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ARTIST SHOWS STUDENTS THE BIG PICTURE
Linda Kane, Register Staff Writer

Kids cheered furiously Friday at Capitol View Elementary School when they saw images of a 200-foot-long cougar.
Using their bodies, the children made the design the previous day with artist-in-residence Daniel Dancer of Oregon.
The cougar was outlined in black, and was shown jumping over an orange sun.

"It was really cool," said fifth-grader Harlie Hopkins, 11. "We got on our hands and knees and kind of laid down. It took about an hour. It was big. It used everybody in the whole entire school."

An estimated 900 students and staff were needed to make the larger-than-life image on the practice field at East High School.

"He said, 'don't move,' and took a bunch of pictures and then we could relax," Harlie said.

Fourth-grader Giovani Blanco, 10, said he thought they were going to make a lion, but the cougar was "cool" too.

"It was so hard," he said. "We were laying down and had to wait there for half an hour."

Dancer was at Capitol View, 320 E. 16th St., last week to teach students about what he calls "Art for the Sky." He said the art of making large formations on the ground dates back 4,000 years. He got the idea of making the live images after working with an outdoor photographer who used a tractor as a paintbrush. Dancer started bringing people into the artist's images to give them color. Dancer said the practice allows students to understand that things don't always make sense on the ground.

"You have to see things in the big picture," he said.

Dancer formed the cougar by first drawing it on a sheet of grid paper. On the field, each square from the grid equaled 14 feet. He chose the cougar because it's an animal that can be found in Iowa, and he'd always wanted to form one.

"It's a good animal to teach the children here about wildness," Dancer said.

As the students lined up in formations on the ground, Dancer climbed into the bucket of a firetruck and was lifted 100 feet into the air to take photos. The children wore donated clothing to form a design inside the cougar and for part of its intricate face. Dancer said the project teaches students about collaboration, and called the artwork "managed chaos."

"We go through life and we might have a big idea, but if we can't learn to collaborate with other people we can't pull it off," he said. "Part of the big picture is learning to see through the eyes of all beings, whether it's a cougar or a forest or a prairie or a river or a hummingbird. We need to understand what all those beings need, and that's the best way we can have a healthy planet. We're all connected as one."

Third-grader Doua Vang, 8, was part of the sun. She said the formation didn't look like anything on the ground, but was "cool" from the sky. She also said it was a bit chilly Thursday afternoon when they made the cougar.

Mary Landeros, also an 8-year-old third-grader, said it was a fun project.

"When people were on the ground it didn't look like nothing but people sitting down," she said, "but if you go up high, then it was a cougar."

Second-grader Carolyn Lowery, 8, wore a black T-shirt and was part of the cougar's outline. She called the project neat because "we could make a beautiful shape."

Lessly Arzola, 9, a third-grader, was part of the sun.

"It was cool and it was fun because when Daniel Dancer got up and showed us the picture, it looked like a real cougar," she said.

See some of Dancer's work at www.inconcertwithnature.com.

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