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One of the finales of the summer school session is the student performance night. Here you can see the wide range of performances: poetry, singing, theatre, dance and visual projections. The last picture is the CAGS group which will return for their second summer next year. Another great summer in the wild and wacky world of the Alps!!       
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Another highlight of the second session was Paolo Knill’s 80th birthday celebration. Many guests including Shaun McNiff and Stan Strickland (jazz musician from Boston who is an expressive arts therapist) arrived to help with the festivities.
 Every year, Steve and Ellen write, direct and perform in an original clown show which takes place after the graduation ceremony. The following was written by Steve to describe this year’s show: Some of the inspiration for the show came from digital media and expressive arts courses at EGS and some from current political events, as you'll see below. The show was great fun. It started with the usual scenario: Max and Sadie (played by Steve and Ellen) arrive in Saas Fee to see their grandaughter Natalie (it used to be to see their daughter, but, as they say, times change). Max reminiscences about the old days, and he and Sadie start quarreling about things she wants to change that he wants to stay the same. He likes things in order - like in Russia, where they know how to have a strong leader - "Look!" A video projection on the large screen shows a clip below about Putin at a celebrity dinner playing the piano and singing "Blueberry Hill" (if you can believe it - totally ridiculous). Natalie says she has her own icon, and wants to change her name to hers: Nadezhda! At that point we showed a clip below from Pussy Riot's unauthorized and blasphemous anti-Putin performance in an Orthodox church in Moscow. For this, they have been charged are are in jail for the next year and a half.
Max is horrified, while Sadie loves them - so they start fighting again - until Nadezhda insists that they go to see a therapist - Dr. Putino! At this point we Skyped in one of our old clown buddies, Bruno Mock, who appeared on the large screen and lead us through three forms of therapy, each more catastrophic than the last: SOS (Solution-Oriented Solution), DDT (Dynamic Dance Therapy) and finally PLR (Past Life Regression). In the last one, Max and Sadie go back to three past lives in sequence, each of which ends in disaster: Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette, Abraham and Sarah, and finally a Neanderthal couple who can only grunt and chase each other around the stage. When Nadezhda finally wakes them up from their trance, Max admits that maybe the old days aren't as great as he thought. They all agree that it's time for a new sound. We then play the audio from the Anti Flag video "This is the New Sound," to which the performers and the audience all dance. Though we didn't play it, it's worth watching the video - did you ever think you'd see punk rockers being tortured by Muppets?
 This is a poster from the show.....
During the second session (July 11 to August 1), we had many special guests and events. In many of the pictures, you can see how we use the surrounding landscape as a space for learning and artistic exploration---sometimes sharing the landscape with....cows! We also have lectures and presentations. One such lecture involved Steve, Paul Antze (professor and colleague from York University) and Ellen painting while they talked. The topic was Expressive Arts and Ecology. Here are some of Ellen’s reflections on the painting and the formation of the painting.  I had the impulse to use trash and garbage from around the town in the painting but, when I went searching for some, I couldn’t find anything but a few cigarette butts!! It really is clean in Switzerland! However, I did find a construction site where they had thrown away some burned out asphalt from an old roof. I picked some of that up, thinking it would be interesting to incorporate it into the painting. I also decided to challenge myself to only use black and white paint. Facing these constraints, I feel pleased with the result......for me it speaks to something about protecting the vulnerable spaces from contamination. Here you can see the CAGS group (pre-doctoral students) using tables to construct group installations. This happened in one of the first classes and it became a way for students to connect and to get to know each other. We gave each group a “key word” and had them bring in materials from outside to add to the construction. Some of the key words were: “hope,” “art,” “play,” and “imagination.” After making the construction, the students developed performances to present to the whole group.
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