Playing in Spanish
We’re so excited that the Global Play Brigade hosted its’ first Spanish language workshop.
The idea of holding a session completely in Spanish had long been part of the GPB plan, and so we Brigadiers, Jorge Burciaga and Miguel Cortés from Mexico, and Mayarí (Maya) Pérez and María (Majo) José Castrillo from Costa Rica joined forces to make this Spanish workshop series happen.
Jorge, Miguel and Maya had already met at the Performing the World conference in 2018. Maya and Majo are longtime friends and co-workers. And, all four of us have been students of the International Class at the East Side Institute. We were excited to work together to create a few “first times”:
- A play workshop was in Spanish for Spanish-speaking people.
- Mexico and Costa Rica collaborated together in the Brigade.
- Majo and Maya facilitated a GPB workshop
The preparation sessions were an adventure we really enjoyed a lot; and we decided to organize a series of 3 play sessions in Spanish. The first one was called “Fiesta Contraindicada” or Contraindicated Party, the second “Catársis pandémica” or Pandemic Catharsis and the third one “Diálogo entre virus” or Dialogue among Viruses. 40 people registered for the first session. 10 people from Mexico, Costa Rica and the US attended. (We’ve learned that more people sign up than usually attend!).
The aim of this first session was to have a party. In pandemic times you shouldn’t do that in person, but no one says you can’t do it virtually – so with this feeling of celebration, we started!
We welcomed participants with music and greetings and followed the same script we have for all the GPB sessions, translated into Spanish, both at the beginning and end.
The session had three elements:
- Getting people comfortable with the zoom platform, and people getting to know each other.
- The introduction to gibberish and playing with it.
- Smaller group work to share:
- Their significant experiences in these pandemic times.
- Creating a poem in gibberish and translating it to movement and into Spanish.
At the end we asked people to share their experiences. They were very grateful for this much-needed space to have a different relationship to computers, zoom, and with people they didn’t know. Comments included:
-A very nice space to connect with different people. Great activities!
-Thank you very much. I feel super happy and have lots of ideas to share with my family and friends in a more creative, productive and joyful way. From 1 to 10, I give this a 10.
-I'm not bad at playing, which follows… I´m terrible! But I really liked the kind way you accompanied us. Thank you so much for moving me!
-It went so fast! It was a lot of fun and I think these spaces were already necessary before the pandemic, and now even more! Thank you for sharing and I’m in to join you and play next time.
For all of us, this experience marks a beautiful beginning for collaboration and friendship that we’ll continue to develop.
