Further Details

Leadership Institute, Northern California School of the Arts’ student council of Performing Arts Corps students, was founded to teach student-artists leadership and business skills, promote civic engagement, and in the spirit of artist-activism, give back to our community. Leadership Institute is comprised of several student-led committees, which are managed by the Leadership Chair.

Social Committee: Runs the Performing Arts Corps Mentor system, which provides each younger Corps student with an older student who they can depend on for advice, friendship, and support.

Event-Planning Committee: Plans and runs all Corps community events like cast parties, viewing parties and dinners, cabaret shows, holiday parties, and showcases.

Marketing Committee: Creates social media marketing posts for NorCal SOTA’s varying programs (Performing Arts Corps, School Programs, Summer Camps), upcoming shows, and cast spotlights. Creates Marketing campaign for Big Day of Giving.

Community Outreach Committee: This was my committee before I was Chair :-) Plans and runs a philanthropic effort and/or fundraiser along with every show NorCal SOTA produces (e.x. partnership with Effie Yeaw Nature for Lion King Jr.)

Beyond the committees, the whole Institute collaborates to research, propose, and develop the season at NorCal SOTA, as well as goals and areas for further development of the organization.

In the form of weekly news quizzes, discussions of current events, and the role of theatre in activism, Leadership Institute teaches students that good theatre, which reflects, critiques, and instills empathy, impacts communities deeply. What I love about Leadership Institute is that along with all these discussions of current events, social issues, and civic engagement, we have the opportunity to give back to our community.

• Leadership Institute volunteers for civic responsibilities like closing ballot drop boxes and registering community members to vote.

• Beyond just discussing the issues we will inherit, and raising awareness of those issues through the pieces we put on, we make a tangible impact. Rather than just putting on a show like Sweeney Todd, for example, which deals with poverty, incarceration, and mental illness, we work with local organizations that help the members of our community which face those issues. Our chosen partner Kelli’s Cookies, which provides job training and mentorship to at-risk foster youth, gives support to those who are impacted by these issues.

As the 2023 Leadership Chair, I led discussions and quizzes every week on global current events, issues, and their relation to our artistry. I managed the different committees, and often had to step in and help with organizing workshops, fundraisers, events, and proposals. The Leadership Institute was a wonderful group, and I am so lucky to have been able to work with such dedicated, passionate, and loving people in my time in the Corps.

My mother, Donna Sangwin, founded ReCreate in 2008, when I was three years old, to divert usable waste from local businesses and individuals. With these reclaimed treasures, ReCreate brings the community Hands-on Educational programs and our Craft Thrift Store and Studio.

As I was surrounded by, and frequently helping out at ReCreate my whole childhood, much of my character and my values were impacted by the non-profit. Sustainability and eco-friendly practices are vitally important to me, as is community advocacy and access to creative expression.

Growing up as a guinea pig and “Youth Artistic Advisor” for ReCreate’s programs, I can attest first-hand the importance of artistic enrichment. I would not be the creative, artistic, flexible, and proactive individual I am today if it weren’t for the programs at ReCreate. The hard work I devote to my job at ReCreate is rooted in the impact it had on me when I was a child.

My volunteer work with ReCreate began in developing age-appropriate crafts when I was a child myself, and volunteering to sort donations at the store whenever I could. ReCreate’s Creative Studio, with it’s unusual materials and endless creative scope, was my favorite place. As long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be engaged in the organization, and to contribute to the mission. In 8th grade, I planned and executed the first Girl’s STEM Maker Night, which was a tremendously successful blast— STEM activties with corresponding historical women STEM trailblazers, and the chance to Q+A with women STEM role models. In my current roles as a Creative Studio Team Member and Education Specialist in our school programs, I continue to develop curriculum and programs further.

My greatest skill is likely my ability to research— both effectively and rigorously.

In school, I was lucky enough to have some research-oriented classes that helped me build my love of research. In AP Art History, I learned to comb through JSTOR articles, news sources, and excessive textbook entries. The sources in AP Art History trained me as a quick, efficient reader, able to find the meat of things among the hubbub. To learn details that weren’t included in public sources, we would reach out to living artists or archaeologists for further detail, and sometimes there would be a response. I regularly compiled 10-20 pages of research per assignment— developing understanding far beyond the standard.

This past year, in IB World Religions and IB Language and Literature I enriched my skills in research, as well as report-writing. In the International Baccalaureate curriculum, students periodically conduct investigative and analytical reports. As I wasn’t an official IB student, and I was taking the second half of two-year courses, I got to push word limits and guidelines in the projects I took on. In IB World Religions, I conducted my Internal Assessment, a 1,900 word critical research paper, on the significance of Aniconism in Islam.

According to Dr. Abdullah Bin Hamid Ali, Islamic avoidance of icons in media has deterred “the psychologically debilitating effect it can have on people when every hero and good person is represented as a white person or similarly light skinned individual.” In this view, Islamic aniconism protects Muslims from whitewashing that would mis-represent Islamic holy figures which, historically, would have been “predominantly brown and black” (Ali).

For my HL Essay, an extended critical analysis, I wrote on literature in which “oppressed” groups commit acts of oppression, and how that builds complexity in understanding of marginalized groups.

Although the Machiguenga were, as a society, oppressed, they were not victims by nature. To view a group primarily through their oppression takes away their humanity and agency, and reduces them to their relation with their oppressors. Through depictions of intersectional oppression, The Storyteller contributes to an understanding of the Machiguenga as varied and contradictory as the world of complex systems and rhetoric in which oppression pervades.

I’ve never served as a dramaturg, but I have compiled research and contextual structure in my own roles and studies of the pieces we have worked with. When we worked on A Midsummer’s Night Dream in school, I contextualized the Indian Boy, ward of Titania, within then-contemporary instances of exoticism and imperialism.

As such, the ownership of the Indian Boy not only reflects marginalization present elsewhere in the play, but also the European sentiment of domination over Eastern cultures, which was developing at this time. The exotic, mysterious Indian Boy represents European imperialism coupled with the belittling, mystifying European perception of Indian culture. If Titania’s ownership of the child is reflective of exoticization of Indian culture, then Oberon’s desire to own the child is reflective of European motivations to imperialize.

For my role as Nellie Lovett in Sweeney Todd, I composed my “Nellie Bible”, a compilation of historical images and research that rationalized and put in context Nellie’s descent into poverty, obsession, and cannibalism. I wrote on my dramaturgical research into Nellie’s world in this blog post.

When I was in Radium Girls as Grace, I dug through books and articles about the Radium Girls. other then-contemporary labor issues, and how the Radium Girls changed safety and labor standards. This work, along with that of our wonderful dramaturg, greatly informed my development of Grace.

I produced the preliminary proposal for a summertime student-led production of The Crucible, and I’m slated to act as dramaturg and producer for the show Summer 2024 :-) I dove into the psychological, magico-religious, political, and historical context of The Crucible, and the era of the Red Scare which the play was based on. I am so excited to work on this show!