On Tuesday, the factory space at the Townhouse Gallery in downtown Cairo was like any other day this month – at least at first. Boys and girls from Cairo public schools were organized around the large gallery space, acting out impromptu theater scenes, painting and laying out recent artwork to dry.
Their theater teacher, Jaehn Clare, an American artist, is in a wheelchair. She directed a scene in English while many of the boys and girls spoke Arabic and other students communicated in sign language.
Then, the US Ambassador to Cairo Francis J. Ricciardone arrived to tour the gallery, visiting the factory space and the gallery rooms across the street where another group of students were busy crafting paper cut-outs into animated videos.
The Townhouse Gallery this month has been the setting of the Very Special Arts (VSA) program, a three-week long summer workshop for 60 underprivileged Egyptian children including many with disabilities.
Funded by the US State Department, the workshop is coordinated by Townhouse, VSA Arts and its Egyptian affiliate. VSA Arts is an American nonprofit arts organization aimed at “creating a society where people with disabilities learn through, participate in, and enjoy the arts.
The workshop is led by two visiting American teaching artists with disabilities, Clare and Nilea Rohrer-Parvin, a VSA Arts fellow from Austin, Texas. Local artists who lead the Townhouse’s weekly children workshops and members of VSA Egypt also participated in the workshop.
“Here the arts can be used effectively in special education to enrich children’s lives through art, said Mohamed El Banna, president and director of VSA Egypt, “With our staff of local and visiting teaching artists, we can help integrate these boys and girls into their communities and into the world of creative arts.
Ambassador Ricciardone, after talking with students and teachers in the galleries, told The Daily Star Egypt that “through the process, you see the children cooperating, making friends with each other – children getting used to relating to each other even if they can’t speak, but [instead] communicating in signs. They see that they’re normal children.
Clare and Rohrer-Parvin, who experienced a mild traumatic brain injury and has designed and taught art programs in the US for 30 years, came to Cairo through VSA Teaching Artist Fellowships, which the organization began offering in 2006.
“There are many challenges but it’s an utterly memorable experience, in terms of validating things I’ve been taught and [proving] that children are children, no matter where they are, said Clare, the director of artistic development for VSA Arts in Georgia.
“Language has been a challenge – moving from English to Arabic to Arabic signs – but already it’s taught me not to be casual about communication, to be honest, respectful and to listen no matter the language.
The workshop represents cooperation between Egyptian and American arts organizations, according to Ricciardone and El Banna, even with exclusively American funding.
“We have cooperation in this area, which is beautiful – not only in the arts but in dealing with a very special social need that Americans and Egyptians have.
Ricciardone maintained that the workshop was not an American government program, but an example of the Embassy’s focus on Egyptian civil society development projects. “There is a small government input, a small support with some official funding, but it’s mostly Egyptians and Americans who [are] committed, out of their own personal feelings and dedication.
Yasser Gareb, the director of the outreach program who founded the Townhouse with Gallery Director William Wells in 1998, said he saw the workshop not only as an open space for teaching the arts, but as an educational model for Egypt.
“Through workshops like these, we have a new way of connecting with children, without the separation between teacher and student. We learn as adults to understand the language of kids as we treat them as adults.
Rohrer-Parvin, who like Clare will leave Egypt after the workshop ends on July 25, described the Townhouse as “the vanguard in the region for promoting teaching-artists.
“The children are marvelously curious, she said, while one of the teaching challenges was helping them “jump over tradition to imbed a sense of their own times in their artwork, education and personal development.
“Some of these children had never touched a paint brush, or interacted with a foreigner up close, or an adult in a wheelchair, Clare said in the factory space as students were leaving for the day.
Outside in the alleyway between the galleries, the teachers lingered, collectively summing up the summer workshop: “it’s a space for children to imagine and create themselves.
