Reaction Paper to Hip Hop Anansi

I enjoyed my first Imagination Stage performance of "Hip Hop Anansi." I am glad that I chose to bring my daughter along with me as well for her to enjoy the show. Although I felt the show was targeted toward children, I believed it brought a positive view of the hip hop culture to youth. All of the characters were deeply embedded in their roles while their upbeat and youthful characters seemed to keep the play moving along.

At times I felt it was difficult to pay attention to the sigh language because of the speed in which the characters were signing. Mentally, my mind was still trying to follow along with the audible spoken word, and this caused a delay in processing the sign language movements, facial expressions and nonverbals being portrayed. Watching this play helped me to get excited about how far I've come in my personal goal to learn sign language and become an active member within the ASL community. It was amazing how the characters' sign language interpretation appeared to keep up with the verbal script. It is very visible to see how ASL uses a shortened or summarized version of a sentence during interpretation.

My daughter indicated that she enjoyed the show as well. When I asked what she liked most, she said the imaginary spray can. The Break dancing parts and the audience participation were also some of Kayla's personal favorites.

Because my seat was on the end of the first row on the sided, I made an effort to

survey the audience during the performance. Occasionally, I monitored the facial expressions of parents and adults. Personally, I truly enjoyed the musical moments/performances in the play (i.e. rapping, dancing etc.), however; I felt that the play skipped around a lot. I understood the central theme of whether or not Anansi's children would band together in collaborative efforts to help Anansi win the top prize of the Fly Pie. At times I found myself confused from even the English interpretation because there seemed to be a lot of ideas that did not cohere.

Overall, I enjoyed "Hip Hop Anansi."