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Courtesy photo

These cast members are from the Desert Foothills Community Education’s 2004 summer production of Alice. Each year students in the Nick Johnson‑led summer camp stage a final performance at the end of the intensive two‑week camp
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Courtesy photo

The 2005 DFCE production of Once Upon A Planet featured elaborate costume and set design. The students in the summer camp take part in every facet of the final production.
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Courtesy photo

Alithea Creations founders Nick Johnson and Sabrina Vasquez discuss a scene with Tucson mime Rick Wamer during the DFCE’s summer art camp for kids.
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Art camp teaches life skills
by Jim Crawford

NORTH VALLEY – The term couch potato has become a standard part of our vocabulary in the past few years.

Moms are guilty. Dads are guilty. Kids too, especially during summer vacation. With the almighty tube and the ever‑present computer always at our beck and call, there isn’t a lot of incentive to get out and find something to do.

Well, Desert Foothills Community Education has a plan.

Beginning June 4 students interested in all aspects of the theater can receive instruction from seasoned professionals eager to share the tricks of their respective trades.

Students will get a thorough sampling of everything–mime, dance, music, singing, set design, costuming and dance movement–all within an intense two‑week program.

Each summer Evelyn Holbrook, manager of Cactus Shadows Fine Arts Center and director of DFCE, recruits Alithea Creations to offer this unique performing arts program. There is a different multi‑media performance that serves as a graduation of sorts every year.

Alithea Creations is the brainchild of Nick Johnson and Sabrina Vasquez, faculty members in the theater and dance department at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kan.

Johnson, the director of dance at WSU, developed Alithea Creations in 1990 to promote awareness in American theatrical and dance genres that had seemingly forgotten mime theater.

Johnson’s yearly production incorporating film production, dance, non‑verbal communication, physical theater, stage craft and set building, costume creation and original music is an opportunity for students to learn hands‑on interdisciplinary arts from professional artists who are part of the Artists in Residence program.

This year’s production is a fractured fairy tale version of “Cinderella.” The multi‑media version of “Cinderella” takes place in the 1940s where the prince is a movie star and Cinderella’s family runs a local movie theater.

“What this show does is take the traditional fantasy and turn it around. The person you love is a prince because you love them,” Johnson says. “We need to take the energy away from the fantasy and put it in reality. People spend a lot of time looking for something they already have.”

The camp is not for those who are afraid of hard work.

“We don’t offer fluff or fun and games,” Johnson says. “We bring work with a message, something that can alter a world view of the audience, but definitely a message that can change the way a young person thinks–and moves.

“They learn to speak with their bodies,” Johnson continues. “It takes coordination, tuning into emotion, and engaging the imagination every step of the way. We love working with young talent. We love giving something valuable to any young person, naturally talented or not. If some youngster is having a difficult time adjusting in school, or socially, and finds some self‑esteem working with us, because we make room for everybody, then we have succeeded.”

Anywhere from 50 to 100 kids sign up for the two‑week camp every year, of which many are repeaters.

“There are some who attended as children of 7 or 8 years of age who now, having finished college, are back wondering what we’re doing and how they might fit,” Johnson says.

The camps have become a part of Johnson’s life, so much so he can’t remember when he started working on them.

“I stopped counting after 20‑25 years,” he says. “Engagement in the performing arts is an organic process. It keeps changing. The work keeps changing. Inspiration keeps providing new perceptions and new discussions about a world view. I’m not sure how my life became so wrapped around the creative process, but it did. And one thing you learn over time is–you go with the flow.”

Vasquez is the choreographer. Dan Williams brings the sets to life with assistance from the students, of course. Renee Swan and Liz Lincoln share the secrets of colorful costuming. And cinematographer Vincent Pascoe adds his film and video skills to the mix.

Music is an important part of any production and Johnson believes it is essential for “Cinderella” to have fresh, compelling music.

Here the ubiquitous man and wife team of Kevin Glenn and Martha Lindsey lend their expertise to the production. Glenn has composed original music and lyrics for “Cinderella” and opera singer and voice coach Lindsey brings her gentle touch to voice training. Glenn composed the score for Alithea Creations’ summer programs “Alice” in 2004 and “Once Upon a Planet” in 2005.

Evelyn Holbrook founded the camps and recruited Johnson and Vasquez to help after spending previous summers doing film camps.

“I really see a lot of what kids learn at the camp are not necessarily performance skills,” Holbrook says. “They learn team building, working as a group, problem solving. We’re teaching life skills as well as art appreciation.”

Holbrook says she’s heard arts compared to athletics as a teaching tool.

“The kids are involved in the whole process in athletics as well as the arts,” she says. “They have to participate and contribute to see the end result. Then they can look back and say they’re the ones who did it.

“Nick makes kids think about life,” she says. “It’s a lot more than the Cinderella story. He’s a real Pied Piper when it comes to working with the kids. They love working with him.”

Johnson credits Holbrook with the success of the program.

“Evelyn was involved with many artists eager to bring that experience to the desert and I had a gift for working with kids,” Johnson says. “I guess it’s because I am a kid and always will be. Evelyn was doing these film camps with my sister, Suzanne, and one day they said let’s combine artistic efforts. Sabrina, my wife, and I first collaborated on the “Nickracker”(CQ), after many years of doing shows in Cave Creek. After that, our shows became totally multi‑disciplinary. Now they are even more unique since Kevin Glenn and Martha Lindsay are collaborating with original music and even lyrics. Yes, mime with song, unheard of ‘til this union. Evelyn is the true source of the two‑week madness, and it is truly a magical thing.”

Students can enroll anytime until the workshop begins on June 4. Many parents try to get their kids into a summer program before June so they don’t have to worry about the program filling up.

The two‑week workshop for grades 3‑12, runs 9 a.m.‑3 p.m., Monday through Friday, June 4‑16, at Cactus Shadows Fine Arts Center, 33606 N. 60th St. in Scottsdale, one‑half mile south of Carefree Highway.

The workshop fee is $400 and includes tickets to the June 16, 3 p.m. or 7 p.m. performance of “Cinderella” at the Fine Arts Center and a DVD of the production.

For more details or to register, a catalogue and registration form are available on the DFCE page of the CCUSD Web site at ccusd.93.org, or at the Cactus Shadows Fine Arts Center. For additional information, call DFCE at (480) 575‑2075.

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