Monday, October 13, 2008

Outreach and connecting

This is one of the members of the second cast "Disco of the Dead", dancing with one of the spectators who is autistic and mentally retarded, but who is the sweetest, gentlest person you ever met. She absolutely loved being asked to come up and dance with the group.
Here Kendra is helping another young spectator make a "potion". They invite some of the small children up at various points in their show to help with things like this.
One of the great things about these performances is that the girls get to do a lot of outreach. They were performing at the local children's shelter house and were a delight interacting with the kids. They also sometimes dance at senior centers (more around the Christmas holidays) and spend time after the show talking with the seniors. I love the outreach part of this performance group. Most of the time they are performing for free at these functions. A wonderful service to the community.
This particular evening was also a chance to connect. We saw several of the families we know who are involved in foster care and spent time with them and the kids. At one point I don't know how it happened but I became responsible for the two hyperactive 6 year old boys of the group and they were literally pulling me in different directions. We finally settled on playing at the bubble truck. Then we had to race over to the inflatables, then race here, then there. In 5 minutes I was a wreck :-)
We got to see Spidey as he was there with his foster family. Can't show you the cute pic I got of Kendra and Spidey though, sorry. First thing Spidey asked me was where was Dancing Baby Girl, he really misses her and the social worker won't let them visit. (DBG was with her mother this past weekend as I had a festival obligation all day Saturday)
Anyway a pleasant evening of connections.

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