The goal of the action research process is to encourage teaching artists to consider how they might assess the impact of their work in classrooms through RAISE. Teaching Artist as Researcher presents us with methods and thought processes of creating a more holistic breakdown of how students might be engaged, feel understood, valued and build social awareness in and out of the classrooms. Together with Born Shamir, Melli Hoppe and Jessica Mueller we'll dive into what this might look like in their practice, how they hope to see it change, and how their work with students evolves their work as artists.

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Teaching Artists Bios:

Melli Hoppe is a Nationally Credentialed Teaching Artist with Young Audiences Arts for Learning and a certified Wolf Trap Teaching Artist. She has a B.A. in Dance from Columbia College in Chicago, MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College in Vermont, received a Teaching Artist Certificate from Teachers College at Columbia University and has completed over 100 hours of training in student-empowering, healing-centered, and culturally responsive practices from RAISE through Young Audiences. Melli taught site-specific theater and stage movement at Butler University and taught dance at Indiana University, and in various high schools in Indianapolis. She was the Artistic Director of Susurrus, an Indianapolis based not-for-profit performance group, for twenty years, and has choreographed for dance and theater productions internationally.

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Born Shamir Walters is a multidisciplinary teaching artist residing in Pittsburgh, PA. Found working independently in his own neighborhood-based company, Fundamental C.A.M.P. and/or collaborating in integration of arts with STEAM and literary education with Arts Ed Collaborative via RAISE (Responsive Arts In School Education program),Assemble, Waldorf Schools and Arsenal K-8 school, to name a few. His aesthetic is informed by classical Hip-Hop culture, Bauhaus and Pop Art. In his practice his focus has been on using the 4 pillars of Hip-Hop culture to translate Social Emotional Learning to youth and adults. His inspiration has been from the Afro-futurism movement and its writers. Blending imagery from indigenous people of planet Earth with sci-fi themes, which is his way to celebrate the past, present, and future technological and cultural advancements of marginalized people of the world. “Our art supplies brighten up environments, not only from hues and tints, but from the smiles our neighbors share in the streets which they Live & Love."

IG: FundamentalCamp

www.fundamental123.com

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Jessica Mueller is an interdisciplinary artist and educator from Chicago, Illinois. Her work provides visibility for experiences of motherhood that are less than glamorous, shows the absurdity and value in the domestic mundane within actions of care and service. Jessica investigates intersectionality as she experiences it while tending to her bi-cultural/dual-language/single-parent household. Since 2004 Jessica has been a teaching artist with Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and is a member of the Chicago ACT Collective and MotherArt: Revisited. Her work is exhibited as part of the permanent collections at the School of the Art Institute’s Flaxman Library, Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, Columbia College’s Center for Book and Paper Arts, and the Library of Congress. Recently, she was an artist in residence at WORKROOM and PO Box Collective in Chicago, Nido II; Living in the Play, Monte Castello di Vibio, Italy and Poor Farm Little Wolf, WI.

IG: jessicamuellerart

www.jessicamuellerart@gmail.com