This semester the COVID pandemic has prompted us to think about community engagement, including Community Learning courses in entirely new ways. One example of this pivot has been in Assistant Professor of Theater & Dance Rebecca Pappas’ online Community Learning course THDN 145 “Performing Hartford” where students learned about local arts infrastructures and “nested arts ecosystems” that allow artists to emerge outside of traditional organizational structures.
To bring the Hartford local arts ecosystem into the classroom, Pappas collaborated with Jasmin Agosto ’10 of SageSeeker Productions to curate a virtual performance series with BIPOC Hartford artists who joined this evening class each week on Zoom. Each performance and Q&A session was streamed on Facebook Live to invite others in the Hartford and Trinity community to engage alongside the students and artists.
A critical piece of Community Learning at Trinity is engaging students in reflection about their course work, themselves, and the surrounding communities. Students were encouraged to reflect on the course text on nested arts ecosystems and their experiences in the virtual performances to inform their final projects. Projects ranged from Performance series proposals, festival plans, personal poetry, local artist brochures, and more. Take a look below! You can also view the performances here and read more about the course from Trinity Communications here.
An Unofficial Guide to the Hartford Arts Community: Work in Progress
by Clare Donahoe ’22, Eleanor Faraguna ’21, and Gisselle Hernandez ’22
What Does it Mean to be an Artist?
by Shereni Baez ’21
Harts Celebration and Festival at Trinity College: A Proposal
By Tommy Walsh ’22
“Poetry Is..” and “Dance is..” Original Poetry on Performing Hartford
by Edwin Santana ’24 and Micaela Rufus ’23
Performance Series Proposal: “Performing Louisville”
by Caroline Frederick ’24
See Caroline’s website about the project here.
From Performing Hartford: Advice for Artists
by Ishaan Madhok ’22
At Trinity we define Community Learning courses as those that include perspective taking and mutually beneficial relationships with community partners. If you are a faculty member interested in building a Community Learning component into your course, or you believe your course should be designated as a Community Learning course; or, if you are a Hartford community organization that is interested in partnering with Trinity, contact Director of Community Learning [email protected].
