Little Music Masters meeting The Crane Experts!

Dharavi Rocks! is a joint educational project between Blue Frog and Acron Foundation, an NGO working for the upliftment of slum children and ragpickers in Mumbai. The project was started with the idea to give access to music to the less privileged combining arts with education.

I invited the children of Dharavi Rocks not only for them to share their music with the 1000 crane children, but also to learn about The 1000 Crane Project themselves.

The first half of the day, we had our 1000 Crane children, learn a little bit of paper craft and clay-modeling with Victor, a fellow from TISS.

During this time, I welcomed the Dharavi Rocks team of twelve – Afzal, Faisal, Minaz, Abdulla, Hasan, Billal, Aziz, Afridi, Rahim, Athar, Imtiaz and Asif!

I presented the story of Sadako Sasaki and The 1000 Cranes and the Hazards of Nuclear Power. To my surprise, there were some of them who knew about it already, which was impressive.

They then all painted their own crane T-shirt to be sent to Fukushima.

I then brought them to the Khula Asaman shed where the 1000 crane children were completing their clay models. Played a few introduction games and went for lunch.

Post Lunch, if when the fun began.

The Dharavi Rocks group came out with their home instruments and played a really fantastic piece for our group. The 1000 Crane children we just left amazed.

We then made a pact – The Dharavi Rocks kids would teach The 1000 Crane children music, and in turn they would learn origami from them. This was unanimously agreed upon.

The group was split as per the no of instruments brought, and each child learn how to play a short rhythm. They then performed individually, introducing the instrument as well as their teacher.

Then, we asked the Dharavi Rocks group, to make a band out of the 1000 crane group, which they handled very professionally and actually got the 10 kids to play a collective rhythm.

We then tried to use their instruments to add music to the Tara Anthem as well as another song.  This was a challenge, as both groups were new to each other, but, the co-operation and co-ordination was tremendous. Finally, we did manage to perform two songs collectively, pretty well.

It was then the turn of the 1000 crane children to teach the Dharavi Rocks group origami. Having gone thru a coaching session already, the kids found it easier to teach their new students. They finally made crane mobiles, and presented it to each child, as a memento of the day spent with them.

There was learning for me as well ! The kids from Dharavi Rocks taught me that there is a musician in all of us, as without any hesitation, I took over and taught them the anthem and the African song –SIM GEM GEM, taught to me by my dear friends Ludovica and Paolo from Italy.

A rather musical day and a fulfilling day ! Thank You Anil, Vinod, Acron Foundation and Dharavi Rocks ! 

Theatre , Interaction, Puppetry and more ...

Shruti Sridharan, a trainer in theater with the company Theatre Professionals, Mumbai, spent a day, with the children sensitizing them to some of the nuances of theater.

The morning session consisting of game and exercises, with the objectives to get the children comfortable with themselves and their bodies, learn how to use their hands, legs and themselves to express themselves without words.

She also conducted exercises, which taught them the importance of co-ordination and team work.

After this, she conducted an exercise to help the children build and create stories themselves.

Post lunch, once again, she conducted a very interesting exercise, with the simple principal of throwing the ball, which involved concentration, alertness and co-ordination skills of the children.

 

The children then shared the story of Sadako Sasaki and The 1000 Paper Cranes with Shruti, which she then helped them to elaborate and create their own stories using similar characters like Sadako and the cranes. The story had to be created in frames, like a comic strip. 

We then were introduced to her hand puppet – Miss Purple. Thru Miss Purple, we all learnt how to make our own hand puppets.

We were split into 5 teams, and all of us used the surplus fabrics that we had received from Mandhana Industries to make these puppets.

Some really interesting and lovely looking puppets were made. It was a learning day for me as well, since Shruti, and her dynamic self, did not need anyone else to help or assist in conducting the workshop, so I took this opportunity to also learn a little about theater with the kids.

After we were done making our puppets, she also taught us the method of handling a puppet, the need for change of voice to give the puppet its own life, and not sound like us. The technique of effective puppetry is when you give it life by giving your entire concentration to the puppet in your hand.

Sagar Bhalekar, a very dear friend and professional photographer, came to visit me, and photographed the entire afternoon session, and also captured it on video for us.

The day ended with the kids really excited about their new friends, and have promised Shruti to practice working with them, so she shall come in on Sunday morning and create a short play.

From basic paper cranes, today the cranes took shape of a puppet, this is encouraging as we are acquiring more tools each day to share our story with new groups, thanks to the experts who are supporting us.