Arts-X-press is a summer arts immersion program for 7th and 8th grade students created by the Pacific Symphony in celebration of Cole Carsan St.Clair. 150 students are nominated by teachers throughout Orange County to come together for 5 days of creative exploration each summer. The program has two goals: 1) To expose students to all 5 performing and visual arts; and 2) To foster respect for and interest in each student’s individuality, talents, interests, and background.

Monday, July 21, 2014

Cat's Creative Expressions Group - Day 3

Greetings from Cat's CE Group! My amazing CE groupies are Arly, Arthur, Anthony, Emily S., Emily T., Jackeline M., Jackelyn T., Max, Sey, and Barrett.   We have been having a fabulous time in Creative Expressions.  We started out on Saturday with a fun ice breaker activity where the campers get a list of questions to ask each other, things like: "What is the most unusual food you have ever eaten?" and "If you could be a sea creature, which one would it be?"  The answers were really fun for everyone including me!   We also started writing a free form acrostic poem on the word Originality, which is our theme for the week.  We used letters from a variety of alphabets including the Butterfly Alphabet.  I see the students here as being caterpillars who transform quickly into butterflies.  I'm happy to report that the transformation is well under way. The results have been amazing. Here is Barrett's work:


One
Real
Insect
Grows
Inside
Nested
Away;
Locked
Inside
The
chrYsalis. 


Wonderful!


On Sunday, after having seen "Beauty and the Beast" at the Carpenter center the night before, the kids were asked to move the story to the 21st Century and create modern day characters based on appliances or household items that would be found in a home today.  Again, the campers produced some beautiful work. For inspiration, Arthur selected an item that can be found in homes now but dates back through the ages, a candle.  He wrote:


I would like to be a candle so I would be able to Light my way. 


It's simple but speaks volumes and is quite lovely.


Today, the campers worked in pairs to create collaborative poems based on pictures of ancient doorways.  Here's an excerpt of one by Max and Sey:


Door, door,
Old and drab,
Show me a road,
Show me a plan,
Door, door,
Seasoned by time,
Show me a reason,
Show me a rhyme...


To finish off our session today, we reflected back on the Gershwin Greats concert we saw last night.  The campers were given the titles of jazz or blues songs to use as inspiration for a poem or short story. The kids came up with some fantastic stuff in short order.  Here is a quick excerpt from Jackeline T. based on the Norah Jones song title "Come Away with Me":


Come away with me and you will
see all the mysteries that lay beneath
we will travel the world and see
what people have never seen before,,,


If I had more space, I would put up more work here but, suffice it to say, I am deeply moved and impressed and yes - inspired by the work all of my CE groupies have produced.  They are amazing young people who will be a positive force in our world. 


Today, we also started laying the groundwork for the Parent Presentation tomorrow night.  The campers are excited to share their work with you, Parents, so I hope you are all planning on being there.  You'll be thrilled by it!











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