Podcast with Dominique Flores, Teaching Artist for the Girls Artfully Minded Summer Camp
Listen in or read along this podcast conversation between teaching artist Dominique Flores and Marion Kleinschmidt from the Athena Project Marketing Team to discover how to get your teen out of their room; how to help young girls create rather than just consume; and how to support their mental wellbeing with Athena’s fun-packed Artfully Minded camp this summer.
Read-along Version of Podcast
Marion: It’s summer, and here’s the big question. How are you all helping your teenagers unshackle themselves from their devices over the next few weeks? How are we all empowering our girls to create instead of consuming? How do we teach them to take care of their mental health?
Hi, everyone. I’m Marion Kleinschmidt from Athena Project. Today, I’m thrilled to talk to Dominique Flores, who is not only the director of our Girls Create program, but also an actress by training and the teaching artist for our Artfully Minded Camp running from 22nd to 26th of July. Every summer, Athena Project hosts several week-long camps for girls and non-binary youth who attend sixth to 10th grade under the header Girls Create. And what happens there is that they get to explore various different art forms under the guidance of professional teaching artists.
Dominique, thank you for taking the time to give us some insights into your person and the Artfully Minded experience.
Dominique: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
Marion: This is only the second year we are offering this particular camp. What does Artfully Minded actually stand for? What kind of camp are we to imagine?
Dominique: Well, that’s a great question. Artfully Minded is a camp that is helping to create empathy for others and self-compassion for the campers. And we’re incorporating various art forms to establish those qualities. And I personally hope that this camp, which is offered to 6th to 10th grade girls and non-binary youths, will teach them some skills of self-awareness and management, as well as skills for social awareness and relationship-building as they bud into their adult world.
Marion: That sounds like exactly what individuals in this age bracket badly need. Because how does the love for self translate into love for others and functioning, enriching relationships with them? That sounds so great.
Dominique: Thank you. Exactly.
Marion: What art forms are we talking about here?
Dominique: Well, we have the idea of movement and improv, visual arts, spoken word, just to name a few.
Marion: That sounds like a great medley. I know that the other camps that Athena presents are more focused on one specific art form, and this is the medley where participants get to try their hands and bodies and voices at various different artistic disciplines.
Dominique, you are a trained actress, a passionate performance makeup artist, and you’re also experienced in teaching teens movement and improv, so you bring all the goods to be the main facilitator for this camp, and we’re so lucky to have you. How do you remember your own teenage years and your budding relationship to the arts?
Dominique: Well, I honestly remember my teenage years as being challenging, isolating, and frankly, full of insecurity.
Marion: Yeah, well, that sounds familiar.
Dominique: Right? Especially for this age that the camp is geared to, the 6th to 10th grade. And then, as far as my relationship to the arts, I discovered theater in middle school and fell in love with theater and the idea that you could be a different character and you could put on these different hats, and I discovered that if I were to become an actress, I wouldn’t have to choose just one profession, right? I could play many different roles. Later in life, I discovered that theater was therapy in a way for me, being able to dive into different emotions and roles and even attending theater and seeing other playwrights and how they are able to express emotion and relationships really can lend to being therapy, if you allow it.
Marion: I hear you. Do you remember any particular role that you played in your teenage years?
Dominique: Well, in the beginning I played a thief three in “A Christmas Carol”. This is an odd nod to Chelsea Clinton who was actually in that show as well. And so it was an interesting time very long ago, because I spent my teenage formative years in Arkansas, which was very different being born and a native of Colorado. So that was very different.
Marion: I remember I I played third God in a Brecht play in Germany. I like these third something roles. You’re not a lead part, but you’re bringing something big to the show by providing contrast or a different spiritual quality or emotional quality to the play. And I like how that connects to your point about the healing of the arts, because we take on a specific function in something bigger on the stage, and it I think it helps us see ourselves as a player in the world of human interactions, to not take ourselves fully serious. To become aware of the roles we take on and the masks we take on and that we can take them off. Does that resonate with your view on the healing capacities of theatre?
Dominique: Definitely, it does. I’t’s just such a powerful art, although there are many art forms that I love and I’m excited to incorporate in the camp. Theater is the one that really makes me feel alive.
Marion: And you, we were talking about movement for mental health. How are you planning to bring the movement aspect into the Artfully Minded camp, since so far I don’t think there is a specific athletic or yoga component. How is that going to look?
Dominique: Movement is a part of theater in its own form and was taught to me in college. But in my daily life I find that movement helps when stress and situations that are out of my control come up and try and interrupt the balance of this happy, healthy mental state that I try to maintain. And so I plan to use movement in various ways. You know, as an actor, our body is our tool and the movement affects how well we can, you know, perform, whether it’s vocally or physically.
