A personal account of the first mobility

by Adam Szolnok

As the European Coordinator of the project, I was really excited when our project was included on the list of the funded projects of the national agency. But soon afterwards, I started worrying about the possible outcome of the project. Even if it looks good on paper, will it be possible to put everything we dreamed of into practice?

In September, we set up the project team and the Literature teacher colleagues of mine (Misses Barbara Urbán, Erika Farkas and Zsuzsanna Duschák) started to work on the project with the students. They were enthusiastic about the project from the start. Since the first mobility would be held at our school, they had to work hard from the very beginning. They gathered the students from different classes, who were interested in the project. They chose the two Hungarian folk-tales and adapted them to the stage. The script of the play can be found here.

Meanwhile, I started to organize the mobility itself. I thought about programmes which are in connection with the theme of the project. Thus, I organized a trip to Hollókő, a traditional village in Nógrád County, where visitors can see the buildings and objects of the traditional village life from the 19th century. The other programmes included a lecture on Hungarian folk-tales by Mr. Csaba Mészáros from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Ethnography and a visit to the Museum of Ethnography.

But the biggest challenge was to find the right people who would help the students staging and performing the play. I found two professional drama instructors from TRAFÓ House of Contemporary Arts, Misses Anna Szepes and Tímea Török. They took the challenge and agreed on working with our students during the mobility.

Finally, the day arrived and the mobility started on 6th November. You can read a detailed account of the programme in the Events/Mobilities section, so I will not go into details here. What I would like to write about is that how wonderful it was to see as the play came to life during the rehearsal sessions. The students did not have too much time. They had 2 afternoon and 1 morning rehearsal sessions. So, within such a limited period of time, they had to do their best: learn their lines, practice the movements, create the costumes.

We got enormous help from our unofficial "school band". Mr. Zsolt Gőgh, one of our teachers, with the assistance of 2 students, agreed to provide the music for the performance. They practiced on their own before the mobility and on Thursday, during the 2nd rehearsal session, they joined the students to practice together.

In the end, everything came together perfectly. On Friday, the last day of the mobility, the students performed the play in front of a school audience. It was a great success, but for me, the greatest success was to see the faces of the students after the performance. The joy and the pride on their faces proved that it was worth the effort and hard work.

The students proved for themselves and for everybody that even if you come from different cultures and countries, even if you do not speak each other's language, you can still work together for a common goal and in the end, you will cherish the success of your work together. You can find pictures of the mobility here.