Broadway in South Africa 2010: Day 10 - JL Zwane Center

Blog series chronicling the experience of 'Broadway in South Africa' during their 2010 trip to South Africa.

Day 10 - JL Zwane Center
Wednesday, January 20

On this date last year, we were gathered in our hotel room in Johannesburg watching Obama take the oath of office and become the President of the United States. This year we're in Gugulethu, beginning the first day of our four-day arts camp.

We got to the center at 2pm to set up food, t-shirts, and name tags for the first day of camp. The kids were arriving between 3-3:30pm, when they finished school and either walked to camp or were driven by local volunteers who were taking the kids to and from the centers. This is not a community where you'd see a mother dropping her child off for an after school program and picking them up afterwards--some of the kids walk miles to be a part of our program. Last year camp ran from 9am-4pm, but because the World Cup is happening between June 11-July 11, schools in the townships started a week earlier than usual to allow everyone to be on vacation during the World Cup. This means we don't get to work with the kids until after school, so this year camp is from 3pm-7pm. Much less time for us to teach than we'd like, but we just have to pack it in more efficiently.

The kids started to arrive and went through the registration queue: we checked them in on the roster, gave them a name tag, took their picture, gave them a BSA t-shirt, and then a bag lunch from Nando's, who is once again donating food each day for our 75 campers. Thanks, Nando's! For the record, Nando's has the best Peri-Peri sauce in the world. We are all obsessed with it.

We started with a group warm-up led by Adam, then broke the kids off into four groups and they went acting, dance, playwriting, and music. Unlike in Durban when we split them into groups by age, we decided to split them into four groups by counting off so we had a mix of all ages and townships (the kids are from five different townships surrounding Cape Town). This turned out to be a beautiful thing, we discovered. In every group, the older kids helped the younger ones. They were all united by a common purpose: understanding and participating in whatever they were learning. I'm in a fortunate position as the administrator--since I'm not teaching one specific class I am running around taking pictures and setting up water for the kids after dance class, etc.--I get to go from class to class and see all of the teachers and kids in action and it's a wonderful thing to see. I'm really envious of the relationship the teachers have with the kids individually. I don't get that kind of closeness with individual students but I get the joy of watching it develop between the teachers and students.

Because of the short time frame, each class is 35 minutes with a five minute break to get water and switch classes. Jon-Erik gives each teacher a five-minute warning before the end of class. Come on, we're from Broadway--of course we do a five-minute call. At the end of the day all of the kids come back to the dance room for a group focus activity before we send them home for the day. The kids at Blue Roof Clinic in Durban were loud and rambunctious; these kids are a DREAM. We loved them last year and they are even better this year. It's so great to work with the same kids again. Since we already know them we can hit the ground running and jump right in with the teaching. Day three tomorrow!

- Jen

Broadway in South Africa is a cooperative nonprofit venture created by professional working actors, dancers, signers, directors, musicians and producers from New York City - all brought together by the desire to affect change in the world through art, and learn from the potential of bridging two different cultures artistically.

For more information on Broadway in South Africa, please click here.

 

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