It’s the middle of the summer now, and we have a little tradition at Centauri Arts Camp: for one day, half way through the season, regular activities are suspended. We take off to a water park for the afternoon, and conclude the day with a concert!

Our special day began with a pyjama breakfast, and the retelling of an ancient Chinese folk tale, complete with music and theatre lights. Then, we all got dressed, made a picnic lunch, and boarded the buses to Byng, a Nature Reserve about 15 minutes from camp which has a huge outdoor pool, splash pad and diving board. With almost 200 of us, we practically took over the pool, and a great time was had by all. Back at camp, workshops were optional for the only time all summer! While half the camp took classes in songwriting, zine-making, the business aspect of performing, sports, or creating sound tracks for films, the other half relaxed in the quad, reading books and hanging out with friends.

To celebrate Centauri’s Twentieth season, all our guest performers this year are camp alumni – professionals who have been camp parents, campers or staff at sometime or other. Last week, we hosted Colin Mochrie and Deb McGrath, long-time Centauri parents. Tonight, it was the turn of Laura Caswell and Maddy Rodriguez. Laura is a professional musical theatre performer who taught at Centauri for 3 summers. She is now too active in her performance career to spare an entire session to teach here, but her musical theatre revue (and spontaneous comedy!) was very well received. Maddy Rodriguez was a camper with us, and wrote her first song at Centauri at just 13 years old. Now she is a professional singer-songwriter, touring widely, and based in both Toronto and Nashville.

The evening ended gently and calmly, with a bedtime dorm hour. Campers relaxed under the stars or in the dorms with their counsellors, chatting, sharing games, playing songs and enjoying the company of their ‘camp family’.

What a wonderful day, here at Centauri. And tomorrow, programs begin again as we kick into overdrive, preparing for our final presentations on Saturday!

More photos at https://www.centauriartscamp.com/media/Galleries/2014/index.htm

Julie Hartley
Director