The year 2000 found Gina Martino looking for new challenges. As a certified teacher, with experience in the school system and recreational settings, Gina wanted to find new ways to use her skills in teaching all abilities and age groups. When she spotted an ad in Calgary’s Child magazine for a new educational program at the Jubilee, Gina phoned Jubilee Executive Director Susan Bennett, who invited her to submit a proposal for a teacher’s workshop. That early success eventually led to a full-time role for Gina as Manager of the Jubilee’s growing roster of community and school-based education programs. As those programs expanded to include a visual art component, Gina brought in long-time teaching colleague and practicing artist Carney Oudendag to assist.

Today, Gina facilitates curriculum-based programs for students in grades 3 to 12, which include a newly established Job Shadowing program for high school students, along with an educational series of monthly events aimed at the retirement community. Gina designs programs that use the Jubilee’s resources to explore topics in the visual, performing and literary arts. Gina says she enjoys the creative challenge of developing and implementing new ideas, of finding ways to motivate students and reach a wide range of intelligences, in a way that stays connected to school curriculum. She says, “It can’t just be a fun day. It has to be relevant and connected to their lives.”

As a practicing and exhibiting watercolour artist with 20 years’ experience as a teacher in public, private and community schools, Carney Oudendag says her role at the Jubilee taps into her passion for doing art with students, and lets her introduce them to “that beautiful building that’s essentially theirs.” Whether she’s leading a still-life sketching class on the Jubilee stage, making Iroquois masks, or explaining the massive abstract paintings and tapestries in the Jubilee’s permanent art collection, Carney says it all comes back to the venue. “Unless they have experience with their parents coming to performances, they might not even be aware that the Jubilee is here.” Carney says she especially enjoys exploring art as “another form of communication that runs the gamut from bizarre to traditional.”

Both Gina and Carney share the goal of connecting individual projects with larger areas of study. So, still-life drawing becomes an exploration of the effects of light and shadow; and making aboriginal masks, turtle rattles and shields leads to a study of narrative and storytelling, drama and dance. And for older students, Job Shadowing allows them to explore potential careers in lighting, sound design or stage management, by working alongside professionals in mounting full-scale public productions. As Gina describes it, “Our educational programs offer a multitude of arts and technical experiences that ultimately culminate on the Jubilee stage.”