Since mid-September, I have been running a theater club at the school where I work.
Technically, it's more of a puppetry club, but theater allows for more wiggle room, planning-wise. I've also found that art projects are more successful when they have other applications, in this case working hand in hand with a music component and with dance.
I'm working with are high to low functioning autistic kids, so the performance component ties into the socialization criteria set for the club.
The results, so far, have been fantastic!
This month, the project is based off of the Chinese Lion Dance, where they have a large cardboard head with a moving mouth and a fringed body made of a plastic table cloth.
One half of the classroom designs the puppets while the other half practices drumming. The first day, I had the kids try out the puppet and the drummers leapt right in, it was so seamless I wanted to burst. Soon, I'll upload pictures of the finished products---they added flames to the mouth flap, and in my book, lions are allowed to breathe fire. Each time we meet, I am blown away by their ingenuity and confidence in their work.
This week, we will videotape and with any luck, it will be edited into a montage that will be showed at the spring talent show. That way, they will be performing for an audience without any added stress.
The "Rain Dance" is aimed at the lower-functioning kids and will be based around creating a simple costume and sound effect and an unrehearsed performance. Each element will have his/her cue to come in, and from there, it will be on the spot. This club was partially made for them in mind, because it is so hard to plan anything for them, given their limited verbal and dextral capabilities. I just want them to be able to take part in something that they can do that isn't patronizing and also gives their parents the pride of seeing them in a school play.
Next month, I'll trade off teaching duties with someone else, which will give me more time to plan the next project, which will be a shadow play based on Indonesian puppet plays. My idea revolves around a Polish folktale that involves an exploding dragon, but it might be too time consuming. As long as it is monster based, I trust it will get the students involved--they love the Pokemon so much.
