Performances

Nearly all parents like to see their children performing on stage.  

This week I attended two very different performances.

The first was a play organized by my son Monty’s piano teacher; we came along to show support.  She organizes numerous events for children with special needs, she includes people with Asperger’s and all kinds of autism; some have an assistant on stage to support them and some do not.  One was in a wheelchair. She also includes some typical kids in the more demanding roles.  

As expected there were big smiles all around, happy performers and happy friends and family in the audience.  They have several repeat performances.

A couple of days later was another performance, this time Monty’s big brother was performing at the school poetry night.  Here again, the students were performing in front of the assembled parents.  As usual it was poems in a wide variety of languages, from Russian to Indonesian to Swedish.  Some students were showing off by reciting in their third or fourth language.

On the one hand the two performances were very different, because of the different level of ability, but in other ways it shows how everyone enjoys the chance to perform with their friends.

I don’t see Monty enjoying reciting poetry up on the stage, but he would happily play his piano.

Big brother clearly enjoyed reciting his poem in German and next year he will probably choose Russian. While little brother will likely always struggle with spoken language, big brother now speaks five languages.  But he probably would not enjoy having to play the piano up there on stage.

Each to his own and as the student presenter of the poetry night commented, “it beats sitting at home”.