School of the Performing Arts in the Richmond Community Jason Mraz

Schoolhouse Pop

Behind the scenes of Jason Mraz's new video at Binford Center Schoolhouse.

On a chilly Sunday afternoon in March, the streets of the Fan are mostly quiet. The sky is overcast. But within Binford Middle School, it'southward nothing only color, energy and creativity.

Teachers, parents and volunteers mill around with clipboards in the school's entry, checking their watches and chatting. There's a cheer from upstairs, and moments later, children every bit immature as nine pour through the hallway and into the auditorium.

They stream in by the dozens, snacking on bags of Goldfish, swigging from water bottles, prancing with their arms linked and squealing with excitement. Among the mob of kids, which range from elementary to college-age, is a smiling, relaxed, familiar Richmond face, sporting a lightweight hoodie and his signature fedora.

Pop star Jason Mraz is in town to movie his latest music video at Binford with the help of about 200 young people. The song, "Accept It All," is a catchy and melodious ode to a younger generation about to commence on life changes.

It has an affectionate, poppy chorus: "Well, hither's to the hearts that you're gonna break / Here'south to the lives that you're gonna change / Here's to the space possible ways to love you / I want you to have it."

"It's intended for those graduating," Mraz says of the newly released song. "Nosotros wanted to copy the graduation experience."

Mraz, a California-based singer and songwriter who grew up in Mechanicsville, makes it back to the Richmond surface area a couple of times a yr to visit family and volunteer with local arts programs. Equally an alumnus of the School of Performing Arts in the Richmond Community, or SPARC, he's donated coin and been involved with the organization for years. In 2012 he helped launch Alive Art, SPARC's special didactics plan that's inclusive of children of all abilities and talents. It culminates in a star-studded operation every June.

Mraz also participates in Turnaround Arts, an initiative championed by former beginning lady Michelle Obama that pairs creative professionals with struggling schools in an effort to foster arts education and better test scores. Turnaround Arts cites a 2015 study that found significant improvement in academic achievement, disciplinary referrals and attendance afterward three years of its airplane pilot programs.

"The idea is that nosotros just stay in communication with the school and help create opportunities, or just be a friend, or an ally, or a resource if that school needs some assistance," Mraz says. "Most schools, they know how to be schools. Turnaround Arts injects art into the curriculum in ways that maybe they hadn't idea of earlier, and the whole bespeak is to improve attendance, improve test scores."

In addition to the elementary schoolhouse Mraz adopted where he lives in San Diego, he became the Turnaround creative person for Richmond'south Binford Middle School last spring. He'south in good company, as well -- other Turnaround Artists include Conductor, Elton John, Whoopi Goldberg and Rashida Jones, the daughter of Quincy Jones.

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• Scott Elmquist

"For my own career, I just didn't want to accept to take a day task, and every bit a kid, I loved performing arts," Mraz says. "If I could be in a show, if I could dance, if I could act, if I could sing, I was the happiest.

"So when I became a successful artist and started donating to SPARC, I saw how my success was now contributing to new generations of artists that are on their way upward. I'thou sharing the wealth and I'm sharing the spotlight so that other kids can take their opportunity to feel happy. That'south really it. It's just about happiness."

And then when Mraz decided that the video should embody the energy and excitement of young performers dancing up and down the hallways of a school, filming it in Richmond was a no-brainer.

Mraz and his producers teamed upwardly with SPARC, Binford, Martin Luther King Jr. Centre School, Woodville Simple School, Communities in Schools, Boys and Girls Club of metro Richmond and Robinson Theater Community Arts Eye to recruit about 200 young people who honey existence on stage and could handle a rigorous ten-hour day of filming.

"We thought a collaborative trip the light fantastic-party-style video would exist fun," SPARC director Ryan Ripperton says. "The video represented a grand artistic vision from the first."

The immature performers did learn and rehearse a choreographed dance, which appears in pieces throughout the video. But for the most part, Mraz and Ripperton describe the whole day and the resulting video as wild, artistic and freeform.

"In the concluding video, it just comes beyond equally this raucous, wonderful, superfun kind of atmosphere," Ripperton says. "And that's not just a result of great editing. It really reflects the vibe of the day."

Despite the big number of kids participating, Mraz doesn't want anyone to feel like a backup dancer. And every bit his own drama teacher taught him when he was in high school, one person on set up is no more or less crucial than the next.

