Program Spotlight: Rising Stars Art Camp Returns!

Arts Ignite returned to Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts (PHSSA) in Richmond, VA for our second Rising Stars Arts Camp! 

In March, Arts Ignite’s musical theater camp, Rising Stars, welcomed 40 students at PHSSA for a week of arts classes in theater, dance, acting, and visual art under the theme “Empowerment through Creativity.” Due to popularity from the camp’s inaugural program last October, our March program saw student registration increase by 60% with expanded grade levels welcoming campers from kindergarten through fifth grade.  Keeping to our commitment to providing accessible arts education to schools and communities around the globe, Arts Ignite aims to bring arts education to students at PHSSA where performing arts education has been cut due to limited resources. The Rising Stars program allows young people to fully express themselves through musical theater and to find new creative outlets. 

Every day at camp, students focused on a theme that explored the definition of the word POWER (Power, Original, We, Energy, Respect). In each of their four classes, students used these daily themes to guide them through activities like creating abstract collages in visual art with Broadway figures like Audra McDonald and Lin Manuel-Miranda and learning dances and songs from musicals like The Wiz and Once On This Island. As a team, each class created stories that were turned into short scenes presented at the end of the week. 

“It was so fun I can not wait to go back! My favorite thing was EVERYTHING!”

– Student feedback, 2023

Working collaboratively with their peers to learn and create art, dances, songs, and stories, the students strengthened their social emotional skills like relationship building and self-awareness as well as core skills like creativity, confidence, collaboration and communication. 

“I want you to know I am having so much fun here and I can’t wait to learn more and hope to make more friends.”

-Student Feedback, 2023

Catch the joy, magic, and hard work that the students put into the week and final sharing, as well as a message from PHSSA’s Principal Hudson: 

Arts Ignite returns to Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts for another exciting week of arts programming this June. Join us in supporting these students today!