It’s that time of year again where awkward youth flock to ramshackle cabins in the woods and brave mosquitoes, campfire ghost stories and Mystery Meat Tuesdays in hopes of forging friendships and embarking on unforgettable adventures.
That’s right: We’re smack dab in the middle of summer-camp season. While to most people summer camp draws up images of nature and esoteric rituals like canoe races, Wealthy Theatre’s summer camp is the alternative, designed for the creative, less outdoorsy individuals.
This year the Wealthy Theatre teamed up with the Creative Youth Center of Grand Rapids, a local nonprofit organization that offers tutoring, writing workshops and other such programs free of charge to students in the Grand Rapids school district. It’s hosting the Visual Verse Animation Camp July 20–24. Gretchen Vinnedge, Wealthy Theatre’s education director, explained how this year’s animation camp will work.
“We choose the best poems from the Creative Youth Center and offer them to our animation students to do an animation for the poem,” Vinnedge said. “Or if they write poems themselves they’re welcome to bring their own poems in and animate them too.”
The camp will focus on both stop motion paper animation and Claymation. Students are given full creative control over the final product.
“It’s their interpretation, so it’s how they view the poem,” Vinnedge explained. “It’s a collaboration between the writers and the animators. The writers have to have a lot of trust. The writers don’t really know what the animator’s going to be doing, but that’s how it works a lot of times in the field.”
In past years the camp has built itself around various themes affecting local youth, such as societal ideals of masculinity and femininity. This year the focus is on creativity and the process of interpretation. It’s also an experiment that Vinnedge is particularly excited about.
“It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do myself,” she said. “I don’t think we can lose, really. They can interpret it literally, they can interpret it experimentally — so there are a lot of options.”
The camp is open to local middle and high school students and the cost for tuition is $75. Completed works from the program will screen at the Mosaic Film Experience in November.
For more information, visit grcmc.org/theatre.
UICA to Screen Award-Winning Doc The Wolfpack
For most of us, movies are a divine form of entertainment. For the Angulo brothers however, they can be a way to experience a world they may not otherwise see.
Crystal Moselle’s new documentary The Wolfpack follows these brothers as they recall being confined to a four-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, a home they rarely left. Homeschooled by their mother and all but isolated from the outside world, these brothers turned to movies to learn about a world they never got to experience.
They throw themselves into the roles of the movies they love and, through the use of meticulously-crafted homemade props, reenact their favorite films to battle feelings of loneliness and frustration. When one of the brothers escapes, however, the brothers must learn to cope and see how strong their bond is.
Last month the New York Times praised the film’s honest approach: “‘The Wolfpack’ doesn’t drag you down or offer packaged uplift, but instead tells a strange tale with heart and generosity.”
The Wolfpack runs through July 16 at the UICA. For more info, visit uica.org/movies.
‘Movies in the Park’ Heats up in July
In an age of Netflix instant queues and being able to watch entire movies on your phone, it seems convenience is king. For those of us who yearn for a yesteryear spent necking, gorging on popcorn and watching classic flicks on an outdoor screen, a good movie — and the right setting — can make for the perfect social event. Luckily for us, Downtown Grand Rapids Inc., Friends of Grand Rapids Parks and Wealthy Theatre host the Movies in the Park at Ah-Nab-Awen Park. This is the third year for the series.
Celebrate your secret crush on the late, great Patrick Swayze by attending a showing of Dirty Dancing on July 10 — then channel your inner child while watching Hook on July 24.
As always, the event is free to the public and various pre-show activities will take place from around 7 p.m. until dusk when the movie starts. Local food vendors will be onsite and legal patrons can bring a cold one to enjoy during the film — just be sure to bring your I.D. too.
For more information, and for a full list of movies in the series, visit downtowngr.org/mitp/.
