Town resident makes art center stage at summer
day camp
By Vesna Jaksic
Dale Lewis' summer tasks include attending concerts
by some of the nation's most accomplished artists, working with teachers
who are also Broadway actors and Radio City Rockettes, and mentoring students
who may one day go on to win Grammy awards.
The town resident is the executive director of
the Usdan Center for the Performing Arts in Wheatley Heights, N.Y., the
nation's largest summer arts day camp. Lewis, who had a successful career
as a cellist, now satisfies his love for the arts by working at a place
where art is a way of life.
With another season around the corner, Lewis
may be as excited about going to camp as some of his students, nearly 2,000
of whom take classes there each summer. Lewis, 53, will move to the camp
next week and spend his summer overseeing events such as visiting artists'
daily concerts and Usdan University, a one-day arts camp on Long Island
for adults that he created last year.
"My idea is that education never stops," said
the father of two, whose wife is the director of performing and visual
arts at Greenwich Country Day School. "It's a lifetime pursuit and that's
really how our summer programs are made here."
The center's largest program is music, but students
also take classes ranging from creative writing to musical theater. The
children -- who are between the ages of 8 and 18 -- attend classes, watch
daily concerts and swim in the camp's Olympic-size swimming pool. Visiting
artists include some of the nation's most accomplished ensembles and dance
companies, and the center's list of 40,000 alumni includes the Tony-nominated
actress Natalie Portman, Grammy-winning singer Mariah Carey and acclaimed
jazz singer Jane Monheit.
"Often I'll talk to kids years later and they'll
say, 'I felt lost in my own high school, I wanted music more than anything
else,' " Lewis said. "When they say things like 'Usdan changed my life,'
I'm just so thrilled because they mean it. Because at Usdan they are surrounded
by almost 2,000 kids who share their interest and make lifetime friendships."
Usdan -- named after Suzanne Usdan, whose father
made the initial gift that allowed the center to open in 1968 -- attracts
about half a dozen Greenwich students each year. Students commute to Long
Island, N.Y., each weekday on 120 buses that pick up kids throughout the
tri-state area.
Sam Kelly, a seventh-grader at Greenwich Country
Day, said he will attend Usdan for the second time this summer and focus
on creative writing.
"It is great," said Sam, 13. "It encourages a
lot of the creative arts and it's pretty different from all the other camps.
All the people are really nice and there is a lot of stuff you can do there."
Lewis has worked at the center for 25 years,
helping secure donations, auditioning high school students who apply for
one of the 100 merit scholarships, and working with 250 professional artists
who are the camp's faculty. He helped open the center's $4 million, 1,000-seat
McKinley Amphitheater in 2001 and hopes to establish more programs, such
as a year-round conservatory for college students.
In addition to his work at Usdan, Lewis is most
proud of founding The Center for Chamber Music in Greenwich, which will
celebrate its 30th anniversary next year. The arts organization provides
music education and enrichment programs for children and adults and presents
concerts in town.
One of his favorite things about Usdan, Lewis
said, is the progress its students make throughout the summer. A neighbor
of the camp's 200-acre woodlands property once told him the children's
concerts go from sounding horrible in June to professional by the end of
summer, he said.
"I always think that's such a great metaphor
for what happens at this place," he said. "Because children grow not only
as artists, they grow as people."
For more information about the Usdan Center for
the Creative and Performing Arts, log on to www.usdan.com.
Source: Greenwich
Time (All rights reserved)
Posted on June the 11th. |
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But, aaaahhhhhh, London is soooo expensive 
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Mom, Dad... 
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I thought it was time again to ask webmasters to take part. You can
check the page and the sites which already joined 
