Students experience world cultures through the arts

Although Linnea Van Manen can’t speak a single word of Bengali, she’s learning to appreciate the language.

Linnea, a rising seventh grader at Phillips Middle School, joined four other students Tuesday at the Global Gurukul art camp for an afternoon of singing, practicing yoga and drawing while learning about new cultures.

“It’s fun because you get to cover stuff, but you don’t spend too long on one thing,” Linnea said. “For people my age, it’s a little bit too much to spend a long time on one thing.”

Padmini Srinivasan Hands, a former music instructor, founded the camp after taking a long hiatus from teaching while she cared for her ailing husband, who passed away earlier this year.

“I came through my process and said, ‘I really need to go back to music and children,” she said.

Participants in the camp learn about subjects ranging from Ethiopian art to the music of northeastern India.

For the camp, Hands said she wants to teach students about world cultures by focusing on art and music — two forms she feels students can easily relate to.

“It’s all rooted in who they are culturally, and often in music and art you can find those connections if you dig deep enough,” she said.

In the future, Hands said she would also like to look at different foods and dances from other cultures.

To teach the art portion of the camp, Hands enlisted the help of Eireann Dunbar, a graduate in fine arts of Western Carolina University, and her daughter, Shanti Hands.

“Whether it’s visual art, fine art, or whether it’s music and other forms of artistic expression, I feel it’s directly influenced by the way we live, which is so much about our cultures,” said Dunbar, who focuses on teaching campers about art from across the world.

In the intimate atmosphere of the Community Church of Chapel Hill, the program’s diverse activities give students an opportunity to experience world cultures they would otherwise never encounter, Hands said.

“I think it’s very good that they spread different cultures,” camper Nia Simpson said. “I think a lot of kids need to be experienced to it.”

Most of the students at Tuesday’s session were signed up for the camp, which will run through August 5, by their parents. But they all said they have found it to be a fun way to spend their summer vacations.

“At first I didn’t want to,” camper Elise Van Manen said. “But now I want to… because I think it’s really fun and interesting.”

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