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Welcome to Sowelu Theater's website

Video Education

Teaching creative use of media for personal expression

Tome Mowe

Tom Mowe

Sowelu Video Education Outreach grew out of the New Works in Process program. In our work with young artists, we found them overwhelmingly gravitating toward a cinematic form of expression. Responding to this generational tendency, Sowelu began to apply the artistic methods of its actors, directors and writers to the development of fictional narrative video. This seems to reach today's media-savvy youth in a more resonant fashion than theater currently does.

Recent development funds for this program have come from the Mount Hood Cable Regulatory Commission, the Meyer Memorial Trust and the Miller Foundation. These funds will create an equipment base that will include state-of-the-art HD video suites that will provide education, project support and access for young and emerging artists.

At Sowelu, we feel we have been led by local youth to offer a constructive and mentored program that guides young people though a creative use of media as a tool for personal expression. We also recognize the value to teachers of well-crafted media projects in the voice of young people that can stimulate classroom conversations in a way conventional educational approaches often fail to do.

Sowelu Video Outreach connects to students

Through:

  • residencies in K-12 and College or University settings;
  • Summer at Sowelu or Creative Enterprise Arts Camps;
    Here Sowelu instructors provide education in Fictional narrative or documentary work by young artists.
  • Through mentored projects.
    • These projects are chosen from those created by young artists in other Sowelu programs to bring to completion with adult mentorship.
    Past projects have included Numbnuts, a sexual identity crisis funded in part by The Equity Foundation, and DANCE PARTY, USA by Aaron Katz, which will be presented at the Hollywood Theatre in March of 2007.

If you would like more information about this program, please call 503.730.9066. Or contact us here.