At Centauri Summer Arts Camp, the campers in the Leaders in Training program (L.I.T) will, at some point, do an inspirational challenge. It’s an opportunity to speak in front of the whole camp. The task is not a small one: inspire us. Yikes.
And yet, every summer, sometime 2 or 3 times a day, campers come up and tell stories of inspiration in the hope that it’s catching. Sometimes they tell introspective tales of trials overcome. Sometimes they talk about their heroes, and their fears. Sometimes they don’t speak at all, but paint, sing, dance, or put up inspirational quotes all over camp. It gets you thinking—where does inspiration come from? If I ask my mentors who inspired them, could I build a tree of inspiration? Can we track inspiration back generations to find its source?
I tried to do this with Centauri Arts Camp, and making arbitrary connections, I somehow ended up in the Rosedale hotel in the 1900s, where a Canadian singer used to sing about Saskatchewan. While this project opened my eyes to how we write our own histories through the stories we tell, I was also struck by the limits of genealogies. A geneology of inspiration, which moves linearly backwards in time, ignores an essential part of why Centauri has inspired so many: the possibility of mutual inspiration. As one time counselor, and now program director, I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been inspired by a camper. These smart, creative, terrified, learning and listening people inspire me everyday. And I can only hope that I inspire them. Every day at Centauri Arts Camp, my campers are busy taking risks and playing and having fun. And I’m right there with them. And we feel safe to do that at Centauri, because we’re in it together.
An old program director once described Centauri saying, “an embrace is not the same as a dance.” In a dance, you are independent, you have control, you are you; and you share the floor with another independent, crazy diamond. You create something with that person. This is the perfect metaphor for what Centauri Arts Camp is like. At Centauri, we are all dancers (and actors, and singers…). We share the space, cut rugs and take names together. We inspire each other; never sacrificing ourselves for the whole, but rather learning, listening and growing together as a community.
Thea Fitz-James is a Theatre Camp Program Director at Centauri Summer Arts Camp.
www.centauriartscamp.com