Bringing theatre and art education into our curriculum

From the time of its inception, the hummingbird school has been aware of how important art education is in a community that thrives in the arts. We have had musicians from the community come and take regular classes on folk songs and instruments from year one.?

The students even without a teacher guiding them are always mumbling their own tunes and dancing to their own rhythms.?

In such a dynamic community, it was important for the school to channel all the energy and enthusiasm. The school in the last couple of years has been working on bringing some structure to its art education - bringing in visual artists, dancers, singers and musicians from the community to engage and guide children of all levels.?

At the primary level (from kindergarten to class 4), the children learn the basics of classical Sattriya dance, folk songs and dances of their region along with some freestyle dancing and contemporary songs which gives them exposure to various arts and styles, space to enjoy the arts and at the same time go through the basic structures of the classical forms and presentation in front of an audience that strengthens their foundations.

Then, when the children reach class 5 they are taken through a year-long theatre-based learning program where they go through workshops putting all the skills together such as music, dance, visual arts and crafts and performing/acting for stage to perform an hour-long live musical-theatre production in front of an audience.??

From here, when they move out of primary school with all the exposure and experience of the arts they get to choose what they want to specialize in - between singing, learning an instrument and learning dance in the performing arts and similar segments in the visual arts and crafts. They will be guided by practitioners/artists through their learning journey and also be taken through standard state-level or national-level certification programs.

“Who guards the Sundarbans?”, the second production of the hummingbird school’s theatre learning program was performed by students of grade 5 in January. Unlike the first production of the hummingbird school which was a play adaptation of the classic Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book”, this play was based on folklore from the Sundarbans and was written exclusively for the children performing – juxtaposing some feet-tapping Disney songs into context to keep the energies high while the plot moved forward.?

The stage was created in their school premises to give the students a sense of liberty, comfort, and familiarity while also giving them the best exposure to working with lights, sound, costumes, make-up and stage properties.

For its preparation, the students went through workshops on singing, dancing, acting for stage, prop making and arts from August. They also went through several sessions of reading and understanding the folklore of Bonbibi and analyzing the context of the story. These workshops played an important role in instilling the confidence necessary for the children to express themselves in a language to which they've only been exposed recently, being first-generation learners. The challenge lay in ensuring that the children understood not just the narrative and their dialogues but also the layered meanings. Such an understanding is crucial in enabling them to question the notions of right and wrong within the narrative and to perform their roles in their truest spirit.

This production primarily aims to enable students at The Hummingbird School to:

• Interact with and put together different disciplines through language and stories?
• Understand the gravity of art - as vocation rather than avocation - and?
• Help them understand and participate in the process of rehearsing a piece thoroughly and repeatedly before performing it in front of an audience.

The children go through an accelerated learning program of sorts where they learn about different disciplines and also interact with language skills that are beyond their comfort zones - in the process of trying to understand the folklore and dissect its context, the children learn about Sundarbans, its ecosystem, its people and their beliefs all the while drawing comparisons with their own which is much beyond the set syllabus for a child in class 5.?

Experiencing a theatre festival - as a part of their theatre learning program they also got to watch a two-day theatre festival in Majuli where they saw performances and interacted with the artists from various parts of the world and the country. These interactions helped them understand the amount of work they had to put in several months before their production and inspired them to put their best foot forward.?

Learning to sing complicated Disney songs in a span of a few months with guidance - they learn to enunciate every word and work on their pronunciations of all the new words added to their vocabulary.

The workshops on acting for stage helped them identify and regulate their emotions, be in control of their actions (for some time :P), and relate themselves with the characters they were playing and interacting with - providing them with a mirror to look at themselves within these characters and their actions while also taking them through the basics of presentation on stage.?

The workshops on dance and their choreographies - kept them constantly exploring their bodies, understanding the possibilities and limitations of their bodies while also interacting with styles very different from the ones they have been exposed to before.?

“SLOWLY. LOUDLY. CLEARLY.” - their motto for speech helped them keep themselves and their co-actors in check when on stage or during rehearsals. The students who were only speaking in small phrases now learnt and performed dialogues and songs that are multiple pages long. They now feel comfortable formulating and speaking long sentences and sharing their ideas in front of groups without fear.?

The prop-making workshops - by the team from NID Jorhat allowed the students to get hands-on and interact with various materials; understanding their properties, learning to combine them and designing their versions and variations of the props before finalising the final design. They also got to visit the NID Jorhat campus after their performance to get a tour of the campus, understand the various kinds of design courses on the campus and get inspired to study in a campus like that in the future.??

The most underconfident students start realizing their strengths and begin to enjoy performing in front of people. One of our memorable moments in the play was watching Bhanumoti (a shy kid whose voice wouldn’t travel even a few feet in the classroom) project her voice the loudest among her co-actors playing multiple roles in the play and enjoying being on stage in character. All her teachers and friends were genuinely surprised and proud to see her slay on stage.?

The students understand how much effort it takes to put a performance together and what it takes to be in the performance space in front of an audience. Their level of focus from being unable to stay together as a team for 10 seconds went to performing an entire musical production of 1 hour in synchrony.? Helping each other out with costumes, make-up, props, entries and exits.?

Doing annual theatre productions in the school gives not only the students performing but the entire school exposure to various texts of classical and contemporary literature and arts. The entire school looks forward to watching the production sitting shoulder to shoulder and cheering for their friends.

The most beautiful part of this is the small children sitting and watching rehearsals every day and picking up all the songs, dances and dialogues from the play. When you walk around the campus you can often see them break into a move, sing songs loudly and say dialogues to their tiny peers. They start to look forward to the day when they will get a chance to be on the decked-up stage singing, dancing and acting.?

We are certain that everyone involved in this production will carry forward a great learning experience and we cannot wait to start working on our next production! :)?