Artist Collective to Work with Bangor-Area Students During Vacation; Projects to Involve Bangor History

Contact: Joe Carr (207) 581-3571

ORONO — Bangor-area high school students will soon have the unique opportunity to learn about documenatry film, interactive design and performance art from members of a renowned traveling artist collective called Slightly Askew.

The University of Maine New Media Department will coordinate the workshops, set for April 21-25 in Bangor. The programming is part of UMaine-City of Bangor Project, funded by a U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development grant, to build university-city partnerships related to youth empowerment, community inclusion and and affordable housing.

The Slightly Askew artists travel tbe world to teach student workshops, to perform and to do multimedia installation. They are currently working on projects in Austin, Tex. and New Orleans, and they regularly work with high school students in Boston, Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

The April Bangor workshops are scheduled for school vacation week. They will take place at the Bangor Y facilities. The workshops are free and are open to all high school students in the Bangor area, defined as anyone willing to drive to Bangor each day. The Bangor workshops will culminate in a final show in the old Freese’s building, next to the Discovery Museum. The show opens on the evening of April 24 and continues throughout the day and evening of April 25.

Orgainzers are looking for students to participate in the program. Interested students, or teachers who would like to make arrangements for their students to participate should email Abigail Stiers (abigail.stiers@umit.maine.edu). More information about the workshops is at www.thecyberproject.org.

While gathering video footage in Bangor, documentary film workshop students will learn different interview approaches, as well as research and documenting techniques and skills for shooting and editing. They will also research and edit together historical Bangor footage and photos and they will edit the footage into finished projects as well as clips to be used in interactive installations.

Students in the interactive design workshop will implement imaginative ways for viewers to interact with the clips produced in the documentary workshop, and they will use a variety of different kinds of media and materials to create an engaging interactive environment for viewers. The focus will be determined by the students’ ideas and interests but could include tracking the movement of the viewers in the space and using sensors and sound to trigger and play back video.

Physical theater project students will create a performance about Bangor that relates to the interviews recorded in the documentary film workshop and the interfaces created for the installation. They will learn techniques of improvisational movement and speech, street performance, miming and clowning, and they will be introduced to ways to create choreography and act for film. Students will have the opportunity to choreograph their own movement pieces, act on film and work with source material to create written sketches and skits about Bangor today and in the past.