[Music]
if you’ve ever found yourself trying to
teach Shakespeare to kids I would
recommend that you start with Macbeth
it’s a nice concise story there’s a
murder about every 10 minutes keeps
everybody interested
it’s full of manipulation deception
backstabbing all things that children
are very familiar with from the
playground and nobody falls in love
because I mean falling in love is great
but nobody wants to act it out
particularly not children yeah but this
story starts with a production of
Macbeth at the National Theatre in
Yangon has anyone ever been to the
National Theatre yeah it’s not the most
beautiful place a rather inauspicious
starting place but I was putting on a
play of Macbeth there and this was a
play like no other it had 250 children
starring in it from incredibly diverse
backgrounds we had children from
monastery schools from orphanages from
international schools and at a big age
range as well I think our youngest were
six and our oldest were 21 and if you
know Macbeth you know there are witches
and there is nothing more terrifying
than a six year old witch as we’ve just
heard from the last talk the Myanmar
education system is very rigid there is
a right answer and there is a wrong
answer and there is no more difficult
question than what do you think so when
we were going into these local schools
the orphanages and the monasteries you
know this is a play that is full of what
do you think’s who’s in the right who’s
in the wrong who’s manipulating who
who’s a goodie who’s a baddie and it
turns out these children could think
very creatively and after a few sessions
they were much more comfortable
expressing themselves and so our
to this insane rehearsal period of
dashing round from one school to the
next with one group of kids to the next
each group had prepared a scene and we
brought all those 250 children together
at the National Theatre to perform
Macbeth there’s a commuter train in
Yangon most of you will have probably
been on it it’s really bumpy it’s
uncomfortable it’s hearts and it runs in
a 50 kilometer loop around the city my
kids love going on it a few years ago my
colleague suggested that we do a
performance on one of these trains at
the hottest time of year now my
producing head said no this is a stupid
idea in fact any common sense would say
that this was a very stupid idea but he
chipped away at me and eventually the
beauty of the idea won me round and so
we did this on our tiny tiny budget this
motley crew of local artists and a few
artists from the expat community put
together this show on a five carriage
train and it stopped at three stations
along the way and it was an absolutely
ridiculous thing to do but it was also
one of the most memorable days that I’ve
had in Yangon and people still come up
to me and talk about that crazy day on
the train before I moved to Myanmar I
was a producer and I used to work at
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
Shakespeare’s Globe is a replica of
Shakespeare’s theatre and they’re famous
for producing productions of Shakespeare
plays obviously and a few years ago one
of the producers called me up to ask
about the possibility of performing
Hamlet here in Myanmar as part of their
global tour and I was really excited
about this because I’d been using
Shakespeare texts for cross-cultural
performances since the macbeth in 2013
and Shakespeare’s great for
cross-cultural performances because
he understood what so many people forget
is that people they’re just people and
his characters and his stories they echo
through the years so these plays that
were written 400 years ago still
resonate with people now still resonate
in a country that is so far away from
where those plays were written but
they’re just about people and people are
just people and he was an opportunity
for me to get these kids along to see
shakespeare’s globe perform hamlet so we
went to a lot of these groups and we ran
workshops so that they would know what
the play was all about and then we
brought them along to see the show in
the ballroom at the Strand Hotel so
we’ve got Shakespeare’s Globe in Myanmar
we’ve got a show on a commuter train and
we’ve got 250 children performing a
bilingual Macbeth at the National
Theatre come with me there is a thread
when we staged Hamlet a thousand people
came and saw that show 500 of them paid
$50 a ticket admittedly some of them
quite grudgingly but the other 500
couldn’t have dreamt of paying 450
dollars for a ticket would never have
dreamt of seeing shakespeare’s globe
perform Hamlet until really quite
recently it was illegal to gather in
large groups in public spaces and so
when 250 people turned up at Yangon
Central Station to see a show on a train
few eyebrows were raised and then when
that train pulled into a station in the
outskirts of Yangon and those 250 people
rolled out of the train to see a
seemingly spontaneous choreographed
dance underneath all the smiles and the
laughter something interesting and
significant was going on with the
democratization of space the National
Theatre it was built in 1991 when I’m
told that all the interesting people in
Myanmar were either in jail or in the
jungle and the next 25 years
that stage had been the preserve of the
Myanmar elite through the darkest years
of military rule and here were 250
children performing a play in Burmese
and in English about power and
corruption nothing political there are
nothing overtly political in fact
nothing overtly political about any of
this work but and this is my first point
creative public projects they don’t need
