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July - December 2007 News
June 11 - July 18
Phoenix Family Housing: Parvin Roads Summer Arts Camp
The Phoenix Family Housing Corporation provides social service resources and programs to 5,000 households in 24 affordable housing communities in Kansas and Missouri. Chameleon is partnering with Phoenix Family Housing to provide a visual arts, theater/dance, drumming camp for 30 children ages 6-16 at Parvin Estates in North Kansas City, Missouri. Chameleon arts/educators will provide 3 hours of arts programming 3 days a week during June and July. The camp will conclude with a final showcase and celebration. Many of the children are from immigrant families from East and West Africa.
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July 23 - August 10
KCMO School District Quest Plus Summer Arts Camps
Chameleon provided 6 arts summer enrichment camps for Kansas City, Missouri School District’s post summer school Quest Plus programming. The camps took place at Paseo Middle School, Paseo Academy of Visual and Performing Arts and Lincoln Middle school providing 440 youth grades 4-12 with theatre, dance, visual arts, creative writing/urban poetry and new media arts explorations. In addition to the scheduled curriculum, the six camps received workshops and performances from the Chameleon arts caravan, a consortium of professional visual and performing artists. Over 83 artists performed at the camps, providing a wide variety of arts and educational performances including puppetry, jazz, folk , hip hop and spoken word poetry.
Ongoing Projects
Chameleon and the Office of Homeless Liaison: KIDKS Arts
USD 500, Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools, operates the Office of the Homeless Liaison to provide services to homeless children and youth attending district schools. Each year the office serves roughly 500 homeless students, who must deal with residential instability as well as the demands of pursuing an education. They live in shelters, cars, camps, motels, or “doubled-up” temporarily with friends or family (“couch surfing”). Thirty of these students participate in an after-school tutoring program associated with the Office of the Homeless Liaison and took part in Chameleon’s programming throughout the year.
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Portrait of Self
Chameleon provided 10 weeks of interdisciplinary arts programming for young people in partnership with the Office of Homeless Liaison Kansas City, Kansas. The program provided over 30 young people with arts workshops that helped them develop their academic, creative and social skills. The program included two original performances by Stonelion Puppet Theater and Egypt Source Youth Theater. Staci Pratt, Director of the Office of Homeless Liaison, reported that the children’s attendance, study skills and interest in school improved significantly after they began working with Chameleon. The programming with the Office of Homeless Liaison expanded in the winter and spring of 2007, culminating in an intensive summer program. 30 youth participants (Kauffman Funded Program)Third Thursday at M.E. Pearson School
The Office of Homeless Liaison of Kansas City Kansas Public Schools offers its youth clients weekly after school academic tutoring sessions. Chameleon is collaborating with the Office of Homeless Liaison to provide these highly deserving young people with creative arts classes, every third Thursday, for the winter and spring terms. Chameleon artist/educators will facilitate visual, performing, digital and spoken word poetry classes leading to an exhibition of the young peoples work for Youth Arts! May 4th at the Radisson City Center Hotel in Kansas City Mo. 30 participating youth (Kauffman Funded Program)Borders and Boundaries: Summer Arts Camp for the Office of Homeless Liaison Chameleon provided arts and educational summer programming 3 days a week for 30 Homeless children ages 10-18 in theater, drumming, dance and visual arts. The summer camp included the final performance of the So Yeon Park Fabric History and Storytelling project. The youth presented an African Drum recital during the performance in the theater of the Kansas City, Kansas YWCA. The event was filmed for the documentary RISK: Girls behind the Camera. Three of girls from Chameleon’s camp with the Office of Homeless Liaison were selected to participate in the RISK project.
Niles Home and Prep, through a grant form the G.E. Volunteer Foundation, retained Chameleon to help facilitate the With These hands Living History Project. Chameleon developed a unique curriculum for Niles youth to interview and interact with elder residents of Bickford House and Swope Ridge Geriatric Center. The youth and Chameleon developed a historical time-line relating to the ages of the residents. Based on the time-line the youth crafted demographic, personal story, and historical questions. The youth also created drawings, poems and wrote letters to the residents they interviewed. The archive of information collected was used for a new media art presentation. The Niles youth and Chameleon produced a studio recording by having the participants read their poems and letters. This recorded information was backed up by rhythms and beats and were used as the sound tract for the final Showcase held at Bruce Watkins Cultural and Heritage Center. Using drawings and photographs Chameleon artists/educators produced (50) I-Calendars and two versions of 11x17 digitally printed posters as gifts/documentation for the youth and elder residents.