Kids Heart of the Arts
Now accepting applications for the 2009 Summer
Arts Program, which runs from June 29 through July 31, 2009, daily from
8:30 AM to 1 PM. Children ages 5 - 14 are welcome to enroll. Tuition is
$360, plus a one-time a year per family registration fee of $25. Pay
plans are available on request. This program fills up fast so contact us
soon for an application or further information.
The Kids: Heart of the Arts program exposes students from five to
fourteen to the wonders of the performing arts and the connections
between them. The program runs from 8:30 AM until 1 PM each weekday. The
program usually runs daily from the last Monday in June to the last
Friday in July. Each student rotates through an age based four-class
schedule. The program seems to expand its artistic vision each year
without losing sight of its basic theatrical vision.
The program is focused on all areas of the arts, and although
performance is an ultimate theatrical goal, Kids: the Heart of the Arts
is not designed to prepare its students for a single performance.
Instead the students work on developing and exploring their ideas. We
focus on process not product. Students should experience the arts not
attempt to make specific art works.
Each day begins with a brief full group warm up. Our oldest group,
lovingly called the Bigs, each student leads one session of the warm up.
Students from our two oldest groups, from 11 to 14, will be running
lights and sound for the final performance as will be exposed to the use
of a digital lighting board and state of the art ETC instruments, which
they will focus for the performance.
The students write plays, learn the value of improvisation in the
theater, experience music performance and composition, enjoy the dance
component and participate in acting classes. This is an integrated
program with all the arts interacting with each other. The program has a
final showcase but there is no focus on the end result, instead we
guide the students toward an understanding of the work rather than the
applause. The building of community of artists and the collaborative
nature of the artistic process are the specific goals of the program.
As always our program includes some visiting guest who produce
workshops for the students. We have had a professional violinist who
shared her music along with technical innovation like looping sound to
create music with our students and staff. We have had an illusionist and
a comic book inker. There was a day of candy making where the students
made candy and then shaped it as sculpture into logs and roses. This
mixed the basics of sculpture presented in the art classes with an
unusual vision of that work. Again the candy making focused on creation
since every one of the candy creations were eaten.
The students invade the campus of the Montgomery County Court House
to share their art. They use sidewalk chalk to create huge murals and
bizarre graffiti all over the Court House property. The students perform
their improvisation scenes and musical compositions for passers by.
The program has spawned a full year program. There are four eight-week
sessions for students in acting, specifically improvisation and creative
dramatics.
The program draws students from the Montgomery and Delaware County
area from all racial and socioeconomic groups (30% minority). There is
no audition process and the program is kept small to allow attention to
the children's artistic and social needs. In our oldest group, 60% of
the students have been with the program since its inception. The program
has a high rate of return and we have been forced to increase the
overall program size to include both the new students and our returnees.
The teacher student ration on any given day is 10 to 1. Students pay a
low tuition to be a part of the program and each year we offer
scholarships to 20% of the attendees
