While AileyCamp at the University of California-Berkeley celebrates its 10th anniversary this summer, across the country in Newark, New Jersey, the newest location of the innovative program will celebrate its first season.
A new branch of AileyCamp has sprouted in Newark, NJ. For over 20 years, the full-scholarship day camp, a program of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, has been reaching urban students across the U.S., harnessing the power of movement to foster self-confidence, creative expression, and critical thinking.
The Prudential Foundation is funding Newark's first AileyCamp, a summer camp that embodies Prudential's belief in arts education as a means of revitalizing struggling communities while educating the future work force.
Jazz class at the Berkeley/Oakland AileyCamp: 12 children standing in rows. 'Tweens and barely teens. Three boys in front, two rows of girls behind. Roughly at attention. It was midafternoon in early July, on the vast stage of Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley campus.
The Alvin Ailey dance camp is held in cities around the country, this is the first time it has been held in Newark.
Dance teacher Wayne Williams stood at the lip of the Newark Arts High stage, his back to the two dozen black-clad students lined up behind him. "Where are your hands?" he asked over his shoulder. "Out" they shouted. "Chin?" he called. "Up," they said. "Stomach?" "In," they replied a few giggles distupting their perfect unison.
AileyCamp Boston 2011 started yesterday at Orchard Gardens K-8 school in Roxbury. AileyCamp Boston is a tuition-free summer camp designed for Boston-area middle school students. Running July 5 through August 11, the program is operated by the Celebrity Series of Boston Arts, Education and Community Program.
This morning, down at the Berkeley Marina, 56 East Bay middle schoolers were experiencing a host of "firsts". Many of them were taking to the water for the first time - donning life-jackets and sailing out into the Bay - not without a certain amount of trepidation in many cases.
In these cash-strapped times, arts organizations need all the help they can get. The Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey recently received a much-needed assist from the National Endowment for the Arts, which has awarded a grant of $25,000 to benefit AileyCamp and AileyCamp the Group.
Contemporary dance innovator, Alvin Ailey, believed that "dance is for everybody," and was particularly passionate about providing underserved youth with the tools they needed to express themselves and develop a greater sense of self-esteem.