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.

Today the campers at St. Mel's visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

As last year, we first received a fascinating multi-media introduction to an aspect of rock music history led by RRHoF&M director of education, Jason Hanley.

This year the theme is Four Tracks to Break Beats, a lesson on how the music inspired new technology which inspired new music, with virtual stops at Sun and Abbey Road Studios, and a hilarity-inducing presentation of Depeche Mode's Just Can't Get Enough video.

Ah. Those were the days.

Following the presentation, we had about an hour to tour the museum. We split into six groups, I had a quintet of 10 to 12 year-old girls. This was fascinating to me for a number of reasons - I honestly have not spent much time with kids who actually care about music which predates them, so it was thrilling to have them tell me they wanted to be sure to see Elvis, the Rolling Stones and the Sun Studio display.

It was also a great deal of fun to have answers for all of the bizarre questions they were asking me about the display, or to just show off.

"Look! A gecko!"

"Actually, children, that's the Lizard King."

Our visit took up most of the day, returning in time for lunch, an energized de-brief of all the things we saw, and creating "thank you" notes for our hosts. Jodi had a simple, brilliant plan - we'd stacked up the music magazines Bobby and I had brought in, and Jodi said the campers could use any of the art supplies they wanted ... except scissors. They made some edgy looking letters!

Oh, and Sheff bumped into Dave Grohl at the Rock Hall with his family. For real. An actual rock star in the Rock Hall.

I am constantly amazed by the power of the human voice. OPERA CLEVELAND visited St. Mel's today, with a presentation of songs and arias from Gershwin's PORGY & BESS. There were some old friends in the ensemble, and Paul Gurgol even did a soft shoe on the gymnasium floor.

The call for the afternoon - SWORDFIGHTING. We are hoping to create a full-on melee for the opening of our final presentation on conflict resolution. There must be a conflict to resolve, right?

Things are flying fast and furious at St. Mel's. For all intents and purposes, I am done providing and more new instruction in writing, and by that I mean I have crammed these kids heads with so many new words and writing styles, I have got to pull back. I think I have entirely worn them out.

HOWEVER, not before teaching them how to write a SONNET. We even watched a short snippet of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen (that would be Professor X and Magneto, to you) reading samples of Shakespeare. Yes. I made them watch Shakespeare on video. And I'd do it again.

In addition to revisiting previously written work, I have begun working more closely with Tim, coaching scene work. The campers are developing a dynamite scene from A RAISIN IN THE SUN and I started staging the opening brawl from ROMEO & JULIET. In addition to our visit from OPERA CLEVELAND tomorrow, we will be teaching basic combat choreography ... though Tim got an excellent start just guiding the kids through staged face slaps. You should see some of the realistically painful reactions these students can make!

And then Jodi got started today on making the MASKS. Awesome!

Crazy, we are already on week three. Over the weekend I typed up scores of material produced by the campers - and was extremely impressed by what I read. Everyone who attended in the past two weeks (some disappeared briefly for family vacations) had something dynamic, creative, amusing or thoughtful to offer in their writing.

Last week was particularly successful, generating metaphors and hyperboles. These past two days have been a bit of a challenge, however, as we press on into simple verse forms. Honetly, I find HAIKU to be an interesting puzzle - how much can you say with so little - but as the writing sessions have all taken place in the afternoon, it is difficult to keep some of the younger campers in their seats.

I need more physical writing activities.

This morning, I sat in part of Bobby's session, getting the campers up to speed on the basics of opera, and some fundamental background on the history of technology in popular music. Members of Opera Cleveland will be visiting the site on Thursday, and we will travel to the Rock Hall on Friday.

Later, Rachel and I worked with Tim's kids on scenes from classic drama. After a week or working on emotional awareness and improvised scenarios based around an existing text (THE SNEETCHES) the campers were really looking forward to have scripts in their hands. We are creating several dynamic scenes on the subject of CONFLICT RESOLUTION.

No field trip this week (there will be two next week) so to change things up, we had two "elective" periods at the end of the day. Bobby has a crew I refer to as Bobby's Guitar Heroes - kids who asked if they can't bring their own guitars in. They are really into the music and they made up the company for his two 45 minute sessions.

