UCLA Arts engages public school students with life’s essential questions

What does a 16-year-old theater student know about power? What can a seventh grade dance student teach us about hope?. As we learned at this fall's "10 Questions: Reckoning,' an awful lot. As the world struggles to cope with a pandemic and the United States grapples with its embedded racism and inequality, this fall the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture presented "10 Questions: Reckoning,' the third iteration of its hybrid public program/academic class that brings together leading minds from across the university for interdisciplinary discussions about some of life's essential questions. Seeking to extend the reach and impact of this year's program deeper into the community, the "10 Questions? team forged a partnership with UCLA's Visual and Performing Arts Education, or VAPAE, program to engage middle and high school students from public schools across the city. Students from five participating schools, which hailed from one end of L.A. (Venice and Marina del Rey) to the other (Koreatown, Los Feliz and East L.A.), generated their own classroom conversations and created artwork in response to one of the 10 questions, handpicked for consideration by their respective teachers. The five schools responded to their questions by creating work in one of five art forms: visual arts, theater, dance, design/media arts and music. Working in close collaboration with Kevin Kane, the director of VAPAE, and VAPAE teaching artists, each cohort of students was then invited into the virtual classroom, where their work was featured as an integral part of the public program on Monday evenings.