DAT: voices from zimbabwe

VOICES FROM ZIMBABWE

	We arrived in Harare full of excitement and fresh energy. We worked with this church group, teaching basic acting and playwriting skills. This group has gone on to produce the Christmas play for their congregation.
	We then moved to Wanezi where we worked with a local secondary school. These kids were actually an extremely talented group of singer/dancers from that school. Through the use of a translator and non-verbal techniques we held several very interesting and productive workshops.

While in Wanezi, we also worked with the Wanezi Mission's Secondary School who already had a drama club in place. We worked with this club and developed many incredible pieces. This group really moved forward as artists through our workshops and are now developing their own original plays as a group.

We spent a significant amount of our time in Bulawayo working with Amakhosi Theatre. The Amakhosi artists and our team of artists were overwhelmed by the number of children who wanted to be a part of our program, so much so, that we had to turn kids away. This was hard for us to do, but it allowed us to make a more significant impact on a smaller group of talented children and go much deeper with our work. Working in collaboration with Amakhosi Theatre was an amazing experience and incredible bonds were formed. These children, as well as Amakhosi's artists, are the inspiration of and will most likely become the founding members of the soon to be Bulawayo Young Company.

There were many unpredictable moments that formed our experience in Zimbabwe, many of which inspired the development of the play. One poignant moment was when we visited a church with our host, Oscar. That day one of our team members, Mary, decided to join a children's Sunday School class. This picture was taken with that class. They quickly bonded as a group, playing games and singing songs. As we left the church one of the girls in that class gave a letter to Mary that made a significant impact upon our final production.

Traveling to Matopo, we were in awe of the beauty of the rock formations, landscape, and ancient histories before us. This cave painting is just one example of the ancient foundation of storytelling and art we were now seeing.

To deal with the large number of students in Matopo, we split the students up into a boy's group and a girl's group. This inadvertently led to some interesting work as many of the kids felt much more open to share their very personal monologues in those groups. We've since heard that a drama club has been formed using the games and tools we shared with them as a foundation.

Our final workshop location was at the Mtshabezi Mission. There we were able to work with younger children at a primary school. Theatrical language can be difficult to understand at that age, as they are getting their first exposure to English. So, we decided to do some drawing activities and play physical games. We asked them to draw their favorite animals and think of three reasons why that is their favorite animal. It was interesting and informative to hear their responses. Then we played a mad dash make believe game of animal kingdom. It was wonderfully fun. (Thanks to Debbie and Jeff Baxter for making the journals and supplying the crayons.)

At the Mtshabezi Mission we also worked with a group of older kids, some from the secondary school and some were peer counselors at the nearby AIDS clinic associated with Forgotten Voices International. At first this group was very shy, but the more we worked together, the more they opened up. It was inspirational. In the end, they wrote some of the most amazing pieces in our production and walked away from the workshops much more secure in their presentation.

We thank these students for opening their hearts and souls to us. Because of their generosity with their stories, we were able to gather a unique picture of life in Zimbabwe. We hope that "Voices from Zimbabwe: the play" does these children a great service and that our viewers will find common ground with these children and beign to understand the needs currently facing many Zimbabweans. We also hope this play encourages individuals to help support Forgotten Voices International and the Bulawayo Young Company as these young artists continue to grow up in beautiful Zimbabwe.

"Voices from Zimbabwe" will perform during the last week of June. To purchase advance tickets CLICK HERE.