TECH HAS TAKEN OVER, BUT ART IS STILL RELEVANT

April 1, 2018By Kerin

art camp and technology

It will come as no surprise to read that technology has taken over, well, everything. (I mean, you’re not reading this in a print magazine, are you?) But tech’s ubiquity is about more than just being slaves to social media or reliant on Google or Alexa to tell us, well, everything we need to know (and solving conflicts both minor and major). Tech is also a driving force in our lives, and those of our children, because of the way in which it’s asserted dominance in how we conceptualize our world, its future, and our place in it.

For some time now, technology has been touted as the key to figuring out a successful life. Careers in STEM subjects are prioritized for kids from a very young age. And while I really don’t believe in the utility of “preparing” kids for specific careers before they’re in college, that doesn’t mean I haven’t seen how insidious the emphasis on technology as savior is. Learning to code has been praised as the answer for everything from combatting gender inequality to lifting kids out of poverty to ending systemic racism. (Need proof? See the way in which Black Panther‘s King T’challa decides to help the impoverished kids of Oakland by… having his tech wiz sister, Shuri, teach them how to code.)

Learning to code has been praised as the answer for everything from combatting gender inequality to lifting kids out of poverty to ending systemic racism.

This isn’t a sudden sea change, of course. Technology as an advancement tool has been a huge part of the cultural conversation since the mid-20th century days of the space race. And if you or your children have attended American public schools in the last several decades, you’ve seen the ways in which STEM classes and tech have grown in importance in the classroom. And that’s to say nothing of the ways in which tech’s importance has grown in our personal lives, i.e. a lot.

It would be easy to look at this state of affairs and conclude that as tech continues to take over, that art has lost its relevance, and is a relic of a long-gone analog world. After all, if you look at the ways in which art and the humanities have been drastically deprioritized in school settings, it’s clear that many educators and administrators no longer find value in it.

art camp and technology - music

But this is a huge loss. Art and the humanities are more relevant than ever in a world where tech’s ubiquity raises many philosophical questions that only people who have a foundational education in the humanities can answer. Beyond that, art offers so many opportunities to do things like problem solve, learn to focus on difficult tasks, persevere, and work out creative solutions. These are all tools that can be used in technological areas, where analog thinking can actually be a huge asset.

But also: It’s important to remember that tech and art are not a binary equation; they are not two oppositional forces. Instead, tech and art can—and must—be combined in order for both to progress in a way that is truly comprehensive and revolutionary. And just in the same way technological solutions can feel liberating (it is pretty nice to know what the weather will be like halfway around the world as you prepare for a vacation), art can be a freeing respite from a world spent in front of a series of screens.

It’s important to remember that tech and art are not a binary equation; they are not two oppositional forces.

And this is where an arts education—including, most certainly, at camp—comes in. It offers the chance for kids whose typical school year is overloaded with science and math to try completely different approaches to problems. It allows them to glimpse a world that incorporates tech, but isn’t wholly reliant on it. It gives them options. This is essential to creating an understanding of the world as not being an either/or kind of a place, but rather one where the limits are malleable, the possibilities capable of multiplying, as long as you don’t see the world as nothing more than a mere series of 1s and 0s.

WHY DANCE IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT ART FORM FOR KIDS

August 7, 2017By Kerin

arts camp dance performance 1

Talk to most adults about dance education and they will probably vaguely recall having to learn ballroom dancing at the command of their parents, who envisioned… years of country club dances in their futures? Hard to say! Or perhaps they’ll recall learning to square dance in 6th grade gym, a unit stuck in between gymnastics and volleyball. (Was that just my gym experience? Maybe.) But few adults have much experience with actual dance training beyond that, unless they were more serious about its pursuit, and studied it on their own time. And this is a shame, because the benefits of dancing and dance education are something that’s valuable for all of us, a truth handily proven at Ballibay.

As with other artistic mediums, like theatre, dance can provide kids with an education that surpasses its readily seen benefits. Because while, yes, studying dance can increase a student’s grace, poise, posture, and awareness of things like rhythm and the movements of their bodies, it can also teach children so much more.

There is a long tradition throughout the world of culture’s using dance to celebrate, to mourn, to tell stories, and to educate

Dance offers a lifelong lesson in kinesthetic intelligence, a type of education in what it is that the body can do both separate from and in tandem with the mind. It increases the ways in which children communicate with their own bodies, giving them a greater understanding of the importance of a gesture, a tilt of the head, a shift in weight from one foot to another. It also allows kids to better interpret another person’s body language, a skill that is bound to come in handy at countless points throughout their lives.

arts camp dance performance 2

More so than that, dance is an art form that has been present at every stage of civilization; partaking in its beauty is a way of connecting to humans past, present, and future. There is a long tradition throughout the world of culture’s using dance to celebrate, to mourn, to tell stories, and to educate. Dancing is as much a part of the human condition as song and speech; learning this language is an invaluable tool for anyone interested in better understanding our collective humanity.

For kids who are not interested in competitive sports, dance also offers an alternative means of exercising and engaging the body, something that is invaluable in this rather sedentary age. The demands made on a dancer’s body are specific to the medium, and they teach a dancer to pay attention to the signals their body is giving them, until listening to these cues becomes second nature.

For kids who are not interested in competitive sports, dance also offers an alternative means of exercising

And like other art forms, dancing is strongly correlated to problem solving, and thus the intellectual engagement a dancer has is related to their need to identify patterns, and find solutions for the questions at hand.

There’s a (very) corny saying that’s been floating around the internet for the last few years, and you’ve probably seen it quoted on some Facebook friend or another’s wall: “Dance like nobody’s watching.” This maxim is, I guess, supposed to encourage people to live life freely, and not to care about what anyone else around you thinks about what it is you’re doing—even if that’s dancing like a whirling dervish. And I understand the sentiment, I really do. But the beautiful thing about dance, and what anyone who studies it will soon understand, is that dancing is something that is best not done in a vacuum, and indeed can not be done in one—the dancer herself is always watching. Rather, dance is an art of mindfulness; it is about being present and attuned to yourself and those around you, and letting the body lead the way as you move through the world, one step at a time.

arts camp dance performance 3