Camp Caldera hosts Sisters students

About 40 grade school students from Sisters journeyed to Blue Lake for a drama day camp hosted by Camp Caldera's REACT program.

Caldera exists to expose underserved students to the arts, and generally hosts students from out of the area. But the REACT program drew a near-capacity crowd from its own back yard.

Sisters kids brought "The Wind Says Goodnight" to life on stage.

REACT, which is an acronym for Read and Act has the day campers bring a book to life in a theatrical performance.

Students from Sisters came from SMART (Start Making A Reader Today, a statewide program affiliated with the Oregon Children's Foundation) and SOAR programs.

This year, "The Wind Says Goodnight" by Katy Rydell was the featured children's book.

Throughout the week, the day campers were divided into four groups. Each group got to work with various professional artists to create a musical production of the book.

Abby Merickel was the visual artist.

"We learned about primary and secondary colors, contrasting and harmonizing colors," she explained. "We used texture tools to make designs, we learned about art techniques. We made cut-and-tear paper collages, and created 3-D creatures from the book.

"The children made the set backdrops and learned about visual art at the same time."

Kit Stafford taught theatre dance.

"I am finding wonderful things in these children," she noted.

Kit also wrote the lyrics to several of the songs performed, and Brad Tisdel collaborated by writing the music.

His music class focused on percussion instruments (always a hit with young children).

Tisdel was enthusiastic in his assessment.

"Music is a tool they all understand and enjoy," he said. "One of our main objectives was to have fun with it, but I also want them to start believing in themselves as musicians and songwriters. Kids have vivid imaginations, and can express themselves positively in music".

When the week was over, the book was brought to life by the children and artists in a creative musical production.

All of the campers got in on the act: the mockingbirds sang about a warm summer night, the crickets performed a tune with percussion instruments, the frogs rapped and danced to a boogie, the moths danced, and the clouds sang and danced.