Our first year of Creative Summer arts program is wrapping up. It has been so much fun for me to watch it come to life. I feel so lucky to have this amazing team delivering daily classes and inspiration to our children. It is an honor to have so many families trust me in providing this experience for them. And of course, the kids. Some of these kids I have known since I was their kindergarten teacher just a few years ago. I am humbled by watching them grow and take risks.
This Saturday, we invite friends and family to celebrate with us. The Fun Family Festival will be held from 10:00-13:00. If Creative Summer is designed to foster children’s imagination, then the Fun Family Festival is the platform for their creative expression. The works of art are created by children and are the result of workshops in animation, art, creative writing, dance, drama, journalism, photography, technology, and textiles. It is 100% made by kids for kids.
The Fun Family Festival is realized as part of the scholarship from the Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage.
We have some partners to thank for Creative Summer | Kreatywne Lato!
“Here is an opportunity to express the creativity and individualism unique in every person.”
-Priscilla Dewey Houghton, founder of Charles River Creative Arts Program, 1970
Thank you to the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, American Embassy, American Councils for International Education, and the JUKI corporation.
Creative Summer | Kreatywne Lato is based largely on the Charles River Creative Arts Program in the United States. They have been delivering inspiring arts experiences to children for 50 summers! Without the help and support of former director Toby Dewey and current director, Aaron Gelb, Creative Summer might not have launched. Thank you both!
I was a student and a teacher at the Charles River Creative Arts Program for many years. It was a life changing experience. It is a place where children can take risks, explore, and unlock their creative thinking. I hope our Creative Summer | Kreatywne Lato arts program will carry out those same principles and inspire the lives of young people here in Wrocław.
This is very exciting for me to share and announce with everyone. I’ve started a summer camp for arts here in Wrocław Poland. It’s happening! Kids are signed up. Talented teachers from around the world are coming to inspire us. In this post I’m going to share “why” I’ve put so much energy into this.
In primary school I liked being the class clown and making people laugh. But my teachers did not always appreciate my… energy. In fact I spent a lot of time in the principles office. Then I started to study Acting as a craft. This passion anchored me and helped me develop better skills at listening. If I wanted to express myself and have other people hear me, I had to figure out a way to manage my behavior and harness my energy.
The arts gave me confidence to be myself. This creative thinking made me adaptable and more empathetic. I believe we need more arts. I believe our children need more chances to think creatively and take risks. I believe the Arts Matter Now.
It feels big and meaningful to me. I hope you come see what we are doing.
Friday is the premiere of Midsummer Night’s Dream with Shakespeare Club. Ever since visiting Shakespeare’s birthplace with these 8-10 year old kids I have been inspired. Here are five resources that help feed my curiosity.
Shakespeare Unlimited podcast produced by the Folger Library. This is an amazing podcast! I never heard of it before this month. I have already downloaded back episodes with titles that jumped out at me. So far particular favorite topics include: Editing Shakespeare, Portraits of Shakespeare, Barry Edelstein: Thinking Shakespeare, Derek Jacobi, the George North Manuscript. My queue is long with this one.
The Tempest ipad App Heuristic Shakespeare has set the bar for how to make a this Shakespeare app. This is technology and culture blended perfectly. I love this app. There are so many components to this. The illustrations, the video production, Ian McKellen, the other actors, the Arden edition of the text, the contextual information filled with photos and illustrations, the character charts, the character map… I have never seen anything like it. I hope there will be more.
Sonnets iOS app – Ok, so not as wildly awesome as the Tempest app, but this app containing Arden editions (and notes) of all the Sonnets is pretty great as well. Video of actors reading each poem is a delight. I was particularly impressed to see Cicely Berry. She was the voice director at the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1969-2014. Her landmark book the The Voice and the Actor is a cornerstone for many voice training books and teachers who came after.
John Barton Playing Shakespeare (speaking of cornerstones.) John Barton’s Playing Shakespeare series is also regarded as foundational. He says in the video that he had been asked to write a book but he always felt that “each actor and his experience is worth many books.” That might be particularly true when you assemble Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, and Ben Kingsley. These old VHS tapes were hard to get a hold of when I was a teenager and there was a mysterious legend built up around them. I eventually found all of them in the Los Angeles Public Library. Buying a copy both then and now was and is expensive. Now you can watch all nine episodes on YouTube. Barton did eventually write a book based on these workshops, but to follow his advice, you should really witness these actors take on the role of “explorers or detectives.”
How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare by Ken Ludwig. This is an invaluable resource for me. I was teaching Shakespeare 20 years ago to children ages 11-15. But that seems like a lifetime ago. This book unlocks a lot of the old doors that I was exploring back then. When you think about it, before television and radio, all we had for entertainment was reading stories out loud to each other. This book is great because it makes Shakespeare approachable as read aloud material for families and adds elements of play. You can hear an interview where he explains his process and gives some other reading suggestions on another fantastic podcast the Read Aloud Revival.
Shakespeare Club presents A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Friday at 4:00pm and Saturday at 12:00pm at the American School of Wroclaw Library. The show is around 45 minutes and appropriate for All Ages. You can join the event by clicking here. Or you can join the Shakespeare Club group here.
I’m directing A Midsummer Night’s Dream with 8-10 year olds. It is a follow up to last year’s A Tempest. This year the young performers have really begun to develop their characters through gestures. They are also reading the play keeping their cues and blocking in mind.
Teaching
This final unit of IB Drama is pretty exciting and I am pleased with the Inquiry Statements and planning that has happened. MYP 5 students are really excited with The On Camera class. We will take a field trip to a casting director. Some students might even sign up to be on their talent roster.
Producing
Shakespeare Club took a learning holiday trip to Oxford, England. Each actor was accompanied by a parent. The itinerary was busy with visits and workshops to Pitt Rivers Museum, the Story Museum, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, RSC, and the Dahl Museum. The trip was amazing.
I was a principal actor in a feature film. I was so relaxed on set. Everyone was doing their job, and were good at it. This is the director’s first feature. But he has shot lots of commercials, videos and television. And he had the award winning Pawel Edelman as D.P. setting up the frames. I am looking forward to see how it looks.
Teaching
Grade 4/5 students started a literary Journal. The kids came up with an awesome name Disco Attic. “Reading is like a party, but in your head.” #quoteofthemonth
Producing
creativesummer.org has finally been published. I’m telling the world about it. There are still lots of tweaks. It is not a perfect website, but it happened fast and it was quite affordable. I’ve created a “Now page” that lists the tools I used to start building the Aardvark Arts brand this year and its on-line presence.
Update in 2025: Creative Summer has been running for 9 years now and we have expanded to include a young group called the Playmakers for 5-7 year olds.
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