After performing all over Northern Ireland Lights of Unity finally got the chance to perform in its “base community” of Castlereagh, at Our Lady and Saint Patrick's School. Emily reports:
Now, you have to understand, there were perks in such a local performance - like not having to wake up mad early to drive for ages, to get to a school at least an hour before the show. We arrived at 8:30 in the morning (after only getting up at 8!) and we were shown the hall. Everything looked good so far, decent stage, the caretaker was enthusiastic to help out. We set up our stage and shortly the students began to file in.
I think it was Year Nine that made up our audience of 140, but the school system here baffles me, so I could be wrong. They were 12 and 13 years old. From past experiences we have had, I would say that this is an age group that generally feels ‘too cool’ to really show any amount of interest or concern about the issues that we present. These kids, however, were more than eager to give their 2 cents about what was going on. During our show we did something that we call animations. This is when the cast for a specific dance will come out on stage, and freeze in a specific pose from the dance. Another cast member will come down to the audience and attempt to provoke discussion/responses from the students about what might be happening on stage. Many times in the past we have felt like we were pulling teeth to get any type of response from the students, but these guys were different. It was hard to end the discussions to get back to the dances. In fact, we ran out of time before we had done our complete show, and had to cut out the multi-cultural dances because the animations had been so successful!
After a short break, we broke up into six groups with 20-40 students in each group, and one or two cast members facilitating them. The group that I was with went off to a history classroom. We had the aim to discuss in more depth the issues of poverty and prejudice, and then end with teaching the kids a little bit of the step dance. Even though we were immediately interrupted by a surprise fire drill, it was, I would say, a complete success.
My group was very enthusiastic and open to talking about the presence of prejudice and poverty in their personal lives. The boys were very energetic and came up with an advert that could be on TV which would make people aware of the poverty that exists in the world, and the excess that most of us live with. It was really touching, and I could tell that they were really quite proud of what they had done.
Just before lunch we brought all of the groups back together in the assembly hall, and they were able to perform the bits of step that they had learned for each other. The boys from my group got to perform their mini sketch for all of their peers as well. As we were watching them perform step I was talking to my fellow Lights of Unity cast members, and it was obvious that each one of us had absolutely been blown away by these students. A few of the boys in our cast talked to some of the teachers, and they are going to begin going down and helping out with dance classes in the school.
This performance started with everything ‘looking good’ and ended with it being incredible. I am more inspired than ever now by this age group, and the need for junior youth animator groups for kids this age is more obvious than ever. They are so ready for it.
On Thursday 30 March the latest in the series of ‘Deepening’s in Derry’ brought the community together with the Universal House of Justice though their letter of 27 December 2005. Iain Palin hosted the session - half talk, half discussion - on the letter in an attempt to bring out the more vital elements of the message. The discussions among the community proved insightful as the night wore on and the House’s intentions for the coming Plan became more evident to us all. Even as the tea and coffee were served lively debate continued until we all eventually called it a night.
CTP
And still in the Maiden City, Keith Munro was one of a panel taking part in a 40-minute discussion on BBC Radio Foyle on 10 April. The programme dealt with issues around the Easter time and what they mean to them and Keith was able to put across Bahá'í information and ideas.
BACK TO CONTENTS PAGE