The Inspiration to become Heroic Girlz:
In the fall of 2004, four 11-year-old 6th grade girls participated in a part-time home school program led by their mothers. The program’s goal was to overtly acknowledge the girls’ coming-of-age status through the study of language and theater arts, social science, and environmental science. After a visit to Harriet Tubman’s house in Auburn, NY, the girls heard this story: at the age of 11, young Harriet Tubman courageously stepped in front of a slave catcher as he pursued a runaway slave. Tubman was hit on the head with a heavy piece of iron and suffered from this injury for the rest of her life. But it was in that germinal moment -- at age 11 -- that Harriet Tubman found her purpose, the thing she would ultimately dedicate her entire life to - helping slaves escape to freedom. This story made such a strong impression on the group that they decided to explore its philosophy in depth and for each individual girl. What would it mean to explore themselves as modern 11-year-old girls? What if each girl found an American woman “hero” and researched her life at age 11? The result of this exploration is HEROIC GIRLZ, first a stage play and now an educational short narrative film (DVD, 26 minutes), with a documentary special feature: MAKING HISTORY: The How and Why of HEROIC GIRLZ (19 minutes), and an accompanying teachers guide.
The Process of Building the Play
Laying the Foundation...
Cindy L. Parrish, a writer and university professor, and Laura Yurko, an expressive arts therapist (both mothers of two girls in the group) led the girls through preliminary exercises in writing and drawing. The theme they explored in these exercises centered around the question, “what is it like for me, right here, right now at this point in history, to be an 11-year-old girl?” The next step was for each of the girls to choose a woman from history to research, and do further activities to explore these figures, finding the parallels between their own lives and that of these women at the age of 11. Much of HEROIC GIRLZ comes from what is known historically. But when facts about the heroic women as girls were not available, some imagining was done. This process of exploration in itself is empowering and creative.
Heroic Girlz, the Stage Play...
Next, Parrish and Yurko engaged theater arts teacher Meg Agnew. The girls did movement and improvisational exercises to develop more material and insight into their chosen women heroes. All this existing material - written, drawn, spoken - was documented by Parrish and soon after she shaped it into a script for the play, Heroic Girlz. Directed by Agnew, the play was performed half a dozen times in different locations, giving the girls the opportunity to go more in depth into these characters. The play won the 2005 Moondance International Film Festival’s Best Kid’s Stageplay award.
HEROIC GIRLZ, the movie...
In the summer of 2005, Cindy Parrish created a screenplay and directed the movie version of HEROIC GIRLZ. Thinking cinematically instead of theatrically, the HEROIC GIRLZ team found they could put imagery and sound into action in ways they could not do on stage; they could make it snow, walk into an 18 th Century judge’s study, and “build a real roller coaster!” Composer Mark Kelso’s original score added compelling emotion to the film. HEROIC GIRLZ, the movie, won the Moondance International Film Festival’s 2007 Gaia Award for Best Kids Short. The film also screened at the KIDS FIRST Film Festival,a Traveling Festival in 45 Cities with Audiences of 300,000 nationwide, at the 2007 San Francisco International Children’s Film Festival, and the Saugatuck Children’s Film Festival (for 3,000 school children in Michigan Public Schools).
Why HEROIC GIRLZ?
It’s an observable phenomenon for girls in our society to have strong “voices”--until the age of 11 or 12. Author Carol Gilligan ( In a Different Voice and Meeting at the Crossroads) and other experts in girls’ and women’s psychological development have noted that at this point in her life a girl who previously was sure of herself, eager to answer questions in class, and confident of her point of view, can become silent, withdrawn, and possibly even self-destructive. Dr. SuEllen Hamkins, a psychiatrist specializing in women’s health, and author of THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER PROJECT: How Mothers and Daughters Can Band Together, Beat the Odds, and Thrive through Adolescence (fall, 2007 guest on The Today Show and NPR’s Morning Edition) notes that at the age of 11 or 12, girls look to the wider world -- outside their family and school -- for self-definition and for a verification of values. Dr. Hamkins says that the mass media shows girls what they should become, “the perfect girl: someone who’s quiet, kind, thin but energetic, sexy yet chaste. The perfect girl image leaves little room for what girls make, or imagine, or what they dream of.” It’s no surprise that without support and encouragement, many girls in our society lose their “voice” at this age and instead begin to live the message with which they are constantly bombarded: it’s the outside that matters, not the inside. As a girl looks outward for guidance on what it means to come of age, adult mentors -- such as any leader or guide for a unit of HEROIC GIRLZ study become particularly important. And they are not alone. The historic figures themselves become mentors. While girls study and learn about these historic women, they are also invited to partner with them by embodying women who did not sit quietly, but made their voices heard. When a girl has the opportunity to go into this kind of depth with a heroic female character, taking her on physically, vocally and emotionally, learning takes place on a deeply personal level. Meanwhile, students’ memory and grasp of the historical material is vastly enhanced.