I’m not a big fan of the ‘selfie’ but sometimes, for the very big feathery celebrity, exceptions have to be made. Logging into New York Public Library’s Wi-Fi on Saturday I spotted on their home page that there is currently a Sesame Street Exhibition on at their library for the Performing Arts, in the Lincon Center, so I was presented with a dilemma work in the library right through until my next appointment, or quit early and indulge in some nostalgia.
There was no real dilemma. Once the latest version of the Stan’s Cafe business plan was completed and circulated to those lucky few how have such things circulated to them, I was out of there and up the avenues and across the streets until I got to Sesame Street.
Now one of the many glorious things about being Artistic Director of Stan’s Cafe is that activities that could be deemed ‘avoiding doing work’ often turn out to be a great way of doing my job. Visiting a Sesame Street exhibition felt a frivolous indulgence but once there it got me thinking about how we approach our Creative Learning work which was useful.
This isn’t such a surprise. Pure nostalgic love of Sesame Street wouldn’t have been enough to get me to the exhibition. The fact is I am also very interested in whole process in how the show came to be made, the theories and research underlying it, so no wonder I found myself doing ‘work’ at the Sesame Street.
I may have already linked to the amazing footage of Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street, at the exhibition I discovered that celebrities were added to the program to encourage parents to stay in the room and watch the program with their children. I wonder if Stevie fancies a gig at one of our Partner School?
James, I am giving a presentation today in Amsterdam and am including a clip from “Big Bird goes to the Hospital” in my lecture. Big Bird is one of my favourite characters ever in the whole world! I will be talking about “Crisis” through various mediums. This includes the model of Heuristic Research (developed by Clark Moustakas), which outlines different phases that researchers (and artists in my opinion) “go through” when getting to the bottom of what they want. I will talk about our work on “Any Fool Can Start a War” with Billesley Primary School (the reason I dropped by your website and thus saw this wonderful image) and also Big Bird’s first hospital visit as my example crises, and how creativity and expression are used to understand them in more detail. Hope that’s interesting! I just couldn’t believe the coincidence! From your friend, Luke
I came to Sesame Street a little late so I always thought BB was a bit wet – top three for me were:
3: Grover
2: Oscar The Grouch (of course)
1: The Cookie Monster
Of course I have softened to BB now and watching clips again it’s clear how powerfully the program is promoting pro-social values. Amazing (and hilarious).