It is a lesser known fact about Albert Einstein that he wrote, in German, many light-hearted poems about day to day life in the world around him.

Earlier this year the Goethe Institut invited senior students of German in New Zealand to take part in a ‘Moving Words’ project: ‘Moving Einstein’. The task was to look at an Einstein poem about a visit to the dentist – ‘Bolschi’ - and then to creatively translate two verses from the German into some creative form, for example, a poster, a play, a work of art, a short film – or something else.

Mr Moore’s Year 13 German class decided to put their strong digital technology skills to use by creating a short cartoon showing the patient (a friend of the dentist) submitting to the terrible drill in the first scene, and then enjoying the dentist’s company in his ‘man cave’ in the next scene – crackling fire, whiskey glasses chinking, deer head above the mantlepiece ‘Edelweiss’ playing in the background.

Two members of the class, Nirhjah Selvarajah and Kate Truman, have been invited to go to Wellington at the end of the term to present our ‘translation’, and to participate in a workshop with the artist Sarah Laing for the launch of the comic book ‘Bolschi’. They are also looking forward to finding out how the other students translated the remaining 10 verses of the poem!

Below is the link to the girls work

https://www.animatron.com/studio/project/616b7b569a1d1b5d8dcc40f5