Multi-Arts PROGRAMS Multi-Arts: empowering young artists, nurturing creativity and instilling a lifelong love of the arts.

Family Time with Multi-Arts

4/30/2018

Join us in a fun, engaging artistic activity aim to bond you with your child creating collaborative art work that brings you: Laughter, Joy & Communication

Saturday May 19 at 2 pm with Tina Zorzi
She will lead families in a Vision Boarding workshop
Place: Immanuel Lutheran Church 867 N Pleasant St, Amherst

Saturday June 2 at 2 pm with Maia Kinney- Petrucha
Time Travel to the past or the future.
Place: Forbes Library, Northampton

FREE of charge and donations are welcome

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Welcoming new teachers, counselors and CIT's

6/25/2015

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Our internationally renowned performers/teachers and highly educated counselors empower and inspire children to explore their own creativity and develop a lifelong love of the arts.

In addition to our regular faculty, this summer we are welcoming new teachers, counselors and CITS

Teachers:

Luci Mino, Music Teacher: Workshop I
Luci spent a year developing and teaching a series of therapeutic art and music classes for at-risk boys in Mexico, and is currently working towards a degree in creative arts therapy. Luci is a faculty member at Westfield School of Music teaching violin, piano, guitar, and voice.

Debbi Friedlander, Music Teacher: Workshop II
Pulling material from many genres including folk, classical, jazz, and world music, Debbi teaches voice, piano, guitar, ukulele, and violin. She encourages children to write songs and instrumental music, and develop theatrical works that incorporate all the arts. Her album “Somewhere in a Corner,” featuring songs written and performed by her students, won a Parents' Choice Gold award.

Sean Elligers, Music Teacher: Workshop III & IW
Sean recently received his Masters of Music in education and trumpet performance from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In addition to teaching privately, Sean performs classical, jazz, and experimental music and has performed at competitions and festivals in New England and internationally. Sean also holds a Bachelor's degree in film and photography and is always excited to merge visual and aural modes.

Additional Staff:

Catia Correi, Theater Intern
Catia is going to be a sophomore at Georgia Perimeter College next year working for major in Art Administration, and a minor in film. She acts, sings, dances, and is a visual artist as well. She loves working with children, especially when it involved performing arts.

Camille Brenner, Dance Intern and Administrative Assistant
Camille is a student at Brandeis University, and is passionate about the use of arts in education. She has had practice planning programs and facilitating activities for children as an overnight camp counselor, and has worked with children in arts and crafts oriented settings as well. Camille will be interning for the first half of the summer in the art studio at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. She also love dancing; and has practiced numerous styles over the years, with particular focus in modern and improvisation. She recently started an improvisation club at school where she guides students through improvisational dance activities.

Leilani Lafond-Trimble, Fashion Design Intern
Leilani has experience working with children, (Student teacher at Fort River, Junior Counselor a The Hitchcock Center for many years) and is an artist in a lot of forms, most prominently sewing and digital art. She is an entrepreneur, selling commissioned pictures through a website called Deviantart.

Alex Hilliard, Counselor
Alex studies early childhood education at Greenfield Community College and spends her spare time knitting, sewing, and playing with her cat, Sweet Potato. She has training in visual and performing arts, including sculpture, collage, and music theory, and is proficient in a wide variety of craft media. She is passionate about arts-based education and is supplementing her early childhood education major with art and ballet classes in order to gain a fuller understanding of the arts’ role in education.

Elli Palmer, Art Intern
Elli is a rising Senior at Smith College originally from southern New Jersey. At Smith, she's double majoring in Art and Women and Gender Studies and concentrating in Poetry. In her own art practice, she focuses on painting, sculpture, and installation. She love teaching kids and have past experience teaching at a summer camp at a wildlife refuge.

Sophia Schreyer, Volunteer/CIT
Sophia is an aspiring photographer and singer. She love the arts, including drawing, music and dance. Sophia attends Amherst Regional High school and is a multi arts veteran of 6 years.

Greyson Young , CIT
Greyson is soon to be in tenth grade. She loves to run cross country and track, and do crafts. She loves working with small children and would like to major in psychology in college!

Mia Mercedes Rogers, CIT
Mia is fifteen years old and will be a sophomore at Amherst Regional High School. She enjoy art and have taken many art classes through LSSE, the Eric Carle Museum, and while a student at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts School. She also enjoy playing basketball & lacrosse, playing the guitar, listening to music, fashion design, and spending time with her family.

Claire Lord, CIT
Claire, is starting as a freshman at Emmanuel College in Boston in the fall, and plans on majoring in Elementary Education. She has experience working with kids in various capacities, and this will be her second summer working in Multi-Arts. She has taken numerous art and dance courses throughout her high school career, and plans on continuing these works in college.

Alexis Boulanger, CIT
Alexis is in the 8th grade at Pioneer Valley Performing Arts School where she loves studying dance, theatre, and singing. She works with the Dance Education Lab program to create dances with elementary school kids based on what they are learning in science and social studies. She is also a competitive figure skater and enjoys helping to teach kids in the basic skills program at the rink. Lexi loved attending Multi-Arts for years and hopes to pass on the love of the arts to the campers this summer!

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Fun-filled Family Afternoon: June workshops

6/5/2015

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Join Multi-Arts for our free, fun, and creative workshop. Spend the afternoon with us and renowned artist Titus Neijens, who will guide you and your children in expressive artwork straight from your imagination.

Let your creativity roam free during our free activities including making toys, masks, sculptures, imaginary creatures, 3D art pieces, and many more! Enjoy your personal souvenir or project you make with us! Our program is open to children of all ages and parents or caregivers.

