By Tanya Batson, Staff Reporter 
Owen 'Blacka' Ellis
SUMMER IS A child's dream. Long, lazy days with nothing to do but drive parents, siblings and the entire neighbourhood crazy. The days of summer can be a parent's worst nightmare.
One solution is summer school, which sometimes manages to keep children preoccupied for four or five weeks. The options are however, widening.
'Summer Beat' is one of the options some parents have been exploring this summer. At the camp, run by actor/comedian Owen 'Blacka' Ellis, children are taught dance, drama, singing, drumming, modelling, creative writing and karate. It does not promise to make them stars, simply to teach them basic performance techniques.
Last Friday, the parents got a chance to see what their children learnt during those five weeks. Many of them were truly proud, exclaiming with delight even when the children made mistakes.
Several of the children demonstrated drumming techniques but it got even more interesting when they were asked what they liked about the drums. While most of the students explained that they liked drumming because once you started playing, it was fun, a few of them responded a bit differently. Two of the youngest girls stated quite adamantly that they did not like drumming because it hurts their hands. One little girl though, took the cake, in a way only a young child can. When it was her turn, she gladly chirped, "I like to swim!".
At the end of the segment it was time for the drumming instructor to show the audience his skills, and so he did.
This was followed by a martial arts demonstration during which several of the older students impressed. However, the younger ones won hearts with their imprecision. Their instructor, Joel Ellis, followed with a jaw-dropping kata done to music.
There was also dancing, first by the youngest girls - who did more prancing and skipping than dancing, but were so cute - and then by the youngest boys, who called themselves the 'Rude Dudes'. The Dudes' major technique was to pose and look tough and cool - as tough as a person under four feet tall can look.
For the creative writing segment, the students performed an imaginative poem, which also featured a dance. Their creative writing instructor, M'Bala, made sure to point out that it was they that had written the poem.
Overall, the Beat Centre showed that their camp provided a good distraction for the children of summer and managed to teach them a few things while they were at it.
The evening was hosted by Winston Bell, who was probably the hardest working master of ceremonies ever. There were times when he simply had to go with the flow when the children were not ready to perform. He noted though, that there was no attempt to make it into a formal concert. It was simply a family gathering. None of those gathered seemed to mind. The fact that Bell was entertaining helped.
