Diva, please?

I'm going to be honest ... today had its ups and downs.

BUT we now have a show. It certainly needs work, I'm not going to say that it's incredible at this point, but I see so much potential for this piece. I think I'm getting ahead of myself, though. I will go through some of the highlights/low points of the day for you.

The first low point of the day was when we walked into camp and heard from Francesca, one of the girls who lives in La Cienaga, that Rosa Lourdes (one of our girls) had a boyfriend who died last night in the hospital after being involved in a motorcycle accident and getting the wrong blood transfusion. So we were missing 3 girls. Not only was the news vastly disturbing, but it also messed us up that we were missing so many of our actors/group members.

We came in today knowing that we would have a full day of theatre work ahead of us. We have all these little pieces of a show, but we had to string them together, put in transitions, just really get our act together. Since we have more of a "fun day" planned for them tomorrow, we wanted to not have a lot of work to do in the morning, to keep in the fun spirit. So we began by dividing the girls up into small groups and giving them creative assignments, contributions that each girl could make to the piece. We did something similar on the first day, to poor effect. But what an improvement we saw today.

Yes, the girls did want fairly specific directions/guidelines, but they were able to focus and work together creatively, generate legitimately good material, and then share it with the group. Valentina and Emmanuela were the only two that struggled. They got a choreography assignment, and they were a little lost. But we gave Ingrid and Julian, two of our quietest/least forthcoming girls, a piece of text and told them to do something creative with it, and the two of them came up with a cute little piece. Maria Angelica (who hardly ever gets into it) and Rosailin were given the task of performing a personal story, which they did admirably and enthusiastically. And Maria Ynez and Edileiza took the initiative to prepare a soap-opera song about a stormy domestic relationship, which they set off to practice with alacrity.

We moved on to stage a piece with the stories that Rosailin, Maria Angelica, and Valentina (who we added) would tell. While each girl told her story, the rest of the group echoed movement from earlier in the piece. The movement is simple, the text is simple, but it looks pretty good. Here is where they began to lose focus. However, we have to remember that these girls are typically NEVER asked to focus for more than 30 minutes at a time. Putting them in a situation in which they have to do intense work for about 1.5 hours at a time is new for them, and it certainly takes its toll on a group of hormonal, HIGHLY emotional creatures. For instance... these girls are divas. At least most of them are. They were aptly placed in the theatre group. The main issue today was that because we were missing so many girls, and especially some of the loudest ones, we had the opportunity to let the quieter girls take more of a leadership role. The louder ones who remained, namely Maria Ynez and Edileiza, were not thrilled with this arrangement, to say the least. They enjoy being leaders, but they also enjoy being in the center of attention. So they got VERY VERY sulky in the morning. It was actually amusing, since Kelly and I did not actually get mad at them. For the first hour of sulkiness, it was endearing. After the second hour... well ... we had a calm discussion with them, in which we explained to the two of them that if they were going to act like children, we would treat them like children and give them a time-out for the rest of the day. I think it worked, because after lunch, their behavior improved drastically. Then again, they were once again in the spotlight, so that might have helped, too. Oh, emotional creatures. How I love them, and how they drive me up the wall.

After lunch we put together an order for the show, writing it on the board. We had them run it twice, and although I wouldn't say it looks great, it certainly has promise. The thing about these girls is, once we can actually put them onstage, they can really nail it. Like when we had them all dance the Waka Waka today ... that's a nice moment. There's just so many nice moments, and if we can capture those, and run this show about 10 more times ... I think we might have just made something awesome with them. We'll see how it goes tomorrow, when we spend the morning putting finishing touches on the show and running it... before their special field trip.

So, all in all, a good day of work with the girls. We certainly do have our divas, but we are working with a bunch of blossoming actresses, after all. What can we expect? And as always, we embrace the hormonal... the emotional... our own dear emotional creatures, right here in the Dominican Republic.

Hoping that you all embrace your own inner diva in honor of our Mariposas ...

--Anna and Kelly