Almost every year since 1986 a music-loving, fun-loving group of women has gathered under the BIG MONTANA SKY for Summersing.  Each year Judy chooses enthusiastic and gifted staff, plans the schedule, invites the campers and lets the fun begin!  For one week we can all leave the rest of the world behind and lose ourselves in singing, learning, laughing, making new friends, and living in the majesty of Montana's mountains. 

SUMMERSING MONTANA

June 26-July 2, 2010

MUSIC & CREATIVE ARTS CAMP FOR WOMEN

BETH YOUNGBLOOD MANDOLIN & FIDDLE

KRISTI HAGER COOL WATER HULA 

STORMI OSHUN BUCKET DRUMMING

PAMELA STONEHAM COMEDY IMPROV

KATIE KNIGHT BATIK & PUPPET MAKING

BASIN BARBERSHOPPERS HARMONY SINGING 

FARGO OLSEN C-W DANCING

CAMP DIRECTOR JUDY FJELL GUITAR, UKULELE, SINGING

 BIRDING / SWIMMING / CANOEING / JAMMING / ROPES COURSE / OM TARA MEDITATION / ROUNDS SINGING

YMCA CAMP CHILD (Continental Divide near Helena)

SEVEN DAYS OF FUN - Sliding Scale $600-$875

     To help you attend Summersing, we offer a sliding scale.  Choose the amount between $600-$875 that fits your income and circumstances.  Then send a deposit (February - May) and register for camp.  The balance is due by June 1. If you have further questions, contact Camp Registrar Carol Lynn at shellyn76global.net or (530)757-2948 or Camp Director Judy Fjell at judyfjell@mac.com or (406)932-6468.  Either of them will be happy to help you.

TRAVEL PLANS Flight reservations should be made into Helena.  Make your plans to arrive by the afternoon of Friday, June 25, and leave no earlier than the early evening of July 2.  We will pick you up and take you to the airport from camp.

FOOD, ACCOMODATIONS, AND MORE The Summersing meals are as delicious and healthful as possible and served fresh from the camp kitchen.  We offer plenty of salads, veggies, and protein at meals and can meet most special dietary needs.  Scrumptious desserts complete the meals.  

          When arriving at camp, many campers find a suitable place to pitch a tent, or pull up their RVs under the tall trees.  Others choose cabins, with modest bunk beds and foam mattresses, but plenty of room to spread out.  The central bath house has individual showers, sinks, flush toilets, and hot water.  For those who would like to have a bathroom "just down the hall," there are rooms available in the lodge.

Please leave your pets at home. Judy's friendly dog Halley will be on site, happy to receive pats from those who miss their own four-legged friends.  Summersing is a clean and sober camp, giving everyone the opportunity for a truly open-hearted "camp experience." 

MORE DETAILS: CLASS DESCRIPTIONS, STAFF, OTHER ACTIVITIES

DAYS I-IV - The focus will be on acoustic instruments.  Judy will offer classes in beginning and intermediate guitar and Beth will teach mandolin and fiddle.  Cool Water Hula dancers are invited also to dance the first two days with Kristi, the founder of the Cool Water Hula.  

DAY IV - We will relax with swimming and a hike to dig crystals at a nearby site.  Then we will transition into a new set of focus classes.  

DAYS IV-VII - The focus changes to drumming, visual art, and comedy improv.  Stormi will lead everyone in her own brand of precision bucket drumming, Pamela will lead us into our funniest selves during comedy improv, and Katie will quietly guide us at the arts and crafts lodge. We will learn more about batiking and will continue work on our giant puppet goddess Synnøvei.

     In addition to the daily focus classes there's a variety of other creative activities - Country-Western dancing with Fargo, Round Singing and Om Tara meditation led by Judy, barbershop singing with Laura and Janice, song circles, jamming, birding, swimming, and canoeing.  Ukuleles are provided at camp so that everyone can learn at least one instrument.  The ropes course at Camp Child has offered many women an unparalleled team-building and personal empowerment experience.  Birding, swimming and canoeing are available every day.  Photography, drawing and painting opportunities abound!

         Open no-mics and student shows are scheduled for those who would like to share their accomplishments in performance.  However, the emphasis at Summersing is always on empowerment from one's own level, rather than performance or any kind of competition.  We have learned over the years that excellence abounds and thrives in this setting.  Many professional musicians have discovered a new relationship to their music-making at Summersing when freed from the pressures of competition and perfection.  

