Alter Ego
“What have you done with my daughter?”
Annie’s mother was clearly unprepared for the massive shift that had occurred in that hour. The child standing before her, didn’t have any of the attributes of the shy girl that she had dropped off earlier. In fact, she looked more like a super-hero. And that’s exactly who she had been playing for the last hour – a superhero.
Some people are astonished at how quickly children and young people can grow in a theatrical space. When Annie was dropped off, for her first drama experience, she had all of the typical ‘tells’ of someone who was nervous. She was fidgety, shoulders hunched, no eye contact and was clearly more than a little anxious to be coming to her first drama class. Just an hour later, Annie was charging out of the room, shoulders back, big smile and with a huge voice, telling her mother “I’m coming back!”
When Annie had walked into that class, she was Annie. Annie identified with being shy. But after playing with the idea of being a bold and brave and energetic Superhero for an hour, a part of that freedom had rubbed off on Annie.
This is the power of ‘Alter Egos’ and it is one of the many ways that drama and theatre work build confidence in young people. We often have the experience of witnessing astonishing transformations right before our eyes as submissive students take on the strident assertiveness of a pirate, or unfocused children take on the laser focus of a world-famous scientist.
Importantly, once a child has the skill of being able to take on a role, they can decide to use this skill, outside the drama space as well. If they have a speech to give in class, they can take on the role of someone who is a famous speaker. If they are nervous about an exam, they can take on the role of a genius.
Some people call this ‘fake it til’ you make it.’ But I feel that’s a derisory way to explain what is happening when someone engages with this kind of process. The idea of thinking about how someone else might behave, in a given situation, and using their skills, is simply playing with new ways of being yourself. It’s about finding capabilities and capacities within yourself that already exist and working out if they work for you too.
Who cares if your child’s new found freedom is first accessed through playing Wonder Woman, a King, a Queen or a Pirate. The most important thing is that they realise that the same potentialities exist in all of us, and they are available to any of us, at the flick of a switch once we know how.
All children have unlimited potential, that’s just waiting to be tapped. Let’s give them the tools to access more and more of themselves.
To Infinity and Beyond!
Andrew “Be who you want to be” Wright