Finding joy at Camp Red Kite
C
amp Red Kite is a magical place. And the people lucky enough to work there for three weeks out of every summer, many of them Chicago Public School special education teachers, get to see lives changing for kids on the autism spectrum.
They’ve seen nonverbal kids become verbal and kids locked away in themselves become more social as they create art, move to music, share quiet time and work together to create theater, which they then perform. Participation is never forced, but it is encouraged, and during a visit to the camp last summer, it appeared campers were always game to try. Over the three-week camp, camp administrator Dawn Akels says she can clearly see the changes from the beginning of camp until the end.
For Chicago Children’s Theater Artistic Director Jacqueline Russell, the person behind creating Camp Red Kite, it is all part of her mission to keep arts in the lives of people of all different abilities. At Camp Red Kite, she says she and the staff keep expectations high and “always believe in the potential of these kids.” Russell has spent her life dedicated to showing how drama can make a difference for kids on the spectrum. “When we had an opportunity to build a home for Chicago Children’s Theater, we really wanted to make sure that Red Kite was a very central component of the work that we do,” she says. What they’ve created is a bright space full of potential. Efforts to bring drama to kids with special needs continue to grow as Russell operates residency programs in nearly a dozen schools and offers professional development with CPS teachers. New on the horizon is working with blind and low-vision students at a local elementary school to create what she is calling Extra-Sensory Theater, theater
that is less about sight and vision and more about smell and touch. “Now that we have a space where we can come and create and we’ve identified a classroom and a group of teachers that we can really partner with, I can see it’s our new frontier,” she says. Registration for Camp Red Kite, Aug. 6-24, is now open. Register at chicago childrenstheatre.org/summercamp, email education@chicagochildrenstheatre.org
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