Arts Workshops Cape Town Day 2
It’s about 7:30 am on Thursday Jan 15th and we are preparing to leave for the second day of our arts workshops in Gugulethu. Everyone at the JL Zwane Centre (where we are holding the workshops) have been more than accommodating and helpful and we can’t wait to continue to work with these students.
Day 1 was a little crazy…We expected 50 kids to arrive at 9 am for registration. Well first there were 47, and then 10 more came half an hour a later and THEN another 5 showed up, meaning we now had 57 students total. These children represent over 5 different townships in Cape Town including Gugulethu, Khayelitsha, Nyanga,
There faces lit up as Zach, Rachel, Adam, and I helped distribute their Broadway in South T-shirts, folders and as they sat eating breakfast, we could feel the vibrant energy and unique talent that exists in this beautiful country in everyone of them.
Following registration we all gathered in the main hall at the centre and began with the “name game”, a classic acting introductory game. For those not familiar, a group stands in a circle and each individual says their name and adds a gesture. Everyone in the circle repeats that person’s gesture and the game continues around the circle. These children are so uninhibited and after Stanley gave his gesture and we all repeated together in the circle, they had no problem chiming in with their own names and gestures.
What was most striking about all this was the fact that this kids had JUST met each other, and immediately were willing to participate.
Throughout the day the most amazing thing to see was that not a single kid sat out in any of the classes. Since I was not teaching, I had the ability to walk around and observe throughout the day. The amount of energy, dedication, and passion that all of these students ga
Some of the highlights of the day included: Nando’s (basically SA Boston Market) catering lunch for 85 people and watching these kids make “french fry sandwiches”, an impromptu game of “Zip Zap Zop”(and advanced acting class, these kids nailed within 5 minutes) at lunch that turned into a jam session, walking into acting class and seeing 14 children completely captivated by Courtney and Stanley, Asmeret and Brett having the kids do vocal sirens into music class, and Frankie and Lisa doing the “Lisa”(an amazing new dance move, based off of Lisa’s gesture in the name game) with a group of 57 completely uninhibited children.
As Asmeret said in our group meeting after camp “It’s bigger than us.”
More to come.
3 years ago