- [Announcer] Support for this program is provided by the Weldon F. Osborne Foundation, the Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

- On today's episode of Chattanooga Stronger Together, we'll learn more about two area nonprofits.

One is focused on artistic dance and community engagement.

The other is an innovative art space program for young people in our community.

We are stronger together, Chattanooga, so stay tuned to learn more.

(playful music) Welcome to Chattanooga Stronger Together.

I'm Barbara Marter.

Joining me today is Brian McSween, artistic direct of Chattanooga Ballet.

Founded in 1973, The organization first found a home at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga through the division of continuing education.

Today, Chattanooga Ballet provides quality education and dance performances, serving our community through dance.

Brian, thank you so much for joining us today.

- Thank you very much for having me.

- So tell me about the mission of Chattanooga Ballet.

- Well, boiled down, our mission statement is to serve through the power of dance.

And we, we came to that with this idea that that dance has power, not only physical power, that's the palpable, the, the real power that it takes to even do dance at a professional or at a high level, but also the power that it holds with its artistic inspiration, with its accountability and, and you have to be consistent in your pursuit of it.

And, and then taking all of that and saying, all right, that power, but what do we do with that, that power, and that is serve.

How do serve?

Who, where, what do we serve and if we're asking that question, you know, who do we serve?

Well, it's a humbling thought to say, all right, I'm gonna take this power.

And I'm gonna say, where can I, who can I serve right?

Or who isn't being served, where isn't being served, right?

Where are there opportunities?

So it keeps us humble.

It keeps us creative.

And, and it keeps us in a state of a constantly refocusing our, our efforts in finding the areas to, to break down barriers, to provide access, which is a, which is at the heart of both myself, our executive director John Fairmont, our director of education Nena Widtfeldt and really at the board level.

- So there's a three legged stool you had mentioned before.

It's a professional dancer's school and community engagement.

I don't think Chattanooga, a lot of people in Chattanooga, know we have a professional dance team.

- Yeah.

So you mentioned that three legged stool, right?

This is analogy that we started using to, to try to, to convey everything that Chattanooga Ballet is trying to encompass.

So one of those legs is our professional division.

Now we held auditions last year.

We, we had international and national interest in auditioning to be a part of Chattanooga Ballet.

And they, they came, they auditioned, we went through an interview process and then they, they were hired and these dancers, some of them are partway through their career.

We have one artist that's performed with companies in Europe and then various companies here in the United States.

And then we have some, this is their first professional experience, but these dancers have trained with the objective of having a career in the professional realm of dance.

And, and so they're, they're highly trained.

They're highly artistically motivated and engaged.

They're wonderful people.

And so we're really fortunate to have such great talent that have made Chattanooga their home and are investing not only in Chattanooga Ballet, but also in its students and in the community.

So that's that first leg, right, is using that professional level dance in Chattanooga, in the region.

The next is for our students, right?

And our professional training.

Now that is not training to lead someone to be a professional, but it will provide them access.

So the, the term that we always use for our school is training to the highest potential.

What we do is we take every child and we train them to their highest potential.

And then that potential will dictate whether or not they have opportunities to pursue dance into the future.

That could be at a professional level, which we would love to be able to train students that are professionals, that end up becoming professionals and end up having an influence in the artistic world as dancers.

But for some of them, it may be for scholarships to schools.

There's a lot of excellent schools.

One of our company members just graduated Indiana University, and she was there for dance.

So training them to highest potential also says that every child has value, right?

Regardless of how good they are, they have value because of their pursuit and because of their investment in what they're doing.

So we've really seen that culture start to take, take, take shape within the organization.

This past Nutcracker, seeing all, all of our students perform.

They performed technically much better than they had the year before.

You could see their improvement, but where the real gift was was in there artistically, how they had improved artistically, how they took on a character.

They said how this character means more than what I want out of this experience.

How do I serve my audience?

I provide them the character and the experience that makes them want to come back.

That influences a paradigm, that shifts a worldview, that influences them on an emotional level.

So when you're taking these, you know, preteen to high school age kids, and you're allowing them to think that all of my hard work and investment is in an effort to serve someone else, right.

You really start getting a lot of amazing things out of them.

So I'm really proud of our school.

Nena Widtfeldt, our director of education is fantastic and, and has developed a great relationship and rapport, not only with our students, but with our parents.

And then the third leg is our community engagement or our community involvement leg, right?

Currently we're operating classes through the Boys and Girls Club of Chattanooga.

And this is, this is our first year to be able to do that coming out of the pandemic, not having access to these kind of locations.

