The Shops
The Beat Shop
is a music production studio where students explore music of all forms using live instruments, computer software, and recording equipment. While mainly focusing on the foundations of hip-hop, students express themselves through writing lyrics, creating beats, engineering tracks, and playing instruments in order to make original music. Students in the shop form their own bands, working together to offer their unique voices and strengths in the creative process.
The Style Shop
is a fashion design studio where students create their own clothes and accessories by sewing, screen printing, and using design software. Through exploration of form, color, and pattern, students find their own individual style and point of view towards visual language. In learning about the history and power of clothing and fashion as an art form, students in the shop become oriented towards being cultural producers, finding a strong sense of self through their own ideas and creativity.
The Dance Shop
is a professional dance studio. Students will learn the fundamentals of modern dance and movement. Students learn how to prepare their bodies for proper dance technique, some history of dance, and choreography. Students are encouraged to build off these foundations to create their own expression through movement.
The Media Shop
is a professional visual studio equipped with powerful iMac computers and Adobe Creative Suite. Here students learn the fundamentals of graphic design, merchandise design, and motion graphics. Students learn some of the powerful, cutting edge techniques used in all modern media. We encourage our students to use these skills to tell stories. Media arts can be one of the most powerful forms of expression in today’s world of social media influence.
Workshop Houston Programs
Workshop Houston is a direct-learning arts education institution built around a well-tested pedagogy of culturally specific arts-based project learning. In its professionally-outfitted studio/classrooms – Beat Shop (music production), Dance Shop (dance and movement), Media Shop (video production and digital media), and Style Shop (fashion design and sewing) – youth work to master technical skills, develop a meaningful creative practice, and gain academic confidence. Workshop Houston is focused on centering youth voice and emancipatory processes as the key to achieving the organization’s long-held values. Recently this focus has resulted in a program evolution of hiring program graduates as near-peer instructors and youth leaders. This new initiative integrates Workshop Houston’s direct-learning arts programs, youth voice and leadership development, and the economic support that youth from low-income families need in order to focus on their education and personal growth.
Workshop Houston’s after school and summer programs on its Third Ward campus include recurring Starter Courses for each shop, taught by near-peer instructors supported by adult teaching artists. Starter courses introduce youth to Workshop Houston’s culture and teach the basic skills of the shops’ artistic mediums. These are followed by a rotating series of Intermediate Courses that dive deeper into technical skills and Elective Projects that push students to experiment creatively. In addition to on-campus courses, Workshop Houston leads artist residencies at nearby schools as an educational services vendor, and organizes regular public events to showcase student works and the talents of community-based artists.