ARTmusing Summer – Macau Cultural Centre’s annual Summertime event – returns to entertain the whole family!
Created by Macau Cultural Centre in 2005, the ARTmusing Summer Series has become a firm Summer fixture, facilitating art workshops catering to all family members – young and old – for artists of every stripe from around the world. In the last 14 years, over 400 workshop classes have been enjoyed by more than 14,000 people, including parents, teenagers, young kids, toddlers, babies and seniors.
This year is no different. The 15th edition of ARTmusing Summer Workshop will gather some 2,000 people for the opportunity to engage in over 80 workshops catering to a variety of art modalities. Local artists – together with artists from Spain and Hong Kong – will guide kids and teenagers in the exploration of their artistic potential through educational workshops; parents can learn new skills together with their children in family workshops; and the elderly are included, too, in the chance to further broaden their horizons.
Children as young as four months old accompanied by an adult can participate in the family workshops, which seek to bring together parents and children of up to 12 years old to cultivate creativity and have fun together whilst developing their relationship through art activities. Art forms include music, dance, puppetry, clowning, storytelling and new baby sensory workshops especially catering to babies and toddlers from four months to two years old. The classical music workshops, for example – with nature and animals their central theme – are especially designed for toddlers; while the one for babies adopts a musical and interactive environment to guide them through the exploration of their surroundings. The storytelling workshop introduces new ideas for parents to get more interaction out of story time: a real-life adventure inspired by book illustrations with plenty of interaction and sound effects will help families not only listen to the story but participate in it. And the puppetry workshop is a way of strengthening the parent-child relationship while they create and design their own puppets.
Children aged three to 12 years old will have the opportunity to discover their artistic talents whilst boosting their creativity and imagination through music, dance and body expression, drama, puppetry, clowning, storytelling and acrobatics, affording them a great opportunity to make new friends and develop their communication and social skills. Some Macao Orchestra musicians will join one of the music workshops in which nature is the main theme to demonstrate different instruments to the little ones. The fun of modern dance is learned and experienced by creating steps and moves based upon a traditional fairytale – which will be presented to the families at the end. The puppetry workshops enable kids to learn how to recycle objects to create and operate puppets; and the acrobatic workshops allow them to challenge the limits of their bodies by learning simple acrobatic skills and training to improve co-ordination.
Teenagers have a special spot in ARTmusing: music, singing and body expression are used in trendy and inspiring activities that encourage them to challenge their own artistic aptitudes. Being old enough, they are now able to understand the basic techniques of musical art forms, including singing and movement – thus, the understanding and possibilities of physical movement can be understood through practice and games in addition to the practice of famous musical pieces and a short presentation at the end of the musical workshops.
Finally, participants aged 55 and above are invited to fulfil their artistic aspirations through simple and relaxing modalities to be unveiled on a creative and interactive basis. Senior friends will be able to learn the basics of vocal training and interpret not only some golden Macau and Hong Kong hits but also sing musical theatre excerpts. Moreover, through games and plenty of interaction participants can learn new dance moves and even create their own steps while improving body co-ordination.
So, whatever your age, experience or passion – there’s something for everyone in Macau’s artistic Summer!
