Freshly Ground are a young theatre collective from Tallaght. Recent work includes a production of ‘Sucking Dublin’ by Enda Walsh and original play ‘ Friction’ (2017).
They are currently developing a piece called ‘Curve’. This production aims to explore the Irish examination system using the opinions of current senior cycle students. The initial presentation of work in on Tuesday 20th Match at 7pm in our studio space. Here they tell us about the work in development, in their own words.
As we all relatively recent graduates of the Irish secondary education system, and we decided that it would be important for young people in our community to have a say about how the system works, and how it should work. We are focusing largely on the bell curve as a grading system, and the detachment and depersonalisation that is part and parcel of the examination system as it stands. The initial stages of this project were to conduct workshops with students in schools. In these workshops, we played drama games and did short exercises relating to the bell curve. We facilitated group discussions on different topics like exam stress, anxiety, grinds, college, continuous assessment, favouritism and cheating. Students then worked together to create an individual creative response to the themes raised in the discussions, with some drafting and performing scenes, some reading their own poetry and some writing formal responses. The participants gave so much of their creativity, personality and sense of humour to each workshop, and this made us realise that none of the students we worked with could ever be defined by an exam number or a grade. Although each student gave so much of themselves to the project, if this project were a leaving cert exam, we would still have to grade them based on an arbitrary bell curve in order for them to be categorised and sent to college.
The next step in the process is a showing of our work in progress on the 20th of March in the studio space in the Civic. The piece we have created is personal and immersive: we want to make the audience feel like those nameless students who sit these exams every year. Our set, lights, and sound all play on the idea of time, and that distinct exam hall feeling. We want to start a conversation about the legacy of the Leaving Cert system, and whether or not it is outdated, and whether it needs to be adapted to the current generation of students. After receiving feedback from the preview, we hope to adjust the work and preview it for a group of students in a school setting. The feedback from these showings of our work in progress will inform the finished piece which will be performed in mid-June. The immersive aspect of the piece means it can be performed as site-specific theatre in classrooms. We hope to bring this piece into schools in September.
We would like to thank the team at The Civic, South Dublin County Council, Creative Ireland South Dublin and Tallaght Community Arts for their ongoing support throughout all stages of this project.
____________________________________________________________________________
Curve is generously supported via South Dublin County Council Arts Office and Creative Ireland Emerging Arts Group Incubation Award.
