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Each year Boulder Country Day School welcomes artists-in-residence to work with students from kindergarten through eighth grade to share their passions and skills and create an environment of collaboration and inspiration for their community. This year’s Art Week will be held from March, 6 trough 10.

Colorado Shakespeare Festival will kick off the week early on March 3 with their Shakespeare in the Schools: Shakespeare and Violence Prevention program. Festival actors perform an abridged Shakespeare play, followed by workshops with middle school students about violence prevention.

This program is a collaborative initiative between the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence and the Department of Theatre & Dance at CU Boulder. Since 2011, the program has visited more than 72,000 Colorado schoolchildren.

This year’s visiting-artists include Emma Shubin, flutist and co-founder and director of Integral Steps. Shubin will work with elementary students using Dalcroze Eurhythmics. Dalcroze Eurhythmics is a method of teaching music that is designed to increase coordination, balance, attention, flexibility, focus, spatial awareness, emotional knowledge, and vocal precision through developing independent and cooperative learning, in a joyous and discovery-based environment.

Visiting artist Christina Schlesinger is a painter and muralist whose work ranges from realistic to abstract and incorporates a variety of media. Ms. Schlesinger will work with fifth through eighth grade students to create a mural within the theme of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity that will thereafter be displayed on campus.

Visiting artist Nicole Chamberlain is a composer and flutist who composed the Atlanta Opera’s first ever commission of the children’s opera, “Rabbit Tales,” which received over 50 performances and kick-started her career as a composer. She has since been commissioned by numerous other organizations. Through a generous grant by an individual donor family, Ms. Chamberlain has been commissioned to compose an original composition for the BCD Middle School Wind Ensemble and Spotlight Singers to learn and perform. That debut performance will be on Friday, March 10th at the Arts Week closing assembly.

Students will also have the chance to show off their artwork at an evening Student Art Show. Students and parents will proudly mingle and share the 2D and 3D artwork they have worked on throughout the school year. Last year, fifth-grader Max Rudolph shared, “Art is fun. The art opportunities at BCD allow me to be creative in different ways than my other classes. Plus art teaches us that practice makes perfect.”