Nilaja Sun visit –
Yann Burrett
There are too few people who are lucky enough to be doing
something they absolutely love as a living.
Nilaja Sun seems to be one of the lucky few, as my classmates and I were
fortunate enough to discover when she came to talk to us about her piece “No
Child...”
Nilaja began her talk in character, slipping immediately
into the character of the Custodian and delivering the opening monolog from the
play. This is because “I think everyone
here has probably had a long day, so I wanted to give you a moment to find your
heart space, to stop having to live in your head for a moment and just be in
your heart.”
To me at least, the evening focused on the ideas of joy, of
“heart”, of emotional expression and of honesty. Nilaja is a wonderfully engaging speaker, and
as we looked at the world through her lens we discovered a place where it the
power of enabling people to understand and express themselves is
paramount. Through this talk, teenagers
were not troubled youth or delinquents, but human beings struggling to find
their place in a wider world. “I just
want them to have a chance to express their goodness”, she explained.
Not just adolescents – teachers were explained too. A lot of emphasis was placed on recognizing
the work teachers do and on how much energy it takes to lead a classroom of
thirty students all day. Even teachers
were encouraged to examine this aspect of themselves. Nilaja explained that she
wanted to give teachers permission to breathe and laugh at themselves and their
classrooms.
The evening was a wonderful mix of entertainment and
advocacy. It was one where we were
encouraged to see theatre as an inherent human activity, as an important factor
in development and as more than just something to offer if there's a surplus in
the school budget.
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