Leigh-Anne Kehler, Artist at Artists In Schools

Leigh-Anne Kehler

Details:

Literary arts, Media arts, Theatre

Grade Level: pre k, k, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Language: english

Regions: Norman, Parklands, Interlake, Westman, Central Plains, Pembina Valley, Eastman, Capital Region

Contact:

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Biography

Leigh-Anne has penned a total of eighteen original Fringe Festival productions, one professional one act for Theatre Projects MB, one professional one act for Northern Light Theatre in Edmonton and was commissioned to write two stage shorts for the Prairie Theatre Exchange Carol Shields Festival of New Works.

With the support from the MB Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts, Leigh-Anne has created several one woman story theatre productions, two of which were invited to the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

She’s an established actor and storyteller and has toured across Canada, to the jungles of Northern Thailand, across Japan and Denmark and has been an invited storyteller to the Toronto International Storytelling Festival, The Yukon Storytelling Festival, and The Winnipeg and Regina Children’s Festivals. She’s recently completed tours with Saskatchewan’s Junior Concert Series and the TD Children’s Book week as 1 of 3 chosen storytellers.

Media

Project Samples

Tell It, Play It, Know It, Show It

This workshop is designed to get students involved in physicalizing stories, through dramatic play. It begins with listening to the artist telling a story, goes on to specific dramatic techniques to play it out and ends with a sharing time, showing how the story looks when we use our bodies to represent it. These same techniques are then used to create an original piece of writing. The end result is a pre-writing tool kit for teachers. Appropriate for pre-k to Grade 6. This approach was developed through many years of experience and compiled with the help of several teachers on various Hutterite colonies throughout Manitoba. Each teacher will receive documents, explaining each step of the process.

Writing in Triangles- Setting, Action, Character

This unique approach to understanding how stories are generated was derived from a professional development residency with artist Ulla Rhym in Denmark. (with support from the MB Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts). It has been used to great success across grade levels and with many genres and themes. I've also taught the format to many schools/divisions as a professional development workshop. Essentially, the triangle challenges the age-old model of Who, What, When, Where, Why, flipping it on its head and transforming it to Where, When, What, Who, Why. Through dramatic activities, we explore how setting determines the actions in a story and how characters are driven by these actions to create conflict. I've adapted the model for grades k-12 and have used Writing in Triangles for the St. James Assiniboia School Division Integrated Arts program for the past twelve years. (Please see testimonials.). Each teacher wil receive documents, expaining the process.

Creating an original play

Several schools have worked with me to write original plays for winter/spring concerts or special occasions. this is very much a collaborative process and teachres will gain the skills necessary to utilize/integrate playwrighting as part of their teaching practice. Scenes are created through both dramatic play and written techniques. The writing triangle is used to guide our decision making. This same process is used when I team up with filmmaking artist Randy Guest to deliver movie-making projects in schools.

Testimonials

Leigh-Anne was an enthusiastic and engaging professional who came in to do Writing in Triangles with my grade 3/4 class. My students were successful in writing fictional stories and publishing books for our classroom with their stories. We enjoyed all of the creative games and exercises Leigh-Anne led us through in preparation for writing. She used stories to entertain and connect with us as well as to model excellent story-telling. I would love to have her come to work with my class again!

—Suzanne DeSousa. Teacher

"What you do is magical. You speak from your spirit and bring new joy to our classrooms. Thank you so much for being dedicated to your craft." "The experience was wonderful – the kids loved their time with you and I just met with a group of teachers today who have plans to use your ideas to build into the original writing idea that you had. So teachers were inspired and educated by the work you did as well."

—Principals.

My son was told by his grade ten teacher that he would never be able to keep up with the creative writing assignments. He has his learning challenges for sure, but with writing in triangles, he was able to get a B+. He was so proud. Thank you so much.

—Parent