(upbeat music) (screen whooshes) - Next on "You Oughta Know," opening doors for AAPI and BIPOC artists is the goal of this upcoming event.

Efforts to bring art and activities into the lives of young people are moving full speed ahead.

Plus, Olympic-style fencing for students ages eight to 80.

(upbeat music continues) Welcome to "You Oughta Know."

I'm Shirley Min.

US fencing won big in Paris, taking home Olympic gold in the Women's Foil competition.

And while the sport is enjoying the spotlight now, the Fencing Academy of Philadelphia has trained fencing's most elite athletes for decades.

(bright music) (swords clanging) - We're at the Wyncote location of Fencing Academy of Philadelphia.

(bright music continues) Fencing is a full-contact martial art.

Most fundamentally, it's to hit without being hit.

We call fencing a game of physical chess.

(bright music continues) It's not just your size and strength in fencing.

It's your tactics, your skill, and things like that.

It doesn't matter how big the opponent is.

It's not just about being stronger.

It's really about being smarter.

- [Shirley] Maestro Mark Masters fell in love with fencing as a kid.

Turns out he was a fencing prodigy.

Maestro opens the Fencing Academy of Philadelphia in 1989, where he continues to teach beginners and Olympic champions alike.

He trained Maia Weintraub, who won gold in Paris.

And that's the beauty of fencing.

Maestro says any of his students could be his next gold medalist.

- Not everybody is a team sport player.

I get kids who are good athletes but just don't like team sports.

So they find a place in fencing.

- [Jacob] I've been fencing at the Fencing Academy of Philadelphia since I was eight years old.

- [Shirley] Owner Jacob Wischnia grew up as one of Maestro's students.

- Coming into the fencing club, that was the one time when I was really focused.

Maestro is very, very intimidating, but he's intimidating and fun.

- Back arm up, please, and (claps).

- He's never been obsessed with results.

His students that have really thrived, it's been self-motivating, and he's there to teach them when they wanna learn.

But he's never been the type of coach to just, you know, really care about results.

It's more of the results come, and you know, it's up to the student.

(bright music) - [Shirley] Henry Wilson started fencing in January, and he's already competed in a tournament.

- I was just really interested in fencing since I was really young.

And like, I used to like learning about like knights and stuff.

It's just like a fun experience coming in, putting on the suit, getting ready, like, just that feeling of going out there and fencing.

- [Shirley] Arabelle Alabi's brothers fence, and she couldn't wait to turn eight, the age when you could start at the Fencing Academy.

- It's really fun.

You get to play a lot of fun games, and then you learn a lot of new moves like flicking, flushing, lunging and all that stuff.

- My mom was talking to me about the fencing Olympics, and then I was like, "Well, I wanna go to fencing school."

So we came, we started, and now I just love it so much.

(bright music) - Maestro says The Fencing Academy is seeing a spike in enrollment.

It's unclear whether this is an Olympic effect, but Maestro's thrilled to teach another generation of fencers the sport he loves.

(calm music) The Fencing Academy of Philadelphia has four locations in Philly and its surrounding suburbs.

The Fleisher Art Memorial in South Philadelphia has been making art accessible since 1898, and now they're taking their art projects on the road.

(upbeat music) - Color Wheels has been a part of Fleisher since 2012.

Our mission at Fleisher is to increase access to the arts regardless of background, age, economic means.

We just want everybody to have an opportunity to get the experience of making art, 'cause we think it can be very healing, very regulating.

It connects us to each other, and it's a beautiful thing for the community.

(upbeat music continues) Color Wheels is intended to bring the art education that we have at Fleisher out into the neighborhoods, out into the communities, 'cause a lot of the time we find a barrier to access to the arts is people just not knowing what it's like to be able to sit down and do an art project and what that feels like to express yourself through the arts.

And so we wanna take it beyond our doors and come out into the neighborhoods.

We go to schools, we join school festivals, parks.

Different organizations will have us out.

And we really do go all over the city to make sure that people get those unexpected moments of art and creativity in their day.

(upbeat music continues) So Chris Archer is a Color Wheels coordinator, and he's a big support in making sure we have all the materials we need, making sure the van is taken care of.

I'm the one who coordinates with our partners and helps to schedule events and connect with communities, make sure they know that we're here if they wanna collaborate with us.

And then we have an incredible team of teaching artists.

