Kids learn tricks and trades from experts

HOT SPRINGS – Kids cart wheeled across the lawn and did their best to build structurally sound human pyramids in Hot Springs last week.

The annual Summer Arts Camp was held in the shady green spaces of Towanda Gardens from Tuesday, Aug. 5 to Friday, Aug. 9.  

The theme for this year’s arts camp was circus arts, in honor of the New Old Time Chautauqua, which held workshops, a parade and an eclectic vaudeville show in Hot Springs the previous week.

“Some of the performers from the Chautauqua are helping out with the arts camp,” Bonnie Triplett of the Hot Springs Artists Society said.

The camp was for children ages six and above and was led by professional teachers from the Chautauqua who provided the energetic youths with instruction in a variety of performance fields.

Kids were kept entertained by hands on juggling tutorials, and music workshops where they learned to turn recycled materials into instruments producing a wide variety of sounds.

Additionally, campers used the area stage to learn summersaults, handstands, cartwheels and barrel rolls.

A few enterprising individuals were even brave enough to summersault through hula-hoops held up by their instructors and a few of their peers.

The teachers from the Chautauqua spent nearly eight hours of each camp day with the students who rotated between several instructors throughout the course of their day full of activities.

Clowning, stilt walking, juggling, musical instruction, acro-balance and aerial performance were all fields in which the participating kids could be introduced to during the four days of summer fun.

Though the arts camp was geared towards the younger members of the Hot Springs area, camp instructors offered evening sessions, which were open to all age groups during the week the art camp was in session.

“Members from the Chautauqua are helping out with a bunch of different activities,” said Mariah Rees. Rees was working with kids practicing their music skills during the afternoon of Thursday’s camp session.

Rees added the arts camp provided free lunches to the participating youth on each day.

“The community donated food for the camp lunches,” Rees said.

This year’s edition of the arts camp was the first to offer evening workshops in addition to the day activities open to local children.

The workshops were geared towards families and the professional teachers who spent the day teaching their craft to the youth of Hot Springs, created a fun and friendly environment in which adults too could pick up a few impressive skills.

All of the instructors were clearly skilled in their chosen field and the professional entertainers impressed with their abilities in juggling and stilt walking.

Though the camp wound down on Friday, campers were invited to partake in a variety of activities on Saturday.

In the same manner of the Chautauqua, a parade and a pageant including a performance from the campers, was held on the evening of Saturday, Aug. 9 at 7 p.m.

The arts camp included 30 children, eight Chautauqua instructors and volunteers from the Hot Springs Artist Society.

The Hot Springs Artist Society with the help of the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation, and the Montana Arts Council brought the week long camp to Hot Springs.