Thursday, July 30, 2015

Broadway and Beyond

I missed a week, I am so not happy about this..I could not get the internet at my house all this week, so I could not write my blog last week, but I am here now!!

Last week was a camp called "Broadway and Beyond".  I had a boy who was six, and four girls, one seven year old,  one nine year old, one thirteen year old, and a five year old.  I had my assistant as well in this class, singing along with the others, and encouraging them daily with all the songs we practiced.  I found it a challenge to teach kids of such different ages.  However, we had a great time in the end.  The first day we got to know each other, and practiced vocal technique, and listened to different Broadway songs and enjoyed trying different songs.  At first, everyone was shy around each other, and didn't really want to sing solo songs.  I have taught this Broadway camp before, however, and I was not discouraged one bit.

The second day, I found a special song for each one of them.  The five year old girl got "The Perfect Nanny" from "Mary Poppins".  The seven  year old girl picked "A Spoonful of Sugar" which was perfect for her!  She practiced it many times at home, and memorized it and sang it more confidently each day that we worked on it.  The nine year old girl chose "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" from "My Fair Lady".  The thirteen year old girl chose "For Good" from "Wicked".  And I chose "Wells Fargo Wagon" from "The Music Man" for the six year old boy.  I knew all these songs would be great in a recital, because they were very diverse, and I chose three other songs that we performed all together.  The first song was "Give My Regards to Broadway" the second one was "Summertime" and the last song was "Defying Gravity".  The children all enjoyed singing these songs, especially "Defying Gravity", from "Wicked" what a great song that is!

There was one problem, which was the five year old was struggling with stage fright and would forget words when she got up to the stage and began to sing.  We worked on it so much, and finally, we realized that if her sister stood in the back and cued her with movements helping her with the words, then she was ok.  She triumphed, it was a great moment when she got through the song for the audience without any difficulty.

One special thing I did with the kids was to make sure they knew the plot of the musical while they were learning the songs.  So we read all the plots and discussed the history of them.  One girl told the audience that "My Fair Lady" was over fifty years old!  I think it was enjoyable for them to really understand the complicated plots to these shows, and it was also great for them to learn about the history of Broadway itself.  Their singing was more informed, because they knew what the songs were all about.  I also had them tell the audience a little bit about what was happening in the story, so they could center themselves in the plot before they sang.  We had a small audience, because we had a small number of participants, but they all sang right on pitch, smiling, really thinking about the character while they sang, and I was thrilled with the performance!  Onward and upward, next week is "Princess Academy" and "Piano lab"  ..learning to curtsey and smile and wave like a princess in the morning, and play the piano in the afternoon.  Very exciting!  Hope you have a great weekend all!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvWpMN4XDbc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXzFOHrycHg

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Summer Camp II - Get Up and Dance

This week I have been working with four children, all girls, but all different ages and experience levels.  One girl is nine, two are seven and one is five.  Their bodies are all very different too, and each has a different concept of what the time here should look like.  These girls were very self-conscious at first, and I was troubled about how to go about opening up their creative movement "flow" as it were.  I asked each one what they wanted to get out of the camp:  "My mother signed me up" was the regular answer.  I had my work cut out for me.



We spent the first half of the first dance day doing spontaneous interpretive dancing with songs they mostly picked out.  Then, they had a snack.  The spontaneous interpretive dancing even wasn't that great, because they were so self-conscious.  When snack was finally over, I asked if I could help them make up some movements for "Somebody I Used To Know"..as soon as I put chairs in a row, and began with some movements on the chairs, all four of them began to get ideas!  It was a miracle.  By 3pm we had one dance almost completely choreographed.  I was relieved and inspired for the next day.


I realized that if they had props for each song, it would go much smoother.  So- Scarves for "I Hope You Dance", sunglasses for "Best Day of My Life", chairs for "Somebody I Used to Know", flowers for "I Have a Dream" from "Tangled" and then all our strength moves for "Titanium".  Today is Thursday, and we have been practicing each dance every day and making each one more graceful and beautiful each day.  They have learned about space, and timing, and rhythm, as well as shapes with your body, and how to create a dance using the music and the lyrics as a guide to the movements.
I look forward to the performance tomorrow, because I know these four girls have come a really long way since Monday.  I know they have learned an appreciation for movement and space, and have expressed themselves in a new way.  I hope they will continue to dance, just like the song, for the very rest of their lives! All of you should dance too as much as you can, I must go, I am off to dance class myself!


Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Beach Bum Theater

This week I am teaching a camp for 4 to 7 year olds called Beach Bum Theater.  It is through the recreation department here in York, Maine.  I have ten children, very enthusiastic participants.  Who at this age doesn't love to act things out and play pretend?  Also, who doesn't love to dress up in costumes at this age?

We began the camp the first day by writing a list of their favorite things, and their favorite things to do.  Many of them love princesses and unicorns.  Many of them love to swim and to go to the beach, so that is why we write a play about the beach.  What will happen on the beach, who will we encounter, who will be the hero, the heroine, who will interact with whom?  They also said they liked playing and they liked to be with their friends.  They liked stories and learning new things.

We decided since we have a big poster of a castle, that there will be three different princesses that get captured by an evil king, to the great chagrin of the well spoken, and morally correct queen.  The children wrote the script with my help and the help of my trusty aid, Ali.  They decided what parts they wanted to play, and thankfully, only three out of the nine girls wished to be princesses, so we have Rapunzel, Cinderella and Anna.  We also have the queen, and her King, the one boy in the camp.  We also have the evil lobster princess who works with the evil king to capture the other princesses.  We have a unicorn, a Merida from the movie "Brave" and two different dogs, one who helps Merida and one who belongs to the queen and has great wisdom, especially at the end of the play.

Many of these children are beginning readers, or are pre-readers, so we highlight their parts in the script but then have them learn their lines mostly by ear, by practicing the play over and over.  Today it was particularly hot and humid so we practiced the play twice and then sat on the cool floor making invitations to our play for this Friday morning.  Tomorrow we will run the play several times in the room where we will perform it.  The children all brought costumes today, one little girl had made a horn for her unicorn costume and a tail as well.  They are all quite creative and wonderful, so happy to be acting things out, dancing along with the musical breaks, and telling the audience their names and parts at the end of the play.


 This is one of my favorite camps that I do because it has the children writing, imagining, working with structure of a story, drawing, figuring out their costumes, memorizing, creating a character, projecting their voices and using their voices in new ways.  That is a lot to happen in one week when they are only four to seven years old, but if you start them at a young age, who knows where they can go with it?