‘UP IN YOUR HEAD' HARINGEY ACTORS PERFORM INNOVATIVE ZOOM PLAY 

Artistic Director at Collage Voices, Steve Medlin, worked with eight students from St Thomas More Catholic school in Haringey to rehearse  and perform Jon Brittain’s play ‘Up in Your Head’.

This was part of the ImagiNation project, commissioned by Theatre Centre and Theatre 503. Nineteen writers were asked to devise plays for amateur actors under Lockdown to perform and self-record. 

‘Up in Your Head’ brings to life some of the internal monologues that many have experienced during the coronavirus pandemic. Despite its unfamiliar virtual staging, or perhaps now all-too-familiar, the piece innovatively threads together disparate emotions of isolation into one dark, funny and affirming patchwork.

Cheryl Rosen, Assistant Headteacher at the school, explains: 

“It has been a fantastic opportunity for both myself and the pupils of St Thomas More School…[It] gave myself and the pupils something to look forward to each week and we are all very proud of what has been created. The pupils are from all different year groups and have never worked together before, let alone created a play on Zoom so its very exciting to see what they have produced. It has definitely been one of the highlights of the lockdown experience for all.”

COLLABORATION WITH YOUTUBE MUSIC

We can now confirm that Collage Arts’ Voices Against Hate programme, inspired by HIT, to equip Haringey school pupils develop their own creative and digital material to counterract hate crimes, has received funding through the Peoples Postcode Lottery and Amplify London.
This is a new fund set up by the London Music Fund.  As part of the latter, we will receive direct support from YouTube Music. We’re sure our young performers will benefit greatly from this fantastic resource! 



Over the next 9 months young people (aged 11 to 14) impacted by hate speech, will come together with their friends to find ways to combat this form of bullying. They will be creating memes, sketches and songs that promote diversity, celebrating difference and undermine the basis of hate speech. This will build up into a toolkit to turn conversations around to become more inclusive and kinder.

WHAT WE GOT UP TO BEFORE LOCKDOWN

Collage Arts went to Harris Academy, Tottenham to deliver workshops against hate crime as part of the European HIT project. At Harris Academy, 110 students participated in activities exploring hate crime, bullying, human rights, agency, responsibility and reconciliation through drama. 

The sessions focused on taking the young people on a journey from their own unique experiences of hate crime (whether victim or perpetrator).  They explored bullying in all its forms and discussed human rights and, how they have power to intervene and to change outcomes, and developed a greater understanding of how they can promote positive methods and language to interrupt hate, support the victim, and dis-empower the perpetrator. 


Through the same programme, Collage Arts also delivered a workshop at WAC Arts College, Camden to 35 youth workers and trainers as part of their CPD. The purpose of the session was to introduce these creative educators to HIT’s aims. They discussed best practice around these in their own settings in order to develop further workshop materials and themes that could be delivered to the young people they work with.

“The broadening of what hate speech is and can be...
made me come to terms with my own mindset and how I can personally be a victim to hateful comments, and now I feel I can deal with situations more appropriately.”  Youth worker

WOODSIDE HIGH STUDENTS SUCCESSFULLY CAMPAIGN FOR RAINBOW CROSSING 

Earlier this year, Woodside High Students’ campaign to install a Rainbow Crossing outside school was realised. Despite receiving some negative responses and even abusive messages, Haringey’s youth remains proud of its efforts to make visible its LGBTQ+ community. Haringey has a rich history of activism - its council was the first to have Lesbian and Gay Unit, working to highlight the rights of LGBT people to council staff.

THOUGHTFUL READ - TO MAKE ONLINE LEARNING MORE THREE DIMENSIONAL, LET IT BE BUMPY
 

Teachers who give lessons online may fear the dull ‘flatness’ of 2D learning environments. Even face-to-face teaching, Prof. William Germano points out, is hardly smooth sailing. To learn is simply to overcome difficulties and explore complexity. If learning is easy, why do we spend 11+ years at school? Therefore, navigating the oft-perilious and ‘bumpy’ waters of online classes should give us ample opportunity to rediscover the teaching process and build alternative communities dedicated to overcoming barriers to knowledge.

“Virtual reality is almost reality but can also be better than reality, as for example when marginalised groups connect online to build a virtual community, away from antagonistic physical environments.” - Professor William Germano