OMG, MCAC finds a gr8 way 2 K.I.T. with teens Arts council uses new media to connect teens with the arts BY KATHY HALL Correspondent Anyone who spends time around teenagers "cn c" that they communicate differently from the rest of us. Teens take part in an improv exercise at the Teen Arts Festival in 2005. MySpace pages, YouTube videos and instant messages that are incomprehensible to most people over 40 are the languages of choice for today's young people, and the Monmouth County Arts Council [MCAC] plans to use some of these new electronic media to help teens connect with arts groups and arts opportunities throughout the county. According to a statement on its blog (www.teenartsconnection.blogspot.com), MCAC's Teen Arts Connection is being "morphed by technology." Robyn Ellenbogen, who served as MCAC's arts education director until the summer of 2006, created the Teen Arts Connection in 2003. For three years, she mentored a group of 15 to 18 teenage dancers, singers, visual artists and writers from different schools and different grades, encouraging their development and participation in the arts by organizing monthly activities and arts projects that ranged from performing at senior citizen facilities to traveling to New York to see shows. While the program provided a profound experience for its participants, it was limited by geography and the fact that Ellenbogen was only one person. "The experience was transforming for the kids Robyn worked with," explained Sandy Taylor, MCAC's current arts education director. "We want to offer that experience to kids throughout the county. We have over 75 member groups; imagine if there were 75 Robyns out there." Members of the MCAC staff met with teachers and students to learn how teens communicate and access information and to discover barriers to teenage participation in the arts. They have received a $14,600 "Building Arts Participation" grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and will work with consultants from the NJSCA on a program that uses the new instant communication technologies and the Internet to reach teens. "We want to be the catalyst to connect teen artists around the county with what's out there," explained MCAC Executive Director Mary Eileen Fouratt, who noted that a number of their member groups now offer special opportunities for teenagers as part of their programming. "We looked at how kids communicate and looked at what we as an agency can do to integrate the kids into what's available," said Taylor. "Their means of communication are enormously different from even five years ago," she explained, adding that instant messages and photos taken with cell phone cameras are the preferred methods of today's teen communication. This instant and constant access also affects how students schedule their arts involvement. "Kids want to participate but only at the last minute, and then they tell each other over their cell phone," Taylor observed. Armed with the knowledge of how today's teens access information, MCAC came up with a theory that using the new technology of the MySpace, blogs, e-mail and instant messaging was the way to connect with teens and increase their connection with the arts. "We think if we make the information more accessible, they will use it," Fouratt said. The council has established two blogs, one on the MCAC MySpace page and the other at the Teen Arts Connection on Blogspot where the program is described as "a way for teens to get information, share news, and interact with each other." The Blogspot homepage contains a link to sign up for the electronic Teen Arts Connection newsletter, that is billed as "a forum about arts events and news for teens." There are also plans for a "show your art" section and the creation of a teen advisory board. In keeping with the trend toward selfgenerated content, teens are invited to share information about an event, review an event or promote a project. MCAC also learned that students were looking for arts opportunities outside of school and plans to use the program as a network between community arts groups already served by the council and teens looking for arts opportunities. Taylor plans to use these new communication technologies to promote MCAC member group activities and help them grow by getting more teens involved. "We went through our 75-member data base, and more than half had something already in place for kids," she said. "We'd like to see more things in place. If a member group has a successful program in one location, we'd like to see that expanded [to another group]." Taylor mentioned the Belmar Arts Council's open art studio for teens and the Algonquin Theatre's dance program scholarships as the kind of member activities the new Teen Arts Connection will help promote. She plans to use segmented e-mail lists to distribute information on art opportunities for teens, who will also receive MCAC's already existing Art Alerts and This Week in the Arts "e-blasts" (e-mail publications). Taylor began collecting e-mail addresses at last year's Teen Arts Festival. She currently has a list of 83 e-mail addresses and plans to use technology and teens' natural networking to capture a lot more. "As kids open the e-blasts, we collect the name. If a teen forwards the e-blasts to another, we can pickup the e-mail," she explained. Taylor envisions the Web-based Teen Arts Connection as "sort of a central location to collect information and send it out again." In addition to the blog and the Web site, Taylor is working to promote the Teen Arts Connection through already existing MCAC contacts who receive the arts education newsletter and teachers she met at the Teen Arts Festival. MCAC currently communicates with more than 30 schools throughout the county. The new Teen Arts Connection has already been used by teens from Communications High School in Wall who needed help publicizing auditions for a film they were producing in August. "They said it really helped," Taylor said, "and when they didn't fill all their roles, they asked if MCAC could send another notice. They looked to MCAC as a resource." Taylor also used the program to promote this year's teen-appropriate films that were offered for the first time at the Newark Black Film Festival in Asbury Park. Taylor, who now lives in Belmar, joined the arts council staff in November 2006. A retired educator, she taught visual arts to grades K through eight in Warren County for 27 years. In-school arts opportunities vary greatly depending on the art form. According to a recently released report by The New Jersey Arts Education Census Project, 94 percent of New Jersey public school students have access to some arts education in their schools, but the majority of New Jersey public schools fail to offer instruction in all four arts disciplines: dance, music, theater and visual art. Although 95 percent use appropriately certified arts specialists for music and visual arts instruction, no more than 59 percent of schools in any grade use appropriately certified arts specialists in theater and only 44 percent in dance. Taylor welcomes input about opportunities for teens in the arts as well as methods of communication or access to teens. "We want to make it [Teen Arts Connection] as viable as possible," she said, "and as broad as possible."