Elsewhere on campus, Sheff had two smaller classes, I had sessions with four boys and then three girls, and Jodi and Tim were mostly booked. These electives can get pretty wild, I think there's something about choosing what you do next which invigorates a young person - and makes them kind of crazy.

But I did take a moment during the last period of the day to nose into each room and take a few photos. And I saw an arts camp firing on all cylinders. There was paint joyous being splattered in the gym, Sheff with two of the smallest campers also in the gym (where the air conditioning is plentiful) working ballet, Tim coaching scenes from The Diary of Anne Frank, sounds of quiet, musical concentration, and three girls in my room, hunched over their manuscripts.

We had returned to the subject of metaphor earlier in the day, playing a game to clearly spell out what one is. Later the guys and I played with HYPERBOLE and EXAGGERATION. There are a large number of kids who are deep into writing long stories or scripts about lunchroom politics, relationships, the war, all kinds of things.

Yesterday was a bit overwhelming - dividing the entire camp into five, smaller groups. This was great for me, as I was able to give each student a lot more attention, and was able to interview each of them on how their writing projects are progressing. But it did mean no break for the instructors.

Some have finished the first draft of a short story. Others are working on playscripts. Then there are those who have been engaged in exploratory writing, and now want to move onto something different.

Today we played around with METAPHORS. We established ANTONYMS that related to our theme (remember the theme?) and then composed metaphors for each pair of antonyms. Tomorrow afternoon we have more elective sessions, and I am happy to say more students were interested in signing up for writing this week. I will have one class of 4 guys, and one of three girls.

The campers are beginning to diverge in their writing. Ages range from 8 to 13 - that is probably the biggest five-year gap in the human lifespan. Some are composing several page-long short stories or scripts, some much briefer, simpler works, and then there are those who would just as soon not write at all.

This is all the be expected, the challenge in a 45 minute writing session is how to cover all of those bases, and make sure everyone gets enough attention. Today, as an experiment, we are dividing into five, much smaller groups. Bobby is going to have one class entirely made up of volunteer guitar players. Apparently they are very good!

Jodi is working with paint, which is always nerve rattling, especially when you are using someone else's facility (don't worry, St. Mel's - we'll clean it up.) Tim has begun to explore our theme of CONFLICT RESOLUTION through the classic Dr. Seuss story THE SNEETCHES. And today we meet our GLTF intern, Rachel.

Should be another high intensity, big fun day of surprises and art!

Today was our first field trip, to Severance Hall and a rehearsal from the Cleveland Orchestra. Just one of those things you can't tell a young person to appreciate, the opportunity to see a world-famous symphonic orchestra in their shorts, getting things wrong for an hour (I mean, that's what rehearsal is for, right?) but not that we didn't try. It is my hope that years from now they will look back and understand they got to see something most people never do.

An off-site field trip can take up most of the day, and we did get back a half hour later than usual for lunch. After, the campers worked on thank you notes for the orchestra, and then we tried something different - an elective afternoon session.

On Thursday we put up a sign-up sheet, where students could sign up for whichever discipline they chose. The only rules were that there could be more more than 12 in any class, and that everyone had to sign up for something. It should not have surprised me that I got one student signing up for writing. Bobby announced that people could bring in their own guitars and his class filled up fast, and everyone loves working with Tim.

My session was very successful, I had one boy who really wanted to work on a story about the time he was bit by his aunt's dog (conflict - man vs. nature.) I interviewed him, asked him to take notes on the details he was bringing out and we put together a plot and a solid beginning, middle and end.

I am really looking forward to next week, each camper is in a different place with his or her writing - I looked at every one of their journals this week and gave everyone notes on how to proceed.

I CAME HERE TO PLAY !!!
PEOPLE LEARNING EVERY DAY !!!
WE LIKE TO CREATE !!!
- St. Mel's Daily Mantra

That is a haiku, written by one of our members. We use it to psyche ourselves up at the beginning of the day, and to send each other on our way at the end. I like it because it covers so many aspects of what we are doing - playing, learning, creating - it uses the words "I" and "we." It's active, expressive, fun. It's a good mantra.

