TENDO MATTHEW NDAWULA, Grade 12
UWCEA Moshi Campus
At our school, we have an event to celebrate different cultures from around the world in a showcase called the cultural showcase. The past year (21-22), we called it ‘Borderlands’. People from different regions would talk about their country’s or region’s cultures, make political statements, or a brief insight into their country’s history. My showcase which I worked with the Bangladeshi community on campus was about the Bengali language movement of 1952.
I loved the preparation and script-making of the event. Coming up with the scenario and what to do about it was engaging and required a lot of imagination to do so. Even though I intended on playing the victim in the story, a Bangladeshi student protester, I would end up taking the role of the antagonist, a West-Pakistani security guard who attacks the protesters.
Incidentally, I did have a little bit of an identity crisis when I was thinking about this showcase. You see, I grew up abroad for most of my life, and have not really lived in Bangladesh except for visiting family during the winter holidays. So I thought I may not be “Bangladeshi enough” to do the showcase and portray my culture. I still identify as a Bangladeshi, because of course Bangladesh is where I am from, but I thought should one best represent their country by being strongly associated with their culture? I kind of have issues with that… I strongly have cultural associations with western cultures, like UK and USA through a British education and American media that I grew up on. Oh of course, the internet. I do heavily associate with Bangladeshi food and religious/spiritual culture/customs though.
Anyways after that brief episode of whether I am a fraud or not, I moved on. The Bangladeshi community and our friends would start rehearsing for the audition, which we passed successfully and moved on. Now comes my favourite part of the showcase, the week of rehearsals. Hours and hours spent on this short, 5-minute, play about the Bengali language movement. Hours and hours spent perfecting it. I was playing the guard, and I had to do my best to act intimidatingly. I at first, could not really take it so seriously. I could not shout like an angry security guard, nor could I order people around. At this rate, if I were a real security guard, robbers would walk past me no problem. My friends told me to toughen up. Act strong! Shout louder, be confident, do not be fragile and be angry. All of that encouragement from my friends to play an absolute obscene, startling and ill-mannered security guard who would attack protesters has made me more confident in what I was doing.
The day of the showcase arrived, and the whole school was pretty much there to see the masterpieces that the performers have in store. Performance by performance, the audience were loving the showcase even more. Eventually, it came to our performance. I and the other actors/actresses got on stage and started performing. It was down to the script and perfectly executed. There were some nervy movements, like my final line where I stumbled my words a bit before shouting “OPEN FIRE!”. But it was still a resounding success in the end. We all were applauded and we got compliments for our acting. I got compliments for portraying the security guard from my friends. Overall, the hours spent preparing for it were all worth it! I got to portray a piece of my country’s history to my school, and I felt more than happy to do so.
I loved the preparation and script-making of the event. Coming up with the scenario and what to do about it was engaging and required a lot of imagination to do so. Even though I intended on playing the victim in the story, a Bangladeshi student protester, I would end up taking the role of the antagonist, a West-Pakistani security guard who attacks the protesters.
Incidentally, I did have a little bit of an identity crisis when I was thinking about this showcase. You see, I grew up abroad for most of my life, and have not really lived in Bangladesh except for visiting family during the winter holidays. So I thought I may not be “Bangladeshi enough” to do the showcase and portray my culture. I still identify as a Bangladeshi, because of course Bangladesh is where I am from, but I thought should one best represent their country by being strongly associated with their culture? I kind of have issues with that… I strongly have cultural associations with western cultures, like UK and USA through a British education and American media that I grew up on. Oh of course, the internet. I do heavily associate with Bangladeshi food and religious/spiritual culture/customs though.
Anyways after that brief episode of whether I am a fraud or not, I moved on. The Bangladeshi community and our friends would start rehearsing for the audition, which we passed successfully and moved on. Now comes my favourite part of the showcase, the week of rehearsals. Hours and hours spent on this short, 5-minute, play about the Bengali language movement. Hours and hours spent perfecting it. I was playing the guard, and I had to do my best to act intimidatingly. I at first, could not really take it so seriously. I could not shout like an angry security guard, nor could I order people around. At this rate, if I were a real security guard, robbers would walk past me no problem. My friends told me to toughen up. Act strong! Shout louder, be confident, do not be fragile and be angry. All of that encouragement from my friends to play an absolute obscene, startling and ill-mannered security guard who would attack protesters has made me more confident in what I was doing.
The day of the showcase arrived, and the whole school was pretty much there to see the masterpieces that the performers have in store. Performance by performance, the audience were loving the showcase even more. Eventually, it came to our performance. I and the other actors/actresses got on stage and started performing. It was down to the script and perfectly executed. There were some nervy movements, like my final line where I stumbled my words a bit before shouting “OPEN FIRE!”. But it was still a resounding success in the end. We all were applauded and we got compliments for our acting. I got compliments for portraying the security guard from my friends. Overall, the hours spent preparing for it were all worth it! I got to portray a piece of my country’s history to my school, and I felt more than happy to do so.
www.unitedworldwide.co