The REP's African Adventure
Our Education Officer, Fiona, is in South Africa working with pupils there to develop forthcoming play Hip Hope Hero in collaboration with Birmingham’s Robin Hood Primary School, Moving Hands Theatre and South Africa’s Got Talent winner, Darren Rajbal.
Day One
We arrived in Cape Town and picked up the car. We stayed the night at the Sugar Hotel and then the following day I navigated us to Pringle Bay, where Caroline from Moving Hands lives.
Today I visited Hawston Primary School in Hamanus. We met the Head Teacher of the school, who was amazing! We worked with year 6 students (who are aged 12 years old) in a large class of 40 students. Myself and Baz, the headteacher of Robin Hood Primary School, delivered a short presentation about the school and The REP. I played some drama games with the students outside. It was really hot, but a lot of fun! We then played a short film from a class at Robin Hood Primary School. The students then told us about their heroes. We created a mind map of all the different people they admire and what qualities a hero should have, then we showed the students some short animations.
We were then shown a short performance by the choir. The students’ singing was lovely! A small group then performed some music for us, which got us dancing. We watched a short dance performance and then joined in with some line dancing.
Later this afternoon we visited a small township in Klienmond, where Baz had been a couple of years ago (2009) for The Little Mermaid Project based on Once On This Island. Some of the students recognised Baz, which was lovely. The township had recently had a fire and some of the people’s homes are destroyed. They live in very small tin huts and are waiting to move into some better accomodation.
Day Two
I delivered two workshops with students in year 7, (aged 13 years old.) We played some mime games to get the students thinking about using gesture, body language and movement to communicate, rather than depending on the spoken word. I set up a test session in the schools computer room using REPwrite, an online collaborative playwriting system being developed by the theatre. (I am lucky I have John here who is great with technology!)
We went into town to eat lunch and saw a baby whale. Caroline went to the airport to pick up Darren, who is a hip hop dancer, who won South Africa’s got talent. There are lots of artists on this project, Alison and John, who are animators and two musicians from a township just outside Cape Town.
In the early evening we travelled to The Big House, which is a cave on the beach. Baz (the teacher from Robin Hood Primary School) and myself are staying here for the rest of the week. We had a bit of a party with all the artists to get to know each other. When everyone left it was just myself and Baz in a house surrounded by sea and the lighthouse in the distance. The views are amazing! We also saw a few animals creep up to the window. It was a bit of a bumpy ride in our hire car to get there, but worth it! Lets hope we don’t have to push the car out of the sand…
Day Three
Today I got up at 6am and admired the amazing sea-view from my bedroom. We drove to Caroline’s house and picked up Darren to take him to Hawston Primary School. I have been learning to communicate in sign language.
When we arrived at the school we went into the Head Teacher’s office for a planning meeting. Today was very busy, with lots of activities going on. Darren delivered a dance session and the students were all asking for his autograph and because they didn’t have paper he was writing it on their school uniform and faces!
The students learnt a short dance routine and I later helped Darren piece together the performances from the small groups. The students wrote poems and the musicians used these to create a song about heroes. They recorded the song on to a CD for the students to take home and we played it in the car.
I set up a REPWrite session and a group of students from Hawston Primary School collaborated on a scene about heroic behaviour with REP staff back in the UK (We were ready to start an hour before REP staff arrived at work, as I forgot the time difference. We are up early over here!) I was really impressed with how quickly the students learned how to use REPWrite. Their English was fantastic. We used Skype to speak to The REP’s Digital Officer back in the UK. The students enjoyed speaking to someone in another country and taught her how to say “My name is Clare” in Afrikaans.
On the way home we stopped to see the penguins at Betty’s Bay, which was great fun. There were loads of penguins wobbling around! We dropped Darren and Caroline back home and we went back to our cave. We had a walk on the beach for inspiration and then Baz and I had a planning meeting ready for tomorrow. We are now off to try and find a place to eat. Good job I packed a torch! Lets hope we find somewhere, otherwise it will be sea weed for tea.
Day Four
Today was a really busy day, but we got loads done! Today was the day of the performance in the local community centre, near the school. Once again we were up early at 6am and travelled to Haswton Primary School, which is about an hour away. When we arrived we were greeted by a steel bandwho have played at the Olympics and the World Cup. They were ever so talented and got everyone dancing! The students also taught me how to play a song. The music teacher only gave me 6/10, which was disappointing, but in comparison to the students I wasn’t that great.
The students from Hawston Primary School read poetry written by students from Robin Hood Primary School and we used them to create a song. We made a video with messages to the students in the UK, which we will show them when we get back.
Darren worked with two groups to create a short dance piece ready for the performance in the afternoon. The students wanted to practice their song, but they didn’t have a CD player, so we used our hire car. All the students piled into the car and began to sing. The Head Teacher then surprised us with a short performance by some Somalian children, who had made musical instruments out of boxes and bottle tops.
We then went over to the community centre to set up for the show. The Head Teacher had sent some students around the town with a flyer, to promote the show. We didn’t expect there to be many people, just teachers, family and friends. Word got around and the whole community came! It was undeliverable how many people turned up. (I think they wanted to see Darren.)
The students were fantastic at setting up, before we knew it all the chairs had been put out. Students kept coming up to Baz and giving her money and we didn’t know what it was for. Soon we had a bag full. The audience had to pay 5 rands to see the show. Some of the students who had set up, went back out to pay. They are so honest!
The show was amazing; all the students we had been working with performed. The whole of the audience went wild for Darren. They then wanted his autograph and we became security guards trying to control the crowd. We got our hire car to drive him away from the community centre, but we were surrounded by everyone, so we couldn’t move. As we drove away they followed us. The life of a celebrity! We had a planning meeting, followed by a wonderful barbeque at the cave to celebrate our success.
Day Five
We left our cave. It was an adventure trying to get our suitcases over the sand dunes. We also saw baboons on the road! We went to Caroline’s to pick up Darren and headed over to Alison and John’s house to sort out the film footage. We then took Darren to the airport and got him on the plane. Talking to him has been great, my sign language is improving all the time. We then drove back to Cape Town. We are now back in our hotel.
I can’t believe a week has passed by already. Today is the first time I have stood still all week. What an amazing experience! It doesn’t stop there as the work begins when we get back to the UK, as we have a performance to prepare for on Friday 9th December.
