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Boston
Herald
By DANA BISBEE
August 25, 1999
Girl
Power
Learning
self-esteem is Big Draw for young campers at Boston Institute for
Arts Therapy
Who but a superheroine can save the day when a girl is being dissed
by her friends? None other than Self-Esteem Woman can save the day
and the preteen ego.
Self-Esteem Woman was a character in an improvised play performed
Aug. 13 at a fine arts summer camp in Dorchester. Self-esteem is also
a quality instilled in the camp's 40 real-life superheroines, aged
6 to 12.
"Especially at this age, girls really relate to drama and perfomrance
as an expression of their identity," said Elaine Theodore, a
youth development specialist a the Big Draw Creative Arts Camp for
Girls.
"They are asking, 'Who am I?" and 'Who could I be?"
said Theodore, an actress with off-Broadway experience and a teacher
with a Harvard master's degree in education. "Drama and writing
are natural matches for many girls."
So, too, are dance, music, art and writing at Big Draw, the Boston
Institute for Arts Therapy's five-week creative arts camp for preteen
girls in the Boston area.
"It's a small, nurturing, supportive environment with a heavy
emphasis on the creative experience," said BIAT Executive Director
Julie Crockford.
A coed camp when founded four year ago, Big Draw is now open only
to girls because they are underserved.
"There's such a lack of opportunity for girls to speak and feel
without the interference and inhibition you have in a coed setting,"
Crockford said. "It's an opportunity for them to express themselves
and feel free."
Self-esteem, self-expression and creative freedom were in abundance
halfway through the term, as kids rehearsed and planned the end-of-camp
show.
In a basement studio, Meclina Gomes, a communications and fine arts
major at the University of Massachusetts, guided the youngest in creating
paper beads for handmade necklaces. Strips of paper were smeared with
paste and studiously wrapped around pencils. Pulling out the pencil
produced a perfect colored bead in the palm of a sticky hand.
"We tell parents in advance that we're going to get messy,"
Gomez said.
Upstairs, music group leader Sharin Horvitz had 10 girls in a circle
rapping on drums, triangles and other percussive sticks and beads.
Each child's specific drum beat was repeated in turn by everyone else
in the circle, creating a raucous but curiously pleasing din.
The activity seething inside the building is only partly about artists
teaching children. Amy Fisher, a sculptor who is one of the arts specialists,
said she also has been learning from her campers.
"I wanted to get involved in community programs," said Fisher
as girls designed covers for personal cassette tape boxes. They will
record the tapes going into them later.
"I didn't want to be making art in an art world context."
Meanwhile, in the drama classroom, Theodore had become a real self-esteem
superheroine. A child had her feelings hurt, and, safely behind closed
doors, the group discussed the real-life problem.
Talking and being listened to are new experiences for many kids. But,
having imagined a world where what they say counts, the kids were
not afraid to express themselves.
"I want to really focus," Theodore said, "on finding
creative ways through art and writing to be a vehicle for groups of
kids who don't have a voice in the world or don't feel they know how
to use their voices."
"They don't know how to listen because they have not been listened
to," Crockford said. "We teach them how to pay attention
to what they want to say and to what others are saying to them."
So, Big Draw is partly aobut teaching art. It is also about learning
social skills and developing self-expression.
Perhaps, the next time on of these girls needs Self-Esteem Woman,
she will be ready to discover that she, herself, is the superheroine.
Creative Arts Therapy
Programs...
Visual Art * Music * Dance * Drama
...That Can Make a World of Difference!
Boston Institute for
Arts Therapy
"Drawing out the
best in people since 1982"
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