political performance reflection

The performance went well and I think we conveyed our message of child soldiers well. We used placards and hung them around our chest, on them we wrote our age and that we were child soldiers. We misspelt it to simultaneously show that we were child soldiers and also that child soldiers aren't educated, that their ability to shoot a gun is prioritised over learning to read or write. We also wrote this as a slogan, saying "taught how to use guns before they can write." Our costume was very good and immersed not only the audience but also myself playing the character of the child soldier.

We also decorated our stage with picture of child soldiers and left placards with slogans and facts written on them so that even when we weren't there the audience could learn something, and perhaps realise that its a stage for something and wait until we eventually come back and see our performance.

Our routine was effective as we could rely on it to drive our message home with our audience once we had lured them to our stage. One of the main challenges we had was to get our audience to follow us to our stage, so we thought we would catch their attention and hope they became curious enough to follow us. Luckily this seemed to work and every time we came back to our stage after going round the school there was an audience to perform to. It wasn't ever a massive audience but I believe that the amount of people was much more manageable than say the canteen. Also in the canteen it felt like, because the audience was so massive, it was almost overwhelming for the performers and it seemed like their message was getting lost in the bustle of the audience. Where as with our audience it felt more intimate and that our performance was having a larger impact on the audience. Making it more likely for them to keep thinking about child soldiers long after the performance.

To improve on our performance when going round the school we shouldn't have been so 'in your face' with people as it seemed to have prompted them to not take our protest seriously. To make this better we should try to win over the audience with an isolated event that they could witness. This is why I think our routine was more effective than when we walked around the school. Because it invited the audience in to watch, where as being 'in your face' distanced them from our message and perhaps even alienated them.

In conclusion we had an effective and informative performance. That hopefully impacted the audience enough for them to do something about child soldiers.