Frisoli Arts Day

On Saturday May 1, 2010, Breathe Cambridge went to the Frisoli Arts Day, “Show Me What You Got”. It was a fun occasion where many artistic youth performers got the chance to express their ideas and talents. Not only was there delicious food and great weather, there were many creative performances and people with fantastic abilities that performed for the audience at Frisoli. Some of the acts included a dance team, a poet reciting his work, singers, a krumping team, and more. Since we, at Breathe Cambridge, are artists striving to collect voices and communicate with our community using poetry, we decided to have a performance and set up a table where people could have their poems written and recorded for us.

Our performance was a creative combination of movement, spoken word, and singing. The theme of our performance was acknowledging that people often feel left out but there are always ways to feel included. After spending only a few days rehearsing the choreography, we were set up to perform. It was slightly disorganized due to a few of our performers being absent, but we managed to replace them and make the routine work. We began our act with each of us walking onto the stage one by one, until we were all drifting around the stage aimlessly. We then each stopped and asked the audience a question in line with the theme of being left out, like “Have you ever felt lonely?” and “Have you ever felt afraid?”. Munah was the last to address the audience with the words “I am nobody”. This was to demonstrate a person feeling excluded. Following this piece, we were planning on having a singing performance and a transition into the next part using a negative space activity, but the key member of this section, Solome, couldn’t be there. We ended up skipping to the next part of our performance which entailed a person sitting on the floor with the group surrounding her but looking away. This was done to express the feeling of being ignored and isolated. After this, we had the city scene, which included all us of standing in straight, rigid positions while swaying emulating time and movement in the city. While we did this, Munah walked around us and recited her original poem named “Miss Sorrow”. When Munah finished, we all rushed to her, all except for Dami, who performed a singing piece. In the lyrics of the song, she called for people to come to her and as she did so, one by one, we surrounded her. At the conclusion of Dami’s song, Christina was lifted by the group and said “I am who I want to be”, at which point the rest of the group made a positive affirmation by saying their “I am” lines as well.

-Christina