Many of them also teach at Fleisher.

They have a very wide range of experiences, and they're always really excited to come out, not only like share their art project with communities they may not have worked with before, but also just rep what we do at Fleisher out in the neighborhoods.

And finally we have an incredible volunteer team that are so supportive to us, volunteer their time, their labor, and we have an event going almost every week during our busy season.

So our volunteer team is a really amazing part of what makes it happen.

(upbeat music) - I've worked with Color Wheels at Fleisher for about three years now.

Today we are having a fall festival here in FDR Park, and our project is very autumnal.

We're turning fall leaves into autumn critters.

So we're finding leaves all over the park.

We're chopping them up.

We're drawing on them with paint markers and we're turning 'em into little foxes, little chipmunks, little squirrels.

Eventually, I'm sure we'll get a couple of leaf monsters.

It's a really fun activity to incorporate nature and get people thinking creatively about what they see around the park.

This activity kind of ties into being able to see something in nature and kind of bring life to it and give it a little bit of a personality.

I think that I've been able to create really fun projects for the kids where they're able to create backgrounds and stories and personalities in all the work that they make.

(bright music) We actually have a lot of students after they do a Color Wheels activity, they're really excited about Fleisher just because when you see this bright rainbow van kind of out in public, you know that there's a kooky, crazy activity that comes along with it.

And all of our projects have brought in some kids who are just interested in learning more about their creativity.

I think Color Wheels is a really good opportunity to bring projects to areas where you can kind of spark creativity wherever in any situation you're in with just the right materials and the right mindset and make something really cool.

- Our guest today is no stranger to WHYY viewers.

She appeared in last season's "On Stage at Curtis," and it's that appearance that led to her being here today.

Emilie Kealani, welcome to "You Oughta Know."

- Thank you so much for having me.

- You are at Curtis.

You're getting your master's degree.

How much longer do you have?

- I have about one more semester.

I'll graduate in May.

- Wow, very exciting.

- So very close.

(both laughing) - Almost at the finish line.

Well, in addition to your passion for opera, you have this heart for community as well as advocacy.

Where did that come from?

- Yeah, so my advocacy started back home in San Francisco with the Horizons Unlimited company.

We service the underrepresented youth of the Mission District.

So that's really where it came from.

And then now going into my career, I'm trying to work that into my platform as a singer, as an artist, as a creative.

So that's kind of where KAPWA came up.

- Right, so kapwa is a word in Tagalog.

This is sort of your passion project.

Tell us what that word means and about the project itself.

- Yeah, so kapwa is a word in Tagalog.

It has a lot of different meanings, but the one that resonated with me the most was to embrace in shared identity.

And so our program, it'll be multidisciplinary, featuring eight different communities and our Asian and AAPI performers at Curtis, a couple of artists from the Glimmerglass Festival, as well as some freelance and professional artists coming in.

- How did the idea come about?

I mean, I know you were trying to bring folks and kind of had this shared identity, but then how did this come about?

Was it just you talking with your classmates?

Was it in a dream?

(both laughing) - Yeah, so I mean, I've always wanted to be part of something like this.

And so I had the opportunity with a class that I'm taking and the graduation requirements that I have to fill, and so that's kind of where the idea came about.

And it started as this small little idea of maybe I can do this event, and now it's turned into a real event, which is really exciting.

But I mean, lots of ideas coming through and trying to turn it into a real event, program.

- And this is a music event, a music program.

How did your classmates respond, and were they all in?

- Oh, yeah, I mean, everybody was really excited to have this space at the school.

You know, I don't know if I'm getting the numbers right, somewhere around this, but there's about 40% Asian student body at our school I think in the high 60s of international students.

So I think it's really important that we have this space to connect and to share our music.

Our training is really rooted in the Western classical music, which is amazing and I love all of that music.

But you know, when we think about our identity, our culture, and learning more about that music that comes from our countries and you know, is our identity, you know, it's nice to learn about that.

- Well, talk to me about the music that will be part of the program and what countries will be represented.

- Right, so we have communities represented from Filipino culture, Japanese, Korean, Bengali, Chinese- - Wow.

- Tongan, Hawaiian, and Indian communities, and so we'll have pieces in Bisayan, Ilocano, Tagalog, Mandarin, Hindi, and Japanese.

- I love it.

And what about the tickets?

How do people go about getting tickets, and is there a cost?

