Our First Day of Camp (briefly)

Hi everyone,

So we just had our first day of camp and it was great. I am just going to briefly write some notes here - nothing too intense - because it is late and I am tired. :) Anna is upstairs, and I am here writing. :)

Ok so our expectations were definitely wrong. Not in a bad way, but in a way that forces us to go back and really think about our process and all of that. So the girls are awesome - it turns out we have 11 girls and not 10 - but only 10 girls were at camp today. The last girl, Rosaili, will be in camp tomorrow. The girls' names are: Ingrid, Sarah, Maria Luisa, Maria Iynes, Maria Angelica, Rosa Lourdes, Emmanuela, Julian, Rosaili, Valentina and one more that I just can't remember and am feeling awful about it. We will post pictures tomorrow - but the girls are awesome. They definitely have a lot of attitude, but in a good way. These girls are vivacious, happy and opinionated. They have a lot to say.

We asked them what they want the show to be about, and gave them no suggestions, and immediately the following themes came up: abortion, prostitution, domestic violence, sexual violence, drugs, sexuality and the idea of mariposas. We were shocked, needless to say, and totally disturbed just because clearly these awful issues are their reality. But yet they are hopeful, happy and totally unperturbed by everything. Ahhh. The other thing that shattered our expectations is that in Dominican culture, the school system totally discourages creative thinking. The kids are used to copying from the board and following the rules. So when we asked the girls to create a scene, or a piece of movement, however basic the assignment, they kind of stared at us, puzzled and at a loss. We quickly learned that they need much more structure than that. So now we are in the process of reworking our plan for the show so that it involves much more of us directing them after discussing their opinions, ideas and stories about each theme. We discovered that the girls love writing and discussing, however. They got super into their journaling - getting really into the calligraphy/handwriting element of it especially - and were ridiculously forthright and honest in discussions. They have passionate opinions about all of these topics, and it is just so inspiring to see.

Tomorrow we will write more (just to give you an idea of how tired I am, just there I typed "we will right more" and barely noticed that it was wrong ... ) about the activities that the girls did - some very interesting/disturbing material came out of the domestic violence scenes ... more on that tomorrow. Stay updated! And please give us any ideas you have for more structured theater activities ... they loved "zip zap zop"! (But "Killer" was not structured enough !!)

Love and peace,

Kelly and Anna