Sundown Schoolhouse FULL FALL SESSION 2006 is based in the Los Angeles geodesic home of Sundown Salon. It is an educational environment with an activist mission. In the classic model of the schoolhouse, students of many ages {18 and up} come together to study a diversity of disciplines. It is a school for the gently radical design, literary, performing & visual arts. We foster models for active creative practices that engage with the messy realities of the world around us, from our relationships with the diverse peoples in our city to the eroding natural and urban environments we inhabit. Schoolhouse studies take many forms, dictated by the inspirations and interests of the visiting teachers, and the response and desires of the students. This may include anything related to the design, literary, performing & visual arts, and tangentially beyond into the sciences and the humanities. Detailed information on the specific curricula and schedule from the first season can be found here.
The SCHEDULE consists of a main fall session in Los Angeles. We convene for a full 12 hour day {from 8am until 8pm} one day a week for 12 weeks each season. The schoolhouse is the Sundown gardens and geodesic domed house of the Sundown Salons in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles. Each day of the Schoolhouse begins with a non-verbal period of some form of physical activity such as yoga or dance and concludes that evening with happy hour open to friends and visitors. Each seasonal session has a loose topic or theme. On the last Sunday of each 12 week Schoolhouse session there is a public salon event organized, curated and presented by the students somewhere out in the city to present the fruits of the season.
The STUDENTS have a wide variety of backgrounds, skills and interests, but share an ambition to develop a responsive, engaged and innovative life in the arts. The schoolhouse teachers are artists, designers, educators, performers, scientists and thinkers from many backgrounds and disciplines. Some are part of a regular core of Los Angeles based teachers and others we catch as they pass through town. They bring to the schoolhouse that which they are most passionate about and interested in at the moment.
~ www.sundownschoolhouse.org ~