Wichita rock and roll camp empowers girls to get loud

On Tuesday afternoon, girls with hot pink shoelaces ran across the hallways of the Evergreen Park recreation center to get a drink of water while sighing with exhaustion.

The girls returned to their designated room –neon signs labeling them as the guitar, keyboard, drum, vocal or bass room. This week, they took part in the Rock & Roll Camp for Girls Wichita, one of almost 50 camps worldwide.

The Wichita camp consists of 42 girls. They are each dedicating themselves to an instrument for the week to play as a part of a band.

Each band will perform one original song at a showcase on Saturday.

MariaElena Teubner, the director of the camp, said that the goal is to empower young women to be comfortable with being loud and playing instruments not typically offered to girls.

“It goes hand in hand with this conditioning that women are supposed to be polite and quiet and speak when spoken to,” Teubner said, “whereas electric guitars and drums and bass, these are instruments that demand attention and can talk over other instruments.”

The transformation

A mishmash of instrument sounds flowed through the air of the center. Snare and bass drums intertwined, creating uneven beats.

Nikki Stockham, the camp’s vocal instructor and lead singer for the band Big Red Horse, emerged from a practice room laughing. She had just watched the band she is coaching go from chaos to finding their sound.

“Yesterday was just racket, it was a mess,” Stockham said.

“It’s amazing,” she said laughing “This weird transformation that happens.”

Stockham has been friends with Teubner for years and said she wanted to get involved with the camp when she first heard about it.

“It’s incredible how they absorb this stuff so quickly,” she said.

To Stockham, the camp provides an opportunity to teach girls to be confident and to break stereotypes, extending beyond music education.

“If I’m going to tell one of them that they should be confident and speak their mind and communicate and compromise, I need to do the same thing,” Stockham said, discussing the impact the camp has on instructors as well.

Love for music

Teubner, the camp director and founder of Women Who Rock ICT, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering women in the creative industry, said she grew up very musical.

She started taking piano lessons when she was three, and also spent time singing and playing guitar and trumpet.

Teubner said she was passionate about rock and roll bands but didn’t have access to those instruments. Growing up without cable, she didn’t see images of women in rock.

“If this had existed when I was a kid I would have been all over it,” Teubner said.

Invoking feeling

Jessica Thompson and Rori Craig, both 13, are returning campers.

Craig was introduced to the camp by her mother. Being a fan of music, she said yes.

Thompson, on the other hand, was forced to attend last year, given the choice between rock camp or soccer. This year she couldn’t wait to attend.

“Music is like my passion,” Thompson said. Last year she played keyboards. This year she is trying out the drums.

Craig and Thompson’s band is an alternative rock band called Awkward Silence. Their song is called “Pressure,” which discusses issues surrounding social anxiety.

“It’s not all happy and rainbows, you know,” Craig said. “That’s what we wanted to do: We wanted to invoke feeling.”

The Showcase

The campers will showcase their original songs Saturday at 2 p.m. at Central Standard Brewing, 156 S. Grenwood.

“Having the opportunity to showcase the original material that they’ve composed over this week is huge for them,” Teubner said.

The campers’ performance will be part of the Women Who Rock ICT Summer Showcase, involving a variety of local and regional performers.

“They’ll come with hair dye, or whatever outfit they think a rock star is going to wear,” said Becki Farris, the camp’s guitar instructor. “It’s really fun.”

This story was originally published August 4, 2017 at 4:07 PM with the headline "Wichita rock and roll camp empowers girls to get loud."