By LARRY WOOD

The Aiken Standard

If it can be painted, sculpted, danced, acted, sung or written, Aiken County Public Schools students are doing it this summer at Kennedy Middle School.

Almost 200 elementary, middle and high school students are participating in the District’s annual Gateway program, which stands for Gifted And Talented Education With Artistic Youth.

For the next two to three weeks, the students, who audition for the program, are polishing their skills in the performing, visual and creative arts, including painting and clay sculpture, drama, dance, guitar, band, chorus and, for middle and high school students, creative writing.

“The students do some very special, unique projects in both the visual and the performing arts that they have never done in the regular classroom,” said Meredith Leopard, the Gateway director who teaches art at Hammond Hill Elementary in North Augusta. “We set the bar high and expect high levels of achievement. The artistic kids are every bit as important as the academics, and they need to have their moment to shine, too.”

For the four to five weeks of Gateway, the school takes over the Kennedy Middle campus.

Self portraits in vivid colors and large murals with geometric designs lined the hall outside an art class Thursday. In the ceramics room, face jugs stared out from a counter top, waiting to be fired in the kiln.

Down the hall in the music analysis class, students learned the history of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and rewrote the lyrics in modern English.

“We’re trying to make them well-rounded musicians,” said Stephanie Threlkeld, a former band director at Schofield Middle who now teaches medically homebound students. “They perform the music better if they understand the background: Why did the composer write the piece; what instrumentation did he use; what was going on in the world?”

In the creative writing class, students worked on altered books. They painted a book for their choice and decorated it with feathers or other textures. After the books are complete, the students will write poems on a single theme – love or loss, for example – to fill their books.

“At the end, they will have a complete book of their own poetry that has artistic connections tied thematically to their writing,” said instructor Lauren Gehr, who teaches at White Knoll High School in Lexington.

In the gym, dance students practiced a number choreographed to the song “Rise Up,” and drama students rehearsed a scene from the Broadway musical “Newsies.”

Q’Ladrin Qourters, 17, a drama student who goes to Aiken High, said she’s “already loving” her first year at Gateway.

“I just really love Gateway,” she said, taking a break from “Newsies” rehearsals and having lunch on the gym’s bleachers. “Even though I’m with the drama department, I get a taste of everything. I get to sing and to dance. We can all be part of the production with our own piece. It’s like a little bit of Broadway here in Aiken. ”

Claudia Elvira, 13, who goes to North Augusta Middle School, offered some advice for prospective Gateway students next year.

“If you can get in, do it,” she said. “It’s really fun.”

Larry Wood covers education for the Aiken Standard.

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