- So the tickets are free.

I thought that was a really important part of the event, that it be open to the community and accessible, and you know, everybody can access this, you know?

It'll be on my website, and we have a suggested donation to the Hawaii Foundation, the Maui Strong Fund.

My grandma was born and raised in Paia, Maui, and so I was just there this past summer, and driving through the island, it's just devastating for the community of Lahaina, and they're still really trying to rebuild.

- Right.

- And we hope that we can help, you know, through this project.

- I love that.

I love that, the free tickets, the accessibility of the suggested donation to help those who need it.

I love that.

Next on your agenda, so we have the program and then what?

- Yeah, so kind of- - [Shirley] Besides graduation.

- Besides graduation, going along with the same thread of trying to be part of these Asian works, I'm working with Opera Theatre of St. Louis in their New Works Collective on an opera called "Family Style," which is a new Asian opera.

I'm really excited for the world premiere in February.

And then over at Curtis, I'll be singing Cunegonde in "Candide" for our 100th year celebration.

- [Shirley] Wow, good luck to you with that.

- Thank you so much.

- Emilie Kealani, thank you so much for being here.

- [Emilie] Thank you.

- Lots of luck to you.

To learn more about KAPWA, here's the website.

(calm music) Well, now to the Overbrook School of the Blind, where the creation of green spaces is allowing students to learn by growing.

(gentle music) - [Spokesperson] We actually were founded in 1832 by Julius Friedlander.

He began teaching two students out of his home downtown.

And then in 1899, this building opened for us.

Throughout the years, the school has done a lot to make the buildings accessible while maintaining its beauty.

We were a leading school for the blind in assistive technology and really focusing on integrating technology throughout all of the classrooms.

And as we build new facilities, not only are we building them to meet the needs of the students, we're looking at things like energy efficiency, LEED certification, so that we are environmentally friendly as well.

We look at features that blend into the environment so it doesn't look like it stands out, to make accommodations for low-vision users to indicate where steps are, tactile modifications as well.

And you'll see that in the horticulture center.

When you go in, everything is accessible from the front door to the classroom facility to the greenhouse itself, so our students have complete access to it.

(gentle music continues) - [Teacher] You're gonna reach in and just crush 'em and break 'em up.

- Sometimes like any kids, they wanna get out of their classroom and do something new, and the horticulture center provides a different experience for them.

There are smells, there's different textures.

There's different sounds in there.

- [Teacher] Now, if you roll 'em in your hands, you'll break 'em into really fine pieces.

(child speaking gibberish) Okay, well done.

You guys did a really good job today.

- I'll come again.

- [Teacher] You'll come again?

I would really like that.

- [Child] Okay.

- All right, grab your canes.

Go on, Savannah.

- Okay, bye!

- [Teacher] Bye-bye, friends!

(cart rattling) This original location started out as a classroom garden that just expanded and expanded over the years.

This was built by our maintenance staff as well as different members of the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society.

It's a great educational space and teaching space as well as it produces a large amount of the produce that we grow on campus and we donate to various organizations.

Today we're gonna see Miss Gabby's class.

They're our early childhood class, about ages three to four, and we're gonna be picking tomatoes.

Have any of you ever picked tomatoes before?

- [Child] No.

- [Teacher] No?

This is your first time?

We're gonna leave the green ones, and we're gonna pick the orange and the red ones.

It's a fun activity for them to do and also gets them moving around, gets them out of the classroom for a little bit, and they get to see stuff that we grow on campus.

The reason why we have U-shaped beds is because the wheelchairs can get in, and then the level and the height, they don't have to bend down.

They don't have to get out of their chairs to experience the garden.

Okay, you can put that in.

- When we approach our academics, we always are trying to make connections between how students will use them functionally in the real world.

We have a lot of good opportunities here to teach these skills in the classroom but also use them in other places.

So for math, we can use some of those skills like weighing, talking about numbers, using fractions.

- [Student] Ooh, what is this?

- [Teacher] Some produce.

These are things that we've grown on campus, and we're gonna weigh it and find out how much we grew.

Coming to the greenhouse is kind of their escape away from being in the classroom.

But the trick is, we still work on all the same goals that they work on in the classroom.

We just work on them here in the greenhouse.

I kind of joke that we trick them into doing therapy.

They don't realize that they're doing therapy in here because they're having fun.

They start to loosen up.

They crack jokes.

