Mission

Teen Artist Project (TAP) encourages teens to draw upon their experiences to express their own thoughts and ideas through the arts. This middle school and high school age outreach program increases awareness of the arts and improves literacy in students through experiences in visual and performing arts. We encourage students to pull from their own experiences when writing, acting, dancing and making their own work. We believe exposing students to the arts fosters a greater self-esteem that will be essential to their lives post graduation.

We offer low-cost classes, performances and workshops to middle school and high school age students.

Philosophy
CDE uses a process-oriented approach in our classrooms so that we can build upon of each child’s personalities and inherent talents. Our “Whole-Child” teaching philosophy enables us to help students learn better ways to communicate.  By processing emotions and their physical responses, our students gain an understanding of body awareness and become more intuitive to others’ needs.  The “Whole-Child” teaching philosophy allows us to create a flexible curriculum incorporating theatre, dance and visual art to meet the needs of our students.

Core Objectives
- To teach the whole child through creative multi-disciplinary classes in the arts.
- To encourage each child to develop their artistic talents and develop social skills by interacting in small and diverse groups.
- To provide a safe environment for children to experiment and then share their work through performances and gallery displays, further enriching students’ self-esteem, creativity and appreciation for the arts.

Teaching Artists
Teen Project contracts multi-disciplinary artists from the community who have higher education degrees and years of experience. Ellyzabeth Adler (BFA and MA), brings years of teaching experience to her supervision of the Teen Project program. Our team of highly qualified and dedicated teaching artists is the core strength of Teen Project. Students see first-hand the real-world application of artistic talent when they witness a guest artist’s work in performance and visual art. The diverse backgrounds of the teaching artists provide a unique learning environment.