to have a massive budget but what they
can do if they’re done well is create
moments shared experiences and these
shared experiences provide moments of
complete solidarity and just momentary
equality and these moments are
absolutely fundamental to a democracy I
was running a class recently for for
young children five and six year olds
and I was asking the children how would
you represent time on stage and there
was a lot of you know ticking clock
hands and there was sort of wind-up
clockwork things and there was this one
girl she got down on all fours like this
and if you know yoga you’ll know that
that’s the downward dog if you know yoga
you probably know that I don’t know yoga
and I did what all adults do when they
have no idea what a child is doing I
tried to ignore her and I just hoped it
would go away but it didn’t go away it
was right there in the middle of the
room and eventually I had to ask what
what’s this how does this represent time
and she said on the x table brilliant I
mean what an amazing cognitive leap that
is not open to us as adults but for a
child that’s perfectly logical and that
creativity is key to facing the future
we don’t know what Myanmar’s gonna look
like in five years time twenty years
time not a clue
but if we can nurture that cognate that
cognitive agility then there’s hope now
I run a lot of workshops for different
age groups sometimes in English
sometimes with a translator
unfortunately my Myanmar’s not quite up
to it yet and there is one game that
works across the board and it’s a very
very simple game it’s called yes let’s I
put people in pairs and you got person a
person B person a has to make a
suggestion and that suggestion cannot be
constrained by reality and whatever they
say person B has to say yes let’s and
then its person B’s turn so person a
might say something like let’s go to the
moon yes
let’s and they’re off and it doesn’t
matter how old you are what language you
speak what your religion is it really
doesn’t matter once you’re given
permission to go on that imaginative
creative flight of fancy
you’ll go because that instinct is in
every single person and it crosses
borders it crosses boundaries and these
are the two foundation stones that sit
underneath all of this number one all
children are artists in fact no forget
that all people are artists all people
are artists it’s just the children are a
bit better at it they are better at
making mistakes they’re more genuine in
their inquiries and they are far more
generous in receiving ideas that they’re
not immediately comfortable with and
number two is that that creative urge
that urged us to drop all the cultural
baggage and just go on an amazing
imaginative flight of fancy that crosses
all borders now I’m just going to take
you back now to that production in 2013
one of the schools that was involved in
that is a monastery school now you’ve
heard about some monastery schools
earlier today
they’re very common across Myanmar they
basically quite often provide a safety
net for the state education system often
children will go there because they
can’t afford to stay in the state system
it might be that they’re from a very
rural area where there is no state
school there are lots of areas that have
been afflicted by conflict in Myanmar
and often the children if there’s no
school they get sent away to a monastery
school so some of them are a residential
a lot of the parents of these children
live in slums which is unofficial
housing so they don’t have an official
address and this particular monastery
school does a very good line in helping
the children of those parents get an ID
card an ID card is obviously integral
you can’t get a job you can’t get a
driving license you can’t vote without
an ID card so if you don’t have an
official address you can’t do it
this school is good at that another one
of those schools is an international
school international schools less common
throughout Myanmar we get a few in
Yangon they generally teach in English
they’re generally you whether there’ll
be a fee paying school quite expensive
and they cater for people who are moving
around a lot and so their children can
have continuity of Education this
particular international school has
children from all over the world but
also it’s educates a lot of the children
of the Myanmar elite two very very
different childhoods and my realization
with this project was that once those
children stepped on stage it was exactly
the same experience two childhoods you
couldn’t imagine more different and yet
when they stepped on stage and they’d
finished the last rehearsal and the
blood was pumping and the nerves were
tingling and the butterflies were
fluttering and all the eyes were looking
up at them none of that background
mattered it was just a perfect tiny
moment of absolute equality now I’m not
completely deluded I don’t think I’m
going to transform the world
some of these kids maybe there’ll be a
little bit more creative maybe they’ll
be better at working in a team maybe
they’ll have made new friends I’m pretty
sure all of those kids will remember
that bearded white guy who came and
played games with them and that’s great
because play is very important to
children but what I do know is that
creativity the creative process any
creative process theater dance music
gardening programming it creates moments
of solidarity and absolute equality and
it’s just a moment but surely that’s
better than none at all
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
if you’ve ever found yourself trying to
