BANGOR – For the third year in a row, high school students throughout Penobscot and Piscataquis counties will participate in “Building Community Through the Arts,” the dance and drama residency project organized by the Penquis Regional Office of the Maine Alliance for Arts Education.

The effort is supported not only by arts and educational organizations, but also by a variety of health agencies in the area.

The program, designed by MAAE to promote a positive social climate in the schools by building a sense of closeness and trust among students in the classroom, uses collaboration in creative theater and movement as its primary strategy.

Artist-educators from around the state work with one to three classes of students at all 19 high schools in the two-county region to create original works of drama or dance about issues of importance to the students, or about topics in their curriculum related to those issues.

The students involved in the project are volunteers or students who might be interested in the arts. The classes in history, English, psychology, even chemistry and Latin, are selected because of the teacher’s interest and willingness to host the residencies.

At the end of the residencies, the students meet in conferences hosted by four high schools around the region. The school year’s first conference, for students from Orono, John Bapst, Central, Dexter and Nokomis, was held Oct. 25 at Nokomis Regional High School in Newport.

The conference for students from Bangor, Brewer, Hampden, Hermon and Old Town will be held Nov. 15 at Hermon High School. Other conferences will be held Feb. 7 at Lee Academy, and March 14 at Foxcroft Academy.

At the conferences the students share the results of their work and reflect on the impact of the experience. At this year’s conferences, the students also will have an opportunity to participate in dance or drama workshops.

The success of the project in fostering a sense of closeness among the students has been affirmed since its pilot year by the enthusiastic responses of the student participants.

It also was confirmed last year by the results of a statistical assessment questionnaire that measured the community-building impact of the project. The percentage of students who said that all of the members of their class got along very well together and that the classes respected each other despite their differences rose markedly after the project.

Building Community Through the Arts has another goal – to empower students to address their own social issues and to help them communicate those issues through the arts. These issues include feelings of isolation and alienation within rural communities, at-risk behaviors such as drinking and taking drugs, and controversial school rules and policies.

Students reported feeling empowered and gratified when adults attended their performances and the discussions afterward.

“Someone cared what we thought,” was the comment of one student.

This year, adults will have another opportunity to see the students’ work. The Penquis Office, which has been collaborating with Bangor’s Acadia Hospital for the project’s artist training, will begin to collaborate with the hospital’s own “Community Conversations” program to bring the student performances into their own school communities at evening meetings at the schools.

The pilot meetings, to be held this year at Central, Hampden, Penquis Valley and Katahdin high schools, will be a continuation of the school community meetings project initiated by Acadia Hospital two years ago in response to the Columbine tragedy in Colorado.

Those meetings began with the question, “What can we do to keep our kids safe?” This time, however, the Community Conversations will be sparked by the students’ own performances. The project’s residency artist will be at the meeting to lead adults in some of the same community-building theater and dance exercises used with the students.

This year’s meetings are called “Arts-Based Community Dialogues – ABCD,” a term similar to “Arts-Based Civic Dialogues,” used frequently now in community arts circles.

In a second avenue of collaboration with the hospital’s work with youth, a Building Community drama residency with project artist Cathy Plourde will be offered to youths in a new transitional housing program at Bangor’s Shaw House in February 2002.

The purpose will be to provide the young people, who have begun living at Shaw House since summer, with an experience which will help solidify their commitment to their new group living situation, and which will build their confidence and self-esteem, individually and as a group.

Building Community Through the Arts is receiving support this year from the Penobscot Valley Health Association, the Maine State Department of Mental Health, the Auxiliary of Eastern Maine Medical Center, Bangor Rotary and the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA has recognized Building Community Through the Arts with a Challenge America grant. All of the high schools involved in the project will participate this year in its funding.

Susan Potters is director of the Maine Alliance for Arts Education, Penquis Regional Office. For information, call 942-7003.