Prisons of our own perceptions
Zip! Zap! Zoom!
About a dozen students at Westville Correctional Facility stand in a circle and trade finger points while saying these words in a competitive game that doubles as a warm-up for an acting class.
Zip! The mood is jovial. Zap! Aaron takes the energy from Shakka and turns to send it to Antwan. Zoom! Anyone who hesitates accepts their loss and steps out of the circle without complaint.
A prison is a setting where any vulnerability can lead to physical attack. Yet the students in Scott Jackson’s Acting Shakespeare class—part of Holy Cross College's program at Westville—are willing to follow along with his funky warm-ups and dramatic breathing exercises.
“We’re going to be vulnerable, take the hard focus out of our eyes and be trusting,” says Jackson, the Mary Irene Ryan Family Executive Artistic Director of Shakespeare at Notre Dame. “We’re breathing out from our core, the seat of impulse and instinct.”
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