Summer Arts Camp

It is eleven o’clock on a Monday morning and clusters of children chatter animatedly in the cool studio theatre. Their instructor, Grace Gealey, circles the studio floor with microphone in hand, so as to be heard over the stream of excited voices as she sets the rules for the next drama game.

“You have five minutes”, she says, “Go!”

Immediately, each child snaps to face the person beside them, babbling frantically to gather information necessary for their game of “Two Truths and One Lie”.  Meanwhile, the familiar tune of the Caymanian classic “Munzie Boat in the Sound” drifts in on the rich, metallic reverberation of the steel pan, courtesy of the class next door.

At the end of the five minutes, hands fly into the air, their owners racing for the privilege of going first in today’s game.

So progresses another class period at the Cayman National Cultural Foundation’s annual Summer Arts Camp, this year’s theme being “Cultural Treasures”.  The two week camp’s participants range in age from six to sixteen years, and are accompanied by a staff of arts teachers, Young At Arts volunteers and camp assistants.  In keeping with the theme of celebrating influential Caymanian artists, class groups are divided, by age, into three separate sets designated, “Bush”, “Gourzong” and “Hydes”, after three of Cayman’s most iconic creative talents: painter Gladwyn K. Bush, a.k.a. “Miss Lassie”, fiddler Radley Gourzong, and percussionist “Aunt” Julia Hydes.

Every morning, camp begins at nine o’clock in the Harquail Theatre, though many campers take advantage of the 8am early drop off time, eager to resume their twisting of Silver Thatch strands into five, seven, eleven and Notch string plaitings before the official start of the day. After a brief warm-up, the groups are divided between a range of activity-based classes, including steel pan, thatch plaiting, boat-making (model catboats), drama, dance and art. Activities are geared towards, “widening students’ understanding of Caymanian culture through dance, drama and craft”, says camp arts & crafts teacher Vikki Powell.

The vibrant cultural heritage of the Cayman Islands is too often neglected by younger generations; the summer arts camp aims to inform and interest children in Caymanian heritage and  culture through interactive means.  As such, campers find themselves engrossed in plaiting thatch strands that will eventually become personalised purses, belts, baskets and hats, learning dance vocabulary associated with Cayman quadrille as well as modern dance phrases, even venturing on informative field trips to sites of historical and cultural significance such as the Bodden Town Mission House (managed by sister organisation the National Trust), and “Mind’s Eye”, the home of the late “Miss Lassie” Bush, now on the World Monuments Fund Watchlist.

As I leave the Studio with Ms. Gealey, discussing the events of the morning’s drama lesson, she muses, “they have a lot of energy, and they usually have nowhere to express it, so it’s hard for them to find a balance. It’s better that they’re too excited rather than giving nothing at all.”

“Cayman prides itself on its thriving businesses and industries—tourism, banking, accounting, economics,” she says. “Very rarely is there any outlet in which these children can express their natural creativity. I feel like camps like this are able to let them know the significance of cultivating that side of them. It shapes them into well-rounded individuals, and sort of helps them find out who they are.”

Of course, aside from getting in touch with their local heritage, the camp provides an exciting and enjoyable environment for the students, who are working towards their final camp project--- a work show, which showcases the fruits of their labour on steel pan, in dance numbers and through short dramatic skits.  The performance, coupled with an impressive display of art and craftwork, makes for a memorable last day at camp, not to mention fish and fritters for all in attendance.