A day at Lee Expressive Arts Elementary School is unlike a day in any other elementary school in the Columbia Public School District. At Lee Elementary, students learn and practice expressive arts such as dance, drama and playing keyboard and ukulele. Lee has 80 minutes allotted for art and music, instead of the 50 minutes that other Columbia Public Schools have.
“We use the same curriculum that Columbia Public Schools does, but the art team works with teachers to integrate art and music into that curriculum,” says principal Karen Burger.
The emphasis Lee puts on expressive arts allows all 313 students to come together and put on the eighth annual Silent Film/Silent Art Auction at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Missouri Theatre.
Every year, Lee chooses a Buster Keaton film to screen. This year’s film will be “Go West.” The Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra, out of St. Louis, will score music that it will play to go along with the silent film.
Local artists donate work for the silent art auction. Event coordinator Theresa Shettlesworth contacts artists to bring in different types of artwork.
“It’s really great to see local artists and community members come out and enjoy the event and interact with our school,” Shettlesworth says. “It is really a unique event in the way that everybody comes in for one purpose, but they come from so many different walks of life.”
The Lee School students also contribute to the auction. The fifth-grade students make and sell silk scarves, and the fourth graders make a stained glass window in their art classes, which will be sold, as well.
“We also have an artist who is a grandparent of one of our students that did a beautiful piece of artwork of kids playing in the front of Lee School, and we have made copies of those,” Burger says. “Those will be on sale, too. There will be a lot of things on sale that aren’t necessarily made by kids this year but that we have depicting the school.”
The school’s choir will perform at the event. There will also be a drumming presentation. Every student contributes in some way to the event.
“It is just a day full of art and music, and it goes with the film, so it is a very exciting afternoon,” Burger says.
The Lee School film club, which is in its first year, produced three short silent films that will be shown at the event.
“Columbia Access Television actually came in and filmed the students and helped produce the silent films,” Burger says. “The kids are going to be very excited to watch their own silent film.”
Burger says she is looking forward to the community coming in for the Silent Film/Silent Art Auction.
“This is one time where it’s not just Lee, it’s the community downtown,” Burger says. “We have a lot of people stop in and share the artwork and the joy of that and watch the silent films, so it’s an exciting community event where anyone can come in and participate.”
