To celebrate its tenth anniversary, Brolly Arts presented Independent Voices, an eclectic offering of dance, music, visual arts, theatre, film, and video, in which Seattle-based kite artist Greg Kono was invited to participate. Ever watchful for opportunities to support educational outreach through kite making, The Drachen Foundation took advantage of Gregs visit to Utah to sponsor several workshops for students of different ages. Greg led art students at Westminster College in making koma dako, and taught elementary students at two schools to make Trpanier Trapezoids and Kono Butterfly kites. He also revisited third- and fourth-grade Open Classroom students with whom he had worked in October 2005. After having made small childrens kites during an El Da de los Muertos project, the students progressed to designing and making large Guatemalan-style kites, which Greg helped them to spar.
The site for Gregs exhibit at Emma Eccles Jones Conservatory on the campus of the college called on all his skills as an exhibit designer as well as a kite maker. Although the open stairwell was a welcoming space for his signature fish kites, Greg was not permitted to suspend themor anythingfrom the ceiling. Instead, he designed a lightweight armature of exhibit poles arching from the top of the stairwell. The fish swam from the armature in an aquarium of the air.
Brolly Arts is an umbrella organization (hence the name, British slang for umbrella) that creates forums for artistic collaboration and experimentation. DF has supported educational components of two previous projects by the organization. In fall 2004 Brolly Arts presented Contours, a multidisciplinary interpretation of the birds of the Great Salt Lake. DFs support enabled more than 800 elementary school children to make bird kites with Tasmanian kite designer Robert Brasington as they learned about the lakes ecosystem. In fall 2005 DF contributed Gregs kite making services to students at eleven schools, who took part in a broad-based community exploration of Day of the Dead traditions using kite kits commissioned by DF from kite makers in Guatemala.
