Street Performance 2007

School got out for the winter holidays on Dec. 14, ’07, but before returning home I went to the Nordic countries on a student-run initiative called Street Performance. Street Performance started 2 years ago, and took place last year in Spain. The idea is that students who want to participate travel to an area (in this case Sweden and Finland) and sing in the streets, hold concerts, talk in schools, hold workshops on initiatives and global issues and talk about UWC.

This year, the money we raised (at least 1,200 Euros) was donated towards building a school in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
There were about 40 students on the trip, including a number of the choir members and other musicians, dancers and just people who wanted to come along.


We flew from Venice to Stockholm, took a ferry to Helsinki, a train to Lapland in Northern Finland and returned to Helsinki (I returned to Stockholm and then New Mexico on the 24th).
The trip was a blast. I had never been to that part of the world and it was very fun to see it. I also enjoyed visiting the various schools we went to and the interest and involvement the students and teachers there showed. We slept in the airport one night, at Axel’s (2nd year from Stockholm) house another, on the ferry, in a schools gym for a couple nights, on trains, and with host families in Rovaniemi (Lapland). I think the host family was the best experience, it really helped me get a feel for Finish culture and the people were very nice.

It was also very different to be in the Arctic Circle for the shortest day of the year! There were only about 5 hours of daylight, which was a very strange feeling, I can see how it could effect peoples moods and lives a lot!

We visited two schools (in Helsinki and Rovaniemi) and held workshops in both. Theses were pretty much hour-long sessions in classrooms at the schools that their students attended, in which our students presented on different topics such as Global Warming, Brain Drain in Latin America, or even something as straight forward as information on Italy and Italian Culture or Hong Kong. I wasn’t directly involved with any of these, but I played a pretty prominent role in the performances singing and playing guitar and viola.

I spent the night at Axel’s house again on the 22nd on my way home, and got to meet his friends who came over and their friends (a girl from Australia on exchange and a guy visiting from California), I increasingly find it very fun to be around an international group of people. Axel’s family was really nice when we met them the first time with the whole school, and they were very nice and hospitable in having me the second time.


I wasn’t particularly looking forward to coming home when I left school, but by half way through Street Performance I had started to. I think the exhaustion was setting in pretty well, and it sounded nice to be at my house with my family and friends in a calm, familiar environment. I was delayed in Newark on the flight back and arrived very late in ABQ, so I didn’t actually get home until Christmas Eve Day!
However, it was great to be home and to be with my family, I really have enjoyed the break.


Ciaociao