The main question in the first session of community theatre was that of: What is community. Much of the session was concerned with defining community, different types of community, weather it is geographical, social, belief orientated, gender or race. I began thinking that community for me was the place I came from, my family and friends from home and that was that. However when we began breaking it down I realised that I did belong and still belong to many different communities, drama groups I used to belong to, school, choirs I sang in, and how I have dipped in and out of communities due to the choices I have made. I realised how much belonging to certain communities have an influence on your identity. I talked about how since moving to Twickenham I have picked up new accents, grown in confidence and now feel like a completely different person due to the fact I moved into a new geographical community.
We looked at inclusive and exclusive communities. For example if a community was made up soley of women, then it would be gender exclusive as a male would not be able to be a part of it. I started thinking about the communities that I have been exluded from or have felt excluded from. I realised that there were groups at school that I would have not been welcome in just because of social ranking, how poular I was and how this was a factor in who I could be friends with. However, If these certain people were in the same class as me, such as music then it would be perfectly okay to speak to them thus creating a 'music lesson' community. However as soon as we left these lessons I would suddenly be excluded from their community. It intrests me that In one context I could speak and be friends with these people, and in a different one, I could not.
On a larger scale this could also happen geographical, how someone, for example, from Liverpool wouldn't be welcome in Manchester just because of where they come from, yet if the two people found themselves in the same context as each other these differences might not matter as much.
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