Hong Kong Performers Entertain and Engage KDES Students in Visual Theatre Exercises
QuestFest Artists-in-Residence from the Arts with the Disabled Association
Hong Kong artists from the Arts with the Disabled Association (ADA) have been conducting workshops at Kendall Demonstration Elementary School (KDES) as part of QuestFest, a festival of visual theatre taking place March 1-14 at locations in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.
During the workshops, the ADA artists, both deaf and hearing, have been showing kindergarten through eighth grade students movement techniques and exercises for concentration and visual focus, and teaching them some Hong Kong sign language. They have introduced the youngest children to hand clapping and rhythm games for visual awareness and focus. With the older grades, the ADA artists have led students through movement exercises and concentration games that require great concentration to follow and copy subtle changes of hand movements. The middle school students have enjoyed the challenge of working in teams to create visual picture tableaux, using their bodies to create scenes such as being in an airplane or a restaurant.
Some of the KDES students were able to see their mentors perform on stage in a matinee performance of the QuestFest production Journey to the West at Gallaudet. At a "Talk Back" session with the actors and the audience following the performance, students had many questions. They had fun identifying the members of the troupe still in full white-faced makeup as the people who led their workshop.