Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Our Second Valle del Oro Community Festival

Dear all,

After some back and forth and lots of deliberation, the date for our second Valle del Oro Community Festival is settled!!!
The festival, organized by Valle del Oro neighbors for our community, will take place on Saturday, May 1st from 11am to 3pm.
This is going to be a wonderful get together with art, food, music, tons of resources and good information, games, and all kinds of fun for the entire family.
You are invited and bring your friends and family!!


Friday, March 26, 2010

Monday, March 22, 2010

Week 3!

Balloons, singing, trying our Voices, trying our hands at drawing and learning about our community, learning to make music, our music. NOMAD LAB keeps growing. Last Saturday we had a house full of participants. Literally. And everyone so committed to learning and sharing with each other. Looking forward to next Saturday, when we will be working on listening and storytelling. Come by to visit us!












Photos by Megan Broughton and Evelyn Serrano

Friday, March 19, 2010

Our Second Week!

We had a blast last Saturday!!! And NOMAD LAB keeps growing!!
Outstanding musician Alfredo Miranda begun his individual and group guitar sessions as part of NOMAD LAB's offerings. There are still some open spots and, if you are interested in registering, please contact Evelyn Serrano at 661 755 6974.
The Creative Voice Lab, led this past Saturday by Carmina Escobar, continued exploring the wide range of our individual and collectives Voices. We played with our voices, performed "characters", sang and had lots of fun.
In the Public Art/Creative Writing Lab we spent some time out in the community drawing and learning how to capture reality on paper through gesture drawing, sketching and coloring. This will be the basis of a multi-layered collective mapping project.
And, we had our first participants from The Vistas Condominiums who will continue to join us for the rest of our Spring sessions!!

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to do a presentation about NOMAD LAB and the beautiful collaborative work that we have accomplished with our awesome partners (the neighbors, the VDO Neighborhood Committee, the property managers, the City, and our super-talented generous teaching artists) . All in attendance were moved by our work, by our efforts to turn the Valle del Oro neighborhood around through pacific means, through collaboration, true partnership, inclusivity and creativity. I was inspired by their responses to our work and their words of encouragement.



See you at NOMAD LAB tomorrow!











Monday, March 15, 2010

NOMAD LAB's Code of Conduct

The NOMAD LAB community will together foster:

• Respect, compassion and tolerance of all the members of our community regardless of their age, class, race, sexuality, gender, profession, religion, ability, etc.
• Equity and diversity and the understanding of these terms through thought and action
• The individual and collaborative exploration of our personal voices, our histories and stories and those of our community
• Dialogue in all its form, even when it may be difficult or challenging in its subject matter; we will practice active questioning, mindful listening, critical thinking and respectful disagreement
• Generosity in sharing and collaboration
• Trust in and respect for each others’ talents, capabilities and unique voices
• Care and respect for our space, private property and common property, including furniture, equipment and program materials
• Respect for our precious shared time: members will make every effort to follow through with their commitment to excellent attendance, active participation and completion of program-related projects

The NOMAD LAB community does not tolerate:

• Any acts of physical violence
• Any alcohol/drug use or smoking
• Property damage
• Behavior that is offensive or abusive to others
• Verbal attacks that are meant to shut down dialog or discourage others from contributing
• Intolerance of any kind on the basis of class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, profession, religion, age, ability, etc.

ABOUT NOMAD LAB

NOMAD LAB is a laboratory of creativity, collaboration and community for youth and their families, located in the heart of the Valle del Oro neighborhood in Newhall and the Jakes Way neighborhood in Canyon Country. NOMAD LAB designs and implements free inclusive arts, capacity building and leadership programs to address rise in illegal activity, provide art-centered programs for youth and families, and to offer a safe forum for dialogue, learning and community engagement. NOMAD LAB’s multigenerational and multi-locational programming makes use of vacant apartments available in the community. The program moves to different locations throughout the neighborhoods as the apartments it occupies become rented, hence the “nomadic” nature of its programs. NOMAD LAB is a collaborative project that relies on the passion, commitment and strong partnerships with community youth, parents, teaching artists, property managers, policy makers, and City staff.  Through its inclusive and innovative pedagogical approach and community-based programs, NOMAD LAB aims to be a laboratory for “home-grown” change.
NOMAD LAB workshops are taught by professional visual and performing artists. We are also honored to include neighborhood residents in the roster of NOMAD educators.
Beyond its impact in the Valle del Oro community, NOMAD LAB plans to continue to work closely with policy makers, City staff, community organizers, and educators to design neighborhood-specific inclusive and integrated alternatives to traditional gang-suppression and graffiti abatement strategies. NOMAD LAB is committed to developing a successful community organizing and engagement model that can be successfully replicated and implemented in other low and moderate-income rental communities in Los Angeles County dealing with issues of neighborhood violence and intolerance.

OUR PARTNERS
City of Santa Clarita, Community Services Division: Cynthia Llerenas and Hope Horner
GHP Management/The Village Apartments' Management Staff
Park Sierra Apartments' Management Staff
Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission
Mc Grath Elementary School

CONTACT INFORMATION
Evelyn Serrano, Program Director and Teaching Artist
toevelynserrano@gmail.com
661.755.6974

Our Location

The program is currently in two Santa Clarita  neighborhoods:

Jakes Way Neighborhood, Canyon Country
18420 Sandy Drive Apt. 103, Santa Clarita CA 91387

Valle del Oro Neighborhood, Newhall
23742 N. Valle del Oro # 103, Santa Clarita, CA 91321
23742 N. Valle del Oro # 104, Santa Clarita, CA 91321


For further information about NOMAD LAB please contact NOMAD LAB's Program Drector Evelyn Serrano at 661.755.6974 or via email at toevelynserrano@gmail.com.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

NOMAD LAB's guitar lessons now available!!

Talented guitarist and experienced educator Alfredo joins the NOMAD LAB team!! Alfredo will start teaching individual and group guitar lessons on Saturdays from 10 am to 12pm.
If you are interested in registering to take free guitar lessons please contact me at 661 755 6974.
See you all Saturday!
Evelyn

Our first day!

Our first NOMAD LAB sessions took place on March 6, 2010. This, we are certain, will be the first of many!
We had a great time meeting the lab participants, and our NOMAD LAB partners from the City of Santa Clarita and The Village Management Company. What a wonderful day of collaboration, creativity and true community building.
We are all looking forward to more!








Tuesday, March 9, 2010

NOMAD LAB classes are on!!!

We just had our first NOMAD LAB sessions last Saturday (March 6)!!!! Our participants and teaching artists are WONDERFUL and everyone's participation in the workshops went well beyond my wildest expectations. I will be posting photos of our first workshops shortly. We are having Creative Voice Lab from 10 to 11 am and the Visual Arts/Writing workshop from 11 am to 12:30pm.

So much to learn, so much to share, so much to grow!!!