Up with People Cast B 2010 On Tour

Thursday Feb 19th

Today we went to an elderly home and spent time with the residents. We were able to create belated Valentines Day cards to hand out to the residents during our visits. After returning from the visiting the elderly home we made our way back to the schools. At the schools we were able to work with the kids to educate them on recycling. Today was a lot of fun!

Friday Feb 20th

Today we had our First outdoor show of our Tour! The show was outside of the Museum of Contemporary Arts and it is beautiful! The weather was great. We had clear skies and lots of sun. While the tech team set up all day the cast worked on movement and then rehearsed. The show was great! Go Cast A.

Saturday Feb 21st

Today was a repeat of yesterday. SLEEP IN DAY, we didn’t have to start until 10!!! We had to do some work on the stage but overall the day was spent on rehearsal for our show. Before all of this however we did our trash week wrap up. Thank goodness that is over. The show gets better every time we perform. Today was wonderful!!! The strike went really well and over all the stay in North Miami has been a lot of fun.

Sunday Feb 22nd

Host Family Day!! Swimming, Barbequing, Everglade tours…

-by Anne Lawrence, USA

The last days in Greeley were very exciting for Cast A. On Monday, the cast visited the tea company Celestial Seasonings in Boulder. It was very exciting for all of us to see how the company gets the different ingredients from all over the world, how the tea gets mixed up, put into the tea bags and finally, put into the packages to be bought at any grocery store. The cast was able to try all the different kinds of tea the company sells to all over the country. There was also plenty of time to shop at the “Tea Shop” and take some of our favorite tea home. After this interesting trip to Celestial Seasonings, the cast stopped by Johnson’s Corner for lunch. We all say a big “Thank you!” to Johnson’s Corner for sponsoring the meal for us!

Cast A visits Celestial Seasonings tea factory in Boulder, CO

On Tuesday, February 10th, the whole cast set up the Union Colony Civic Center for the first show ever in our young cast travel. The Center, offering over 1600 seats at maximum, provided a very good space for the show. There was still preparation for the big show. The full dress rehearsal in the evening required a lot of energy from everyone in the cast.

Finally, on Wednesday, the “big day”, we had our first show. After more rehearsals and preparation in the morning and afternoon, the whole cast was ready for their first performance. We were assisted by kids from the Boys & Girls Club, our local partner, in a song from our show called “Sound of Peace”. The whole show was a great experience for the cast and the audience seemed to like it very much. After this big experience, more than half the cast flew to North Miami on Thursday. The rest of the cast will arrive on Monday, so that we’re all together. Saturday and Sunday are both host family days. Our schedule continues on Monday, when we’re all together again.

-by Gregor Pollehn, Germany

Thursday, February 5th:

We were leaving Denver for the first time (I found out that the expression “for the first time” happens a lot when discussing UWP). After some difficult goodbyes with our first host families we went on the road to Greeley.  For the first time our cast had to split.  Half of us went to Cozy Cow Dairy, while the other half continued practicing for the show.  In Cozy Cow Dairy, we learned some amazing facts about cows.  For example, Brown Swiss are more friendly, Holstein are large and give the most milk, but the least rich, Jersey cows have the richest milk, and so on.  We saw the birth of a calf (in a video) and learned how the cow uses four stomachs to make milk.  Cozy Cow Dairy makes great cheese and milk, and the only reason they are not considered organic is because they give medicine to the animals.

Kids at the Boys & Girls Club play a Swedish game with UwP cast members - photo by Jessica Schang

Friday, February 6th: Our first Community Impact(CI)

Already in Greeley, we went to the Boys & Girls Club to let the local children experience multicultural fun.  We had plenty of different activities, including face painting, dances, hula hoop, limbo, musical chairs, dreidels, potato stamps, balloon dances, and plenty of other games.  It was exhausting but rewarding day – seeing those children, who never heard about most of the countries we came from, getting love and attention. They gladly embraced everything we brought them, and that just pushed us to give more. That was so fun!  For desert we had an amazing lecture on leadership from UwP boardmember Steve Farber.

Saturday, February 7th:

Once again we were in the Boys & Girls Club, only this time we had no children around us. We worked the entire day to make the club more appealing for the children. The main project was painting the walls and writing “Be Great” in seventeen different languages. We also organized the library for the children, and fixed the outdoor games field for them. I have done some painting before, but never in a group that practiced dancing at the same time. It felt great, and I hope our next adventures will be as great and will have the same great feeling of accomplishment!

-by Ido Adler, Israel

February 4th marked the first time that Cast A 2009 performed in front of an audience.  The Denver host families who have been kind enough to host the international cast for almost a month joined us at our staging facility to celebrate the students’ completion of staging and departure from Denver.  The evening began with a preshow warm-up that included games and interactions between the host families and their grateful cast.  Cast A then performed a run-through of the show in full costume for their host families.

Cast A performs "Ayiko" for their Denver host families

I had the opportunity to join the cast during this performance, and was inspired by the level of cooperation and support that occurred backstage.  Cast members reminded each other of queues and entrances, helped with costumes, and encouraged each other between songs.  There was an atmosphere of excitement, as four weeks of hard work learning the show were put into action.  And onstage, the excitement was noticeable.  I found myself laughing at times, and getting choked up at times, as the cast shared the result of all of their hard work with their host families.

The next day, the cast departed for the first city on their tour.  Greeley, Colorado promises to be a great start to an exciting and impactful five months on the road.  I anticipate that the positive attitude that was shared by Cast A during the rehearsal will snowball into an energy that will inspire many communities in the months to come.

-by Phil Woods, Business Administrator