Live Stream: What Did I Miss? 11 - 13 Jun 2021
Streaming live from The Ark in Dublin directly to homes and schools across the country, this new show by The Ark Artist in Residence, Shaun Dunne, offers a window into a child’s experience of the pandemic.
Kyla is throwing a party on her street. Not just any party. It’s a graduation ceremony. It’ll be mad to see the kids from her old class again after so long. Summer 2020 was literally endless.
Now that they’re all in first year, Kyla wants to get the old gang back together. She’s made caps, she has gowns, and she’s even prepared a speech. But there’s one visitor she’s not expecting…
Developed swiftly and informed by ongoing collaborative work with The Ark’s Children’s Council, What Did I Miss? is a celebration of rites of passage, exploring how we reconnect as we adapt to a new way of life. As we reach the end of a second disrupted school year and a new class graduates from primary school, Kyla’s story will resonate with even more children as they see a young character create her own new rituals of graduation.
Joining Sarah Morris in the cast, The Ark is excited to introduce newcomer and former Children’s Council member Naomi Moonveld-Nkosi as Kyla, a capable and determined girl who discovers she’s not the only one attempting to bridge the divides left by lockdown.
This free show will be live streamed as part of Brightening Air and accompanied by a national engagement project reaching out to children in primary schools across the country to deliver a unique child-authored snapshot of their experience of life during the pandemic. In addition to the classes participating in the workshop programme, schools across Ireland are invited to take part and contribute to the project using The Ark’s bespoke activity pack, available below.
What Did You Miss?
This June, members of The Ark Children's Council will present to the Oireachtas Committee on Children, Disability, Equality and Integration, sharing what the children of Ireland have told them about their experiences of lockdown. To help inform this presentation, we're asking children to answer the question, 'What Did I Miss?'. We want to hear from as many children as possible of all ages, so that we can represent as many experiences as possible. To share your children's stories, find out more here.
Curricular Links
Watching and reflecting on this theatre performance with your class will explore many of the key strands of the Drama and English curricula including: Drama to explore feelings, knowledge and ideas, leading to understanding; examining the relationship between story, theme and life experience; receptiveness to language; emotional and imaginative development through language. The specific theme of this show also links strongly with SPHE curriculum strands including: Myself and Others; Relating to Others; Myself and the Wider World.
Our classroom activity pack contains a number of activities which you can use to explore these curricular links with your class...