So now that we're able to do that, we're, we're developing a curriculum and a syllabus on so that we could take other teachers and have a, a greater sphere of influence in putting dance and providing opportunity into lives.

So we've hired Monica Ellison to be our teacher for that.

And she is really spearheading the process of developing this curriculum so that then we can say, what areas are we not serving, right.

If that's, if that's providing dance classes in homeless shelters, prisons, wherever that may take us, we want to activate communities or activate, activate ourselves inside communities that have not had access to dance before.

And that's that that's rural also, you know, we have satellite locations, but we want to expand that.

And at least provide, provide kids that maybe have never had the opportunity to experience either seeing professional level dance or having the opportunity to take classes, provide them that opportunity.

And, and Chattanooga is such a unique and wonderful place to be in order to do that.

You know, you have access to four or five states within a couple hours of drive.

So, you know, we want, we want to ex expand our, the possibilities of what dance can do in lives.

- Wow.

That's amazing.

So how many students are you looking at?

Do you have an in the school system and everything?

- Yeah, so currently we have over 340 registered students in the school, which is the highest number that the organization has ever had.

So we're really excited about that.

It's, it's good problems, right?

We're busting at the seams in, in our studio, but we're looking for options with that.

And, but you know, it with a, like a three legged stool and, and that, I think that's why that analogy works, right.

If we focus on one leg more than the others, then things just aren't quite right, right.

So, you know, the professional company provides the opportunity for our students to see what's possible, with a pursuit of a dance career, but also, you know, so those kids, as they grow up and they can become professionals and all, now they're ones that are going in and focusing and taking dance into areas where it hasn't been before.

And so once, you know, we it's this balance of all three.

And if you remove or don't focus on one as much as the others, then all things fall off.

- Yeah, I remember one time you were telling me about a young student who actually, she herself realized that she had gone as far as her body would allow her to go, even though she loved ballet.

- Right.

- And, and you, you found that as a pivotal moment in her life, but also something that I think you're striving to, to pull out in other students where the, the self-awareness.

- Yeah.

See, that's the, you know, ballet is unnatural, right?

You may have a natural proclivity to do it, but it is unnatural.

You're asking your body to do things that it was not designed to do.

That may, therefore it takes consistency.

It takes effort and hard work, but it also means that there are physical limitations that will get in the way of some opportunities when it comes to ballet.

So the example I was using was it, you know, we have this dancer, this teenage dancer, and she comes to Nena and she, and she spoke with us and she said, you know, I've realized that my body has gone as far as it can go in my pursuit of dance.

And that's okay.

I'm okay with my body.

I'm okay with its limitations and I'm okay with leaving dance now.

- Yeah.

- With all of the great things that I've had from it.

And, and I'm not bitter, I'm not angry, I'll miss it, but I'll still be a fan.

And I think that that's, if I, if we were an organization that was only interested in making money off of students, get as many students in, get 'em in, get their money.

Then we, we would've argued with her say, no, no, no.

You know, stay in classes.

She'll keep paying to keep coming, right.

But it's more important to invest in the child because we're not just raising professional dancers.

We're not just raising dancers, we're raising dance fans, right.

So now when we have this student that, that goes, that all of the benefits of what she's learned and the maturity that she's gained in.

You're working, you know, you have to take, you know, 10, 20 different kinds of bodies, different ears, different musicality.

And you have to get them all to be together, to work together, to be in stressful situations together.

They don't come from the same backgrounds.

They don't come from the same homes, right.

And you're teaching them how to work within a group.

And to do that and corporately do that with the idea of serving the audience at their highest level.

That's really, that's a huge benefit for these kids and a huge benefit to the maturity and growth that they see.

So when someone says what's a success story, having a student have the maturity to understand where she is at and make that choice.

Even though she's stepping away from dance, that is still a win.

That is such a huge opportunity.

- Yeah.

it is.

Well, Brian, thank you so much for joining us today, educating me and the community more about what the Chattanooga Ballet is really striving to do.

And up next, we'll talk to Charlie Newton from Splash.

stay with us.

- [Announcer] We wanna know how you serve your community.

Send us by photos or videos of you or your family volunteering and we may feature it on a future episode.

email stronger@wtcitv.org, or use the hashtag strongerWTCI on social media.

- Welcome back.

We're excited to share with you today an artistic nonprofit called Splash, founded by Charlie and Iantha Newton, two working artists who have a passion to see young lives changed by art.

Splash is a year round free arts workshop, serving youth in Chattanooga.

Charlie, thank you for being here today.

- Thank you so much for inviting me.

My pleasure.

- So first of all, what is Splash and why did you bring it to Chattanooga?

- Okay.

