Arts-in-Action’s (AiA’s) Discovery Camp is an annual vacation arts-based camp for 5-18 year olds which seeks to support the community engagement mandate of the Department of Creative and Festival Arts (DCFA,UWI) through the facilitation of a Caribbean cultural education through the arts.
The brainchild of AiA founder Dr. Dani Lyndersay, Discovery Camp was produced and managed by the then Centre for Creative and Festival Arts under the leadership of Head, Rawle Gibbons. After years of success, the management of the camp was handed over to AiA, under the directorship of the late, Samantha Pierre. Since then, the camp has been a main feature of Arts-in-Action youth outreach while still being hosted at DCFA, UWI.
The camp’s design, since its inception, favours a cultural curriculum which highlights the creative and festival arts of Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean with the aim of fostering a more significant sense of the Caribbean identity in the participating campers. The main camp activities feature the disciplines of Visual Arts, Dance, Drama and Music, but these are used as vehicles to share knowledge on the resonating rituals, traditions, histories and practices integral to the Caribbean space.
In 2018, Arts-in-Action expanded on the camp’s original model which featured a performance showcase at the end of each camp, whereby the campers alongside the tutors and counsellors worked towards a full-fledged Children’s Theatre Production.
The 2018 production was a UN Women sponsored play entitled Jumbie Birds written by then Artistic Programme Manager, Brendon Lacaille. The play was produced by Arts-in-Action, under the directorship of Patrice Briggs and directed by Camp Drama Tutor, playwright and director Michailean Taylor. Camp Tutors Mindy Giles (Dance), Jay Spencer (Visual Arts) and Keithson Cruickshank (Music), served as choreographer, set and prop designer and musical director respectively. Arts-in-Action’s technical camp for budding theatre practitioners, Discovery by Design, designed by former Artistic Director, Marvin George, provided costume, set & prop construction and stage lighting and sound support for the weekend run of the show.
In 2019, after the success of Jumbie Birds, Briggs and Lacaille formulated another arm of the camp initiative called Discovery by Stage which targeted young actors and actresses between the ages 15 to 20 years olds. That year Discovery Camp gave campers the production experience of putting on another Children’s Theatre play entitled Mystery of the Golden Lantern, written and directed by current Artistic Programme Manager, Ms. Rayshawn Pierre, Danielle, Jay Spencer and new Music Tutor, Belizean, Alexander Evans provided the supporting creative design and expertise for the play.
Discovery Camp continues to be a feature of Arts-in-Action’s outreach and will feature a new Children’s Theatre production in the near future.