- [Student] I do not like carrot's, and it's no exceptions.

- [Teacher] No exceptions?

- [Student] Not even carrot cake.

- [Teacher] Not even carrot cake?

- [Student] That's the same story with strawberries.

- I love strawberries.

- That's all part of the therapy process, being comfortable.

Does anyone wanna take a guess how many pounds of carrots we had today?

- [Student] 1.5?

- [Teacher] Ooh, way higher.

It's an exact number.

- 10?

- [Teacher] 10 pounds!

We got a winner!

- [Student] Yay!

- 10 pounds on the note.

A lot of our students love to create, so in any way, shape, or form, whether it's art class or in the horticulture center, they love to create.

And for students that have visual impairments, it isn't always just what it looks like.

It could be the smells, the textures and all of that.

Your flower is like a purple and white.

- [Student] Mine?

- Yeah, and then the middle of it is very yellow.

- [Student] Wait, what colors are the others?

- [Teacher] You have a lot of beautiful different colors in there.

We try to tie that in when we do our flower arranging, and not just have things that are visually appealing but to also have things that smell good or feel good to touch.

- [Student] I love this one.

- [Teacher] Oh, yeah, that's a red zinnia.

- My job as an occupational therapist is to help increase a student's independence, whether that's in the classroom or in a vocational setting, like cutting flowers or planting seeds or making flower arrangements.

- [Teacher] Man, that looks really good, Alonzo.

- [Abby] Then it gives them a sense of accomplishment 'cause they actually see a product in front of them.

- [Teacher] I appreciate your help.

We've probably weighed about 20-some pounds of produce, and we all got to make a flower arrangement.

- [Student] Yep.

- [Abby] They already have challenges every day that they have to face, so to provide them with an environment where they can be successful and they feel like they're participating, I think it really just lifts everyone's spirits.

- [Teacher] Okay, go teamwork!

(gentle music) - This excerpt comes from the Emmy Award-winning "City of Soil."

You can watch the complete documentary on whyy.org.

The SS United States, which was docked in Philadelphia since 1996, is headed on its final voyage, a watery burial to become an artificial reef off the coast of Florida.

Here's a look at the storied history of this famous ocean liner.

(lively music) - [Susan] Welcome to the SS United States, the most famous ship that didn't sink.

This is America's flagship, the fastest ship in the world, embarked on her maiden voyage in 1952 and smashed the transatlantic speed record.

- [Announcer] An American flag vessel hasn't held the transatlantic speed record for a hundred years, but the United States took the mythical blue ribbon with ease.

Headlines around the world acclaimed the new First Lady of the Sea, an American one.

- My grandfather, William Francis Gibbs, who actually grew up here in Philadelphia, was the ship's designer.

He was really obsessed with this project and with what he called "the perfect ship," not just a fast ship or a big ship, but the perfect ship.

He oversaw every aspect of the ship's design, construction, and then subsequently, her service career was his baby.

(mellow jazz music) She was fast.

(lively music) She could go faster in reverse than the Titanic could go forward and still holds the transatlantic speed record.

After her maiden voyage, literally paint had been blasted off her hull from the force of just pressing through the water.

The SS United States had a dual purpose.

She was a luxury liner, so of course shuttled people back and forth across the Atlantic, from four US presidents, celebrities.

(mellow jazz music) Underneath this luxurious veneer, she had battleship bones.

She was designed to be a convertible troop ship in time of war but was never deployed for that purpose.

(mellow jazz music continues) No expense was spared into making this the most indestructible ship.

My grandfather liked to say, "You can't set her on fire.

You can't sink her, and you can't catch her."

Just steel, aluminum, double-hulled, just meticulously designed.

As we can see, she has stood the test of time.

I mean, there have been assessments done of her hull strength showing 92% original remaining, and it's just extraordinary.

I mean, the paint may be peeling and there's a bit of surface disrepair, but she is still structurally sound.

(mellow jazz music) In the ship's service career in the 1950s and '60s, she was really like just the who's who would travel aboard her from US presidents, other heads of state, literary figures.

When you look at menus, for example, from her first-class restaurant, there are things like, you know, kangaroo tail soup and Iranian caviar and just these very luxurious items.