In a nutshell, Splash is a free art school for kids who are underserved, low income, who might not have the opportunity to take art classes.

And my wife and I, for years, we planned at starting some type of school or service that would benefit kids who grew up just like we did.

- Now you grew up here in Chattanooga, right?

- Yes, I did.

That's correct.

I grew up on the west side, College Hill Courts.

And Splash is actually right across the street from where I grew up in the old James A. Henry School building.

And my wife and I, we would, I was, when we started Splash, I was looking for myself.

I knew that there would be kids around nine, 10 years old who had art ability, but didn't know how important that is.

Or maybe parents maybe did not know how to, you know, engage their kids in arts because they didn't have the income to pay for classes.

- Yeah.

That's true.

Now you're an artist.

- Yes.

- And your wife Iantha is an artist too, correct?

- Yes, that's correct.

We are both professional exhibiting artists.

- And you exhibit all over the world and internationally.

- That, that is true.

That is true.

I've exhibited in Italy, London, New York, Miami, up and down the east coast.

- Wow.

That's, that's amazing.

It's great that we've got a local here that is so well known.

So what are the age groups of the students that come for these art classes?

- Actually, our age group has expanded to, since the pandemic, three to 93 years old.

- Oh, okay.

So I could come and do it too, right?

- Yes.

Yes.

Because now we have online classes as well.

- You know, I was looking at your website and I saw those online classes and I think one got me was the, the facial.

I think there's how to draw a face or something.

- Okay.

- I, I know that when I was in school and I took art classes in sculpture, which I love doing and everything, the hands are the hardest things to draw.

- I agree.

- And, and really so like put 'em down here and hide 'em or whatever.

- Yes.

(laughs) - So when we talk about low income, most of your students are gonna be African American students, but you do have some Hispanics, right?

- Yes, we have a small percentage of Hispanic and Caucasian students as well.

But the majority is to reach out to kids who are like me, who look me.

We thought it important that they see artists who look like themselves so that they could believe in themselves and that they could become artists too, if they wanted to.

- Right, and when we think about artists and the mediums that they use, it could be paper mache, it could be with oils and charcoals or water colors or whatever.

- Yes.

- And it not have, it doesn't have to be realistic.

Like I can paint you and you look like you when it's over with.

- True.

- But it could be abstract art.

- Right.

Right.

- And, and so you're using this art classes, not only to show that the students have these artistic abilities, but it also goes deeper, doesn't it?

- It does.

And by mistake, we didn't know when we started Splash, we wasn't attempting to do a social experiment.

But when we found out, when kids started coming to class, that we became surrogates and mentors, and we found that the, the things that attract us to art and keep us in art, like focus and mindfulness and meditation, those type of things benefited the kids as well.

So the, these kids learn the whole gamut from realism to abstraction.

- Wow.

That's, that's amazing.

Now, is there a mentorship program or something like that?

- Well, mentorship is part of Splash.

It's just intrinsic in Splash.

- Oh, okay.

- These kids spend so much time with us, so many hours with us.

And many times when they first come to class, many times, they don't know how to let's say, behave themselves in a studio environment, or maybe they have some esteem problems.

And we had a child that came to us who would not speak, would not say anything.

We've had a couple kids like that.

And this one young lady I'm thinking about, it took her like three years to even say anything to me.

But now she is a burgeoning artist.

She is now a teenager and she has sold her work.

That's the, the child I was talking to you about who sold a painting for $600 last year.

So, (laughs) and you know, she's an artist, you know, in her own mind.

I even have a new student who's nine years old.

She has the personality of an artist.

So it, it makes me laugh or, or chuckle, but all kids don't come to us with a, with a lot of confidence.

But over time they gain confidence but by learning that, hey, I, I can do this.

I can do that.

Hard work, focus, concentration, and encouragement.

And they end up framing their works, participating in art shows and they learn that they can be creative as well.

- Tell me about the time when it finally clicked with you, with your art teacher in the classroom.

- Oh, okay.

Okay.

I remember one time I was in the fifth grade and growing up on the west side, you had to be tough.

You know, I was in, so I was in fifth grade and my fifth grade art teacher had given us a project right in the same place where we teach Splash classes.

- Where your studio is.

We went into that school, James A. Henry School on the west side.

So we went into my old classroom, my favorite teacher, Ms. Hammonds.

And she, there was an art project that I could not do.

I loved to draw.

I loved to paint and I could not get it.

And I, I actually lost control of myself and started crying.

Now I'm a, a male child in a tough neighborhood and I'm crying.

- Yeah.

You don't cry.

- I was outta control and my teacher, she was surprised because she never had any trouble outta me.

