For the 15 Gateway to the Arts’ teaching artists who worked with Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Summer Dreamers Academy this year, the positive impact on the campers they taught continues to resonate. From the children’s embrace of new media and artistic concepts, to the development of warm relationships, Gateway’s teaching artists were inspired and rewarded by the children’s enthusiastic response to their new experiences in and with the arts.
The Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Summer Dreamers Academy is a five-week day camp designed to engage students in reading, math and exploration during the summer recess. Working with a host of organizations across the city in the second year of the program, this year Gateway had five different camp programs running at four locations.
Back for its second year, Center of Life’s K.R.U.N.K. Movement (Kreating Realistic Urban New-School Knowledge) took place at Pittsburgh Peabody, Allegheny Traditional Academy, South Hills Middle School and CAPA. Rising middle school students had the opportunity to focus on music, dance, film or writing/vocal performance (including rapping) as one of the four tracks of this multi-dimensional program. Designed to introduce students to career options in the entertainment field while building practical skills, improving confidence and using teamwork to create a professional product, the K.R.U.N.K camp produced seven original songs, four music videos and one broadcast-ready PSA. To celebrate these achievements, a dynamic concert event was held for family and friends at Brashear High School.
The other four Gateway to the Arts’ programs were developed for K-4 grade campers at Pittsburgh Phillips and Allegheny Traditional Academy.
Cello Fury’s Rockin’ Strings Camp at Pittsburgh Phillips was a phenomenal success. Students were exposed to various types of music including classical and rock, learned the basics of playing a string instrument, and improved their math skills through studying rhythm while finding new mentors in classically-trained cellists Nicole Myers, Ben Muñoz and Simon Cummings. At the culminating event, all campers performed Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” A stunning 95% of the children reported they were interested in continuing to study their instruments after the end of camp.
Camp Phillips was also home to the Story Boxes Camp. Led by teaching artist Christina Muzzie, this camp focused on storytelling through visual arts activities. Campers created a visual narrative to tell their personal story through collage and found objects. Children had fun manipulating the different materials in the art-making process and experienced a feeling of success in making their own story box, taking pride in talking about their personal narratives and sharing their choices and experiences.
Lights! Camera! Jazz!, a camp at Allegheny Traditional Academy, focused on exploring Pittsburgh’s vibrant cultural legacy through its history of jazz and photographs by Charles “Teenie” Harris. Another multi-dimensional program, campers learned aspects of photography, including composition, lighting, Photoshop and I-photo, experienced a performance by local jazz legends, Etta Cox & the Al Dowe Band, and learned the elements of jazz by performing with drums and rhythm sticks. A number of visual art-making projects and literacy-based sessions rounded out this exploration of Pittsburgh jazz and culture.
And finally, Attack Theatre’s Leap Into Action had campers exploring personal stories and experiences through movement. Attack’s guest artists led specialized workshops in the history and performance of Flamenco, African and Ballroom dance. Students enjoyed creating dances and reflected on their experiences though writing and drawing to help them retain their new knowledge.
When reflecting on their summer experiences, Gateway teaching artists consistently remarked on the capacity and progress of the children over the five weeks. The Attack Theatre teaching artists reported “one of the best highlights was when the students’ excitement led them to share their own creativity and ideas with the teacher and each other.” While teaching artists from the Lights! Camera! Jazz! camp appreciated the students ability “to learn and grow with media technology” and how one student picked up on the teaching technique, asking the artist “What do you see in the picture?”—the same prompt the teaching artists had used with them!
Nicole Myers from Cello Fury was impressed by the way that one student taught themselves vibrato on the violin, an advanced technique, simply by watching the teaching artists play throughout the camp, while Christina Muzzie took pleasure in the acceptance and interest students showed for the work created by their peers.
Overall, Gateway to the Arts is thrilled to have been part of the second year of this progressive Summer Dreamers Academy program. For more pictures from the workshops, visit our flickr set.