MPL: a place to rock out...and express yourself

HI MY NAME IS ERIC BEVERLY BUT EVERYBODY CALLS ME EB!!! its freaking awesome at Zeum - it was a perfect match for me. When i got hired and started to work it felt like i was married to Zeum ,cool people different personalities,and most of all helping all the kids. I love everything at Zeum ,but my favorite part is M..P..L.. music production lab. Music production lab is my favorite because its a good way to express yourself and tell how your feeling . AND SO ON LIKE DENZEL SAYS.....the technology of it was not that hard to learn it came to me quickly. But the skill that benifits working in m.p.l is my outgoingness, I really like the music production lab beaucse kids come in and dress up and try thier hardest, some act silly and its really funny but overall my experience with Zeum is mind blowing....... but yeah this is my blog to the world hope you digg it................................!! PEACE!! oh yeah and here is some people in m.p.l rocking out.

I Love Zeum!

Heyy everybody! I'm just going to blog about how much I enjoy Zeum =). I've been working here for about 5 months?? Well, it doesn't feel like work. It almost kind of feels like play time! I've learned more then I've expected to learn. From working with computers to working with kids and adults, there's a variety of new things to learn. I mean, every room you go into holds a whole new path of creativity and imagination! And, dude, there's alot of rooms to explore. When I help out the guests, not only do THEY experience new things, but I do too! For example, the questions each guest holds, the reactions to the experiences and fun they're having, ideas on how to improve what can be done, the things the kids create with their own i m a g i n a t i o n s , things that even I, can't think of.

My two favorite rooms right now are Music Production Lab (MPL) and Animators Studio. I'm liking MPL because I love m u s i c ! I find it pretty cool when I see and listen to kids, adults, and Zeum Masters singing. There are many different voices and songs out there. Sometimes, I even learn new songs while listening to everybody.

Animators Studio is another favorite because I used to love making art when I was little. I loved drawing and painting. I remember in kindergarten, the teacher would give us an option to play in the playgroud, or stay in the room and draw or create things ! Everybody would choose to go out, but I remember myself staying in the room playing with the crayons. Animators caught my eye when I first got here. I was like "Woahh this is cool!". I've made a couple things in Animators already. One I like the most is the sliced clay cake. Its in the display box! (The Pink Cake). I like this cake because I've seen kids go look at the cake, and then make a cake themselves ! Another cool thing was that the inside is all guts. So, when I sliced open the cake, it looked pretty cool!

Well, yeahhh today is my last day! Hopefully I'll be back in the summertime. kThnx For reading! =)

Kickoff to Summer and...

ZeumMasters finished off a long and inspiring day of team building and nonstop action on the summer kickoff day with a few songs in the music production lab.

'Killin it with Dance

Anybody can dance. Anybody can perform. Whether you're amazing or horrible it feels nice to just get yourself out there. Dancing can be a way of expressing yourself or just a way to let out stress after a hard day at work or school. Having a way to escape from life and just dance is good for you. You can forget about life's. Dancing is like a vacation for your mind.

I'm making a documentary about dance. In my movie I want to show that good things can come from dancing whether or not you're good at it.

Performance is a big deal at Zeum. We have our production stage in our main gallery and our stage in the Music Video production lab so it's crucial that we help kids realize that they can perform too even if they think they're really bad at it. Everyone has a performer inside them, you just have to bring it out of them. For the kids that come here it's a big deal to be up on stage. A lot of them get nervous because they think they can't do it but with a little encouragement they get into their performances and put on good shows. After doing their thing on stage a lot of times they get excited and have a little self-esteem boost.

With my video I want to show the positive effects of dancing on people's lives and that anyone can experience these things because anyone can dance. I'm gonna interview a few big name dance teachers about what get them started in dancing and what dancing has done for them in their lives. My video will show their interview with me and then will go into a video of them actually dancing. I'll do the same thing with people who are in dance companies and then take it down to people who simply take classes and then take it down to people who do it just for fun.

I've been dancing for 4 years. I mainly do hip hop dance. I started taking dance classes just to see what it was like. I had always seen people dance and though "Wow, I wish I could do that."

