Uniondale Summer Arts Academy is now in full swing and full of talent

Under the guidance of Kelvin Jenkins, the Uniondale School District’s director of fine and performing arts, the district’s four-week Summer Arts Academy is now in full swing. It runs Monday through Thursday, from 8 a.m. to noon, until Aug. 4.

About 100 children have registered for 10 courses. They are dancing and orating with choreographer Joynell Carr and theater teacher Denielle Grey, singing with chorus director Diana DeFilippi, drawing and painting with Whitney Kovar and Sheila Halliburton, and playing instruments taught by too many music instructors to list here.

“Our main draw are kids that are already in our schools,” Jenkins said. “The program, though, is for any child in grades three through 10 who is a Uniondale resident.”

The complex music program includes six teachers focused only on the concert and jazz bands, which are divided into age groups. “Band has so many different instruments,” said Jenkins, “and our focus is to get the children individualized instruction on their instrument during this program.”

On Monday, classrooms on the first and second floors of the Walnut Street School were filled with melodies from strings, horns and keyboards, supplemented by the sonorous notes of steel pans and conga drums.

In the gym, Carr, Grey and their student dance captains, Max Jones and Jasmine Trusty, called instructions to 21 youngsters of various ages who were moving in three neat rows.

“Project a lot,” Carr told the children. “Be excited, and then we’ll start our dance. One, two, three, action!”

“Welcome! Bienvenidos!” The children belted out the words. “Welcome to our world, a place where art and culture rule our land, where there’s singing, dancing and music every day, where creativity is celebrated, where imagination is encouraged!”

Upbeat pop music began, and the children launched into a series of complex steps.

“I think we could do it a little better,” Grey said.

“And the rows were getting confused,” Carr added.

“This line on this square,” said Jones, as she and Trusty patiently showed the children once again where to stand.

The students will perform their piece on Aug. 3, the next-to-last day of the summer academy, when all the classes will unite for a festive program in the Uniondale High School auditorium.

Down the hallway at Walnut Street, in a classroom bristling with shining instruments, the sounds came not from voices but from flutes, an oboe, a clarinet, a baritone horn, trumpets, trombones, a French horn, snare and bass drums, cymbals and castanets, while the six teachers coached the students in murmured words.

Along another hall, strains of “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” emanated from mellow steel pans. Instructor Franklin Mayers, on loan to the school district from Ad Lib Entertainment, led the students into an uplifting piece, punctuated by a young percussionist on a conga drum. In an atmosphere of sheer concentration, Mayers walked among the students, speaking in low tones, and a boy of about 8 danced freely, yet thoughtfully.

No less free was the calm atmosphere in the visual arts room, where 15 students of various ages chatted quietly as they decorated origami paper boats, accompanied by soft music.

“I love this program. This is like a wonderful break,” said Halliburton, an English teacher from Westbury High School who has assisted Uniondale’s summer arts program for seven years. “It’s camp. It’s supposed to be fun. There are no grades.”

Halliburton recalled how the coronavirus pandemic affected the summer program. It was closed in 2020, and for the next two years the students wore masks, sat socially distanced, and could not share art materials.

“So now they’re here for 30 days, and it’s soothing,” Halliburton said. “It helps with social-emotional learning, because we have the music going, and they’re working with their hands — it’s kinetic. And it helps with socialization, too, because they can work while they talk to each other.”

Kovar walked between the tables, complimenting the students on their designs. Asked if she was their teacher, she laughed and said, “I’m the facilitator!”

This year’s theme for the arts camp, Kovar said, is “Supporting Our World through the Arts.”

“So I curate everything around that theme,” she explained. “We’re going to each continent and learning a different type of art through a different famous artist. This week it’s Japan, and the artist is Yayoi Kusama. She does a lot of big installations where dots cover everything. Today we’re finishing up origami, and we’re going to start Chinese calligraphy tomorrow.”

As the weeks progress, the students will apply what they have learned to creating a large backdrop that will be hung onstage behind the performers for the final program, a visual accompaniment to the celebration of song, dance and music.