TAB NPC performing “What is That?” at Nal’ibali Stakeholder Engagement
Nal’ibali starts with a story and ASSITEJ SA brings stories to life!
ANNOUNCING THE WORLD READ ALOUD DAY PARTNERSHIP
When partnerships flourish, organisations flourish…
ASSITEJ SA was founded 17 years ago with the aim of bringing performing arts, particularly theatre, into the lives of every child and young person in our country.
We are a membership-based organization with members from across the country, including individual artists and many organizations, both big and small, located in townships, rural areas, and cities. These members provide arts for children and young people in various forms – in school programmes, after school and through programmes that tour into different schools and communities. Through the Social Employment Fund, we have been able to support these artists more concretely in the work they are doing to reach children. Over the last three years, we have been providing monthly support to between 1,600 and 1,850 artists. Collectively, they reach 50,000 children a month through in-school programs, after-school programs, and touring ventures, where they conduct workshops or stage productions at various sites, engaging with children as audiences.
These activities have led to a significant increase in theatre and performing arts for children and young people in various locations across South Africa. It has been incredibly exciting to see our artists grow through the program, which includes training and support in creating age-appropriate work for children, arts administration, HR, positive discipline, and more. This upskilling has provided a stronger foundation for them to undertake future projects.
Through SEF, we have also witnessed a surge in cultural activity through showcases, festivals, and events, providing unprecedented access to the arts for children and young people. Our organization works hard to support our member artists in developing quality work for children and young people, helping them become better at what they do, and encouraging them to be more creative and daring in their approach to theatre and performing arts. Being part of an international network (ASSITEJ) which is more than 100 countries, provides ample opportunities for experimentation, collaboration, and inspiration, leading to partnerships like this one that mutually strengthen us.
We are delighted to be partnering with Nal’ibali on this project because we feel that we are kindred spirits and share common values regarding the arts and reading for children and young people.
One of these is that children and young people deserve to be taken seriously from the earliest age. Their unique views of the world and the context in which they live and operate, the languages that they access and use, are all a bounty of riches. Children and young people need their own contexts, realities, cultures, and languages to be recognized and affirmed. To be put centre stage… They also need the opportunity to imagine what lies beyond their immediate reality, to think their way into other worlds and other possibilities…
The performing arts represent an extension of the natural communicative powers that all children possess. By introducing the arts early into the lives of children and ensuring that they have meaningful and quality artistic experiences relevant to their context, we allow them to extend their imaginations, to see the world differently, and, as studies have shown, provide hope for the future.
A study in the U.S. tracked children over three years and found that those exposed to the professional arts experiences at least twice a year, with additional workshop opportunities in between, had a greater sense of hope and sense of their own futures – than those with no such exposure.
There are other reasons why this partnership with Nal’ibali is important to ASSITEJ.
A child whose understanding of the world is enriched through story, is a child who understands who they are and where they’re going. By thinking our way into imaginative worlds, we open up possibilities of choice, alternative actions, deeper understanding, and empathy for those with different points of view. Engaging with stories gives us power to make meaning. Theatre brings together all aspects of human expression into one package and situates the audience as the meaning maker; to see beyond the surface, to question motive, and to understand consequence. We need to respect our audiences, take them seriously, and give them credit for being able to understand challenging ideas.
We believe that there is no subject that is too difficult to be broached with young children. It’s simply the how, and that’s where the creativity of the artist comes in. To find out how, we also need to work with children as our allies, co-creators and dramaturgs to find the aesthetics which will communicate most powerfully to our audiences.
The living, breathing story is important – Even as adults we carry the voices of those who told us stories when we were children. The power of the live, authentic voice, the free voice that can take us on a journey of imagination, can create whole worlds with a shift of tone, can speak to us sincerely and as an equal is one of the gifts of theatre. It is an intimate and particular, in-person experience that is very powerful. The live voice travels not just through the airwaves but through our bodies, and we feel voices as well as hear them. Even the most subtle shifts in tone give us clues that accurately reflect mental and emotional states of being.
The natural tendency of children to explore language creatively through babbling, making sounds, singing, chanting and rhymes – all of these are heightened and intensified in the live performance.
Studies show that storytelling/ live performance has greater benefits for comprehension than reading a story aloud… The direct involvement of the listener is more personal and the levels of attention are higher. Theatre takes this to another level – it carefully selects and arranges elements of an experience, breaking through everyday noise to create a focused listening experience. The use of eye contact and physical proximity creates a special connection that feels deeply personal and is more memorable.
Theatre also has the license to use language that children would not necessarily hear in everyday conversations, simultaneously giving them a context in which to place these new words through the other visual, musical and kinaesthetic signifiers that communicate with audiences.
And of course, theatre is all about stories. All children, including the child in each one of us, loves a good story.
We are thrilled to partner with Nal’ibali for World Read Aloud Day, to bring stories to life, as it also aligns with the campaign theme of “Take a Child to the Theatre”. This campaign comes to fruition with the celebration of the World Day for Theatre and Performing Arts for Children and Young People on March 20th. We will be working across all South African provinces, with our Social Employment Fund participants to create their performed versions of the World Read Aloud Day story in languages and contexts most suitable for the children they will be reaching. Through the original content created by Nal’ibali in all of South Africa’s languages, we will be able to create fantastic theatrical content that will speak to our audiences in ways that they need and deserve.
The first of these productions of the story by Baeletsi Tsatsi, entitled “What is that?” is created by TAB NPC, based in Gauteng, one of our Social Employment Fund beneficiary organizations. Look out for it in a community near you.
We look forward to growing our partnership with Nal’ibali as we together strive to bring inspiration and hope into the lives of children through imagining and reimagining our world.
Yvette Hardie
Director, ASSITEJ SA
NOTE: Some parts of this blog, first appeared in Mapping: A Map on the Aesthetics of Performing Arts for Early Years, see https://mapping-project.eu/timeline/mapping-research-a-map-on-the-aesthetics-of-performing-arts-for-early-years/
