Dear reader(s): June means the end of another school year, and tradition now dictates that at this time it is appropriate to offer a "festival" where some sort of singing, dancing or dramatical presentation is offered for parental consumption.This article was written after one such presentation - this one at Christmas. The basic premise (Christmas or June) is the same. I hope you will enjoy this rant.
The Annual Christmas School "Play"
(or musical or dance or whatever you want to call it this year)Having just attended a school function here in the sunny Culture Capital of the Americas, where my daughter performed as best she could under the misguided direction of the so-called 'drama' and 'music' teachers. I say so-called, because there was no overt evidence of either drama or musical background at tonight's event.
Year after year I attend these things and year after year I'm convinced that it is the worst one I have seen so far.
Note: If you are already offended and want to sue me or tell me to go back home or rip off my sunglasses; forget it and stop reading. Because this is only going to get worse.
Of course, each year there are saving graces that make the shows bearable and yes, why not admit it, even enjoyable. My kids of course offer up stellar performances, as do the children of my close friends and aquaintances. In fact, all the kids really do their best with what is given them, and so I can't find fault with them at all. I can however, find fault with the sawdust-brains that plan and stage these shows, because it's their fault that the whole thing is so damn awful and it's they who are wasting, yes WASTING our children's talent and the potential for better things that all children inherently possess.
This is how it goes...
The Orchestra Warms Up
The parents, older and younger siblings, grandparents and any other hapless family member victims that had nothing better to do on a week night, show up at the school gymnasium/tennis courts/basketball courts - whatever - where the show is going to take place. Each family, like a rabid pack of starving wolves, immediately fans out in search of large groups of available seats, so that they may ocupar them with extra jackets, handbags, keys, umbrellas, etc. brought along just for that purpose. Why? So that the rest of the relatives and immediate friends have a place to sit if and when they arrive.
Meanwhile, music is playing on a small tape recorder / ghetto blaster type of portable thing connected with the most economical type of wiring possible to large black imponentes speakers. These only hint at the torture soon to come... The music is appropriate to whatever the theme is - in tonight's case it was a scratchy recording of Christmas music sung off key by Spanish children. Yet another hint...
The Lights Dim
The 'drama teacher' does her very theatrical first call, second call and then third call - and the lights begins to dim ( ha ha ha - the lights practically slam off), and a gentle hush falls over the expectant audience. No, wait that's not right. Here in the cultural Capital of the Americas, the parents, grandparents, friends and neighbors continue talking. The older and younger siblings, devoid of any sense of how to behave in such a setting, continue running, playing and screaming in the background and around the edges of the generously termed 'auditorium'.
Let the Fun Begin
The narrator or MC, comes on and does his little bit with a microphone that blows the eardrums into your brain with such force that the back of your head hurts. Barely having recovered, you realize that you have understood nothing or very little, and what's worse, you can't ask anyone around you because they're all still talking about what they bought at the supermarket that day and how busy they were and that's why they weren't going to come but then at the last minute there was a chance to get out of the house so they came...
The MC has announced a choir. This is the broadest, most liberal, most poetic license-type of description that could possibly be applied to what is a monotonous loud and very enthusiastic yelling with no musical connotations whatsoever. It is more like a tribal chant. There are no Mozarts in this group!
It is so sad to see these children, aged 6 and 7, obviously proud of being on stage, in costume and presenting a show for their families, to be so under-developed. Kids at this and most any age can do so much; their talents are just waiting to be awakened, to be stimulated or discovered; and yet, here they are, standing in a rag tag group and yelling carols.
This group of kids 'sings' two numbers and is whisked off stage. The next act, again, is another group of kids doing much the same thing - yelling at the top of their lungs - what we can safely assume are Christmas carols of some kind.
The 'singing' is followed by the now-traditional skit, usually a take on the Maria and Joseph vs. Evil Innkeeper tale prior to the birth of Jesus Christ. Here I am tempted to go into that whole religious thing, but I have to save all that for my upcoming book. This year, the happy couple is not going to Belem (spanish version of the english version Bethlehem) but rather Chelem. And so, as in all skits that this particular drama teacher can come up with, the main characters speak in forced Mayan campesino accents, which the audience year after year finds 'cute' and is basically making fun of anyone who comes from a small village and speaks predominantly Mayan and comes to the Big City (Merida, the Cultural Capital of the Americas, the Former White City) to find work in our homes as a muchacha or mozo or lavaplatos or planchadora. Their real job, if these dramatic sketches that are presented to our impressionable children year after year are any indication, is to entertain us.
Roll the Credits
After the show, the ever-popular bocadillos, in the form of savory-sweet pastries are served along with plastic glasses of pop. Everyone in the audience jumps at the chance to have a light snack for free, while the more cynical among us consider it the minimum price the school must pay to have us sit through this torture. Many actually go back for seconds and thirds, even going so far as to abscond with a few extra bocadillos for the muchacha back home or the hermanito that couldn't make it because he hadn't finished that last level of Mario Cart.
Then after leaving a big giant mess for the maids or mozos to clean ( every school has one - you don't expect the kids to learn how to pick up after themselves at school do you ) everyone goes home.
The Critique
So I hated it. What can I say? Yes, yes, I was raised in another culture, in another world, at another time. No, I'm not taking my avioncito and going back someplace else. I never said I wanted to see the Vienna Boys Choir when I come to one of these school plays. And I like the fact that my kids are having fun - and realize that it's up to me to teach them the difference between the racist, shallow and unimaginative dramatic productions that the school offers. And it's up to me to teach them the basics of music appreciation and that yelling is not singing, no matter how loud it is.
When a school offers a choir program and only 6 kids show up; when a qualified music teacher is interrupted in the middle of her class by an administrative assistant with too much time on her hands saying "louder louder I can't hear anything!!!"; when that same teacher quits due to some conflict, probably because the parents here in the Cultural Capital of the Americas complained that they didn't want their little offspring to become opera singers and so why all the fancy schmancy music lessons; when the same mediocre drama teacher has put on the same mediocre productions year after year; and when the main criteria of any school production is "how much is it going to cost" resulting in a terrible homemade stage, awful lighting, horrendous sound and NO improvements; no PROGRESS, year after year, perhaps that school is sending a clear message to us, the parents, that the school really doesn't give a rat's buttock about anything cultural.
It's sad to see a school pay so little attention to the childrens artistic side. In an age where any real culture has been replaced by the idiotic, mind-numbing stupidity of Mexican network television, an entire generation of youngsters is being brainwashed into becoming the next group of third world citizens to be exploited. While preaching autonomy and development of the child on one hand, the school's other hand is content to stick it's finger well up it's proboscis and completely ignore the talents for expression and art that most children have. Maybe because stimulating such expression could lead to questioning of authority? Maybe it's OK to say we want that, but do we really?
Add to that the fact that the schools (at least this particular one) consider making fun of a particular socio-economic group funny, chistoso, chusco; and you have a nice blend of ignorance and overt racism. A nice cocktail to be feeding your 6 and 7 year olds, who will be sucking on this particular formula during their entire 12 years of school. What kind of adults will be on the streets in 15 years? Will they be any more intellectually advanced than the average citizen you see now on our streets?
Considering Merida's recent "Cultural Capital of the Americas" award, attending one of these functions it is a sad comment on the cultural reality in this city. The fact that yet another generation is being raised without any knowledge or appreciation of culture in any of its diverse forms, is frightening and worrisome to this neurotic foreigner - I wonder if anyone else even cares?
