Image of students at the Baltimore School for the Arts dancing together

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    In the News Dance

    Learning by Doing

    Baltimore School for the Arts (BSA) has long believed students learn best from working artists and hires them for its part-time arts faculty. BSA also brings other respected professionals into the classroom and takes its students to visit with the artists in their workspaces, too.

    This week was no exception.

    Accomplished pianist Leon Fleischer invited the BSA Music Department to observe a rehearsal at the Peabody Institute on Friday. Fifteen students had the privilege of sitting amongst the musicians as the legendary Fleischer led a practice of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto.

    Heather Watts, former New York City Ballet principal and favorite of George Balanchine, led a master class on Tuesday. Watts took the students through some very basic techniques, encouraging them to try a new approach and to be more free and expressive in their individual style.

    “This relies on beauty and community,” Watts said. “The reason we dance is because there aren’t words to say what we feel.”

    The visual arts students were transported to a whole other world on Tuesday, visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Creative Africa exhibition. The students explored the visionary work of African artists from contemporary photography, fashion, and architecture to centuries-old sculpture. The field trip allowed the students to dig deeper into BSA’s theme of the year, “Africa Now: Global Creativity in Perspective.”

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