...is it shakes us awake.

I took a walk this morning around my neighborhood; I do this when things get loud and confusing in my mind. I had just finished typing up the final version of our script for the Empowerment performance on Saturday. It's a sweet and rich story, with many opportunities for intervention, but something was bugging me about it.

How come it still seems like the kid's fault? No matter how many ways we swung the story, our antagonist character, the father, always seemed to come off kind, confused, doing his best, hardly to blame. For whatever reason, we kept crafting scenes where the teenage daughter was petulant, irritable and rude. Again and again, the story seemed to say it was her fault for being treated badly. She was asking for it.

At first, I thought nothing of it. Teenagers are petulant, irritable and rude. We were being honest in our storytelling. But something was still wrong.

Why are we protecting the parents here?

There had been some anxiety throughout the process that the play would be too edgy for the parents to watch. "We don't want to alienate them," many of the youth said. So we created a sweet, "realistic" parent who, for some reason, kicks his teenage daughter out of the house for having a girlfriend.

It hit me when I rounded the bend on my walk today, under the reaching arms of a flowering tree--oh.

We are protecting the parents here, because a large part of us as a group (and me as a facilitator) still feel our bad treatment by overwhelmed or confused parents is mostly our fault.

Click.

I realized also, in that same instant, that the images of the father dying alone, of the daughter estranged from her misunderstanding parent, had touched me on a personal level. I worry about that stuff. I live about a thousand miles away from my parents. They're getting older. Something about watching the enactment in class yesterday had shaken awake some deep fears in me, and made it hard to keep facilitating.

But, as insights usually do, this one has cleared the noise in my mind. Now I know why I was feeling so strange yesterday, and how I can direct the youth on Saturday to portray a stronger antagonist.

I am excited for our performance on Saturday. I hope to see you all there.

With love,

C

...is the words all cloud up.

Last week, we did a writing activity, asking the youth to list the first ten words that came to their minds when they thought about coming out, or remembered the time that they came out to their families. I tossed all the words into a cloud generator yesterday, and here's the result:

We have one-and-a-half more rehearsals before this Saturday's show! I'm so pumped.

See y'all there,

Christine

...is it draws a crowd!

Good morning!

Last Wednesday we held our penultimate rehearsal in Antioch with the Empowerment Youth program. I was lucky enough to share the space with a few incredible artists--choreographer and Halprin Life/Art facilitator Liz Boubion, educator/activist/feminist extraordinaire Sarah Stockholm, and fellow ImaginAction apprentice Ira Christian.

We spent two hours working with the youth in small groups, using dance, creative writing and forum theatre to continue developing our play about coming out. There were clown cars and crying elephants. Next week we'll put on the finishing touches, and next Saturday--

I want to invite all my readers to come join us next Saturday, May 18th at Community Presbyterian Church (200 E Leland Rd, Pittsburg, CA 94565) for our very special, one-time only forum performance! The schedule looks like this:

Dinner - 5:30 p.m.
Forum Performance: 6:30 p.m.

If you'd like to come, drop me a line at christine.baniewicz@gmail.com and I'll make sure we have enough food for you. If you're coming from the East Bay, I may be able to give you a ride out, also, so let me know :)

And here is a (very) short clip of what happens when you bring a fiddle into one of our rehearsals:

CLICK HERE!

Love you all,

Christine

...is it never stops blowing you away.

It’s Wednesday in Antioch and I’m not messing around.

I know that we need to create the beginning of our forum play today—move from a pile of ideas (family, communication, bullying) into something theatrical. We only have an hour.

I almost immediately split the group of twenty teenagers in half.

“Make an metaphor of communication,” I tell one group.

“Make a metaphor of family,” I tell the other.

What do you mean—metaphor? Can we talk? Do we use props? They ask a million questions and I just smile and repeat: make a metaphor, whatever that means to you.

This is about the fifth time I’ve lead workshops with this youth group, so they know better than to expect explanations from me when I’m grinning and playful. They make exasperated noises and go back to their groups, negotiating, planning, rehearsing.

I give each group very little time—about five minutes. Every now and again I interrupt their plans to give them new instructions to incorporate: use these fabric pieces, one of you is a parent, two of you need to sing.

By the end of the first five minutes, I ask the communication group to show us what they’ve created. They look nervous. I feel nervous. We only have one hour together! We need to make a play! THEY’RE PAYING ME!

I smile through my worries and tell them, “Whatever you have so far is perfect. Let’s see it.”

- - -

I will never, never, ever stop being blown away by the power of these techniques, you all.

I expected some kind of self-conscious giggly circle-dance. What I got is the completely rich seed of our performance. In five minutes.

You guys.

- - -

“But honey,” says the father character onstage, played by a blonde boy in a bow tie. “I’m confused. Are you sure this isn’t a phase? You know, you could have any guy you wanted.”

The girl playing the daughter in the scene shifts uncomfortably in her cute feminine boots. “I don’t want a boyfriend.”

“You’re so pretty, though.”

 “Dad, I’m a lipstick lesbian.”

Everyone seated on the floor is rapt. I freeze the action onstage for a moment, in the instant of highest tension, and ask, “is this accurate? Is this how it would happen?”

Everyone nods. A little tendril of excitement unfurls in my heart.

We spend the rest of the time tweaking this scene—moving scenery around, adding obstacles and clarifying each characters’ fears and desires. At the end of the hour, I invite everyone into a large circle. I feel like a million bucks.

“Was there anyone in the group who felt particularly, especially moved by this play today?” About five people raise their hands. I have them sit in the center of the circle and close their eyes.

“Everyone else,” I say. “Will speak out, in whatever order they want, little pieces of dialogue that they remember from today’s play, anything that was said that sticks out in your mind. We’ll do it popcorn style.”

The group is grounded, open, connected. We begin in silence, and as always, I have a moment of fear that no one will speak, that this exercise will flop and then, from across the circle—

Dad, I’m a lesbian.

A lesbian, someone echoes.

Is this just a phase?

“A phase,” I echo. A phase.

I don’t want a boy. You could have any boy. Any boy. Is this a phase? I’m confused. Is this a phase?

The words swirl around in stereo, bouncing off our brains and seeping into the minds of those seated in the center, eyes closed. Our reflection washes over them.

After a minute or so, it dies down naturally. We breathe together, three breaths.

“I’ll see you all next week,” I say. The girl next to me squeezes my hand and I melt. “I can’t wait.”

- - -

One last thought, because I tend to write a lot about my failures and not nearly enough about my successes:

Remember last week? How I shut down in the middle of a tense, emotional process because it resonated with me so much?

Here's what I did this week instead:

I fucking said something about it.

The whole group was chattering nervously, the characters onstage frozen in difficult moments, and I felt myself slipping away, floating out of my body into Self-Criticism Land.

Instead of checking into a hotel there, however, I got down into a hunch on the floor and faced the audience and said, "You know what I notice? When I get nervous about something, lots of times I'll start giggling and stop paying attention to whatever's making me nervous. You guys--this topic makes me nervous, too. I still don't know how I feel with my family half the time. But I know that, with your help, we can figure something out if we focus on this scene up here."

The room becomes silent and attentive. At the back of the audience, the guy who had been crying last time, Andrew, smiles the tiniest bit at me. I dream a giant dream, in that instant, of Andrew's starring role, of the breakthroughs we're going to make together this month. My heart is a helium balloon.

"So let's continue from where we left off," I say. "Three, two, one--action!"

And the show goes on.