teach Shakespeare to kids I would
recommend that you start with Macbeth
it’s a nice concise story there’s a
murder about every 10 minutes keeps
everybody interested
it’s full of manipulation deception
backstabbing all things that children
are very familiar with from the
playground and nobody falls in love
because I mean falling in love is great
but nobody wants to act it out
particularly not children yeah but this
story starts with a production of
Macbeth at the National Theatre in
Yangon has anyone ever been to the
National Theatre yeah it’s not the most
beautiful place a rather inauspicious
starting place but I was putting on a
play of Macbeth there and this was a
play like no other it had 250 children
starring in it from incredibly diverse
backgrounds we had children from
monastery schools from orphanages from
international schools and at a big age
range as well I think our youngest were
six and our oldest were 21 and if you
know Macbeth you know there are witches
and there is nothing more terrifying
than a six year old witch as we’ve just
heard from the last talk the Myanmar
education system is very rigid there is
a right answer and there is a wrong
answer and there is no more difficult
question than what do you think so when
we were going into these local schools
the orphanages and the monasteries you
know this is a play that is full of what
do you think’s who’s in the right who’s
in the wrong who’s manipulating who
who’s a goodie who’s a baddie and it
turns out these children could think
very creatively and after a few sessions
they were much more comfortable
expressing themselves and so our
to this insane rehearsal period of
dashing round from one school to the
next with one group of kids to the next
each group had prepared a scene and we
brought all those 250 children together
at the National Theatre to perform
Macbeth there’s a commuter train in
Yangon most of you will have probably
been on it it’s really bumpy it’s
uncomfortable it’s hearts and it runs in
a 50 kilometer loop around the city my
kids love going on it a few years ago my
colleague suggested that we do a
performance on one of these trains at
the hottest time of year now my
producing head said no this is a stupid
idea in fact any common sense would say
that this was a very stupid idea but he
chipped away at me and eventually the
beauty of the idea won me round and so
we did this on our tiny tiny budget this
motley crew of local artists and a few
artists from the expat community put
together this show on a five carriage
train and it stopped at three stations
along the way and it was an absolutely
ridiculous thing to do but it was also
one of the most memorable days that I’ve
had in Yangon and people still come up
to me and talk about that crazy day on
the train before I moved to Myanmar I
was a producer and I used to work at
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
Shakespeare’s Globe is a replica of
Shakespeare’s theatre and they’re famous
for producing productions of Shakespeare
plays obviously and a few years ago one
of the producers called me up to ask
about the possibility of performing
Hamlet here in Myanmar as part of their
global tour and I was really excited
about this because I’d been using
Shakespeare texts for cross-cultural
performances since the macbeth in 2013
and Shakespeare’s great for
cross-cultural performances because
he understood what so many people forget
is that people they’re just people and
his characters and his stories they echo
through the years so these plays that
were written 400 years ago still
resonate with people now still resonate
in a country that is so far away from
where those plays were written but
they’re just about people and people are
just people and he was an opportunity
for me to get these kids along to see
shakespeare’s globe perform hamlet so we
went to a lot of these groups and we ran
workshops so that they would know what
the play was all about and then we
brought them along to see the show in
the ballroom at the Strand Hotel so
we’ve got Shakespeare’s Globe in Myanmar
we’ve got a show on a commuter train and
we’ve got 250 children performing a
bilingual Macbeth at the National
Theatre come with me there is a thread
when we staged Hamlet a thousand people
came and saw that show 500 of them paid
$50 a ticket admittedly some of them
quite grudgingly but the other 500
couldn’t have dreamt of paying 450
dollars for a ticket would never have
dreamt of seeing shakespeare’s globe
perform Hamlet until really quite
recently it was illegal to gather in
large groups in public spaces and so
when 250 people turned up at Yangon
Central Station to see a show on a train
few eyebrows were raised and then when
that train pulled into a station in the
outskirts of Yangon and those 250 people
rolled out of the train to see a
seemingly spontaneous choreographed
dance underneath all the smiles and the
laughter something interesting and
significant was going on with the
democratization of space the National
Theatre it was built in 1991 when I’m
told that all the interesting people in
Myanmar were either in jail or in the
jungle and the next 25 years
that stage had been the preserve of the
Myanmar elite through the darkest years
of military rule and here were 250
children performing a play in Burmese
and in English about power and
corruption nothing political there are
nothing overtly political in fact
nothing overtly political about any of
this work but and this is my first point
creative public projects they don’t need
