#66: Peter Atsu Adaletey: What If?

Peter Atsu shared how he went from creating shadow theatre in his home for the children and families he grew up with to working on international theater productions and with ITAC (International Teaching Artist Collaborative). It was so inspiring hearing how he’s spread his passion for the arts not only into schools, churches, and communities throughout Ghana, but also through mentorship of younger teaching artists. He talked about his teaching approach splitting from the school system’s top-down methods and empowering students in co-creation. He shared how students respond and become so engaged as “that’s the approach they’ve been crying for.” Yet it remains challenging to convince schools of the need for both student choice and voice in learning and for the arts integrated into the school day - a challenge Atsu continues to take on.

He also talked about the strain COVID placed on him when his programs were all shut down. He has worked hard to continue teaching via zoom and has continued creating, saying “art is my breath.” It was beautiful and heartbreaking hearing how expression through his art forms has helped him cope with the challenges of this time and how resilient he has been, not only shifting the way he works, but also helping other teaching artists learn to use zoom and other digital tools. A big challenge has been getting the equipment needed to be able to do this. We looked into crowdfunding platforms and are working on setting something up that is available in Ghana allowing donations from all over the world. I will be sharing links when they are available. In the meantime, you can also reach out to Atsu to support his work directly.

One of the driving forces he shared was curiosity and always questioning - asking "what if?" He talked about the power in this question, the freedom in thinking outside of the systems we know.

Blog post with images and links: https://www.teachingartistpodcast.com/episode-66-peter-atsu-adaletey/

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On Youtube: Atsu Adaletey

Peter Atsu Adaletey on Medium

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