Programs

• Ballet Folklórico
• Dance
• Improvisation
• InSchool
• Mariachi
• Music
• Support Services
• Visual Art

Summary
MECA's Summer Arts Program offers an incredible variety of multicultural, classical and contemporary arts education, and support services. MECA students will participate in daily classes that include several different art forms, a multicultural studies class and academic enhancement. Students will take approximately thirty field trips to museums, parks and cultural performances, and will perform for family and community members at the Summer Recital.

More research is done every year on the importance of arts programs such as MECA. A recent report entitled Champions of Change utilized several independent studies to identify seven major influences that the arts have on youth development:

• The arts reach students in ways that they are not otherwise being reached
• The arts connect students to themselves and others.
• The arts transform the environment for learning.
• The arts provide learning opportunities for the adults in the lives of young people.
• The arts provide new challenges for those students already considered successful.
• The arts connect learning experiences to the world of real work.

On behalf of all the students, staff, friends, family and volunteers of MECA, I welcome you to join us in our summer activities.

Sincerely,
Alice E. Valdez
Executive Director

2008 Summer Arts Program classes include:

• Dance (Ballet, Hip-Hop, Modern, Ballet, Jazz, African Dancing)
• Ballet Folklórico
• Rhythm and Guitar
• Piano
• Choir
• Private Voice
• Visual Arts
• Jazz Improvisation
• Latin Jazz
• Theatre (Drama, Musicals)
• Wind Instruments
• Private Mariachi and Ensemble

As always, classes give students the opportunity to explore and develop their creativity and capacity for self-expression, while also developing discipline, teamwork and critical thinking skills through individual and ensemble practice. MECA will provide approximately five field trips a week for the six weeks of the programming. Field trips include visits to the Children's Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, the Holocaust Museum, Museum of Natural Science, Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Health and Science, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, a trip to the Menil Collection, the zoo, swimming at Moody Park, roller-skating and movies. Students may see artistic performances at the University of Houston, at Stages Theater, and a performance at MECA by Express Children's Theater. MECA also offers extracurricular arts classes to students wishing to expand their artistic knowledge after the end of the summer day program.

Two Summer Recitals give parents and community members the opportunity to share in the artistic achievements of MECA youth, while providing students with valuable performance experience. All of us at MECA are very proud of our Summer Program students, and all of their artistic accomplishments.