Bringing Us Together

Yet again, I’m reminded of how powerful the arts can be in forming connections between people. A couple of weeks ago, the drama team I direct went to perform at Friendship House, the afterschools program I work with. The drama team are teenagers, the equivalent of high schoolers, and the kids at Friendship House are all in primary school. The F.H. kids tend to be pretty rowdy, though it’s luck of the draw just how rambunctious they’ll be on any given day. There’s always one or two ringleaders who are looking to be disruptive, and sometimes they get the upper hand. I was a bit nervous about how they would receive the drama team and the two mimes we were performing to music. I even warned the team beforehand not to expect everyone to watch quietly.

The drama team showed up at Friendship House, where the usual amount of chaos was happening. We played a few theatre games with the kids, who were bouncing off the wall as expected. We started with my favourite warm-up game – some of the kids sulked in the corner, complaining that “this isn’t drama. I thought we were doing drama.” Then I put them all into groups (kids and drama team alike) and gave them five minutes to get ready before performing a fairy tale for the others. Three of the kids broke off from their group, got some costumes from High School Musical that were in the other room, and performed a cheerleading dance instead. Then we did an easy improvisational game that involved a line of kids following a drama team member around and imitating everything he or she did. Again some of the kids refused to participate, saying this wasn’t real drama either.

Finally we set up for the drama team’s performance. It took about five minutes to get the kids off the “stage” area and sitting down, never mind quiet. As soon as the music started, everyone fell silent. The kids sat on the edge of their seats, eyes wide with amazement as they watched the performance. One mime finished and, as the music faded, they all cried, “Do it again! Do it again!” Instead, we performed the other mime – and as before, once we started the performance, everyone watched intently. No one pestered their neighbours or whispered to their friends or heckled the drama team, as I had expected them to do. When we finished the second mime, the kids still wanted more, so we repeated the first mime. Those kids were the quietest I have ever seen them. After we were done, the kids had to go home, but none of them wanted to leave.

When I went back to Friendship House the next week, three or four kids asked if the drama team would be coming back that day. I had to explain that some of the team get out of school early to be at Friendship House on time, so they couldn’t come every week. But we’re planning to make another appearance before the year is out. I’m thoroughly impressed at how easily theatre brought the kids, the drama team, and myself together on a level I’d never dreamed of.

Word of the Week: Chuffed. It basically means “pleased,” and is usually preceded by the word “well.” I was well chuffed at the drama team’s performance for Friendship House.