Image Credit: Adam Rose/FoxTeens these days honestly have nothing to complain about, especially with really awesome things like this out there: In North Carolina, a music academy held a series of Glee Camps this summer, where young adults learned how to replicate the routines on the popular TV show. Pause for those older than 17 to groan in jealousy.
I’ve been to one kind of summer camp in my life: a week-long newspaper camp in a Texas city that is home to one of the state’s most famous prisons. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time — creepy factor aside. I even went two years in a row voluntarily. But if someone had given me the option at the time between a week writing in a damp, odd-smelling dorm on a hill or a week of singing and dancing…I probably would have chosen writing, actually. I was painfully shy and likely would have thrown myself off the aforementioned hill at the mere thought of performing for strangers. More importantly, there was no choir-themed TV show to make singing and dancing socially acceptable. And that’s my point.
For show tune geeks who like to sing and dance (Woo!), a Glee-themed camp — or Glee, for that matter — would have been a God-send in high school. We could have maintained our interests under the guise of fanaticism — that it was all in admiration of a TV show — which would have made it a million times cooler.
I plan to hold out for the grown up-friendly instructional that will teach me how to Glee. (Yes, it’s a verb now.) My guess is that it will likely come in DVD form and be labeled a “workout.” Ugh.
What about you, PopWatchers? Did you ever go to any camp remotely as cool as this one? And don’t you wish Glee was around when you were a kid?
@EWSandraG on Twitter
Oh, so a camp for gay kids.
People like you are EXACTLY who need to watch this show.
I used to, but it got all preachy and Finn was labeled a bad guy because he didn’t want to be gay and Mike O’ Malley’s character went into this big speech about his son.
Geeks have been doing this for years. It is called Showchoir Camps of American. I know, I went 4 years in a row.
It’s called Showchoir Camps of America*. I know, I was a counselor.
I’m determined now to find us a time machine so we can make our dreams happen.
LOL seriously, this is called “show choir” and it exists in tons of schools around the country. It’s better than a camp. The only show choirs I ever encountered (at competitions and so forth) were always full-fledged classes, so every day (or every other day, depending on the school schedule) you’d get a break from regular classes to learn posture, good breathing, how to read music, how to use your diaphragm, music theory, music history, good singing technique, stage presence, and relatively simple dance moves. It was AWESOME. Arts enrichment + physical activity + a mental break from learning the more traditional subjects = WIN. Basically, I’m trying to say “support the arts in schools!”
[Side note: the chorus dept was by far the cool kids' arena at my school. Band was for dorks, theater was for freaks, shop was for burnouts...it's bizarre to me to see show choir kids mocked as losers when I had to contend with being the lone nerd in a sea of popular people.]