Thursday 20 June 2013

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

So a little more about the school play:


First of all, my children should be involved in anything headed up by this woman. She is a superior human being and we need more teachers like her.

The play this year:


The true story is of a girl, Sadako Sasaki, who lived in Hiroshima at the time of the atomic bombing by the United States. She developed leukemia from the radiation and spent her time in a nursing home creating origami (folded paper) cranes in hope of making a thousand of them. She was inspired to do so by the Japanese legend that one who created a thousand origami cranes would be cured by the gods. Her wish was simply to live. However, she managed to fold only 644 cranes before she became too weak to fold any more, and died on 25 October 1955 in the morning. Her friends and family helped finish her dream by folding the rest of the cranes, which were buried with Sadako. They also built a statue of Sadako holding a giant golden origami crane in Hiroshima Peace Park.

(Thank you Wikipedia)


Carmen played two roles, the first (in order of appearance) was as Sadako's school teacher.





And the second was as a the spirit of Sadako's grandmother's friend, who had passed away on the day of the bombing.

The play was lovely, sad, and inspiring, and I'm so glad Carmen got to be a part of it.


Okay, actually Carmen had three roles: the third was the official tyer of square knots.


1 comment:

Marie said...

Double rolls? Ya, that is pretty amazing.

I remember in grade 6 Lakeview school did the 1000 paper cranes and every single art class for AGES was dedicated to paper cranes. It looked really impressive to have them in chains around the gym when we were done, but I got real tired of that project real quick.

Carter's friend in class made him a paper crane this week and he brought it home all excited. I oohed and ahhhhed at it with him, but inside, I was just feeling the aching fingers of Lakeview's sweatshop art classes.