Breaking Ice

Breaking Ice was a show I had the opportunity to attend for my visual literacy class. We went as a group during our class period because the show addressed topics that are seemingly more and more important every day. The description given on the poster reads, “A show about RACE, SEXUALITY, DISABILITY, GENDER and everything else we’re scared to talk about.”.

The show was built as a series of interactions between people that aren’t really sure how to interact with people that are different from them. Common stereotypes like ‘Asian people are good at math’ were addressed, and I thought it was a really cool platform for someone that actually has to deal with these stereotypes to be able to respond and educate the audience.

Toward the end of the show each actor/actress shared their own “I Am From” poem. The poems followed a simple format. Each line began “I am from”, and then was finished with an important place/location/feeling that built that person into who they are. The audience was then asked to group up and share our own versions of the poem, and that was my favorite part of the show by far. It gave me a chance to learn more about the people that were sitting with me, and also gave me a simple (yet surprisingly effective) tool to look at why I am the person I am.