This was the third show I’ve offered for Topsy Turvy Tuesdays at the Ice House, and it was my ‘Sing Along’ show. The PYT camp today was the little kids and there was a sprinkling of some familiar families and kids from the community. It’s a really nice mixture of caring and cooperative counselors, hip kids, moms and dads. 

 

I find these shows at the Ice House particularly informative in that I get to try some material that I don’t normally get to do. I can use it as a workshop to see what I can do to improve my performance skills and learnfrom the experience.

 

I did my Sally songs, which are play songs, songs from long ago, pre-media, where the kids have to sing the songs, dance the dance and take charge of their own entertainment. (Such a strange proposition in this new century.)  Also, these play songs were (and still can be) chances for kids to improvise, interact socially and physically create. Here’s where I get to gauge where kids are today in all these realms of kids expression. Frankly, this is why I like to do what I do cause I get to create my own laboratory studies.

 

The counselors are a big part of this. These are high school girls who are working on their own theater/teaching skills. They jump right in and help make what I do a learning experience in a safe environment. Can’t do better than that. Safe learning.

 

The Sally songs are Sally Go Round the Sun (a basic big circle dance) and Little Sally Walker (an expanding pick out a person dance, with one child in the middle of a circle, simple hip shakes, and picking someone from the circle to join them. Eventually every one gets picked and ends in a big pile in the middle.) Both are performance journeys outside my usual ‘show’. Real workshop stuff, and an opportunity to teach about folk (community) music, as a history lesson, but more importantly, how we still need this in our lives together. Music we make together – vintage Pete Seeger, I would hope.

 

I’ll get a check sometime in the future, but the pay off is immediate.