Courses Study

Student and Teacher Resources
• General Information/All VAPA Disciplines
El Dorado High School, Library Media Center
Americans for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
• Specific Links/Art
Yahoo Dance Search Engine
Dance Alliance Organization/Links
Global Dance Directory

Department Philosophy

"A school in which artistic excellence is celebrated, supported, and available to all. "

"He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artis." St Fancis of Assisi
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain." John Adams, 2nd U.S. President 1735-1826
“I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for in the patterns of music and all the arts are the keys of learning.” Plato

Quotes to Reflect Upon

http://www.teachon.com/zizi/quotes/subjects/arts/pages/arts.htm

Albert Einstein
When I examine myself and my method of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge.

Eric Jensen from Arts With the Brain in Mind
The central theme of this book is that the arts promote the development of valuable human neurobiological systems. Theories of the brain exist that help us understand what is going on when we do art.  
The arts enhance the process of learning. The systems they nourish, which include our integrated sensory, attentional, cognitive, emotional, and motor capacities, are, in fact, the driving forces behind all other learning. That doesn't mean that one cannot learn without the arts; many have. The arts, however, provide learners with opportunities to simultaneously develop and mature multiple brain systems, none of which are easy to access because they support processes that yield cumulative results.

Pablo Picasso
Evry child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

Plato 
I would teach the children music, physics and philosophy, but the most important is music, for in the patterns of the arts are the key to all learning. 

William Shakespear The Merchant of Venice
"The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils."

David A. Sousa in How the Brain Learns
We have never discovered a culture on this planet, past or present, that doesn't have art. Yet there have been a number of cultures - even today - that don't have reading and writing. Why is that? One possible explanation is that the activities represented by the arts - dance, music, drama, and visual arts - are basic to the human experience and necessary for survival. If they weren't, why would they have been part of every civilization from the Cro-Magnon cave dwellers to the urban citizens of the 21st century?

The Arts Are Part of Human Development. As we learn more about the brain, we continue to find clues as to why the activities required for the arts are so fundamental to the brain's activities. Music: It seems that certain structures in the auditory cortex respond only to musical tones. Dance: A portion of the cerebrum and most of the cerebellum are devoted to initiating and coordinating all kinds of movement, from intense running to the delicate sway of the arms. Drama: Specialized areas of the cerebrum focus on spoken language acquisition and call on the limbic system to provide reality or create fantasy with the same ease.

Much of what young children do, as play -singing, drawing, dancing - are natural forms of art. These activities engage all the senses and help wire the brain for successful learning.

http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/arts/quotes.php?show=all

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."
Edgar Degas

"Art is a lie that helps us to realize the truth."
Pablo Picasso

"Art is not the bread, but the wine of life."
John Paul Richter

"A man paints with his brains and not with his hands."
Michelangelo

"Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life."
Henry Miller

"Conception, my boy, fundamental brain work, is what makes all the difference in art."
Dante Gabriel Rosetti

"He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist."
St Fancis of Assisi

"I do not want ART for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few."
William Morris

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
John Adams, 2nd U.S. President 1735-1826

"Imagination is the true magic carpet."
Norman Vincent Peale

"Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to create."
Nicole Malebranche

"One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity."
Auguste Renoir

"Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks."
Simonides (500 B. C.)

"The aim off art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance."
Aristotle

"The artist is the antenna of the race."
Ezra Pound (from the book, Art & Physics by Leonard Schlain)

"The source of genius is imagination alone, the refinement of the senses that sees what others do not see, or sees them differently."
Eugène Delacroix

"The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. "
Michelangelo (1475-1564) - Italian artist

"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing."
Salvador Dali

"To create one's own world in any of the arts takes courage."
Georgia O'Keeffe

"What good are computers? They can only give you answers."
Pablo Picasso

"When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college- that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, You mean they forget?"
Howard Ikemoto

"Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one."
Stella Adler

"Art is the only way to run away without leaving home."
Twyla Tharp

"I f a work of art or a new style disturbs you, then it is probably good work. If you hate it, it is probably great."
Leo Steinberg

"There is no prejudice that the work of art does not eventually overcome."
Andre Gide

"Life is short, art is long..."
Hippocrates

"Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life."
Pablo Picasso

http://home.att.net/~quotations/dance.html

Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine gun.
--Matt Groening

There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.
--Michel de Montaigne

Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt and live like it's heaven on Earth.
--Mark Twain

Live a balanced life - Learn some and think some, and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
--Robert Fulghum

There was a star danced, and under that was I born.
--William Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing

When you take dancing lessons, you learn steps and you learn steps and you learn steps. It can go on for a long time. And then one day, you just learn to dance, and it is so different.
--Bill Austin

You've never felt pain until you've walked in a dancer's shoes
--Unknown

Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves. Whistle and dance the shimmy, and you've got an audience.
-- Diogenes

The dance is a poem of which each movement is a world.
--Mata Hari

Dance is the hidden language of the soul, of the body
--Martha Graham (1894-1994) US dancer, choreographer

Draw a crazy picture Write a nutty poem Sing a mumble-gumble song Whistle through your comb Do a loony-goony dance 'Cross the kitchen floor Put something silly in the world That ain't been there before.
--Shel Silverstien

Scientists are complaining that the new Dinosaur movie shows dinosaurs with lemurs, who didn't evolve for another million years. They're afraid the movie will give kids a mistaken impression. What about the fact that the dinosaurs are singing and dancing?
--Jay Leno

The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music...Bodies never lie.
--Agnes De Mille