the creative process. This is not competitive play to win but instead collaborative play to create.
In this LaMaMa kids workshop, we will play theater games, sing, move, and act out stories in a safe and fun environment. As it is the week of Thanksgiving, all of our creative games and exercises will focus on the theme of giving thanks.
Leah Lawrence is a professional actor and singer-songwriter with credits off-Broadway, national television and two released albums of her own music, available on Itunes, Amazon & Spotify: “Folk by Foulke, Volume 1” & “Everywhere To Go: Folk by Foulke V.2“ Most recently, she composed and performed music in Jean Genet’s The Maids at LaMaMa in the Spring of 2017. Leah has been a teaching artist for twenty years. In Chicago, she taught in over thirty public schools with Whirlwind Performance Company. Since moving back to NYC in 1999, Leah has taught drama at New York City and Westchester schools including The Chapin School, Convent of the Sacred Heart, The Brearley School, Columbia Prep, Pound Ridge Elementary School, Bedford Village Elementary, and Rippowam Cisqua. Education: MFA in Acting, Columbia University; BA, Colorado College. Certified Yoga instructor. Certified Synapsing teacher. Leah is a coach and facilitator at Green meets Blue, LLC.
La MaMa Kids
La MaMa Kids Online presents kids performances and hands-on workshops online, timed especially for “after school” viewing! La MaMa will continue to use emerging technologies to create a new venue for artistic expression that questions how art can function and how we as a society can survive challenging periods of history.