What we do
Time In brings the city's youngest, most at-risk public school children out of underserved classrooms and into the world of the living arts, every week of the school year, as part of their regular school day.
Mentored 1:1 by a team of extraordinary teaching artists and musicians, kids are immersed in a joyful combination of opera through hands-on art, music, movement, tons of gallery hops & museum visits, and so much love and care!
What we’ve done
Over the past 14 years we've put Opera & Art at the center of the school day for nearly 3000 little kids
in SEVEN severely disadvantaged Harlem, South Bronx and East Flatbush public elementary schools.
Transformative Opera + Art programming every week of the school year.
Our Programs:
Opera ‘N Art: 3K-2, is a school day, “mini-MFA for little kids” Hands-on,
language-rich explorations of Opera through the Visual Arts + Gallery Hops +
Museum Visits.
Arty Readers: An Operatic/Literary Journey through Manga and
Contemporary Art (Grades 3-5) fuses Opera + Art + Literacy through Japanese
comics + Gallery Hops + Museum Visits.
CosiTV, Grade 5, is a collaborative transformation of a canonical opera into a TV sitcom under the direction of the incredible Guy Richards Smit and Time In Creative Director, Cyndie Bellen-Berthézène. Watch PS 30/s 5th Graders in their version of CosiTV!
Opera Mornings, bringing some of the world’s most celebrated musical stars
into the classroom to interface with Time In’s kids.
Time In's kids visit 10-20 of the world's most important contemporary art exhibitions each year.
Andy Warhol at the Whitney, Jack Whitten at the Breuer, Rob Pruitt at Gavin Brown's enterprise (& a private workshop with Rob!), TC Cannon at The Museum of the American Indian, to name just a few. This year: Amy Sherald at Hauser & Wirth, Yayoi Kusama at David Zwirner, The Brant Foundation & more!
Kids super-focused on incredible operas
Britten's Midsummer, Stravinsky's Nightingale, Shostakovich's Nose, Rossini's La Cenerentola, Massenet's Cendrillon, Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte. Massive hands-on studio artwork - from mixed-media to manga!
Child-centric, play-based learning! Exquisitely intelligent FUN!!
“Time-In has fueled our students’ imagination and enhanced their problem-solving and critical thinking skills. ”
Some of the biggest classical music stars in the world hang with our kids!
From the Metropolitan Opera: Janai Brugger, Angel Joy Blue, Ailyn Pérez, Luca Pisaroni, Brian Jagde, Serena Malfi, David Bizic, Golda Schultz, Leah Hawkins, Freddie Ballentine!
From the NY Philharmonic: Principal Clarinet, Anthony McGill.
Metropolitan Opera star Ailyn Pérez joins PS 197 second graders for Act 2 of La Bohème
And incredible artists make our kids a special part of their lives:
Erik Parker toured his show for our kids at Mary Boone's, Brian Alfred came in to do collage portraits, Guy Richards Smit directed Cosi TV, Rob Pruitt did private workshops for our kids at GBE.
Fabulous artists on staff all the time: Irgin Sena, Nobu Aozaki, Lisa Freedman, Guy Richards Smit, Cyndie Berthézène, RJ Supa, Karolina Sosa, Elisa Soliven, Claudia Cortinez, Zoë Greenbaum.
A 5:1 student/teaching artist ratio supports kids living in chronic poverty, homeless & domestic violence shelters, foster families and attending some of the city's most under- resourced public schools. We sing, we dance, we draw, we paint!
We're a special kind of family. and we're making real, substantive change. Watch!
Impact
Nearly 3000 children attending some of the city’s most disadvantaged Title 1 public elementary schools have participated in Time In as part of their normal school day since 2006
100% of one 3rd Grade class passed their NY State English Language Assessment in the first year of our signature Opera + Manga + Literacy program, Arty Readers!
School proficiency rating quadrupled from 6%-24% over three years thanks to Time In
Time In was instrumental in getting a partner school off the list of failing schools!
Based on New York City’s Blueprint for the Visual Arts standards, 96% of Opera ‘N Art students (Pre-K-2nd grade) draw at a 2nd grade level, 93% paint at a 5th grade level, and 92% produce collage/mixed-media work at an 8th grade level.
Classroom teachers report that with Time In as part of their school day, abstract reasoning, motivation and creativity all increased dramatically.
Every participating DOE teacher surveyed agreed that they had developed greater ability to teach the visual arts, increased their knowledge of opera, and, thanks to Time In, were able to see their students from a new perspective, Time In’s unusually strong, 5:1 teaching artist to student ratio and pedagogical approach of close mentoring allows children to connect with others who can teach them ways to express the emotional experiences that are common in the lives of children raised with the stresses of poverty, abuse, undeveloped love and emotional exhaustion. (Dr. Janet Jackson)
“The stories about the magic of the Time in Children’s Arts Initiative’s Opera ‘N Art Program are endless.
Its accelerating impact on every aspect of a young child’s development (critical thinking, language and communication skills, creativity, social and emotional growth) is priceless!”
What we’re doing now!
Creating a replicable, single-school arts-immersive intervention at PS197 in Harlem called 20-20.
An 8 year, super arts-integrated curriculum for 400 kids/week from the day they enter school at age 3 until the day they graduate in Grade 5.