SINGING Judy Fjell is a passionate teacher of healthful singing, solfeggio, and harmonizing.  We sing before meals, after meals, sometimes even DURING meals, in the showers and in the evenings by the moonlight.  Janice and Laura, the Basin Barbershoppers, bring their harmony arrangements for all to enjoy.

FIDDLE & MANDOLIN Beth Youngblood will be bringing fiddle tunes and her tremendous skill on strings to help all of us become better players, no matter the level of our expertise.

GUITAR Judy's forty-five (!) years of guitar experience enable her to teach everyone from beginners through intermediate players.  Her classes can span everything from swing chords, fingerpicking, lead playing, depending on the students.

COMEDY IMPROV Pamela Stoneham's improv classes have become a Summersing Empowerment camp staple since Judy invited her to teach at Women Making Music camps in California in the early 90's.  Pamela has helped even the most skeptical and introverted women to unleash their spontaneous, playful selves.  Be prepared to laugh yourself into a new relationship with improvisation.   (Warning: there's no turning back once you're empowered!)  

BUCKET DRUMMING A few years ago Stormi Oshun joined us on staff at Summersing.  Her loving, enthusiastic teaching style is absolutely contagious.  She brings buckets, sticks and harnesses so that everyone can join in the precision performances of our Summersing version of the Giant Ass Drum Corps!  And for those who wish to study more rhythm styles, she offers additional instruction in small groups, using congas, djembes and other percussion instruments.

ARTS & CRAFTS We are extremely fortunate to have Montana visionary artist and activist Katie Knight on staff.  In 20101 she will guide us in our visual creativity primarily through batik.  The arts and crafts lodge provides a great space for us.

SYNNØVEI THE 12 FOOT PUPPET GODDESS Over the years we have had many arts and crafts projects - beading, making kaleidoscopes, creating Japanese "pata pata" scrolls, and more.  In 2008 we plunged headlong into a project which grew in scope each day.  Katie Knight skillfully led us in the visualization and creation of an eleven foot goddess named "Synnøvei."  Over the course of seven days we formed her paper mache head and hands, painted her, and constructed her skeleton using a backpack, wooden sticks, and plastic pipe.  We batiked her kimono and felted dreadlocks from Merino wool with Michel Colville, another of our gifted Montana artists.  Synnøvei's dress is a work of art, featuring birds and fish and water and fields and flowers and corn rows . . .  When her head ended up being too heavy for us to take her on a walk, she motivated some of us to meet in September to solve her mobility.

     At 200i Summersing we continued painting and sealing her paper mache, finalizing her "wheels," making sarons for the mavens who help her appear in parades and marches, and began to plan her future work as a goddess whose mission is to bring into being a bevy of powerful female artists to create a world of freedom, justice, and love of the arts.  She has been an ongoing work of art for many of us Summersingers.  In 2010 we will continue to develop the mythology and mission of this goddess and give her more hula lessons! 

ENJOYMENT OF NATURE The lake in the middle of camp inspires us with its light reflections at sunrise and sunset and the environment it provides for the birds, fish, insects, and reptiles.  At midday we can swim, canoe, or simply sit by its shores.  Camp Child has an excellent ropes course, challenging us to build our team and individual skills while navigating logs on the ground, walking on cables strung between trees, or crossing logs twenty feet in the air.  Many campers join Judy for morning birdwatching expeditions or slow wildflower walks.  Plant and animal camp sightings are numerous, but a partial list includes common snipes, yellowthroat warblers, rosy pussy-toes, bear grass, elephant heads, bog orchids, red-naped sapsuckers, ruby-crowned kinglets, turtles, river otters, sandhill cranes . . . . A pair of bluebirds even made a nest in the Camp Child lodge a couple of years ago! And of course, crystal digging is always popular - maybe this year you will be the one to find the biggest, clearest crystal on our annual expedition.

GROUP MEDITATION The "Om Tara" singing and walking meditation has become a favorite activity of many campers over the years.  In 2008 we began a practice of gathering each morning as a positive way to begin each day in relationship to ourselves, our community, and the world beyond. 

Download the Summersing Registration Form here!

New! Click here to register for camp online!