Kyle Bancroft Keepin' Busy ... the documentary

Since graduating 8th grade at Washington Waldorf, I’ve been basically doing more of the same stuff, like soccer, art and music. And homework. But I did add something new – service projects; more on that later.

Georgetown Prep has been good. I’ve made some friends, mostly around performing for the “Oasis” nights or for coffee houses, and through the JV soccer team. I’ve been pulling good grades and have a GPA of 92. Honors Biology is an unexpected plus, and Spanish is still a major interest of mine. All of my teachers are “characters” and I learn something from each of them. Latin is a great class and so is Religion. Even English is interesting. The art teacher thinks I’m talented, but I keep telling him there are lots more like me at Waldorf. On the whole, I can’t complain. The atmosphere is very conformist, and fairly conservative; just what you would expect it to be. I sometimes wish there was a more liberal, socially diverse student body and more attention to the arts. That’s why I’m looking at the Georgetown Day School. I think GDS might be a better social fit for me, and I really like the curriculum they offer. When I visited GDS, the teachers seemed excited about what they were teaching, and none of the students looked bored at all. That says a lot about a school to me.

Art-wise, my work was included in “Pandamania,” the exhibit organized by the DC Commission on Arts and Humanities that sited panda sculptures all over DC. My work, “Dreamtime Walkabout,” was based on the Maori tradition of closing up shop and walking into the wilderness to get in touch with your Self in nature. I was going through confirmation at the time, so the theme fit my life. Then this past summer I designed 2 more sculptures for another public art competition. They were included in the MNC-PPC exhibit “Raise the Roof” and toured Prince George’s county for the past 6 months. One piece was called “Take-Out House,” which I modeled after a Chinese restaurant take-out container. The other was called ‘Throw-Away House.” I wanted to invent a new way of erecting fast, cheap and beautiful emergency houses. It was right around the time the tsunami hit Indonesia, and I was heading off to Tijuana, Mexico a few weeks later to build houses for local poor people there with the “Esperanza” service organization. So the ideas were in the front of my mind. As it turned out, my technique was way too labor intensive to actually put to use, and the final sculpture didn’t really look much like the one I planned. (It did look better though.) So, since making “Nesting Instincts” for the “Birds-i-View” competition in 2003, I guess I’ve gotten more experience with public art exhibitions. I also started painting images of the houses on the Hyattsville House Tour for use in the tour brochure. Summers have been filled up with art work.

I started playing more music on drums and guitar with two talented neighborhood friends, Luke Walsh-Mellet and David McKindley-Ward. We just performed at the Potter’s House in Adams-Morgan, DC, as a fundraiser for a service project we’re all undertaking this summer. The project is with the “Amigos de las Americas” organization. About 30 kids aged 16-21 are meeting every month in the DC area to be trained in the art of building latrines and bread ovens, teaching hygiene and leading groups of kids. Then we’ll all fly to Miami this spring and meet up with other US chapters, team up with a fellow student who we don’t already know and head off to a Latin American country for 8 weeks of work over the summer. To get involved, you have to speak Spanish fairly well and do a lot of fundraising. I’m looking forward to doing a creative project, hopefully in the Dominican Republic, although we don’t get to choose our destinations.

Of course, soccer still rules. I had a good season on the Prep JV team, playing mid-field and forward. (I’m putting my left-footed corner kicks to good use.) I’ve been playing with the Bethesda “Mavs,” a division I NCSL team, for the past three years. In addition to the regular season, we played many tournaments. I’m also playing tennis and rugby now.

There are some pictures on this website if you want to take a look at the art work. Thanks for checking out the site!

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