An Eye Opening Experience

I say that a lot: 'eye opening'.  Going to London was 'eye opening', so was Into the Woods, and so was my time at UCL.

But now I'm talking about a different type of 'eye opening': something that truly makes me evaluate the fortune I've had in my short life.


I am spending the summer volunteering with an organization called Artists Striving to End Poverty (ASTEP).  I have wanted to get involved with this organization for a while as it looks to use the arts, mostly performing arts, to help build confidence and self expression in impoverished youth around the world.  They have programs in South Africa, India, Florida, and New York working with orphans and refugees.  This summer, I am fortunate enough to be volunteering as a Musical Theatre teacher teaching new refugees in a Summer Academy program run by the International Rescue Committee.  I teach along with one to two co-teachers in a middle school class and two high school classes.  Some of these students have been in the US for a week to months to a few years.  I don't know their background, but I can't imagine what they've been through - some of them being thrown into a school program after being in this country for A WEEK knowing not a sentence in English.

I have always been drawn to teaching (I've taught little ones and tutored Middle School), but this experience has been a whole different ball game.  Commanding twenty to thirty students in a sweltering, unairconditioned, high school in Bushwick is grueling enough.  But add on the varying English language comprehension of each student, little knowledge of each students' background, and ultimately the task of getting these middle school and high school students to open up.

On the first day of class I realized how my 'training' from Stella Adler and years of theatre experiences (making a fool of myself, immediately working with others, and maintaining an open and receptive body) prepared me for this type of environment.  Playing theatre games and teaching them a song in English for many was difficult.  It took a while before they felt remotely comfortable in using their bodies.

These students have grown so much in just six weeks - from barely focusing and working with their peers to having more open and confident bodies, maintaining eye contact and focus with a large group, working together, and keeping a beat (much harder than one would think).

I was reminded of what an Adler teacher said about voice work: the skills we learn in here do not just help us as actors but in whatever we do - maintaining an open body, looking people in the eye, and engaging others.  I would like to think that these kids learned a bit of that.

But more than that - these kids inspire me.  I have been given so many opportunities - the opportunity to volunteer for a summer - and seeing these kids who have been uprooted from their homes, some of whom have probably seen atrocities and suffered trauma I can't even imagine, I realize how minuscule my problems truly are.  Plus, these students come in with more optimism and drive than I will ever have.  Their optimism for the future is boundless because all they see is what is ahead of them and not behind.

We were doing a reflection exercise and I said that the students could write in their own language if English was too hard.  A student from Guinea said, 'I know French, I don't need French, I am here, I need English so I write in English!'.  He had been here for a few weeks and he was determined to only write in English - even if it was a few sentences.  And when he handed me that piece of paper he was proud.  That type of pride I can only watch from afar but never really know - wanting to absolutely forget where I came from and propel forward so fast, faster than my own abilities can take me.

These students want to become doctors, lawyers, have families, change their countries.  They have taught me more than I have taught them.  I am humbled by their determination and their optimism and by their warmth.

New York is a fascinating place - the unbelievably wealthy and the unbelievably poor, the elite and the refugee.  With my private school education, Seven Sisters education, a year to study abroad, and never having to truly worry about money, I am very close to the bourgeois world of weekly manicures, designer bags, and weekly gossip over drinks in Soho.  And while there is a part of me that wants that, I am so thankful for these students for showing me what's really going on in the world and real issues where people need to find REFUGE in a different country.  I am exhausted, but these students inspire me to teach more students in need and put my priorities in check.  They're fearlessness to conquer the world touches me to the core.  There have been moments in class where their warmth and drive has almost brought me to tears.  Teaching music/theatre to these kids reminds me of the selfishness of acting - getting the job, the agent, being seen... so much that I can forget what all of this selfishness is truly about...

This experience reminds me of what theatre truly is: sharing, connecting, and expressing.