Expanded summer camps give Liberty professors, students opportunities to help youth engage with the arts

The Liberty University School of Communication & the Arts (SCA) expanded its offerings for 136 students of different ages to engage with the arts throughout the month of June. In addition to its annual Liberty University Theatre Camp (LUTC) for elementary school campers, the SCA launched an Uncut Series of camps for high school and middle school students.

Liberty’s Department of Theatre Arts has offered a summer camp for roughly 12 years, but summer arts coordinator and theatre professor Chris Nelson developed the Uncut Series for students to explore more artistic disciplines like dance, filmmaking, and art, with each section led by Liberty professors and students from those corresponding areas under SCA.

“When we had to cancel our (theatre) camps last year due to COVID, we got to look to see how we could expand it, because we have so many great departments in the School of Communication & the Arts, departments that would benefit from a camp like this,” Nelson said. “We’ve always known camps as great opportunities to get students acquainted with Liberty and get to know our department, and we wanted to try it with more areas.”

Throughout the high school camps, Liberty professors taught masterclasses in their discipline, followed by breakout sessions led by current Liberty students serving as counselors. With the theatre and dance camps merging, students were allowed to explore the diverse aspects of live performance — such as tap dancing, stage combat, and costumes — while the film camp broke down the various roles in the filmmaking progress, including screenwriting, lighting, editing, and sound design.

Nelson said Liberty’s camps are unique because students can learn about these artforms through a Christian worldview.

“The masterclasses and breakout sessions are really what make these camps very ‘Liberty-esque’ because so many of our faculty are able to invest in the campers,” Nelson said. “The campers are really getting a great opportunity to work one-on-one with faculty and students within our departments, so it’s a really immersive experience and a preview of what it would look like to study the given artform at a university level. Also, a goal is being able to show how our faith interacts and connects with our artforms, which sets the camps apart.”

Liberty rising junior Aaron Hall, who is pursuing his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre, was a counselor for the theatre/dance camp and noted that his role allowed him to share his enthusiasm for theatre and his faith.

“It was an awesome opportunity to see kids of all different ages who were interested in the art of theatre, and we (counselors) were seeing ourselves in the campers because they’re where we used to be,” he said. “We got to see kids who were inspired by theatre and who wanted to learn more. Even outside of the theatre portion of things, it gave us the chance to have conversations about life, Jesus, careers, and other topics, so we got to pour into these kids with what we know beyond theatre, too.”

Each camp concluded with a chance for the campers to showcase what they had learned. The theatre sections of the Uncut camps (high school and middle school) performed cabaret-style shows (view recap video) with songs originally in stage musicals and movies, while the film camp held red-carpet premieres for their short films and the middle school art camp held an art gallery. For the elementary students in LUTC, their work culminated in a performance of the children’s theatre show, “How I Became a Pirate Younger@Part.”

Nelson said these camps can be a preview for what being a Liberty student looks and feels like, particularly for the high school campers.

“If you’re a prospective student, to come in the summer and spend nine days with the department, it’s fantastic,” Nelson said. “You’re then able to come in as a freshman and you know the faculty, you know some of the other students, and you know the facilities and campus. It’s a really great way to make them feel more at ease and help that freshman year nervousness.”

“We’re very happy and grateful for the number of students who were able to come this year,” he added, “and I’m really excited about what the future holds.”