1000 Words for Belonging - Queen Mary - Pinter Studio

One year. One hundred and twenty primary school students. One Thousand Words for belonging.

What does it mean to belong? Are there different types of belonging? What is the difference between belonging and ‘fitting in’? What role does language play in a sense of belonging?

Inspired by the 1000 WORDS FOR WEATHER project, Neela went back to Gearies Primary School to work on a multilingual arts project entitled 1000 WORDS FOR BELONGING. Over one year, all of the students in Year 6 explored the concept of ‘belonging’ through playwrighting, poetry and visual art.

Playwrighting

Through winter 2023, Year 6 worked in pairs to write 60 short plays and bring 100s of new characters into existence. The focus of this part of the project was on the power of editing and re-drafting. To help students with the re-drafting process, the plays were brought to life by professional actors in a series of script-in-hand showcases hosted at the Pinter Studio in Queen Mary University. Performing dialogue written in 13 different languages the actors showed the students how their writing may be interpreted in performance. The plays told tales of trees that wanted to climb Mount Everest, stories set in a collision between the human world and the alphabet world, and space odysseys through alien landscapes! There were also many stories of precious friendships being forged in unexpected places.

The fabulous cast included Gabriel Àkámọ́, Julie-Yara Atz , Alin Balascan, KC Chan, Bayo Gbadamosi, Jarvey Joel, Anu Kiraha, Hiftu Quasem, Arinder Sadhra, and Andrei Zayats. The performances were co-directed by Neela and Talia Randall