During the process of developing Snow in Midsummer we had to learn about the Chinese culture that lies at the basis of this play. We had to consistently be checking our actions with online resources that tell us the appropriate ways to be saying certain things or doing things. For example a lot of the play focuses on spiritual culture and Buddhism in China, superstitions being a very big theme. We knew from the beginning that we had to be intensely accurate with our portrayals so that the play could not be considered as cultural appropriation. Our director Ms Parr brought in a teacher from the Chinese department to explain the backstory and give us some context for the storyline. We felt we had a certain responsibility to make sure Dou Yi’s story was being told respectfully, to her and her culture. We took the initiative to do our own research on the side into thew actions we were doing like in the temple, throwing hell paper, and during the funeral scene.

Having completed my last play at UWCSEA for my 3 year tenure at this school, I am incredibly grateful for the journey that I have had the pleasure of going on. We worked on this play for 6 months, beginning rehearsals in August and performing our final shows in January. I have spent the past 6 months at rehearsals 2 or 3 times a week with the same group of 20 people. Together we have built friendships and developed our skills immensely over such a long period of time. Getting to understand people’s artistic style and watching that grow, especially in the younger years, has been such a fulfilling experience. I had to work collaboratively with people to plan and initiate lunchtime rehearsals and practice scenes until we were 100% sure we had it down pat. The intense attention to detail when working on this play is what caused it to be a performance of which I am very proud. I can confidently say this performance is one of my best. Along with other people’s skill developing, mine have as well. I have had to persevere with going to rehearsals and being a good member of a team even in very difficult times for me personally or when I really didn’t feel optimistic or energetic enough to be doing the hard work that the play required. Snow in Midsummer tells a very important story that I am proud to have been telling as the character of TianYun.

This year, our cast and crew have had to work through restrictions never before experienced in our expertise. Crucial parts of theatre have been stripped away and made redundant by the global pandemic that has changed our lives. Aspects of theatre such as intimacy and character relationships have consistently had to be adjusted to fit the rules. We have had to utilise all forms of creativity and innovation we had, to come up with ways to portray those things while still staying socially distanced. This has proven to be a long and frustrating process but finally, we have prevailed. Through an unmatched sense of teamwork and collaboration, we have created a piece that I am happy to say, I am incredibly proud of. This is a production I’ll never forget, because of the unique circumstances and small cast, we have grown into a small family that cares deeply for each other. This experience has taught me the versatility of theatre and how we have the ability to create meaning even without using conventional theatre devices. I believe now that with Antigone under our belts all of us will go on to become better, more open, and creative performers and will take this experience on with us for the rest of our time spent in this industry.

Kahaani has been an extremely rewarding and educational experience for me this year. I’ve learnt some of the best ways to collaborate with people in order to get what needs to be done, while also creating a meaningful connection with people I usually wouldn’t interact with. It was difficult to get most of the people in my group to focus enough to be working on the dance rather than playing around. I could see our dance leaders getting more and more frustrated and it became imminently clear that confrontation diffusion was a skill I needed to develop in order to avoid an explosion. There were moments when I thought we were never going to get the dance learnt or be able to perform it well without something having to change. Eventually, after a lot of convincing and threatening, the boys would settle down and we would be able to run the dance. The final performance was filled with zest and energy as we were all excited to be coming to the end of our Kahaani journey for this year. It has been a meaningful experience for me, committing to an activity which is helping those in far more need than ourselves. Not being able to actively see the difference my participation was making to the Kolkata GC was difficult to deal with. I had to trust that my contributions were aiding an issue of global significance rather than observing the change we were making in the world myself. Overall Kahaani is a wonderful thing to do in order to help out, just by sacrificing one lunch a week and a couple of weekends you get to learn and grow in a community of loving and supporting students.

Having been cast as Ismene in this years Student-Led production, Antigone, I am hoping this experience will be an opportunity for self-growth and progression in my theatre skills as well as my collaboration. Focusing on LO2 and LO5 I will be trying to overcome the challenges that this creative project will pose to develop my abilities as a theatre student and learning how to work with a group collaboratively in order to create an impressive piece of theatre. Regarding LO2 my goals are to be skilled enough by the end of this production to know that I have the ability to lead a group of people in a challenging endeavour like this. I am aiming at becoming a better deviser, exploring many possibilities of what road this production can go down. Creating scenes for the audience while monologues or dialogue is being performed is the main task that comes with an interpretive piece, something which can prove incredibly difficult. Creativity will be key with this experience, as well as an openness and acceptance of other peoples ideas in order to work well and produce an aesthetic and interesting piece of theatre, which falls under LO5. Working together with others is usually a strength of mine and I’m hoping that will be shown through rehearsals when the cast will have to form a team of tightly banded theatre students open to change and creative development. There will be challenges to overcome throughout this process, however, this is anticipated and expected when there is a group of people working together to create something. Some of these challenges will be a difference in opinion on what should stay in and what shouldn’t, the easiest way to resolve things like that are by just trying out everyone’s idea until you find the one which feels the most fitting for the scene. Being open to criticism is also crucial to the process, taking in feedback and not getting offended too easily, presuming positive intent in my castmates. The entire cast has written up an agreement which we have all signed to keep us on track and remember that this is to be an enriching, educational, yet fun experience from which we will all learn a lot.