Happyzine 2015 = exciting times ahead

An Auckland based drama teacher and voice coach has launched a community theatre initiative focusing on Social Action in a creative, fun, and inspiring way.

Sally Mabelle shares her story:

In August 2012, I was called into St. Mary’s College for Girls in Auckland to teach Drama part-time while the regular teacher was on leave.

I was so inspired by working with the 240 young women (9 classes of about 27 students), that I decided to begin a new collaborative community theatre initiative. The name came to me in a meditation one morning, and I call this initiative La Fete! which means ‘celebration’ or ‘party’ in French. La Fete is also an acronym for ‘From Empire To Earth Community.  It stands for the shift in consciousness that is happening right now as more and more people awaken to our interdependence.

It’s this shift I’m passionate about supporting through original, collaborative community theatre.

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What I discovered in helping the young women of St. Mary’s to devise their own plays, was that collaboration and co-creation was fun and empowering and built a sense of confidence in their own creative potential.

The ‘scenes’ which they created over a period of about three months, meeting just once a week for about 45 minutes, working in small groups of four or five, were unique and original and reflected their own passions and interests.

As my passion is social change and growing consciousness, I have been writing articles and giving talks and working for The Awareness Party movement over the past couple of years. I have found that talks and articles can move and inspire people to a point, yet my experience is that performing arts can rouse more emotion and cause people to feel the need to change in a more impactful way.

So, out of the desire to awaken social consciousness and action as well as my love of creative, dramatic self-expression and collaboration was born La Fete!

The first pilot program (9 weekly sessions) will be held Wednesday evenings in Grey Lynn, Auckland from 20 February – 17th April.

When: Wednesdays, 20 Feb to 17 April 2013 8-9:30pm
Where: Grey Lynn Community Centre, 510 Richmond Road
How much: 9 weeks, $99 in advance or $15 per session – to register, email
[email protected] or
call 021 0222 8782 – see www.sallymabelle.com for more details.

Tags: theatre