Create a Summer Camp Kids Won’t Stop Talking About

Are you planning a summer camp?

If so, imagine one led by a concert guitarist who’s played for royalty, an improvisational jazz beatboxer who brings rhythm to life, and a performance artist who crafts giant puppets.

These aren’t hypotheticals. They’re actual COMPAS teaching artists, who are also some of Minnesota’s finest educators and creators. They give your campers the chance to discover new sides of themselves, explore creativity in unexpected ways, and go home buzzing with ideas.

And the best part? They don’t replace your programming. They enrich it by weaving music, visual art, and performance into your camp’s rhythm while building confidence, igniting excitement, and creating lasting memories.

That’s exactly what happened recently at the Minnesota Boychoir’s annual bootcamp.

COMPAS + Boychoir Bootcamp: Creativity in Action

As the oldest boy choir in the Twin Cities, the Minnesota Boychoir brings together young voices for music and community. COMPAS has added a new layer of creativity. Now in its third year of partnering with COMPAS, the Boychoir welcomed teaching artists Soli Hughes, Terrell X, and Malia Araki Burkhart to its annual one-week boot camp for singers ages 6 to 12, opening up fresh ways for participants to explore performance and self-expression.

Over the course of five days, Soli, Terrell, and Malia led sessions that helped kids discover new creative possibilities. As Camp Director Phil Radtke explains, “They experienced diverse fields of art, like puppetry and beat-making. Different things that, together, create more well-rounded performers.”

From Beatboxing to Big Puppets

Those who worked with Terrell explored the art of making music with their own bodies, learning foundational beatboxing techniques, experimenting with rhythm and vocal percussion, and even writing and performing original pieces together.

Campers in Malia’s sessions experienced the creative freedom of designing and building their own puppets, then bringing them to life through movement and performance.

And Soli’s Science of Sound Lab dove into how sound works from the inside out, experimenting with frequency, waveforms, and vibration using hands-on activities and real instruments. Campers got to connect the worlds of art, science, and math in playful, memorable ways.

Excitement That Sticks

Some campers were so engrossed in the new skills they were learning that they continued working on them outside the sessions with the COMPAS teaching artists, often devoting their lunch hours to creative work, such as composing lyrics for their own raps. As Phil noted, “They were excited, and that was exciting to see.”

This is where COMPAS shines. One of our greatest strengths is collaborating with program partners to pair them with teaching artists (there are more than 130 on our roster!) in ways that expand the offerings of their camp. Each teaching artist brings their own expertise, and the partnership enriches the program with a variety of opportunities for every camper to bring their imagination to life.

What Camp Leaders Are Saying

The word “excitement” comes up repeatedly in the feedback COMPAS has received about its work with Boychoir:

“The puppets the campers created were absolutely wonderful. And when I asked one of them to demonstrate how to move their puppet, they excitedly showed me what they had learned.”
— Boychoir staff member

“Our campers all really enjoyed the session…they were engaged and excited by the content.”
— Boychoir staff member

Learn more about COMPAS, our roster of teaching artists, and how we can bring creativity to your environment here. 

Read more stories about our work to put creativity in the hands of millions of Minnesotans here.

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