And so I’ve found that movement can help overcome feelings of that overwhelm and internal discomfort. A few examples of that might be … Let’s say that problem arises, right? That you don’t know really what to do about. And I I begin to feel overwhelmed and full of fear or sadness. Then I get up and I do something physical. I move my body. It may be to do the dishes or some other organizing chore. It could even be exercise, sometimes walking or swimming. But one of my favorite ways to move is dance. And so I thought, you know, teaching the campers to turn on their favorite song and moving their body and having that happiness come through the movement and something that they enjoy is this great distraction. And it kind of takes away that overwhelm and that fear that you were feeling.
Marion: That is so beautiful. And I love that the participants will be. able to take that quality back home. First of all, we all slump in the summer, because here in Colorado, it’s just so dang hot. And people just crawl to their air-conditioned rooms and get onto their phones and iPads. So I love that this camp, first of all, is five days worth of getting the body out of that slump and moving in a cool, spacious room with other fun participants. And so that’s therapeutic in itself. And I love that the participants, when they go back into their home lives and then back to school, they have this kind of memory in their cells and their bodies and their limbs of how good it felt to connect with movement outside of the regulated spaces where it’s supposed to take place. So hopefully that sticks, but there’s so much more planned to happen during the Artfully Minded camp. Could you tell us about one of the guest artists who will be presenting during the camp?
Dominique: Certainly. We have an organization called Art from Ashes, and they empower the youth through artistic expression and they do it for ages 9 to 24 of all genders. And so we had them in our first year, last year and the campers absolutely loved them. It’s maybe a little slam poetry and they get a little intense, but I’m just so excited to have them come back and be one of the guest artists.
Marion: I saw some of the video responses from last year’s participants and they were like, wow, that was the most amazing part. We loved creating with words ad hoc and performing for the others. That seems to have been a really hot element last year, and I’m so glad that’s happening again.
Dominique: Me too.
Marion: Dominique, as I happen to know, you’re not only an artist and a teacher, but a mom of two amazing kids. So, you’re in the same boat with all our summer moms and dads. What helps your kids stay sane when they’re faced with their own llama dramas? Pressure at school, getting the grades, their self-image, discovering who they are and things they loathe about themselves. All these ups and downs. What helps your kids?
Dominique: Well, in my house we use this word often, and it is “distract”. So, when there are those pressures of school and ups and downs, friendship issues or just trying to navigate your own internal emotions for a child. We like to use the word “distract”, and then we do that in lots of different ways. There’s Legos. My children love to play with Legos, board games, silly as that may be. And those are some of the ways that we distract from that.
Marion: So, you’re kind of pushing the magnified, maybe even artificial, unnecessary blow-ups to the side and fill the space with communion and happiness.
Dominique: Trying to. And then, sometimes, as my children have learned from a very young age to draw, from elementary school, there is a bit of actual visual art that can come into play.
Marion: I have a four-year-old and my main recipe is “just add water”. When she has a meltdown and everything is difficult, we throw her into the bath and she just … The physical experience, movement in water, changing the atmosphere around her seems to work magic almost every single time. It’s kind of funny how working with very simple elements can make such a huge difference, isn’t it?
Dominique: It is. And I think as she grows, you know, even drinking a glass of water might translate, as she still uses that element of water. And for my kids, breathing is definitely a part of it, you know, ’cause you don’t want to not feel the feelings, right? I think it’s important that I teach my kids it’s OK to be angry, but how we express that anger or the other feelings that might arise is an important part of growing up, too. So breathing is important in that and, you know, taking a moment to assess.
Marion: Again, I love that the Artfully Minded Camp is like a big breather for all the participants, where they get to breathe out some of their stress, transform their big feelings into something artistic, and bring that experience home.
Final question. Do you have any tips for other parents out there who right now on school break are trying to pry their kids off screens and devices?
Dominique: Well, I think that’s an interesting question. Personally, when I’m faced with that question, I put it upon myself to go: How am I leading by example? Am I able to disconnect from my own device and pay a little bit more attention to them? Maybe creating time together? I won’t, you know, shy away from that. That’s not always what my teenager wants to do, right? There is this new element of, you know, wanting to be in her room and having her own space. But there is something to be said for being available, and that means myself disconnecting from a device and being present and playing, you know, Yahtzee or offering a quick walk at sunset. Something like that would be how I personally might pry my kids away from screens. Yeah, being present and present with alternatives.
Marion: I’m hearing your point about actually modeling the behavior we hope to see.
So, dear listeners, do yourselves a favor and book that yoga class or gym membership, book that retreat or camping weekend. And very sincerely, we encourage you to book the Artfully Minded camp for your daughter, daughters, nonbinary kids in that age bracket, because you will be giving them a tool that lasts.
This camp is inclusive of nonbinary youth, is affordable with no hidden or added fees, and there are scholarships available. So, thank you all who’ve been listening to this Artfully Minded conversation. Check out the booking link in the first comment and in the post, or just go directly to athenaprojectarts.org and find out all about our camps. Thank you, Dominique, for your time and insights.
Dominique: You’re so welcome. Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure.
Marion: We look forward to welcoming more participants into the camp and sharing some snippets from the magic in July. So. Good luck to you and we’ll connect at another point in time. Thank you, Dominique.