Teens Explore Their Jewishness and Creativity at Jewish Teen Day of the Arts

On Sunday, October 22, 2006, Milwaukee area teens explored their Jewish identities through the arts at Coalition for Jewish Learning’s Jewish Teen Day of the Arts. The event took place at Bucketworks, a playground for big kids with performance space, a gallery, art workshops, computer labs, recording studio, woodshop, and more. Bucketworks created a value gathering especially for CJL to help Jewish teens bring their values and reflections about Judaism to life through performance and creative play. And play the teens did!

The teens began with an exercise called Flow, which developed their awareness of two different kinds of energy—yang, the kind for getting things done, and yin, the kind for discovering what to do. They then created You Costumes, wearable creations that helped the teens from various schools to get to know themselves and each other.  Finally, they had the core value gathering experience–brainstorming questions they would ask Judaism if they could interview it. They generated dozens of questions including, “What’s your favorite food?” “Where do you see yourself in 100 years?” and “What languages do you speak?” After picking a favorite few to answer, each group made use of the nearly limitless art supplies to produce skits and presentations that answered those questions. Finally, the day ended with the teens sharing what they learned. In the meantime, Bucketworks created a webpage  and video that recorded the events of the day.

According to Riverside University High School senior, Chana Ellman, “the best parts were the creativity, the originality, and the chance to run wild in a huge playground of art and expression.” And from the looks of things, everyone else agreed!

Read Chana Ellman’s article about her experience at Jewish Teen Day of the Artsin JVIBE Magazine.  

Visit Bucketworks’ photo-gallery of the event.

See pictures of this event and other fun CJLTeens events.