MIDNIGHT/SUN
St. Mel SmArt in the City
Culminating Event



Thanks to all the families who contributed to this fabulous potluck!



Artwork - everywhere.





Our musicians were outstanding.



The dancers made me cry.



Sneetches!

There was a whole lot of hard work and concentration these past two days, with all kinds of business thrown at the campers last-minute. And they were fabulous, I am so proud of every single member of the company, the whole performance went without a hitch. It was tremendous to see so many family members in attendance.

Tomorrow we are cleaning up and having a little farewell party. It has been a surprising, delightful, transformative summer.

Here we are. The St. Mel SmArt in the City artists and coaches.

I turned in the writing book to the printer today, I will pick them up tomorrow afternoon following the camp day. That's a major part of my - I mean their - work completed. I spent the past two weeks staying up late, typing the writers' stories, poems and plays. It's going to be a handsome, 48 page book.

This is the introduction:

MIDNIGHT/SUN

Our theme at St. Mel SmArt in the City this year is CONFLICT RESOLUTION. This is a phrase commonly used in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, and students are already familiar with the tools necessary to resolve their daily conflicts. How successfully they – or we, as their parents, teachers, coaches or guardians – are able to resolve these conflicts is another matter.

We have been told to resolve our conflicts with words, not fists. But first we need to understand those words before we can use them effectively. From the first day we broke down words into their roots, to divine their true meaning.

Conflict comes from the Latin, meaning to strike together. Resolution has numerous meanings, including to bring into focus, to break down, to decide, to dispel, to determine, to end.

There are numerous forms conflict can take – the self vs. the other, the self vs. society, person against person, racial or generational conflict, even the internal dispute one can have with oneself.

During our time together, the St. Mel SmArt in the City writers composed poetry, short stories and brief plays based on these forms of conflict. Their conflicts do not always have a “happy” resolution, or any resolution at all. But I saw in every young person during these five weeks the attempt to find resolution or peace in their world, and the strength to accept the outcome.

The day was spent cobbling together our culminating performance. It's a lot of hard work for a team of 8 to 10 year olds, but they are obviously very eager to present this work. The scenes themselves are just great, it's the transitions that need extra attention.

We finally located and assembled the big black curtain we were expecting from GLTF (it had been loaned to the Ingenuity Festival - but the only people who knew that were in tech in Idaho last week) and it is just the perfect width. Tomorrow Jodi and whoever she can get to assist will be putting the silhouettes the campers made onto it, and all over the space.

It's going to be a big day tomorrow, the last day before a performance can be filled with stress - or revelation.

It's a big, big week. The students are very patient. As we close in on the culminating event, there are awful long stretches with the entire company (35 campers!) in the gymnasium performance space at once. The air conditioner is loud, but necessary. In order to get over the din, we have moved from cowbell to whistle - to microphones!

Microphones are nice. My voice likes microphones.

It is thrilling to watch the kids do the things they have learned to do, especially the dancing, because it's just so much fun to watch kids dance. And they really enjoy it.

I am just about finished with the writing book - forty-eight pages! Those who have had the opportunity to flip through it have been very impressed. Everybody has something in there, from poetry to short stories to playscripts. It's a good read.

And a little dark. Can't be helped. The theme is CONFLICT RESOLUTION after all, it's ground we are familiar with in the GLTF School Residency program. Classic drama is rife with conflict, not all of it resolved. And these students are bright enough to know how conflict is supposed to be resolved ... and smart enough to know it doesn't always work out that way.

Welcome to the final week. It's gonna be a popper.

PROGRESSIVE ARTS ALLIANCE INNA HOUSE!!!

This quintet of hip-hop enthusiasts descended upon St. Mel's today for an awesome, morning, in-house field trip. A brief history of rap and hip-hop including hands-on work using turntables (excuse me - decks) rhymes by Suave and some b-boying (word up? never breakdancing) where some of our students handily impressed our guests with their *ahem* mad skills.

This was a fabulous compliment to last week's technology seminar at the Rock Hall, and let off some much needed steam. It has been a busy, busy week at SMART CAMP, heading into the homestretch.

In 1984 I took pictures of some breakdancers on a college campus, but the images were awfully static. I turned off the flash for this one. I like it a lot better.

Yesterday was dedicated to putting it together. Gary brought down the risers and the campers sat and watched each other present their work as we cobbled together scenes and dances and gave an impression of what next Thursday's event will be all about. We also threw some new scripts at them featuring their own words, creating new movement and lyrics pieces about their own take on the world of conflict and how to resolve it.

In addition to our visitors, Jodi and Rachel were on big-time today, revealing the black and white "tissue" shirts they had painted earlier in the week, as well as leading them through tie-dye this afternoon.

And when the day was done? Oh my, we were all ready to go home. It has been an active, expressive, explosive week. We have three days to put the finishing touches on our culminating event, and I truly believe it will be something to remember.

As God is my witness, Rachel was leading the campers in yoga today.

Jodi worked with the students on some colorful touches for the culminating event in the form of friendships bracelets, paper flowers and origami peace cranes. I have been leading them in stage combat for the big R&J fight scene. Bobby says he has the different instrument groups ready to perform as en ensemble. Site Coordinator Gary joined Tim in the drama class in some of the concentration exercises. It has been a hectically busy camp this week, and joyfully so.

Almost every short story has been typed up and edited, it's going to be a weekend of layout and publication for me, but it should be a pretty strong book. And fat.

Ladies and gentlemen, forgive me, I do not have time to select and upload photos right now, my time away from camp is time spent on camp - like so many of us, spending our at-home time preparing, reviewing, revising, etc. Like being a real teacher.

Sunday I spent about twelve hours typing up campers poems, metaphors, hyperboles, haikus - and short stories. Several of our pople are very talented, insightful young individuals, who, without doing any extraneous research, have created brief fictions based o worlds far from ours. One in particular is quite harrowing, a girl surviving a war in her homeland. I am wary of fiction that seems too imitative, but the voice is fresh and searing.

I am afraid that some may find some of our works a bit troubling - in delving into conflict resolution we are plumbing that gray area between happy and sad, but always with an eye toward the light.

Even now I just finished going over a new script based on a real-life altercation between former friends. Our playwright provides an "I wish this is the ay it turned out" ending, even thought I know that it didn't. These are pieces that will be incorporated into the book the kids will go home with at the end of camp - which is only next week. My.

MIDNIGHT/SUN is the now the title for our culminating event next Thursday, August 7. The theme if conflict resolution, and the students were provided with a list of contradictory word images they themselves had created through the metaphors they have written, and the majority selected "Midnight/Sun."

This is an apt title - some of the work begins in a dark place, before it moves into the light. Several campers have written short stories for the book we will publish, all coping with some crisis to be resolved. There are stories of sibling rivalry, absurd tales of crime fighting, even a war refuge tale. Just because they are young does not mean they do not have a keen awareness of the larger world around them.

Week four of our five week camp is dedicated to creating final art projects, and bringing existing projects into clear, sharp focus. I try when I can to get around and see what others are up to, but some aspects of the presentation are going to be a surprise even to me when we begin cobbling them together next week.

Drums? We have drums? Amazing.