ABOUT YOUTH ARTWORKS (YAW) : a Mentor-Apprentice Arts Program
YAW is a collaborative program with Sierra Arts Foundation, Reno Police Department, the Nevada Art Museum, and Job Opportunity in Nevada (JOIN). Selecting artists-educators through the Arts Education component of Reno’s local arts agency, Sierra Arts Foundation, the YAW project provided a daily, arts-based training and employment for youths ages 15-21 over a 12-week period. YAW aimed to educate, mentor, and train youths in skills designed to expand their career opportunities and enrich the Truckee Meadows community. Built on an apprentice-mentor model, YAW emphasises community involvement, on-the-job training, and social and artistic development for area youth.
For “Dancing the Labyrinth” I had proposed a collaboration with the Visual Art mentor and our apprentices: perhaps the Visual Art apprentices would consider making a 11-circuit labyrinth upon which the Dance apprentices could present their choreography and spoken-word pieces in the mother tongues of their cultures (Korean, Spanish, English). That is indeed what occurred; it was a joy. (I had undergone Labyrinth Facilitator Training in 1998 with Dr. Lauren Artress and Veriditas at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, earning certification as a Labyrinth Facilitator – https://www.veriditas.org/ft).
Since then, several labyrinths have been constructed throughout Reno and/or is being used as a healing tool, including at Washoe Medical Center and the garden grounds of the Wilbur May Arboretum and Botanical Garden’s “Labyrinth Garden” (https://www.washoecounty.gov/parks/maycenterhome/arboretum/index.php). Our YAW labyrinth was gifted to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Northern Nevada (https://www.uufnn.org/). They have since constructed a labyrinth on their grounds.
Many years later, a member of my YAW dance group flagged me down on the street and excitedly told me how our project changed the course of his life. He was now working as a graphics and design artist. I have been thrilled nd deeply moved to learn from students how their dance/movement experiences altered and/or enhanced their minds, widened their thinking, and impacted their career choices,–from K-12 through university (and students who grew up from their K-12 experiences and sought me out as university students! (Y)our children are my children. A’ho.
