German Organizations Make It Happen
The German Consulate of Atlanta celebrated their 100th anniversary in fall 2004. The Goethe Institute of Atlanta took part by hosting lots of activities. One of them was an exhibition in cooperation with Friends of Goethe about the German language entitled “Herzliche Grüße.” Another was a puppet show, “Milo and the Mysterious Island,” based on a storybook by the Swiss author Marcus Pfister. The puppet show was performed by Carlo y Canela (Bob Souvorin and Clemencia Salmon), assisted by the Atlanta Center of Puppetry Arts and sponsored by the Consulate General of Switzerland.
The Grade 2 and Grade 4 German classes visited the play and the exhibition. They enjoyed the performance very much and when the Goethe Institute announced a writing competition, eight students participated in the contest. As part of the competition, the students had to come up with an ending of the story including illustrations. Ragna Tobiassen and Thalia Hall entered a love story about mice that they wrote together. A group of six boys (Calvin Goessler, Niklas Dorsch, Nicolas Seidler, Douglas Branch, Marin Lucic and Andi Collenberg) submitted another ending of the story. Both groups won the first prize. Each of the students received the book Mats und die Streifenmäuse and they were invited along with their parents and their teacher Frau Witte to a tropical dinner at a Thai restaurant. There they were served a delicious three-course dinner and were fortunate enough to meet the famous storyteller Katharina Ritter from Munich, Germany. This wonderful event was organized by Jürgen Weigmann from the Goethe Institute Atlanta. Katharina Ritter is an extraordinary storyteller and everyone had a great time.
The students were not the only ones happy and proud of their achievements. Parent Tom Hall said, “From a parental perspective, we thought that entering the competition in the first place was good for all the children involved and that for Thalia and Ragna to win would both be a great encouragement to them, and to other children involved to see what was possible. Neither my wife nor I speak German but as parents we enjoyed the dinner and getting together with the other parents and the people from the Goethe Institute, and then listening to the stories. The story teller was excellent with her dramatic gestures and use of voice and expressions. I think the children will have learned a great deal from meeting the performer and then watching the performance afterwards.”
Parent Michaela Collenberg said, “Ich kann nur sagen, ich war total begeistert von dem hervorragenden Essen und von der Geschichtenerzählerin. Zunächst war ich sehr skeptisch, denn der Titel “Geschichtenerzählerin im Goethe Institut“ klang nicht so sehr aufregend. Ich habe schließlich zuhause zwei junge Geschichtenerzähler... Aber dann hätte ich ihr stundenlang zuhören können... Sie hat mich völlig in eine andere Welt geführt. Es war toll ihr einfach zuzuhören.”
Thank you, Goethe Institute Atlanta for this very special evening and thank you to every one who made this great experience happen. A very special thanks to Katharina Ritter who also came to AIS for one day to tell stories to some PS, MS and US German classes. The students were very enthusiastic about her way of telling stories.