Dramatic Turns

Unknown 11:22 PM Add Comment Ting (bu) Dong Edit

An unexpected part of our job, especially early on, involved a lot of performing. In a way I guess, teaching itself is a bit of a performance. Lesson planning acts as a rehearsal and every class is its own show. Ben the teacher is a heightened, slightly altered, version of every day Ben. Fortunately for Torie and I, we have four plus years of training in the theatre that had us equipped to handle any dramatic responsibilities that might be bestowed upon us. At our school it meant making teaching videos, sometimes as the characters Princess Alphabet and King Monkey. Those sound like some exciting characters right? The characters can be best summarized as equal parts horrifyingly exuberant and excruciatingly redundant. So a solid children's show. We try to make up for it with loud voices and a lot of energy. We made an hour long video teaching the alphabet, one hour straight, every letter, pronunciation, repetition, singing, and dancing, all in a small area of our break room. The video was actually so long that it had to be split up into six ten minute videos. Who knows, maybe some day soon you guys will get to see them...After we made them we actually thought they turned out pretty well, but after recently revisiting them they seem more like a catastrophe. Inexplicably, our bosses were so happy with the characters that they approached us with the possibility of developing an educational T.V. show for the school. Turns out that takes quite a bit of time and energy and as we are already working full time it was not really plausible. Who knows though, we may have not seen the last of Princess Alphabet and King Monkey, though all of me hopes we have.

But the performing did not stop there, oh no. It isn’t only Torie and I performing either, sometimes we have to step out of the actor’s skin and into the director’s chair and these responsibilities are not taken lightly. Torie and I, along with another teacher Steve were asked to work with the kindergarteners on Christmas performance pieces for the Christmas show. Torie’s group went with a performance of the Beatle’s classic, “All Together Now,” a-capella in English. No small feat. Steve’s group sang “Jingle bells,” which ended up being a lot of mumbling for the verses and then a power ballad for the chorus. My group did “The Electric Slide,” except our dance was set to a funky tune called, “Too Hot To Stop,” by The Bar Kays. Except on the day of the performance whoever was in charge of the sound messed up our music and we ended up doing the Electric Slide to the Beegees' “Stayin’ Alive.” It probably would have been a train wreck if it weren’t for the fact that those little kids are the cutest things in the universe and I was dressed in a fat suit with a big white (not a fake!) beard. I was Santa Claus for Christmas. At one point up there on the stage I think my fake fluffy belly flew around and decked poor little Mark. He played it like a champion though and improved a dance on the ground that looked like a mix of the worm and the robot. Absolutely nailed it.

While our performances with the kindergarteners for the Christmas show were more cute than anything else, what they did with their regular kindergarten teachers (not English teachers) were unbelievable. Rather than rehearsing a mere once or twice a week, they stepped it up to a whole different level. Every day rehearsal at least an hour and a half long, even for the little Snoopy’s! It was intense. There was a tightly choreographed dance to Shakira’s “Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)”, a military regimental dance/performance piece that involved cartwheels and flips, and an all boy dance to One Direction’s, “What Makes You Beautiful.” There was also a video game themed dance with the little kids dressed up as little Marios and Luigis. I had my jaw dropped the entire time. It really is too bad that we couldn’t get a video clip of any of these.

Standing there watching these insanely high quality (even the hair and makeup was top notch) performances, I couldn’t help but think about my own childhood school performances and how they compared to what I was witnessing. In 5^th grade we did the Macarena. And that’s it. 5^th grade! Don’t get me wrong, my 5^th grade class absolutely crushed the Macarena, but these kids are barely out of infancy and it looks like they’re auditioning for Cirque Du Soleil. This was one of those moments where it definitely felt like we were in a different place. Needless to say, I was damn impressed. High fives and hugs for everyone. Though based on the quality of the performances and the amount of time and effort put into them, maybe it would have been more appropriate to hand those kids a fat check.

We would have to wait a few more months before we got the chance to take the stage again, this time for the Children’s Day Performance on June 1^st. And that’s where the foreign teachers (us) really had to step up their game. On top of all the children’s performances that day, the foreign teachers were asked to come up with their own performance and it could be anything we wanted. But how could we possibly top the majesty of the kindergarten Christmas show? Turns out we couldn’t. That show was unbelievable and will never be topped. But what we could do is dress up like superheroes and dance to “Uptown Funk.” So we did. And there is a video of that. And here’s that VIDEO.

Surely there will be more performances to come, and when they do we will make sure to keep you all posted.

In the meantime, pictures of the kids on Children's Day!