There’s A Lot Going on at Advanced Camp!
Editor’s Note: This post was written by Camp Photographer & Communications Assistant Will Ciardelli
The last few weeks during our Advanced session were amazing! And Road Show session campers headed out on the road to perform over 20 shows. On July 23, when the Advanced campers arrived we did some fun games to get everybody acquainted with one another before heading into our busy week! Our days were structured with rotation groups as per usual, the individual session campers had their own group, and the ensemble was broken into three different groups while Road Show remained on their own schedule.
Campers went tent to tent doing different exercises and learning new skills such as new aerial tricks on fabrics and other assorted aerial apparatuses, new juggling moves, and hilarious new clown bits. And since it was a hot week there may have been some occasional trips down to the Caspian Lake Public Beach to take a refreshing dip in the lake to cool down after training.
Individual Acts campers have been working to develop their own acts, working to expand and improve beyond the initial ideas which that they brought to camp. They have been making incredible progress in their act creation process and were able to show them off during the week. It was a pleasure to be able to sit in and see what they have come up with just in the first week. The Individual Acts campers have a wide variety in skills including diabolo, rope and various aerial apparatuses.
Our Road Show completed their show creation process and have a their show began to go out on the road and start performances. They had their first show on Saturday, July 29 and it was a huge success. We are all so excited to not only see future performances but to see how their show evolves as they go show to show to see what works and how they can make it even better than it already is.
Our Ensemble campers transitioned into class-based rotation schedules where they choose where they go based on their individual interests in acts for the upcoming finale show. We have officially decided on a loose theme of Alice in Wonderland, so week was all about tailoring acts and creating new gags to fit the show theme.
A week later, our Road Show troupe performed shows all week and even made an appearance at the Festival of Fools held in Burlington Vermont, alongside many other incredible performers. On campus the Ensemble troupe headed full on into their show creation process, figuring out and creating acts to fit into the Alice in Wonderland themed show. Our Individual Acts campers have also been working tirelessly to perfect the acts they have been creating since arriving at camp, now moving into a more rehearsal-based stage of their creation process.
Apart from the Festival of Fools, the Road Show troupe has brought their show “As a Day Goes By,” to places scattered around Vermont such as the Greensboro Free Library, and nursing homes, even going to Hardwick to perform at Aiken Field! We thank everyone who came out to support Road Show and allowed them to share their awesome show with you all. It has been such a fun experience for them to get out on the road and get a taste of the lifestyle of a traveling performer.
We have had our fill of fun activities and dinner dress ups as well, playing games such as Extreme Kickball, Gold Rush and due to the heat some more trips down to Caspian Lake for a refreshing dip! We’ve had some exciting dress up themes such as Star Wars vs. Marvel, Fairy Tales, and some strange ones like Goldfish vs. Geese! The campers really take the prompts and run with them, taking the idea literally or getting quite creative with them. Moving into the final week of camp, we focused on rehearsals and getting all of our acts in Ensemble into a clean order for the show, starting to work on our group choreography and blocking for our opening and closing acts, while the Individuals work similarly to prepare their acts for showcase day. We are so excited to present what these campers have been working on the last two weeks.