Trust, Confidence, & Accountability
I am overwhelmed with how amazing our StarQuest campers are! Their sense of teamwork and loving-kindness towards themselves and each other has really shown through this week.
A daily group affirmation is one of the many self-affirming teachable moments we infuse into our StarQuest camp, The affirmation is randomly chosen by one camper, but shared with the entire camp. We start our day off with this tradition to build the confidence of our inner dialogue and to help us see the light in ourselves and others. This tradition coupled with our overall camp culture is creating StarQuest magic! The trust they are building in themselves and each other has boosted everyone’s confidence to try new things, make new friends, take creative risks, and gives them the freedom to have fun!
One of our camp mottos this summer is “You Don’t Have to Be Perfect To Be Amazing.” This is something we help instill in our stars while showing them that their “sparkle” shines inside and out. We give them the space desired to figure things out on their own while gaining assurance within their choices through positive feedback from all our camp counselors and specialists. We also keep one another accountable for our words and actions because we are learning how powerful we really are! Through all of this, we are strengthening our ability to work as an ensemble by reinforcing our trust and confidence in ourselves and each other.
Here’s the Inside Scoop
The second week of camp is a complete “growth” week! Our campers are really digging deep as they learn character development, blocking, vocals, and choreography for their performance. Within the morning specialty rotations of dance, acting, and voice classes campers are really expanding their skill sets. Our special activities of the week emphasized the beauty of working together: songwriting workshop, improv games, rehearsals, creating crafts, daily meditation moments, and our fabulous Friday tradition, appreciation circle. We also had an amazing costume design workshop too! Their creativity is outstanding!
Voice
- We added some new vocal warm-ups and talked about breathing to sing
- We got new music this week. The Producers and Directors began working on “You Will Be Found” from Dear Evan Hansen and the Writers began learning “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” from The Lion King
- The Writers learned the whole song and we divided it into solos and groups
- We’ll move to a new song next week
Acting
- We worked on our physicality by using tableau and improvisation to explore how we can use our bodies to create strong characters
- We worked on our vocal technique, and how to use our breath to help us project our voices
- We choose monologues or duologues and develop our characters in these pieces
Dance
- Learned choreography and filming for “Stick To The Status Quo”. Check out the video under our Conversation Starter section below
- Learned original Broadway choreography for “All For The Best.”
- Played dance games that require you to mimic and repeat the moves of the player before you. Games like this give us practice on watching and replicating
Rehearsals
We are moving and grooving in rehearsal. We worked hard on the show this week and made some fabulous progress. We are almost done with blocking and choreography for the whole show and we finished ALL the music!! BRAVO!
Our campers continue to be reminded of the importance of good diction and projecting! We talked about downloading the guide vocal and performance tracks (provided in last week’s blog) to practice at home. It is extremely important for everyone to be working on their music outside of our afternoon class time. Working doesn’t have to mean singing…it can be listening to the tracks, reading through and memorizing lyrics, or counting out rhythms, etc. We also have been encouraging our camper’s to memorize their blocking and choreography as soon as it’s been given to them so they can move forward in the rehearsal process successfully. They are doing a great job! All actors should be “off book” by Monday!
Conversation Starter
Ask your camper to share their song from the songwriting workshop? Ask about the StarQuest award of the day “inspiring bracelets” given out at morning pow-wow and what they represent. Ask about our affirmation cards and daily group meditation moments? Ask them about the dance video we made this week – see below! Oh and our awesome talent show we had Friday at lunch!
Importance of Coming to Camp
Theater is a team sport and missing rehearsal puts the entire cast at a disadvantage. It is mandatory that campers are present for tech rehearsal starting next Friday. Thank you for being understanding. Your children are shining brightly each and every day! Camp “magic” is happening. Can’t wait for the adventure of Week 3!
This is How We Do It at Camp StarQuest
To see more pictures of our campers and continue to get updates please download the J camp app from the app store, become a friend of our JPAS Facebook page and follow us on Instagram.
Can’t wait to see what happens next week at StarQuest!
Alise Robinson
Director Camp StarQuest