[View Downloadable PDF Here] Exploring new genres in our Summer Studio Intensives SAY Sí students spent over 50 hours in our studios in June during our Studio Intensives — a new model piloted in 2024 to allow for deeper engagement and uninterrupted studio time. Students spent 5 hours a day, Monday-Friday, in one of our four studios: Visual Arts, Media Arts, HIVE New Media, and ALAS Theater. Each studio worked with visiting artists, attended site visits to relevant organizations and cultural spaces, and spent considerable time developing their own body of work under the guidance of our experienced teaching staff. The summer program culminated with an open studio exhibition and film screening attended by over 100 students. The Visual Arts studio focused on fiber arts and three-dimensional forms using a felting method taught by visiting artist Leticia Rocha, a Mexican-born fiber artist based in San Antonio. At the end of the intensive, students presented their works, demonstrating an advanced understanding of natural forms and deft approach to the material. HIVE New Media students took their skills in creative coding to a new level. Working in small groups, students conceived and produced short illustrated adventure games using the Inky interactive fiction editor used by many professional games to handle all the complexities of interactive narrative. Our Media Arts 2-week intensive focused on the horror genre, which allows for a unique experimentation with lighting, make-up, set design, and special-effects. Visiting artists included SAY Sí alum and local filmmaker Grace Goen and James Rodriguez of Austin arts non-profit St. Primo. Students wrote, produced, cast actors, and edited fully realized horror shorts to showcase at a public screening. Promoting Youth Theatre in the Westside Cultural District Youth theatre companies from Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center and SAY Sí worked together over four weeks to write and produce original plays. The theatre Studio Intensive served 40 students from SAY Sí’s ALAS Theatre Company and Guadalupe’s Grupo Ánimo – our largest theatre cohort to date!. Students worked with renowned Chicano actors Tony Plana (Ugly Betty) and Jesse Borrego (Blood In, Blood Out) and learned about challenges and successes of professional actors in film and TV. The culminating performance opened to a standing-room only audience in SAY Sí’s black box theater. About The Westside Cultural District: El Mero Weso El Mero Weso is home to thriving cultural organizations recognized nationally for their impact on the arts and community; investment in neighborhood infrastructure guided by equitable community development; and a growing number of small businesses catering to lifelong residents and first time visitors. Through support from the Texas Commission on the Arts, cultural organizations in El Mero Weso collaborate to celebrate our neighborhood’s cultural legacy and sustain the Westside as a place where arts and culture thrive. Welcoming our neighbors to Summer Saturdays SAY Sí kicked off our free summer community programs with a Block Party where our families and neighbors enjoyed art-making hosted by SAY Sí and San Anto Cultural Arts, danced to the young DJs of The AM Project, and shopped at our art market featuring vendors from SAY Sí’s alumni and The Maestro Entrepreneur Center. The Block Party fostered connections between our neighbors and cultural community, launching a season of free art making programs on Saturdays at SAY Sí. Expanding workshops to the Eastside In July, our teaching artists provided daily workshops in visual arts, photography, puppet theater and narrative game design to students ages 6–13 through a partnership with the Ella Austin Community Center and Empower House. Together, we shared resources including staff, materials and program space, to serve children and their families from the surrounding neighborhood — and had a lot of fun! [View Downloadable PDF Here] Follow
