Our colorful world

Six weeks of holidays in Berlin for all schoolkids. Six weeks in which the Kids can relax, go on vacation, travel to other places, and in which they can pursue their hobbies with friends and their family. It should be like that. But sometimes its not. The school is still open for the Kids. So if the parents have to work or if there are other reasons they have no time for their Kids, they can send them to the after-school childcare. For this group of kids we (Anna – one of the students i study with, two volunteers, the social worker from the school and two artists) decided to make a special offer.

We planned a circus project with a little performance in the end. The Kids (between first and fifth grade) could decide by themselves if they want to join the project. Most of the kids couldn’t even decide which group they want to be part of. We offered them four different groups, jonglage, dance, acrobatic and art (design costumes, masks and the scenery for the performance). Most of them took part in more than one group. It was a nice time, everyone was so concentrated and willing to learn. The kids enjoyed the time a lot.

 

We had five days of work all together with a performance of 20 minutes at the end of the week. Parents, friends and educators came to watch what the kids created in this week. The appearance ran very well and the applause at the end pleased all. In the end, the children would not let us go, they did not want the project to end, and they asked us to go on with the circus the following weeks. So we decided to give them the chance to perform a little part of the performance in the beginning of the new school year in front of the whole school. First I was not sure if they would remember the choreography “Stadtaffe – Peter Fox” after the summer vacation, but I didn’t even have to worry about it. The steps were still in the body of the kids. Also the second performance went very well and they got big applause again.

A wonderful experience for all of us and for sure a great pre-exercise for me regarding the dance project in Cape Town.

 

(Susi Bayer)