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by Allan Appel | Apr 28, 2006 11:15 am

(2) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Schools, Dixwell

The Wexler-Grant School may be located at Foote and Dixwell, but last night it lifted itself right to fabled Broadway (and we don’t mean the one in New Haven) with African Tales, a multi-media theatrical extravaganza complete with towering puppets, African animal huts and masks, and a stage full of energetic and authentic African dancing and drumming, all produced by the school’s drama club. It wowed a cheering audience of more than 200 proud parents, siblings, and friends.

The show was produced and directed by the school’s multi-talented art teacher Reginald Augustine, whose mother Sonya (shown with her son in photo) wouldn’t miss a performance. African Tales was originally created by Augustine as a performance for Black History Month earlier this year. He selected four African myths —” mainly from Nigeria and other countries of west Africa —” that teach lessons about values such as honesty in friendship, and the value of storytelling for cultural continuity —” and interspersed them with spectacularly rousing authentic African drumming and dances, such as the gumboot dance of South African miners. “This is by far the biggest, most complex production we’ve ever put together,” said Augustine. “We’ve worked for 15 weeks of rehearsal —” after school and on weekends —” with 45 kids, from the fourth to eighth grade, and they do it all: acting, drumming, dancing, building huge puppets and constructing and painting sets; costumes and make up. Actually the wonderful parents in the Family Resource Center made the costumes.” The remarkable students were helped by Augustine’s creative team that included, among many other talented people, Aly Tatchol-Camara, a native of Guiana, who taught the Wexler-Grant kids what real African drumming sounds like;Michelle Sepulveda, who, when in between legislating as New Haven’s 30th Ward alderwoman, was the talented choreographer for the show; and Jake Weinstein who supervised the construction of the 15-foot puppets of the African gods Nyami and Abeeyoyo, the spectacular non-human stars of the show La’Quasia Samms, a fourth grader dancer (shown in the photo at the top of the story with Weinstein and Sepulveda) loves the rhinoceros mask. “I really learned a lot,” she said, “about what it means to be an African.” Wexler-Grant’s principal, Jeffie Frazier (pictured), in inspirational remarks before curtain time, underlined the extraordinary contributions of parents and community that helped give the production the hands and the means to be so professional and such a source of learning for the kids. These included more than $400 from the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, support from the New Haven Fire Department (they must have also given Augustine permission to have a mock fire aglow at stage left, around which the narrators introduced us the stories being acted out), and the Neighborhood Music School, home of the drums. “Working on a production like this,’ said Frazier, “not only fulfills our commitment to integrate the arts into the curriculum, but, with so much rehearsal time required our young people are learning early that when you make a commitment, you keep it.” The young people Weinstein worked with, such as eighth graders Quentin Dimbo and Joman Rouse, taught him, which is the joy of teaching, during their work constructing and painting the puppets. “For example, take Nyami,” Weinstein was saying. He was talking about the 15-foot puppet, held by Dimbo and Rouse as the play opens and Nyami tells the price he will exact —” a leopard and much else — in order for stories to be brought down to earth. “These large puppets tend to be very top-heavy and hard to control,” said Weinstein. “But the kids were remarkable and engineered their own solution; they took some bamboo and attached it to the frame at the bottom and got that African god under control.” Kiya Clark, an eighth-grade antelope, learned so much and has become so turned on to theater she’s decided to become an actress. She will be going to Coop High School, where the acting and theater program is strong. She wanted Reggie Augustine to come with her there, but he’s at home at Wexler-Grant. Is he ever!

Comments

posted by: Reggie Augustine on April 28, 2006 9:25pm

Mr. Appel,
Thank you for such a wonderful article. We here at Wexler-Grant really appreciate your help in getting the word out about what we do here. You will of course be invited to future shows. on behalf of the school administration, the teachers and more importantly, the students we say thank you, thank you.

Reggie

posted by: wanda faison on May 5, 2006 11:52am

great play

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