At La Europa, fine arts are used therapeutically, academically and as a way for the students to build confidence and create a healthy identity. Our students are creative and artistic young women who find the arts to be like a second language for them to express their inner worlds.
Therapeutically, expressive therapist help students' bridge the gap between the left brain, which holds our verbal, logical and critical functions, and the right brain, which holds our non-verbal, sensory and symbolic functions. Often insight generated in talk therapies, which are primarily left brain-oriented, does not translate into life change or emotional change because it lacks the whole brain integration.
Academically, La Europa has many art classes for students to learn or expand art skills. This not only earns credit for the students but also allows students to explore potential career interests. Students who are intending to focus on the arts in college can begin or complete portfolio work for college admission.
Fine arts are used as a strength-based focus to building confidence in our young women. Through artistic expression, performance and community art experience, students build on talents, interests and strengths to develop a healthy identity. During our Fine Arts Festival, we witness the amazing transformation from struggling adolescent to confident young woman as our students perform for their parents, show leadership in organizing and producing the show or reflect on their artistic progress in our gallery showcase.
In collaboration with the primary therapists, our nationally board-certified art therapist leads weekly art therapy groups and periodic individual and family art therapy sessions. This modality, which integrates visual and verbal processes, allows the students to explore their patterns in a concrete and changeable way. Upper-level students do a comprehensive "art review" where they can visually track their progress over time.
Art therapy consists of creating many different kinds of art and then processing their pieces and sharing with their peers about what the artwork conveys about them as a person and about their treatment process. For example, students have an opportunity to create a mask of their faces that portrays how others see them on the outside and what is real for them on the inside. The artistic medium allows them to share and understand things about themselves that they might otherwise find difficult to express.
Dance, yoga, and movement are used to help our students not only with self-expression but also with exploring body image issues and developing a helathy body image. Movement expression helps students learn about their sensory experience and be able to recognize the connection between bodily sensation and motion. This increases student's ability to accurately label their feelings and regulate their emotions.
Freedom of movement is taught rather than technique to allow expression and to help students feel more comfortable with themselves and their bodies. The benefit of free-flowing dance group and not restrictive steps allows one's true emotions to not be hindered by technical skill of the movement. After experiencing dance group, they can talk about their feelings more freely and tear down the walls they have created between themselves and other people. Often times we work in partners or smaller groups where the students work with each other through movement, using appropriate touch, body language, and problem solving techniques to create their own discoveries of themselves and others.
The objective in Dance Group is to help our students to rediscover themselves, thus developing a greater self-awareness and a sense of well-being. As with Art and Recreational therapy groups, this is an opportunity for expression and understanding that addresses issues on a different level than traditional talk therapy.
Every two months, the students prepare an Arts Festival to perform for their families during Family Days. They work together with the recreational therapist and the dance teacher to prepare a showcase of the talents that they have been working on. This includes musical performances, poetry readings, dance performances, dramatic scenes or monologues, displays of photography and art work, and shows of student-made films. This is an opportunity for all of the current families to come together and celebrate the gifts of these young women and encourage them to use their energy in creativity.
Through weekly art and dance groups, students are given the chance for therapeutic expression through artistic medium. They also have arts classes 3 days each week. While not all of the following are offered concurrently, this is a list of arts classes offered at La Europa Academy.
- Foundations of Art
- Painting and Drawing
- Drama
- Ceramics
- 3-D Design
- Art Studio
- Theatre Foundations
- Digital Photography
- Introduction to Vocal Performance
- Dance
- Filmmaking
In addition to all of the fine arts courses offered at La Europa Academy, students also have the opportunity to participate in private lessons on a weekly basis. Instructors in piano, violin, guitar, and voice are provided as requested by the students and their parents. These lessons take place on our campus during free time on the weekends.
Finally, click here to visit our Art Gallery and see just a few examples of the art produced by our amazing girls!