After a while I was motivated by the compliments I started getting. It's the best feeling to have someone ask me "How'd you do that?" or have a teacher tell me to keep the good work cuz i was "killin' it."

Dancing has helped not only to boost my self-esteem but also to get me through some tough times. When I dance i can forget about everything going on around me and just focus on the dancing I'm doing. Nothing else matters. I can go home after dancing and feel like I accomplished what I needed to that day. I'm at my best mentally after I've danced. I can think better having let out all my stress and energy in dance. I get my endorphins flowing so I feel pumped up but I'm more at ease so I can think better. And after getting all tired out I can sleep better too. So dancing can benefit you both mentally and physically.

Documentary in the Making

Hey this is Michael M.

This year I am senior in a very small high school in Oakland. Each senior is making a year long project related to their internship. Mine is Zeum and I also go to a video program after school. I get a lot of support in video making in my after school program called the factory and at Zeum. So my project is a documentary on myself and how I grew from a shy person in school to a person that loves to express himself in front the entire school.

This documentary isn't any ordinary documentary with interviews and narrative It will be told in a very dense poem I made that expands the entire four years (of high school). This means that what you see on the screen is words telling my story = a poem. There will be images in the background too. This is what makes it a documentary. It will include personal stories that I experience that I never told anyone else but myself. So it will be a personal Peace about my life so that people can relate to. Right now I just finish the first rough draft and I am so excited about it because its building up right in front of me.

Through Struggles,
Challenges,
I made me. - a line from my documentary.

Zeum staff are really helping me a lot with organizing my timeline for my project. I feel I get a lot of my creative ideas here. When I work in the music video production lab I pay close attention to the educator who is instructing the kids. I pay attention to the type of background the kids would choose and the costumes they wear. I aways wonder if those fit together if they would look right in front of a camera. I will be thinking about that in my mind. It's like a puzzle - what works, what doesn't. Even though my video is all words, this is still inspirational because I can look at the colors and think about how to use color in mine.

For example, one day a group of boys were making a music video - two of them were wearing a bird mask and one was just rapping. They had some kind of lava background and I saw that it worked well with their costumes since their mask were red and orange. It gave me ideas about what I should add in my documentary.

I hope that my movie will turn out great. To be continued...

No Fear on Stage

Hey this is MICHELLE F.. I want to write a little bit about performing.

I've performed in the plays and musicals at my high school for the past 4 years I am currently in the musical Meet Me in St. Louis.

I've been working here as a zeummaster for about 11 months soon to be a year. That's right. And there are many performance opportunities at Zeum.

Music Production Lab...Production Stage... music is a big part of my life something I can't live without.

I am able to use the skills I've been cultivating at acting at school here by making my own performances in MPL and at the Production Stage, and giving tips to kids who are shy. I come up with ideas on what they can do and even work with them if they need extra help ..so they don't feel so nervous. I like seeing them being able to perform something and really breaking out of their shells and being creative. The visitors have a lot of fun doing performances and are often ecstatic that they can take their work home and show their families.

Oh...and I have ideas for workshops that revolve around performing and making performances.

I think can help visitors learn a little more about what they can do. They can work on ideas for script and even go further and get a little technique like vocal warm ups to get ready for the show and performance technique they can learn a variety of things that can contribute to their video make it more developed then it normally would in a typical Zeum visit.

I have been performing for almost half of my life and it is a great thing. I never really took it seriously till about sophomore year of high school - that's when I decided that this is what I really love and what I want to continue for the rest of my life. Performing means to me being able to express myself. Performing helped me break out of being shy and sculpted me to be very outgoing and like one of the "drama kids" at school. Even when I am having a bad day I can always (even though it may be extremely tedious) rehearse for the current play or musical because on stage I can express my self let my anger out through song and whatever character I am trying to convey.

Performing has changed my life. It's given me a chance to be creative with myself and things around me. I have learned how to be different in a way that suits my personality. Usually with my friends I am the more outgoing and loud one.

I'm not scared to play any character. I'm able to get crazy. Like everything from the female basketball player in "Shooting Starts'' to a trumpet playing entertainer in "Gypsy". I'm learning what's possible, what I can do.