The Dominican Steven Speilberg

Thursday, January 28

Quote for the day: “Now let’s do a little exercise, tell me what you like about my country?” Jacinto

“But you are shining, the light is coming from you” Jacinto upon meeting me.

(Gracias mi amor, my husband thinks so too.)

Second enormous day, but with a 5 hour gap created quite suddenly, which is how things happen in the DR sometimes. It would drive other people wild, (I can think of several of my friends who would be ripped if their food, transportation and schedule didn’t go perfectly as planned. You know who you are—don’t come to the DR) Penny said the plans would not be firm or fluid, more like Jello, now I know what she meant. In the middle of our second school class at Gregorio Luperon school, suddenly Jenn appears with Arisleyda. Arisleyda has forgotten that there is a performance that doesn’t finish until 9:00pm, so tech rehearsal moves from 7 to 9. Ok. Then that’s when we start.

But I am getting ahead of myself (not possible in this blog) First, morning class. Class Thursday morning was at a community center on the street behind our hotel, so we get to walk, much to the three car driver’s delight. Tiny houses, one and two stories, perch and list along the alley. People peer out at our conspicuous caravan as Moreno helps us over the rough spots in the broken concrete. The clubhouse turns out to be great for a class. White tile floors indoors make for a luxurious space. There are only 5 or 6 dancers this morning, which is nice as well. One of the young men dancing was incredibly athletic, sorting of upping the ante with a few of our guys (nice leaps Phillipe). Then he busted out the capoiera and Jeremy got going, and it was fantastic. We only told Jeremy like 23 times to be careful, which of course he was.

After class, we broke for lunch, going separate ways. Penny and I had some leftovers and tried to regroup for part 2 of Thursday—Gregorio Luperon School.

Nicole is the group videographer, patiently sitting in corners of rooms, taping all the classes, which have been numerous. Well, when we got to Luperon (another fantastic journey because lines in the road are merely a suggestion) we were met by a teacher and Marisha Kazeniac, the head of VIC, and eventually Alvaro Martinez who is, indeed, the Dominican Steven Speilberg. He asked Marisha if he could film, and Nic asked me and of course I said yes! He took that camera and zoomed around, standing on tables, chairs, buildings to get a better shot. He took the tripod on and off a dozen times, he got some kid to get him a desk, all things done in the name of his art. Nic says he went off at some point and came back with a soda which he handed to Nic. Well, how sweet she thought, and took a sip. Alvaro took the camera back from her, which she had been holding for him, then took the soda. Apparantly she was supposed to hold his soda while he set up the shot. Brilliant.

We could all tell that there was a difference in this school. As the kids came in, I made an effort to introduce myself in my halting Spanish. Carla, Diana, Francesca. When we had enough to get started we got going. Our space this time was the library. Moreno pushed the tables back and there was plenty of room (more than in the computer lab where they originally put us—nice lab though) until 20 more kids walked in. The kept showing up through the warm-up, which was hilarious because I did it all with sound effects and they followed right along. So we probably had 40-50 kids en todos in the hallway and the classroom. These kids were interested, creative, willing. I think the VIC project Healthy Kids, Healthy Neighborhoods has been in residence here longer than at Los Dominguez. The Luperon students seem a little more confidant, which helps. There were a couple of boys who weren’t too sure about the whole thing, but that is the same the world over, so no big. These kids pieces were about riding the cable car and seeing their barrio, building a theater, planting trees, animals in their neighborhood. They were amazing. They were doing something brand new with skill and creativity. You have to be a little bit brave to do something so new, again with half your school watching.

At the end, the kids wanted to see the Company dance, so they did a 5 minute improvisation. As the kids watched, Familia, the school’s Arts teacher, explained how improvisation works, said to look for groupings, and so on. He was wonderful. It made a huge difference to have him there the whole time. Then, time to go.

We swam upstream in a sea of children to get to the school gate where the guard was waiting. Some smiling, others suspicious, a few reached out to touch hands, say hello. Little boys ran up and yelled something I’m sure their mothers would not have approved of, giggled and ran away. As you all know, I am not a tiny girl, so it must have been some site, me wading through these waves of delicious, bright-eyed wonders.

Coming up tomorrow…