Dance Drama Workshop-Part 1

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A dance drama workshop was conducted on the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th of January in the Rotary auditorium. Initially I was sceptical as to how a workshop of this kind would work for a non verbal child. The workshop was conducted BY ASHA, Basweshwara nagar under Jaishree’s stewardhip. Nikki Bettcher Erickson ,autism coordinator  from WCI, Willmar,Andrew Nelson ,Educational specialist form Marshall Unversity, Huntington, along with Prof.Ramamoorthi  from Madurai Kamaraj Unversity conducted the 4 day workshop in Bangalore.Majority of the children who participated were in the age group 12 and above.
                 The work shop was conducted in a phased manner .The first two days were more of warm- up sessions. On the third and fourth day this was followed by practise on a play, discussions with parents on various issues concerning autism. There were lot of fun games, involving the children, and encouraging them to participate.Some of the games included Pass the power, statue, guesssing games, man machines, reading expressions on another’s face dragon trains, make up…. The younger lot worked on the play, the capseller and the monkeys, with a twist to the story. Making it more relevant to the present times, the monkeys refuse to part with the caps, making the capseller heart broken.T hey do not imitated the capseller blindly. Finally one monkey takes pity on the capseller and relents. The other monkeys follow suit and return the caps.
                      It was intersting to observe the level of interest, and   participation by the children. They loved to exhibit their talents be it singing, dancing, or painting. The discussion group gave some serious thought to various issues that concern the older lot in thir adolosence.More on it in my next post.

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