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ABSTRACT

The Harriet Project

Sara Ridberg
e-mail: Sridberg@aol.com

Sara is an actress, educator, writer and American Sign Language interpreter. She has toured nationally and internationally with The National Theatre of the Deaf as an actress and workshop leader and has appeared Off-Broadway and in regional theaters around the country. Her work with dreams began as a personal exploration three years ago, and developed further after attending the ASD conference last July. She is also involved in a dream group in NYC. Sara is a graduate of the University of Rochester in New York.

4. Summary of Presentation: "The Harriet Project" is a new, two-part educational program, geared to children ages 7 through 12. The project begins with a play for young audiences about the journeys of Harriet Tubman, who valued her dreams, letting them guide her and other slaves to freedom. This is followed by classroom workshops in "Dreamplay" - the use of dreams for creative writing, art, theater and other creative expression. The ASD conference presentation of the "Harriet Project" will follow this two-part structure: first, a 40-minute staged reading of the play (still a work in progress) and second, a discussion of "Dreamplay" workshop ideas, drawing on conference attendees' knowledge and experience. This event is an open forum for feedback and ideas to develop this project.

5. Learning Objectives:
A) 1. How theater can be used as a tool to encourage children to think about dreams.
2. New activities we can bring to children with "Dreamplay".
3. Harriet Tubman's role in history in relation to dreams.
B) 1. How did Harriet Tubman's dreams guide her along the Underground Railroad?
2. What new ideas can we bring to children to guide them to value dreams more?
3. What was your response to the play?

8. Abstract:

"The Harriet Project" is a two-part program that developed out of my love for children, dreamwork and theater. Part one, a 40-minute play geared to audiences age 7 through 12, will introduce Harriet Tubman, an historical figure who valued and actively listened to dreams. Harriet's dreams helped guide her and others to freedom from slavery. The project's second part includes an "Artist in Residence" team who, following the show, will go into classrooms and lead workshops - introducing children to a positive, artistic way to value and use dreams; not dreamwork, but Dreamplay.

This idea was born at the ASD 2000 conference following Robert Moss' presentation, "Dreaming the Underground Railroad." In bringing this project back home to this year's conference, I hope to learn from others' experience working with children and dreams. I am interested in hearing audience response to the play, but mainly I am looking for new ideas for Dreamplay workshops. I would also like to gather a team of educators, dream workers, artists, all who may be interested in working with me on the "Harriet Project."

The play is approximately 40 minutes in length and is still a work in progress. Based on historical journeys of Harriet Tubman, it is the story of how Harriet let her dreams guide her along the Underground Railroad, safely freeing those family and friends who entrusted her as their guide.

Each Dreamplay workshop will vary slightly depending on the age group. Some ideas include:

· Journal Keeping: Weeks prior to seeing the show, children can begin recording dreams in a journal. When the Artists in Residence arrive, we can work on artistic book making, decorating journal pages, binding the pages together; creating a Dream Journal.
· Warm up: The children are asked to try to remember a dream they once had. They pick one feeling that came from the dream, and make up a movement or sound conveying that feeling.
· What is a dream?: Children are asked - "What are dreams? Where do they come from? Their comments are recorded, and used to create a poem or theater piece.
· Discussion of the play: What dreams did Harriet have? How were they presented in the show? How did children know when Harriet was dreaming and when she wasn't? What are examples of how Harriet let her dreams guide her to make decisions?
· Playwriting: Have children write down (or tell) one event from a dream. Compile all of the ideas, write them out so all can read the new "dream." Cast parts, gather props, costumes (this is especially good if the residency lasts more than one day) and create a play from the "collective dream" of the class. (With younger children, this could be done with drawings or collage to create a mural).
· Dream Growing: Following Robert Moss' method, ask children to imagine they are sad or nervous about something. As a group, other children can come up with a "dream" to give to that child. Next, kids can draw pictures of the dream they all created together.
· Alternate dream endings: Ask if anyone has a bad dream they want to share. The whole class can invent alternate endings to the dream, either writing them out or again, creating a short play incorporating the new endings.
· Study Guide: I will create a study guide for parents and teachers, so that once the workshops are over, Dreamplay can continue in schools and at home. The study guide can include information on Harriet Tubman, additional Dreamplay activities, and resource books for parents and children.

The ASD conference presentation will include a staged reading of the play. I hope to enlist actors in the community to read the roles. Any volunteers who are at the conference and have an interest in participating in the reading are welcome as well. The reading will be followed by a brief feedback session from attendees.

I will then describe the above workshop ideas with the aim of receiving input from conference participants. I am looking for suggestions for the workshops and also to find out if anyone is interested in working on the project in the future.

"The Harriet Project" is a way to bring dreams into schools and communities, introducing innovative ways to work with dreams after seeing these concepts played out on the stage.
Theater is an excellent stimulus for new ways of thinking. For the last three years, I have worked in Education/Outreach companies of Deaf theatre, educating children about American Sign Language and Deaf Culture. Children who had never seen a Deaf person, never been exposed to ASL, were fascinated by this new language and community after seeing it presented dramatically onstage. The workshops we did with the kids energized them and inspired them to learn more. I envision the same result with "The Harriet Project." To value and creatively work with our dreams is also a new language that many children have not learned and never even thought about. My hope is that through Harriet Tubman's story and Dreamplay, children around the country will begin to see their dreams in an exciting, dramatic, and cherished way.

* Additional material for the presentation:
I am including a plot summary in lieu of the "Harriet script" since the play is not yet complete.

Act I : Fall, 1849
Tidewater, Maryland.
Harriet watches her sisters sold to the South. She dreams of screaming women and children, bound in chains. Harriet resolves to go free. After a failed attempt to escape with her brothers, Harriet escapes on her own. She arrives in Philadelphia and meets William Still. She dreams of flying and reaching the "line of freedom," but she cannot cross the line. She realizes that freedom means very little if her family is still back at home. She heads back to Maryland to free her family.

Act I
Harriet arrives in Maryland. She brings her three brothers and Catherine (her brother's wife) with her to escape. As they travel the Underground Railroad, Harriet dreams of a river they must cross to avoid being caught. Upon waking, Harriet sees this very same river. Although her companions think it is too deep, she braves it anyway, since it appeared in her dream. The group follows her and successfully reaches Philadelphia. Harriet dreams again of crossing the line to freedom, but this time, there are women in white waiting for her, and she does, indeed cross the line. She is truly free.

10. Additional Required Documentation

1) Active Credentials: I am currently an actress and ASL interpreter in New York City.

2) I have no specific training in dream work or dream studies; it has been a self-directed study over the last three years.

3) I have no experience conducting dream workshops.

4) I am drawing on works by Robert Moss, Patricia Garfield, Alan Siegel and Kelly Bulkeley, and from my own educational theatre background, especially my work at the National Theatre of the Deaf.

5) In the proposed workshop, attendees will be encouraged to give their audience feedback of the staged reading, propose new ideas for the Dreamplay workshops, and express any interest in participating in "The Harriet Project."

6) I have read the ASD dream work ethical statement and will respect the confidentiality of participants in the workshop.