to have a massive budget but what they
can do if they’re done well is create
moments shared experiences and these
shared experiences provide moments of
complete solidarity and just momentary
equality and these moments are
absolutely fundamental to a democracy I
was running a class recently for for
young children five and six year olds
and I was asking the children how would
you represent time on stage and there
was a lot of you know ticking clock
hands and there was sort of wind-up
clockwork things and there was this one
girl she got down on all fours like this
and if you know yoga you’ll know that
that’s the downward dog if you know yoga
you probably know that I don’t know yoga
and I did what all adults do when they
have no idea what a child is doing I
tried to ignore her and I just hoped it
would go away but it didn’t go away it
was right there in the middle of the
room and eventually I had to ask what
what’s this how does this represent time
and she said on the x table brilliant I
mean what an amazing cognitive leap that
is not open to us as adults but for a
child that’s perfectly logical and that
creativity is key to facing the future
we don’t know what Myanmar’s gonna look
like in five years time twenty years
time not a clue
but if we can nurture that cognate that
cognitive agility then there’s hope now
I run a lot of workshops for different
age groups sometimes in English
sometimes with a translator
unfortunately my Myanmar’s not quite up
to it yet and there is one game that
works across the board and it’s a very
very simple game it’s called yes let’s I
put people in pairs and you got person a
person B person a has to make a
suggestion and that suggestion cannot be
constrained by reality and whatever they
say person B has to say yes let’s and
then its person B’s turn so person a
might say something like let’s go to the
moon yes
let’s and they’re off and it doesn’t
matter how old you are what language you
speak what your religion is it really
doesn’t matter once you’re given
permission to go on that imaginative
creative flight of fancy
you’ll go because that instinct is in
every single person and it crosses
borders it crosses boundaries and these
are the two foundation stones that sit
underneath all of this number one all
children are artists in fact no forget
that all people are artists all people
are artists it’s just the children are a
bit better at it they are better at
making mistakes they’re more genuine in
their inquiries and they are far more
generous in receiving ideas that they’re
not immediately comfortable with and
number two is that that creative urge
that urged us to drop all the cultural
baggage and just go on an amazing
imaginative flight of fancy that crosses
all borders now I’m just going to take
you back now to that production in 2013
one of the schools that was involved in
that is a monastery school now you’ve
heard about some monastery schools
earlier today
they’re very common across Myanmar they
basically quite often provide a safety
net for the state education system often
children will go there because they
can’t afford to stay in the state system
it might be that they’re from a very
rural area where there is no state
school there are lots of areas that have
been afflicted by conflict in Myanmar
and often the children if there’s no
school they get sent away to a monastery
school so some of them are a residential
a lot of the parents of these children
live in slums which is unofficial
housing so they don’t have an official
address and this particular monastery
school does a very good line in helping
the children of those parents get an ID
card an ID card is obviously integral
you can’t get a job you can’t get a
driving license you can’t vote without
an ID card so if you don’t have an
official address you can’t do it
this school is good at that another one
of those schools is an international
school international schools less common
throughout Myanmar we get a few in
Yangon they generally teach in English
they’re generally you whether there’ll
be a fee paying school quite expensive
and they cater for people who are moving
around a lot and so their children can
have continuity of Education this
particular international school has
children from all over the world but
also it’s educates a lot of the children
of the Myanmar elite two very very
different childhoods and my realization
with this project was that once those
children stepped on stage it was exactly
the same experience two childhoods you
couldn’t imagine more different and yet
when they stepped on stage and they’d
finished the last rehearsal and the
blood was pumping and the nerves were
tingling and the butterflies were
fluttering and all the eyes were looking
up at them none of that background
mattered it was just a perfect tiny
moment of absolute equality now I’m not
completely deluded I don’t think I’m
going to transform the world
some of these kids maybe there’ll be a
little bit more creative maybe they’ll
be better at working in a team maybe
they’ll have made new friends I’m pretty
sure all of those kids will remember
that bearded white guy who came and
played games with them and that’s great
because play is very important to
children but what I do know is that
creativity the creative process any
creative process theater dance music
gardening programming it creates moments
of solidarity and absolute equality and
it’s just a moment but surely that’s
better than none at all
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
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