Fairmont W.Va. — Fairmont State University’s Academy of the Arts is ready to teach North Central West Virginia children various forms of performing arts.
The first of nine summer camps hosted by the academy will begin on June 27, where children from grades K-12 will have to opportunity to learn performing arts such as dancing, acting and musical arts. Each of the camps will last about a week long and they are aimed to help get North Central West Virginia children to be exposed to performing arts while socializing with their families and peers.
“Since this is our first year back in a couple of years, so we’re hoping to have ten to twenty in each camp,” said Director of Performing Arts Outreach and Development Leigh Ann Riley. “We normally put a cap on it just so we are able to give some individualized attention to everyone,” she said.
Showstopper: Exploring Musical Theater Dance, will be the first camp offered by the Fairmont State University Academy of the Arts, which will be offered for children grades K-3. This will be followed by Broadway Babies on July 11 for grades K-2 and will be wrapped up by Scene Study camps in August for grades 4-12. All the camps will have interactive sessions with teachers and instructors with opportunities to either act, sing, or use musical instruments while they’re educated about performing arts.
“Most of our performance based camps, especially if it’s a five day camp, on the fifth day, they will culminate in a little performance for family and friends at the end of that,” said Riley on some of what will take place at the camps.
For camps that are designated for toddlers, a parent or caregiver will be required to attend the five days worth of activities. According to Riley, camps such as Baby Mine, You Are My Sunshine, which accepts children three years old or younger, are intended as social interaction based camps with music themed games and activities scheduled throughout.
“So it’s kind of a music and movement type of camp, if they are zero to three (years old), they have to have a caregiver with them,” said Riley. “It very much works on socialization, so this is really a chance for the parents to kind of get them out and socialize them a little bit with other babies and toddlers,” she said.
As Fairmont State University’s Academy of the Arts host the nine performing arts camps, other classes and lessons are expected to take place throughout the summer. This includes programs for acting, performance, singing and visual arts that are hosted year round as part of the academy’s curriculum and works towards their goal of promoting performing arts to North Central West Virginia youth.
“We kind of fit around people’s vacation schedules and summer schedules, we have some this month, we have some in July and we have some in August, a little bit of everything to accommodate everyone’s availability,” said Riley.