The Coleman Center for the Arts was proud to offer Camp SHIFT, an annual arts summer camp for local youth ages 8-18. Movement, action, change, collaboration and creativity were the inspiration for this summer’s theme. From May 30 to June 3, students joined instructors from across the state and the country for lessons in visual art, dance, voice, performance, and creative writing. The students’ week culminated in a Camp SHIFT Celebration for family, friends, and community in the Coleman Center’s Altman Riddick Gallery, including a exhibition and performance.
Local artist Garland Farwell used concepts of motion to design lessons on abstract painting and kinetic art. Students worked collaboratively to create action-based artworks, taking turns adding geometric lines and organic shapes to each canvas. This teamwork resulted in bold, colorful pieces that brought energy and vibrance to the walls of the Coleman Center gallery for the final exhibition. Toward the end of the week, students turned their attention to mobile making, crafting moving artworks to hang from the gallery ceiling. These mobiles required students to think creatively, critically, and spatially to ensure each element of the artwork moved effectively through space.
Visiting artist Tameka Norris challenged students to construct creatures from found materials, shifting our expectations from the everyday to imagined worlds. Campers created a collaborative environment with habitats, wearable accessories, and appendages. To bring these elements together they invented and recorded “creature” sounds. For the final presentation, students transformed the gallery, performing as their creature in wearable works to this wild soundtrack and reinvented space.
Returning instructor and Birmingham poet John Paul Taylor guided students in creative writing exercises designed to help them find their individual voices, explore identity, and consider shifting perspectives. Each camper crafted poems about their lives, aspirations, perceptions, and future hopes; Taylor coached them in performance and public speaking. Students shared their well-honed words to great fanfare and emotion from audience members during the Camp SHIFT Celebration performance.
Camp SHIFT Celebration was rounded out by dance and vocal performances lead by veteran instructors Terry Hayes and Kanita Sturdivant. Hayes brought his choreography skills all the way from Birmingham to our two groups of young people. The younger campers, ages 8-10, performed a sharp routine to DJ Khaled and Jay-Z’s “I’ve Got the Keys.” The older group, ages 11-14, showed off their charisma and new-found dance skills to “Rolex” by Ayo & Teo. Sumter County Educator Kanita Sturdivant brought all ages together for a vocal powerhouse performance of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now,” and an all-ladies rendition of Beyonce’s “Freedom.”
Thanks to all the young people, parents, instructors, counselors, and Coleman Center staff that made the week possible. Special thanks to the Alabama State Council on the Arts, the Black Belt Community Foundation, and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.