This is the lovely notebook that I've been using to write my first plays in. It was a gift from Andrea Harrison -- a memento of NYC and also of my Youth Onstage! play Our City. So many lovely people gave me notebooks and journals before I left (and I'll be using all of them, eventually) but this one seemed good to start with, while the memory of the States was still strong...It somehow seems appropriate that the notebook has Lady Liberty on it, since immigrants and newcomers appear to be figuring quite prominently in the two first pieces that I'm writing. America's 20th Century mythology is very much based on it being "a nation of immigrants." I'd always known (abstractly) that 21st Century Britain was also a multiethnic, multiracial society but my recent explorations have given me some more detailed experience of what that means:
- Last Sunday, I attended a service at a Nigerian aladura church in Peckham. I'd been passing by these places on my way to the train and thought they might make a good subject for drama. The experience itself was highly theatrical: with women dressed in colorful African dresses and gorgeous head wraps, a rock band playing live throughout the service, a charismatic female worship leader and LOTS of dancing (probably 30-40 minutes straight of it towards the end). It was a fascinating mix between aspects of Pentecostal Christianity and aspects of African music and ritual. Since then, I've been reading a bit of academic research about the Nigerian community in the UK, who first started coming over in the immediate post-colonial years as students, and about the importance of establishing churches as a support network for people who felt out of place in their new culture.
- Earlier in the week, has part of my research at Elephant & Castle, I thought I'd hang out in the Shopping Centre next to the bus station and observe a typical day. I got myself an arepa and a cafe con leche and sat myself outside of La Bodeguita, a popular restaurant and the seeming cnetral hub of the Colombian community in the area. Sitting at a side table for almost 90 minutes I saw all kinds of people coming and going: groups of young people in their twenties, mothers and children, older men. There was a palpable sense of a community, a small version of Bogota or Medellin within London (there's a store next door called Medellin y su Moda). These people came in for a bite of familiar food, a chat with the women behind the counter and some Spanish conversation with whomever it was they ran into, before going off to their various jobs. Looking around I also learned that La Bodeguita seems to host a popular discoteca on Friday and Saturday nights -- I may be back!
- And, finally, last night I went to see a play at an East End school created and performed by a group of Bengali girls from the London neighborhood of Tower Hamlets, which I take it has a large South Asian population. One of my instructors at Goldsmiths is the "writer-in-residence" there and has worked with the girls for three years straight to devise original plays. The school, called Mulberry School for Girls, was a rather amazing place -- somewhat like an excellent charter school here in NYC. Though a "state" (i.e. public school) it gets some kind of extra money to make arts curriculum a priority and has professional artists working at the school and building a relationship with the place.
This is not necessarily the London I anticipated, but it's one that I'm excited to discover. My curiosity about the many ethnic groups that make up this city is definitely a reflection also of the last six years I spent in New York, doing community organizing with All Stars and Castillo. I'm starting to feel proud about being a South Londoner, and to have such a range of neighbours!
- Last Sunday, I attended a service at a Nigerian aladura church in Peckham. I'd been passing by these places on my way to the train and thought they might make a good subject for drama. The experience itself was highly theatrical: with women dressed in colorful African dresses and gorgeous head wraps, a rock band playing live throughout the service, a charismatic female worship leader and LOTS of dancing (probably 30-40 minutes straight of it towards the end). It was a fascinating mix between aspects of Pentecostal Christianity and aspects of African music and ritual. Since then, I've been reading a bit of academic research about the Nigerian community in the UK, who first started coming over in the immediate post-colonial years as students, and about the importance of establishing churches as a support network for people who felt out of place in their new culture.
- Earlier in the week, has part of my research at Elephant & Castle, I thought I'd hang out in the Shopping Centre next to the bus station and observe a typical day. I got myself an arepa and a cafe con leche and sat myself outside of La Bodeguita, a popular restaurant and the seeming cnetral hub of the Colombian community in the area. Sitting at a side table for almost 90 minutes I saw all kinds of people coming and going: groups of young people in their twenties, mothers and children, older men. There was a palpable sense of a community, a small version of Bogota or Medellin within London (there's a store next door called Medellin y su Moda). These people came in for a bite of familiar food, a chat with the women behind the counter and some Spanish conversation with whomever it was they ran into, before going off to their various jobs. Looking around I also learned that La Bodeguita seems to host a popular discoteca on Friday and Saturday nights -- I may be back!
- And, finally, last night I went to see a play at an East End school created and performed by a group of Bengali girls from the London neighborhood of Tower Hamlets, which I take it has a large South Asian population. One of my instructors at Goldsmiths is the "writer-in-residence" there and has worked with the girls for three years straight to devise original plays. The school, called Mulberry School for Girls, was a rather amazing place -- somewhat like an excellent charter school here in NYC. Though a "state" (i.e. public school) it gets some kind of extra money to make arts curriculum a priority and has professional artists working at the school and building a relationship with the place.
This is not necessarily the London I anticipated, but it's one that I'm excited to discover. My curiosity about the many ethnic groups that make up this city is definitely a reflection also of the last six years I spent in New York, doing community organizing with All Stars and Castillo. I'm starting to feel proud about being a South Londoner, and to have such a range of neighbours!
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