Mind Matters Festival

On Friday 22 June, two groups of Year 10 CGGS Drama students took part in the 2007 Mind Matters Festival, held at Canberra Grammar School.

The Festival will be held annually as part of Mental Health Week and aims to promote awareness about mental health and wellbeing. Five secondary schools from the ACT and NSW participated in the event and a wide range of health issues were addressed through a variety of acting and performing techniques.

The two groups from CGGS were chosen out of four groups to partake in the Festival and both groups concentrated on the mental illness, schizophrenia.

The first group consisted of Bianca Ardlie, Abby Green, Georgia Hobbs, Elizabeth Kennedy, Erin Parker, Jaimee Tilley and Becky Watts and their performance took an unconventional approach focussing on music, lighting, costume and interpretive dance to show a young girls’ first onset of schizophrenia with an insight into the emotional rollercoaster and confusion she experiences. Their performance showed ways of how she could deal with having a mental illness like schizophrenia.

The second group consisted of Sarah Bradbury, El Eckhardt, Zorah Hilvert-Bruce, Lauren Jenkins, Jess King, Charlotte MacIntyre, Dominique Mandziy, Clair Phillips, Aleks Trkuljia and Lauren Westcombe. Their performance showed how a young girls’ struggle with schizophrenia could put relationships with her friends and family under strain. The girl is haunted by delusions of her toys coming to life and controlling her.

On the night of the performance nerves and excitement took the better of us. Yet, we were feeling quite prepared as hours of rehearsing and a technical run through at CGS earlier in the week ensured that both performances would run smoothly. Despite a few minor technical glitches, both groups performed extremely well and were justly commended by family members and the audience.

By having the honour of performing in the Mind Matters Festival we gained a greater knowledge about mental illnesses, particularly schizophrenia, and now feel we have better understanding in how to approach and help someone suffering from a mental illness if we are faced with the situation in the future. We all found the experience enlightening and very worthwhile and thank our teacher, Mrs Trucillo, for the help and support she provided us.

Georgia Hobbs 10W and Lauren Jenkins 10R