AAIACE Summer Camp 2019
AAIACE collaborated with Suzhou Science & Technology Town Foreign Language School to co-organize a 10-day American Creative Musical Theater Summer Camp in Suzhou, China. Our team consisted of15 American performing arts instructors, including faculty from Stanford university, UC Berkeley, and Saint Mary’s College of California, as well as directors from several Bay Area children’s theaters.
Our instructors were honored to lead over 100 Chinese students, ages 8-13, on a focused route to performing arts comprehension and awakening. Our young learners studied and practiced the fundamental components for creating a musical production and on the last day of camp, they performed five of their own collaboratively produced short musical plays in English for an audience of 400 enthusiastic attendees.
We can’t wait for the next round of AAIACE Theater Summer Camp! Raise the curtain, take a bow, and let the show begin!
Sneetches
This story of inclusion by Dr. Seuss features a group of yellow bird-like creatures called “Sneetches”.
The Sneetches learn through their trials and tribulations that neither Plain-belly nor Star-belly Sneetches are superior, and they find ways to get along and eventually become friends.
Moss Covered Rock
This trickster tale, based on the book “Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock” by Eric A. Kimmel, is an adorable twist on traditional West African and Caribbean folktales. Anansi the Spider gets a taste of his own medicine when he is tricked by his friend, Little Bush Deer. Here we receive a lesson in honesty that is brimming with entertaining mischief and endearing characters.
The Wump World
This ecological story by Bill Peet focuses on a species called “Wumps”, who live on their very own planet. When the blue humanoid “Pollutians” arrive, they do what their name suggests; they pollute. Through the lens of an alternate reality, we come to empathize with the frightened Wumps as their planet suffers loss of fauna and fresh air, and is gradually covered in cement.
The story spreads awareness and suggests a call to action as it parallels our own environmental dilemma on Earth.
Stellaluna
This story of friendship and acceptance, by Janell Cannon, provides scope for the imagination as we follow the young fruit bat “Stellaluna” while she navigates a bird’s world. While Stellaluna is separated from her mother she learns to adopt new ways, all the while discovering instinctual behaviors that prove equally valuable in the long run. Here we learn about the importance of finding common ground amidst differences, while retaining our own unique identities.
The Twits
This story by Roald Dahl features the antics of Mr. and Mrs. Twit, who are obsessed with playing cruel and often vengeful pranks on one another. Cooped up in a brick house, without a window through which to look, the Twits are ugly because they are mean. As they hone in on other characters with their devious plots, the Twits are outsmarted by their own victims. The overt message here is that good prevails, especially when a community bans together to find safety.
