Dance, sing and DJ: Kids can learn it all at this summer camp in Fresno
FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – A summer camp that teaches kids how to play instruments, how to DJ, learn media production, and choreography sounds like something out of a movie. But the Making the Banda program promises it all.
The program is a series of four-day workshops stretched across the month of July; students are picked up and taken to Chukchansi Park to learn from local artists. At the end of the workshops, students put on a performance showing off what they have learned.
Chris Wilson and Andrea Andrade, co-founders of CSA Events and Entertainment, are behind the program.
“A lot of these students listen to their music in the car or at home with their parents. But in a concert or band class, they’re playing Beethoven or something like that.”
Through the program, Wilson and Andrade started working to give students the opportunity to learn to make the kind of music they listen to.
The program began at McLane High School and has since moved to Chukchansi Park in Downtown Fresno.
The program works in partnership with the Fresno Unified School District, but Andrade says the program’s recent partnership with Kings Canyon Unified is special to her as a Reedley native.
“Having Kings Canyon and Orange Cove join us makes me very happy,” Andrade said. “We would love to grow to the entire Central Valley and have all the kids be able to have this opportunity.”
Wilson and Andrade say the program is more than an opportunity for kids to learn, socialize, and have fun: it’s also an opportunity for them to see that different and more creative career paths are possible – and introduce them to people like Edmund Mendoza.
Edmund Mendoza has been a DJ for 30 years and hopes to provide kids with a way to navigate life’s ups and downs through creativity.
“Music is the universal language and it helps people through different situations,” Mendoza said. “I only see a bright future for these kids, being able to express their emotions through music.”
Mendoza says he was around the same age as many of his students when he first started DJing. Since working with the program, he says he has seen kids go from skeptics in front of their peers to full-blown music lovers in their hearts.
“Originally he was kind of standoffish,” Mendoza said. “[Then] when I went to lunch, the kid was singing it in the restroom.”
Wilson says there’s still time to register your kids for the program, additional information including registration can be found here.
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