She asked me what's wrong, Charlie, what's, what's wrong with you.

I was crying because I couldn't understand the art project.

And she sat down with me for about two minutes and taught me and showed me and explained to me the project and I could do it.

And from then on, I never lost confidence in myself or my abilities as an artist.

- And so you you're taking what happened in the fifth grade?

- Yes.

- Move it forward.

- Yes.

- And now you are doing the same thing for these young men.

- Passing it along.

You never know how many lives you can touch.

And it goes way beyond just making pictures.

It goes into entrepreneurship, self confidence, self control, you know, just believing in one's self and knowing that, hey, you know, I can do anything that I put my mind to.

A lot of times a student will come in and the first, the first thing they'll do is start complaining.

They tell me I can't do this.

And I said, no, no, no, you can't do this yet.

- Ah.

- And that's why we are here, you know.

- That's right.

- Yes.

- And it's, so you're changing the mindset to them because they are actually coming in with the defeatism.

They're like, I can't do this.

I don't know why I'm here.

- (indistinct) - But then when they're coming through that and they just do one minor thing, they accomplish one minor thing.

Like you were in the fifth grade and you finally figured out how to do this one thing.

- Mo doubt.

- It, it clicked.

It changed for you.

- It, it changes everything.

It changes everything about how they behave in class, how they behave with their friends, that light comes on and they see, hey, I am special.

- Yeah.

- I am unique.

I have something to offer.

- Yeah.

- And I have a voice.

- And, and I think that's it because they don't realize they have a voice.

- True.

True.

And that's, that's why I do art.

I never felt that I had had a voice even today as an adult.

In the many of the circles that I run in, I never, I don't feel like I have a voice, but through my art, I have a voice.

- I've seen your artwork.

It does tell a story.

It is absolutely beautiful.

It really is.

- Thank you so much.

- There's a, like a studio right next door to you where there's movement.

- Yes.

- Talk about that.

- A couple summers ago, we decided to bring in a person who's actually now a member of our board, Tiana Clemons.

And we asked her to teach movement, movement to the students because a large part of learning how to draw and paint, you have to have control of your body.

You have to be in touch with yourself.

Posture is very important, how you sit.

And so, and your behavior is important.

So by going through these, this movement class, just before the art piece, the kids would learn how to control their emotions.

They would learn how to calm their bodies down.

They learn how to, you know, to get in touch with their physiology so that when they came and sat in front of an easel, I could say no, posture up, you know, sit up straight.

You know, focus.

And they would know what to, to do because it had, they had already gone through that in their movement classes.

And it also deals with the energy that they come in with too.

(laughs) - Yeah, exactly.

- Exactly.

I mean, you get 20 kids coming in.

They're excited, you know, so we, there's a, like a burst of energy that movement will give them a chance to.

- And you also have, what is it, bongo drums in there.

- Oh, we have the bongos, we have tambourines.

We have everything.

We have instruments.

Sometimes in class, you know, I might say as a surprise, okay, let's just play some music.

And we get out the recorders, we have recorders and tambourines and bongo drums, cymbals, whatever.

And just have, have a go at it.

- So in this, this last 30, 45 seconds we have remaining, how can the community come in and volunteer?

What are some opportunities?

- You can, you can volunteer.

The best way is to email us at info@splash/youthartsworkshop.org.

And you can volunteer that way.

Also, we are looking for sponsorships, alternative places to do art shows like in, in, we have a art show up presently at Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel, any way that you think you can.

So we are definitely looking for people to engage with us, engage with Splash and help us with seeking corporate sponsors, you know, to, to help these kids, you know, to have a place to express themselves.

We believe that every child deserves the right to be creative.

- That's true.

And, and I've been to Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel, and I've seen the artwork on their walls up on the, the main floor up there.

So that's how businesses can, can sponsor, can have that in there and, and have their clients see it and view it.

And that artwork is for sale too.

- It is for sale for sure.

And when we sell the artwork, the child gets half of the income, the money and half goes back into the Splash program.

- Okay.

Charlie, thank you so much for coming in today, I really appreciate it.

This has been very educational.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

- And thank you for joining us today.

We hope that Chattanooga Stronger Together provides new perspectives for viewers like you, who are looking to make a difference in our community.

So let us know what you think.

Email us at stronger@wctitv.org, or use the hashtag strongerWTCI on social media.

I'm Barbara Marter.

We'll see you next time.

(happy music) - [Announcer] Get access to even more of the shows you love with WTCL Passport.

Support for this program is provided by the Weldon F. Osborne Foundation, the Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation, and viewers like you.

Thank you.