One very special voyage, her maiden voyage, there was an incredible celebration because when she smashed the transatlantic speed records in the wee hours of the morning, where we're sitting here on the promenade deck, people were literally, you know, in ball gowns and in conga lines and drinking whiskey out of the bottle and just this incredible celebration because it was so exciting that the SS United States pulled it off and was the fastest ever.

The ship just really embodies, you know, pride and celebration and certainly on the maiden voyage but really, you know, throughout her service career.

(gentle music) The reason she was withdrawn from service in 1969 was the advent of jet aircraft, high fuel costs.

By that time, even as fast as she was, she couldn't compete with a six-hour flight to Europe.

(gentle music continues) After the ship was removed from service, she had a number of owners who had hoped to bring her back to sea.

All of her contents were auctioned off by an owner back in 1984 in an effort to raise funds for her resurrection.

One of these former owners had hoped to bring her to Boston, but it didn't work out.

And so this was really intended actually to be a kind of temporary parking spot.

She's still here.

She's still waiting.

She tells a much deeper story.

There was a time when we all came together, and we all could dream really big, and we could fulfill those dreams.

It's sad to see her like this and to see her largely forgotten.

But on the other hand, the fact that she's still here, we and people here in Philadelphia, all over the country and frankly all over the world, have been fighting to keep her afloat and give her a new future is remarkable.

That's my dream.

This ship will transform in the coming years and be dazzling and bright, and thousands of people will walk her decks, and she will reemerge as something absolutely unbelievable.

(gentle music) - In this week's Flicks, Patrick Stoner gets personal when he reunites with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright to discuss their new movie, "Here."

- [Richard] Hey, Dad?

I'd like you to meet Margaret.

- Nice to meet you, Margaret.

- Nice to meet you, Mr. Young.

- Time sure does fly, doesn't it?

- It sure does.

- [Patrick] Covering millennia in one location and finally watching Tom Hanks and Robin Wright grow old together is one of the pleasures of "Here."

But the greatest pleasure for me, I'm gonna be very frank here and very personal, is having gotten to know Tom Hanks over the years.

- You're the man.

How great to see you.

(Robin laughing) - It's been like this for years now, Robin.

- Okay, do you, excuse me, what?

Time out, when was the, do you remember the first time we talked to Patrick Stoner?

I mean, it's probably- - It's been 30-some years.

- 30, 30 years, and did you not feel like I did after the first one, I said- - Oh, yeah, - "I wish that was longer."

That's the one today that I wish this was a little longer with Patrick Stoner.

- [Patrick] Talking to Heath Ledger about "Brokeback Mountain," I wanted to talk to you about the aging, and he said, "I divided it into three parts, and each part had a different look, of course, but also a different movement, a different timber to my voice."

That's Heath Ledger.

I mean, that's the way he was.

Can you first, could you identify with that?

- That was the requirement.

- That was it, yeah.

- And it, we, it was specific.

We had the traditional hair and makeup.

We were in those chairs for as long as anybody would be.

We started at 17, and we ended up, what, 87 or something like that.

- Yeah, - We're older.

So it was all very specific, and then we had the power of looking at ourselves as we appeared in the movie in real time right there, and that- - Yeah, the visual effect was immediate, that you could do a scene, and then we'd be like, "Ooh, I was walking more like a 45-year-old.

Can we do another take?"

- [Patrick] The de-aging alone is amazing, but I was wondering about this.

So you're seeing what the other person is doing with that aging.

Do you then maybe adjust?

Can that influence what you're doing?

- So the ones you could say that, "Oh, I'm 19.

I have to spring up off the couch with the energy of a 19-year-old," that I was challenged by the more, the 35, you know?

- Yes, and older.

It was difficult to get the voice.

I was like, "Tom, how do we have these groggly, old," and he goes, "Just scream as loud as you can into your sleeve."

- I learned that from, I learned that from Sally Field.

We were shooting the mom in the bed scene.

- Right.

- Of course, I'm dying.

And she put this towel in her mouth and screamed into it, and I said- - Seriously?

- Yeah, yeah, she said that's just a way in order to make you hoarse right, you know, then and there.

Well, it's either that or smoke half a pack of Camels.

- There ya go.

- You know, before you show up.

That'll give you a croak in your voice as well.

- Thank you very much.

It's a pleasure.

- Patrick.

- Thank you.

- Thank you, Patrick.

- Bye!

- We'll see ya.

- And that is our show.

I hope you're now in the know.

Have a good night, everyone.

(upbeat music)