Evaluation of Political Protest

Today we did our political protests at break time. I was in a group with Gus, Keon, Raph and Emily and we did ours on maximum security prisons in America. We had to change it a little because Emily was not there on the day; however I think it still went really well.

We ran through it a lot of times and because it was in the style of a circus, it didn’t really work or feel effective until we had an audience to watch. When Sarah came to see it, we also didn’t have an audience and she told us to work on making it clearer and really focus on the political side of it. When it was about five minutes into break, we managed to get a crowd of people to watch us, as they were interested in why Gus and I were stuck on the fire escape. Raph then walked up to them and started shouting facts and statistics, which really caught the audience’s attention and made them want to listen.

We then got Keon to walk out from the audience and have a debate with Raph, which further engaged the audience. I think that Gus and I being locked in was very effective because it made people stop and want to listen.

We managed to get another large crowd, which was really effective because we could all feed off their enthusiasm. It was very effective and one girl even started to join in the debate. When Raph went to let us out and show what it would be like to have us released, some of the girls were becoming really nervous and backing away, which was exactly the effect we wanted to create. When He opened the door and we went running, they all screamed and ran away. This proved to us that we really connected with the audience and managed to get across the feeling of being at risk from people, but also the fact that prisoners should not be kept in such bad conditions.

If I could have changed anything, I think I would have made more signs, just to be really clear what we were supporting and what we were meant to be expressing. I also would have maybe played some circus music and had Raph wearing a hat to attract more people and to make our idea clearer.

I think most people understood it, but some of the people walking past looked very nervous. It worked so much better when we had a large audience, who got really involved and excited. I would have liked to have had a bit more time to perform it, maybe over lunch, just so we could show it to larger groups of more people. However, I met up with some of my friends who were watching and they told me it was really good, really effective and really engaged all of them and they wanted to know what Gus and I were going to do. One of my friends in Year 11 told me that she had no idea of some of the conditions people were treated in prisons.

Overall, I was pleased with how our performance went. I think I would change a few things, adding signs, having more people and maybe including the audience a bit more in the debate too. I was happy with how it went and I think we managed to convey our message well and managed to create an atmosphere which engaged and informed the audience. Next time, I might wear more layers, as being out there was very cold! However, the rain added to the effect and the cold made me feel more in character because of the cold the prisoners would have faced. Overall, I was happy and feel we did well, it definitely improved the more we did it.