“Don’t forget to count,” Matthew Hill, a percussion teacher at Newark’s AileyCamp said as he used his bare hands to thump a djembe, a West African drum.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, slapped Hill in a fast tempo as the loud thuds echoed throughout the Arts High School auditorium.

Freddy Penasiel, a 14-year-old rising freshman, used drumsticks to tap on a dunun, a cylindrical drum that is part of the West African bass drum family, creating deep, hollow bangs. He and other students, who were arranged in three rows on the auditorium stage, followed their instructor in a call-and-response style.

Boom! The students hit their drums with their left hand. Boom! They hit their drum with their right hand. After every tap to their drum, those in the back row clicked their drumsticks together to form an X with their arms.

Boom, click, boom, boom, click.

Building Self-esteem Through Performing Arts Education

Penasiel is one of five boys who attend the six-week AileyCamp camp based at Arts High School, where a total of 95 students aged 11-14 rotate between different dance and music classes during the weekday.

At the camp, students like Penasiel bang on drums, move to West African rhythms, and learn to never doubt themselves. Students in other sessions learned to twirl and dance to instrumental music while others recited AileyCamp’s daily affirmations such as “I will not use the word ‘can’t’ to define my possibilities” to build confidence and self-esteem.

This is Penasiel’s second and last year at the Newark camp, which began in 2011 and is one of 10 AileyCamps around the country, the first one founded in 1989 in Kansas City, Missouri by dancer, director, and choreographer Alvin Ailey. The renowned dancer believed that every child, especially those from diverse backgrounds, deserved a high-quality experience in the arts, said Nasha Thomas, AileyCamp’s national director and Ailey Arts In Education Master Teacher.

Read the full article about this performing arts camp for kids by Jessie Gómez at Chalkbeat.