Sheff sat in on my classes today - we split the team up into two rather than three for our afternoon work, so there were some seventeen kids in the classroom.

Yesterday I shared a short piece from This American Life where the host interviews young people about "mean" kids they have known. We were concentrating on the questions, not the tales so much, but the tactics of how to get someone to tell a good story. Then they interviewed each other about moments of conflict or personal difficulty, and how they were resolved, if they were.

We arrived at three basic questions for an interview:

WHAT HAPPENED?
HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT?
HOW DID YOU DEAL WITH THAT?

These three questions can be asked over and over again. Then volunteers told stories about their subjects. We determined the difference between FIRST and THIRD-PERSON.

Today we returned to the stories of the past two days, finishing what was unfinished, revisiting and rewriting in certain cases. I gave special attention where I could. It has been an awful lot of business in three days, and I am looking forward to taking time to read what they have written and work next week on making their writing richer and more descriptive.

The morning was spent much like yesterday, in one large group, playing awareness exercises, and getting to know each other. Our company of students has grown to 34. Some were anxious to begin working in one particular discipline - you can only play so many theater games! - but the time we spent with them in one large group has been extremely helpful, and fun.

We began work on a community Mantra we can (hopefully) use to rouse enthusiasm and a sense of togetherness. We brainstormed it first thing, and refined it in the afternoon. One of our members created a haiku that was tried out before dismissal.

Morning exercises included KITTY WANTS A CORNER, SOCIAL ATOMS, TELEPHONE and ASSASSINATION. Each exercise led to the next as a way of illustrating the effects that we have on each other socially - and how that interaction can lead to conflict and the need to find creative solutions to deal with social obstacles. Following most exercises we had enthusiastic group discussions.

For the rest of the day we split into three groups, chosen arbitrarily, and every had the opportunity to try WRITING, MUSIC and VISUAL ART. Some kids were restless in certain classes, but all of our campers were excited and engaged in at least one of our disciplines. We're getting to know them. We like them a lot.

The quote I walked out of there with yesterday came from a surprising source, a student who didn't respond swiftly to my writing prompt (What would you do if someone cut in line ahead of you at the movies?) but once we discussed it a little, a little one-on-one negotiation, I eventually had to stop him from writing due to time.

As he left class he said to me, "I think I like this writing stuff."

Conflict from the Latin: conflīctus a striking together (con= together; flict = to strike)

Resolution to bring into focus, to solve, to settle, to break apart, to make a commitment, to determine, to end

A very positive beginning to our five week arts camp at St. Mel's. We had 32 students enrolled, and should have another four join us tomorrow. Very positive, engaged, enthusiastic kids.

It was the decision of the artistic coaches of the site to spend the first day more or less in one large group, to get to know each other, to learn how they interact, and basically to break down walls of social resistance.

Bobby (music) and Tim (drama) played acoustic guitar and bass as the campers entered the gymnasium that acts as our main classroom. The students made name tags and Jodi (visual arts) Sheff (Dance) and I (writing) circulated and got everyone oriented.

Our site coordinator, Mr. G. laid down the ground rules for everyone and then we began, stating clearly what the theme for our site will be (see above) and creating a list of things we want so SEE, HEAR and FEEL during the next five weeks.

Bobby led introductions, Tim ran a round of SCATTERGORIES, Jodi in GIANTS, WIZARD AND ELVES and I the dreaded HUMAN KNOT.

We passed out journals; the first prompt wasWhen I am in a group of strangers I almost always feel ...

Following lunch Sheff led an hour plus long movement session which resulted in a good two-thirds of the campers executing a dance routine to Madonna's Music. A number of the boys fell out from the session, preferring to draw with markers.

The day ended with a revisit to our list of things we wish to SEE, HEAR and FEEL - which are posted prominently on the wall. In the morning it took us a while to make a basic list, in the afternoon they had a large number of things they wanted to add to the list, it was very exciting.

I have no idea where this blog will take us - some instructors will be able to contribute to it, others do not have liberal access to the internet. Once we begin to break down into smaller groups, I will only be able to reflect on a more narrow aspect of it - namely, the writing component. I hope to get the list of SEE, HEAR and FEEL up on this blog tomorrow.