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Rabin Memorial Day 2002-5763
On Hate and Reconciliation / War and Peace
Goals
To translate the essence of reconciliation/the peace process through
an expressive and affective experience, with a view to cognitive interpretation.
To create an element which can later be integrated into a dramatic presentation
in mime or speech, in order to convey the message further.
Materials
2 sets of differently coloured ribbons, masking tape, tape recorder
&
background music (aggressive, stormy, peaceful, happy).
Exercise No.1
1. Divide the group into two lines facing each other so that everyone
has a partner and then space them out to use the whole room.
2. Participants can now move around freely.
3. Now everyone returns to their partner and has to make an angry face
at him or her.
4. Participants now move around freely.
5. When the moderator calls step, everyone stops and now has a new
partner. They all have to make an angry movement or noise at each
other and they are to get angrier and angrier (no physical contact).
6. The moderator calls out to stop and ask them now to start making
friendly faces and say nice things to each other.
7. The moderator asks them to come closer to each other, shake hands
and even hug each other if they want to.
8. Discuss feelings about making friends.
Exercise No.2
1. Divide group into two teams and give each a different set of ribbons
so that each participant has one.
2. Make a dividing line between the teams on the floor with masking
tape.
3. Within each team, participants smile at each other and shake hands.
4. Then they face the other team and make unfriendly faces/noises.
Allow this to build to a crescendo, even for children to insult each
other for a few seconds - but no physical contact.
5. Now the children should quiet down to suitable music, turn to their
own team.
6. Again they face the other team, and this time make friendly faces.
When everyone is relaxed and smiling, allow them to walk over the line,
shake hands, touch and embrace each other.
7. Review - what causes us to quarrel? how do we make peace? do we know
anything about making peace in Israel?
8. Work the exercises into your drama presentation at a later date.
2. Rend and Mend
Goal
To afford experience of the damage and rehabilitation in the context
of
hate and war. Integration into drama possible.
Synopsis
Art materials trigger.
Materials
Newspapers (no staples) or any inexpensive paper (recycled?), glue,
sellotape, scissors.
Procedure
1. Everyone takes a piece of paper and folds it up, making a paper ball;
if people wish, they may tear it up and hold it.
2. The moderator asks the group to "repair" the sheet of paper
by straightening it or sticking it back together.
3. Discussion at the analogical level establishes the link with the peace
process after years of hate and war (in Israel):
- How did they feel as they folded or tore the paper?
- What were the difficulties in moving from the paper ball or torn
pieces back to the whole sheet?
- How did they feel when they were asked to repair the sheet of paper?
- What is the parallel with the transition from war to peace?
- What do they think the creases and tears could represent in real
terms (incompleteness, other feelings)?
- In what way does peace resemble the reconstituted sheet of paper?
4. Integrate as desired into drama.
3. Bridge-Building
Goal
To offer an experience in inter-group bridge-building at affective and
cognitive levels.
Synopsis
An art exercise in pairs developed in a workshop for Jewish and Arab
children*. Suitable for drama.
Materials
Matches, clay,glue, wires, plasticine or posterboard, colours, coloured
paper, scissors, overhead projector and transparencies.
Slide projector and art slides.
Procedure
1. Show slides of pictures with bridges as perceived by artists: Van
Gogh, Monet, David Hockney, bridges in Japan, Venice etc...
2. Divide the group into pairs. Each couple now has to plan a bridge,
answering the following considerations:
What is its purpose?
What does it span?
What will it look like?
3. Each pair has to build only half of the bridge as a 3-D model, using
clay, plasticine etc or in 2-D.
4. Pair up pairs opposite each other. Now they have to try to join up
their bridges, first discussing the questions in step 2.
5. Discussion
a. What difficulties were there in joining up the two sections of the
bridge?
b. Were there different solutions to the problem of building half a bridge
and then to the joining-up process?
c. What different kinds of interaction were there between the couples
as they tried to integrate their bridges?
6. Adapt and integrate into a dramatic presentation.
___________________
* Tami Vogel, the Ginogli Centre for Visual Arts, Jerusalem, who says,
"The bridge is built through each person's efforts to join up with
somebody else and the variety of forms results from the cooperation
between them".
4.Doves of Peace in Art
Goals
To raise different perceptions of peace through art.
To review the definition of peace.
Materials
Markers, pencils, coloured paper, glue, scissors, masking tape/drawing
pins.
Procedure
1. Each participant designs their own dove (black/white; small/large;
whole/torn; symbolic/realistic; transparent/opaque).
2. Pin them up on the wall. Participants walk round the exhibition.
3. Discuss impressions of each exhibit, and relate these to the Peace
Process and perceptions of Peace.
4. Review questions:
Did participants change their ideas about Peace? If so, how?
How open were they to other points of view?
What did the dove symbolize for them before and after the activity?
5. Ask one participant to choose one dove which symbolizes the reality
of peace and one symbolizing the ideal.
Discuss together what should be done to move from the reality to the ideal.
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