Featured Activities
Cole Arts Camp is a safe space for students to freely express and explore their ideas, imaginations and emotions through a range of art mediums. Student rotate between activities from hip hop creative dance, percussive drumming, puppeteering, story telling, visual arts and more.
Andre's dance classes are full of exciting songs familiar and new giving them a wide palette of percussive and melodic music to dance to. Group games and choreography are collaborative with time to explore their individual inclinations and creative ideas. Andre leads students in dance and drum circles were they are able to be part of the group and confidently express individually.
Doug has been perfecting the art of storytelling to children for over 25 years. He has a wide variety of stories in his repertoire, and can tailor an assembly for a particular group of kids. Doug's stories include comedy, folk and fairy tales, and myths and legends from around the world. Comic stories from his childhood and his son Andre's are particular favorites of children, as are his original fantasy stories and fairy tales.
He has an especially rich collection of tales from ancient India, China and Norse mythology that tie in nicely with many schools' social studies curriculum. Doug is a highly accomplished harmonica player, and often integrates some music into his assemblies
Since the beginning of my teaching career, I saw the power of stories to engage, transform, educate and delight. Rarely a day went by in my classroom when I wasn't spinning some kind of tale. If I forgot, or got too busy, the kids would plead with me "How about a story Mr C.-pleeease!"
All students work up to a final performance on the last day performed for families and friends.
Camp Director - Doug Cole
Doug has been writing and directing children's plays for over twenty years. He is a former elementary school teacher at St. Paul's School in Oakland and Black Pine Circle in Berkeley. Doug holds a CA Multiple Subjects Teaching Credential , an MA in Elementary Ed. and a second MA in School Administration. Doug was an adjunct faculty member at the School of Education at JFK University from 1992-1996, and has been selected to Who's Who of American Teachers five times.
Doug currently teaches drama at eight schools in Oakland, Moraga and Orinda.
Doug is the author of close to 20 plays for young people, and is a professional storyteller and an accomplished musician.
Camp Co-Director - Andre Cole
André teaches his very popular after school enrichment dance classes at numerous schools around the Bay Area. An Oakland native, Andre has been dancing, drumming and performing since a very young age, and loves to spread knowledge and creative energy to the next generation. He was a dance student at The Oakland School for the Arts where he trained with well-known teacher and choreographer Reginald Savage and spent a decade in New York City, graduating with a B.A. from the New School in dance and psychology and training with the Alvin Ailey School. André then went on to perform professionally in a number of on and off-Broadway shows and original works.
André has taught youth ages 5 and up for over a decade and continues to train adults in hip hop, creative dance and fitness. For more of Andre's work, visit AndreCole.com