It is something that Angus Ferguson and Dancing Sky Theatre has wanted to do for awhile.
This summer, they are getting their chance to bring summer drama camps to Humboldt and area, the first Aug. 8-12 and the second Aug. 15-19 in Muenster at St. Peter’s College.
Dancing Sky’s audience base comes from a large area surrounding Meacham, including Humboldt which is the biggest audience draw right now, says Ferguson. However, their audience base is mostly adults.
They wanted to find a way to involve young people in theatre.
Ferguson has seen many drama camps in Saskatoon put on by Persephone Theatre. Since Dancing Sky, located in Meacham, is a rural theatre, Ferguson says that he feels providing camps for rural areas is his responsibility.
“There’s never been anything offered in the rural areas. So we went, ‘we’re Dancing Sky, we’re the rural theatre, we should be doing it.’”
Some projects this past year were done in the Humboldt and Bruno school, including some done with puppeteer and playwright, Kristi Friday, where students wrote plays that were put on by professional artists.
For the summer camps, Ferguson says they have partnered with the University of Saskatchewan Drama Department to bring senior drama students in to teach at the camps.
Ferguson is going to be overseeing the camps but the U of S students, some that Ferguson has taught himself, will be the ones doing the majority of the planning and teaching with Ferguson’s minimum guidance.
“I know all these students very well so it’s a double pleasure because I get to employ the best students that we have.”
The camps themselves are for students aged 10 to 17 and will focus on performing art based learning, everything from writing to theatre games to musical theatre to improvisation.
Ferguson says that this will help students with public speaking skills, creative thinking, and imagination.
Depending on the demographic of the groups, the camps can be very fluid with activities for all the students as a group or divided up into different ages.
The focus of the camp will also depend on the groups themselves, says Ferguson, since some students will be drawn into different mediums.
“The student (teachers) are really good at adapting to what the groups like...the first day we try a lot of things, we play a lot of games and we see what fires them up.”
Each camp will feature a final performance from the groups that they can share with their family on the last day of camp.
Dancing Sky has just wrapped up their 19th season in Meacham and Ferguson says these camps will be an opportunity for them to give back to the community.
“We want to find other ways to get out and get people involved. So this seems like a really creative, fun way of doing it.”
With this being their first year, Ferguson says their aim is to provide it annually for Meacham and Humboldt and maybe even into the surrounding area.