"When you lot meet a group of kids that are 150 kids strong it's easy to recall: 'Well I'm in the back, nobody can see me.' Then what I hope every kid gets is that at that place are no small roles and that they, each one, no matter where they are in the group, they contribute to the effect of this large dance," Mraz says. "It takes every unmarried person to give us the effect of filling up this blacktop."

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• Scott Elmquist

He applies this lesson to more than the performing arts.

"Everything in fine art requires collaboration," he says. "Even if you're a painter and you're the merely person that put paint on that canvas, yous're gonna have to collaborate with an art gallery, with an fine art dealer, with a customer. You'll accept to collab with a space, a wall, critics, all of information technology. So I recall learning that early on helps."

Gabby and Nyla Addotey, sisters among the 200 cast members today, tin can attest to that. When asked about their experience being on set up and filming, the girls light upwardly.

"Information technology was amazing," says Gabby, who'due south in fifth class. Nyla, a 7th-grader, adds that the day was filled with free energy and "everybody was simply and so excited."

The girls are involved with Live Art for the first time -- Gabby takes an afterschool class called Modernistic Movement, and Nyla attends Drums and Dance -- and their mother, Vivian Addotey, says she didn't hesitate when her daughters were selected to participate in the video.

"My girls are loving information technology, working with the various grouping they get to work with," Addotey says. "When they called to allow me know that my girls were selected to be a part of the video, it was just amazing. This is our first year so we had no expectations, we were but excited to exist a part of Live Art and SPARC."

In add-on to bopping up and down the hallways and dancing to Mraz'due south song -- which the girls estimate they heard at least 20-30 times throughout the day -- the performers get together outside for an "arts explosion," which is exactly what it sounds similar.

Stations around the blacktop are set up for a drum circle, hula hooping, ribbon dancing and foot painting. The giant circuslike ordeal as well includes the double-dutch squad from Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School and Host of Sparrows aerial artists.

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"Certainly anybody walking by would think:'What is happening in that parking lot?'" Ripperton says.

Mraz makes his style effectually to each station during filming, which Nyla says was one of the highlights.

"I think my favorite role was toward the terminate when we were almost done filming, and we were doing different activities, hula hoops and ribbons, and Jason came past with a guy and a camera," Nyla says. "And he interacted with basically everybody and started getting into the activities with us, and at the end of all that we just danced for fun. It was really awesome."

Gabby, 11, was function of the ribbon-dancing crew. "A camera came by and he started filming me doing the ribbons, so that was pretty absurd," she says. "Then Jason came over and he was doing the ribbons and the hula hoops, cause they were at the same station. So I thought that was actually cool that Jason was doing the same thing as me."

Nyla and Gabby have shared every moment of the twenty-four hour period with each other and their family, and weeks afterwards still recall every particular with bliss, finishing each other'due south sentences and smiling ear to ear. But they couldn't say a word to any of their friends.

"I was exhausted because information technology was on a Sun and we had to go to school the adjacent day," Nyla says. "I was actually tired and my friends were like, 'What did you practise,' and I'k like, 'A lot!'"

It hasn't been easy to keep the video a secret for two months, but now the video'southward out. "I kind of wait to go to school ane mean solar day and accept half of my class sew together to me like, 'Oh my gosh, I saw you on YouTube!'" Gabby says.

While much of the video focuses on the kids as they jump and sway to such lines equally, "And may you go a aureate star on your adjacent test, and may your educated guesses always be right," it too functions every bit a love song to Richmond.

With shots of Cary Street's cobblestones, the city's most vibrant murals and glimpses of the James River, Mraz shows his affection for the urban center he left years ago when he moved to California to effort to hack it as a singer.

Some things most Richmond haven't changed, similar the salad bar at Ellwood Thompson'south Local Market that he still frequents when he'southward in town. Just as the fine art, food and beer scenes go on to put Richmond on the map, Mraz finds more reasons to take pride in his hometown.

"Kids of my generation have grown up to go business organisation owners, teachers, artists, leaders in the community, and they've just brought a freshness to the city," Mraz says. "When I was growing upwards we didn't have RVA, and that'southward now where I tell people I'm going. It's something that every pocket of Richmond can get behind, and I similar that, it creates a unity."

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Source: https://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/schoolhouse-rock/Content?oid=8565533

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