Sing Your Spirits Home
Sing Your Spirits Home is an original play devised by over twenty students from Eltham College and the schools of Archbishops Tenison, Coloma Convent, Darrick Wood, Hayes and Woodcote High. The play which took place in the Antony Barnard Hall at Eltham was a synthesis of the collective thinking and feeling of young people from the six schools involved in the South London State and Independent Schools Partnership. Two hundred years after William Wilberforce helped to achieve the abolition of slavery in this country, the students embarked upon a project which would not only remind us of the enormous human suffering brought about by the pernicious effects of slavery but also challenge the attitudes and complacency that enables unscrupulous people to traffic in human commodities. The play was a memorial to the countless millions who lived their lives as the property of others and a passionate plea to end the inhumane trade in living people that still blights our world today.
Baroness Cox spoke warmly about the very emotive and thought provoking production and many agreed with her that it should be seen by a wider audience. Baroness Cox went on to say that “it is sad that I recognised each and every story of slavery these young people presented. It is joyous that they performed with such dignity and passion”. The simplicity of the set and the powerful, disciplined, acting made this a moving and enjoyable evening in every way and the cast looked and sounded as if they had been working together for months rather than just eight days.