Friday June 19, 4:30 in Hadley -Senior Community Center
Friday June 26, 2:00 in Holyoke - Heritage State Park

Join us again in June throughout August for our Summer Arts Camp for one day, two days, or the full week!

Share with your friends!

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Job oportunity

4/10/2015

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Multi-Arts is looking for college students to serve as interns in our Summer arts camp. Interns will work as teaching assistants, and will have a great opportunity to practice teaching in their own fields. Multi-Arts is specifically looking for interns with skills in theater, dance, fashion design, and photography and video.

The internships are designed to be for course credit or to gain experience,however all interns will receive a $500 stipend.

Contact Us if you are interested.

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Faculty and staff for our Winter Camp:

2/11/2015

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Titus Neijens, Art
Titus is a professional illustrator whose work has appeared in European magazines, as well as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker. He is also an art director and set designer in film and theater.

Sonia Arrubla, Theater
Sonia graduated from New York University’s Film and Television MFA program in 2001. She currently works as a theater and film director based in New York City, where her short films have won various awards. She also works as a film editor and has edited major film productions.

Josh Gold, Black Light Theater, Mime, Dance
– Head Counselor
Josh is a teacher, director, choreographer and performer specializing in funk dance, mime, black light theater and costume design.

Wanjiku-Shiko-Magua, Fashion Design & Crafts
– Head Counselor Group I: 4-6 y. o.
Shiko is an artist and teacher. Her mediums for teaching are the visual arts, Folklore/storytelling, games, music, history, the environment and cultural immersion.

Xinef, Writing, Story telling, Music
– Head Counselor Group III: 10-13 y. o.
Xinef teaches creative writing workshops to adults for a youth development program. He also works with social justice initiatives though the creative arts. He loves to write and has published several books.

Chloe Grubbs-Saleem, Crafts
– Assistant Counselor Group II: 7-9 y. o.
Chloe currently works at the Cushman Scott Children's Center in Amherst as an Aftercare Teacher. She is very artistic and love doing arts with little children.

Manuela Rojas, Assistant Counselor Group III: 10-13 y. o.
Manuela is a Multi-Arts alumna. She has worked the last three years as Assistant counselor. Manuela has a special talent for communicating with children of all ages.

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#WhyArtsMatter

10/21/2014

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Wednesday, August 6th

8/6/2014

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Our summer camp is nearing its end. But it’s not over yet! Today was a relatively calm and relaxed day in preparation for tomorrow and Friday. Though there was still a lot of work to be finished for the shows. While it was still a busy day, the kids got to enjoy some down time at lunch, which included a talent show. The kids got to demonstrate their talents for the rest of the camp. It was a success! The kids enjoyed getting to watch their friends. For many, it was the first time they heard about or even saw a talent show.

Elsewhere during the day, the groups rehearsed their plays with their costumes and continued working on props and painting sets and various backdrops for their plays. In other areas of the camp, the usual classes proceeded- dance, music, crafts and fashion- where they were finalizing their routines, musical numbers and outfits for the displays tomorrow. The children are very eager for the shows. They have been working hard on preparing everything. The plays are going to be great Friday, as well as the performances of dance, music and fashion shows.

It has been a lot of fun watching the children come together and progress on their projects and start from the beginning then seeing them work towards the end result.

We are definitely sad that camp is almost over, but it’s going to be a good end to the week, so we hope everyone can come out to enjoy the final shows!

Painting the sets Watching attentively at the talent show Fashion class Working on clothes

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Last week at Multi-Arts has been super fun and exciting

8/4/2014

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Recent projects include paper fortune-teller making and drawing during free time, macramé African storyboards during writing class, and stuffed animals and doily collages in fashion class. In music class, Group I is learning several songs, including a cheerful number called “Everything is Awesome.” In dance class, campers are learning ballet and flamenco.

In art class, campers have made some really cool projects, including collages with pastels and construction paper, crayon and watercolor resist drawings, and a huge variety of props for the plays they are putting on next week. Another really cool project has been printmaking.

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Tuesday, July 29th

7/29/2014

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Today is the second day of session IV and exciting projects are already well under way! In art class, campers made colorful cardboard birds and nestled them into trees made out of real branches, and in fashion they made dream catchers and fabric rosettes.

In writing class, Group II is preparing its own play about a stolen holiday. Stay tuned for more information as it arises!

In music class, campers listened to a song by Schubert, learned chords on the ukulele, and learned a scary folklore ballad. Dancing lessons included freeze dancing and flamenco.

With so much going on already, this is sure to be a great session at Multi-Arts. Thanks for reading and check back again soon to keep up with all the news!

Sincerely,

Multi-Arts Assistant Blog Writer Alex

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Wednesday July 23rd

7/24/2014

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So today was the last unofficial day of regular camp, as tomorrow and Friday are show days. Things were busy underway prepping for the shows. In each classroom, everybody was putting their final touches on things. In theater, the children had fun picking out the rest of their costumes, rummaging through the costume bins, trying on all sorts of pieces. In theatre they were working on staging and blocking, making sure everything was ready. For the music portion, they were also rehearsing their songs. In art, they were working on painting the backdrops and any props they need.

In fashion, the children were designing apparel for dogs to be shown on Thursday night and making them “bones” out of paper, as well as working on their own clothes. They were very patient and quiet as they worked. When all the rehearsing is done and finished, the kids get to be silly and play games with their groups, go outside, eat. The kids love to play games and learn new ones and have fun with everyone else that way.