by David Puvan
When I planned to spearhead the Youth Theatre Project with criminalized youth in Singapore, I was filled with so much confusion and doubt and I will admit that I contemplated giving up more than once. Working with youth who don’t exactly think theatre is cool is definitely no easy task and I remember always feeling exhausted after each session. Even after the third session with my group of youth who weren’t receptive to any activity I was conducting, (I mean who can blame them… they were mandated to be there!) I felt I wasn’t getting any closer to breaking the walls that divided each member of the group from each other, including me.
I expressed my feelings of defeat to Marc during one of our Distance Mentorship private sessions and I remember how he patiently listened and normalized my situation and gave me tips to take more risks and just have fun. Now that was something I knew I wasn’t having, because I was so inside my head on how to move the session forth that I forgot to be a part of the process, to be part of the fun. I went into the next session bearing his words and advice in mind but also mentally prepared for possible stagnation of progress. Although I had planned what I was going to do in that session, I tried to be more involved and joined in with the fun and jokes. I remember a very specific moment when everyone was laughing together and I used that moment to do what I never thought I would: I took a risk and asked a deeper question about a moment of struggle related to the activity. Now at this point, I knew I was deviating from my session plan but I was willing to scrap it if we made other forms of progress. And surprisingly, we broke through. One youth volunteered his story and started sharing it in-depth. I went with his flow and did a Forum on it. Soon others popped in with similar experiences. At the end of that Forum and the post-discussion, I felt all the barriers in that space were torn down and everyone was on the same side of the room.
David Puvan is a Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) practitioner and Social Work student in Singapore. He is also one of six international participants in the Mandala Center’s inaugural “Distance Mentorship for TO practitioners.” david_puvan@hotmail.com