Live Performing and Afterschool Groups
This chapter discusses the challenge of launching student-led performing and creative groups without taking a heavy-handed role in their development. The chapter gives strategies for supporting student-led groups so that they attain the continuity of membership enjoyed by traditional school ensembles. Specifically, it considers three models of student-led groups. The first model is the recording club, a loosely knit group of like-minded students doing self-directed recording projects in the studio. Second is a model based on rock bands and open-mic nights, student-organized ensembles, and performance series that are supported by the school but that operate independently of formal classroom structures. The third model is the electronic music group, a novel and successful performing ensemble combining DJs, instrumentalists, vocalists, and emcees. Lebanon High School’s Electronic Music Group is described: its technical onstage setup, its nontraditional performance venues, its repertoire and creative ethos, and the faculty facilitation that makes it sustainable in a school environment.