Taking It To The Streets
Peace Troupe Mixes Activism and Performance 

(Washington, D.C.) - A scruffy young white man with a strong mid-western
accent approaches a young woman on the 'Red Line' subway. He is new to town,
first time on the subway, unsure of himself. He needs instructions and
directions to the last stop on the line. The woman gives him the directions
he needs, but tells him too that he needs more money than he currently has to
get to his stop. The man starts asking one passenger after another for spare
change. One rider gives him a quarter, but it is not enough; a Hispanic woman
tells the rider not to trust the young man, saying that she has "seen him
before, and he does this all the time."

When the man asks a young African-American at the end of the car, he is met
with an angry retort: "No, not for you; get out of my face, white boy!"
Voices rise, and responses are hurled back and forth.

"If I weren't jumped by a bunch of Blacks last night, I would have money!"

"Why do you have to bring race into it?" 

"You people..."

At this point, passengers begin to look the other way, down at their books,
or get involved in "collateral" conversations with one another. 

The white man leaves the argument with his counterpart and starts talking to
people throughout the car, asking strangers what they think of this, whether
this is fair. Most do not respond. One older man with a shock of white hair
refuses to even acknowledge the raggedy young man. Some help, some don't.
Several passengers get off at the next station, including the angry
African-American.  The young white man gets off at the stop after that.
 
On the next train past, several of the same passengers get on, including both
young men, white and black, and the Hispanic woman too; and it all starts
again.

Acting and spec-acting
This is Invisible Theatre, or the taking of a rehearsed scene, unannounced,
into a public space where no one knows who the actors are, nor who the
audience is. It was just one of the many exercises that a group of fourteen
activists and artists studied, learned and created during a three-day
workshop recently held in Washington, D.C. to explore the roles that
performance can play in community organizing and the struggle against urban
violence.

On this particular afternoon there were groups of "spect-actors" throughout
the DC area trying their hand at this controversial and demanding performance
style. 

Erica, an "invisible" player of the rolling drama unfolding over and over in
the subway beneath the streets of the nation's capital, indicates that she
had seen the young man on the train before. A woman riding near her agrees,
even though Scott has never been here before, and Erica secretly knows it.
The woman says she too had seen him begging on the subway, and the myth of a
sly panhandler grows.

Joseph, the abrasive African American playing the race card in his argument
with Scott, is surprised to find how many other white riders take his side
simply because Scott seems poor and an outsider. The power of suggestion! 
Other player-riders are freed up as the scene unfolds to discuss the justice
of the tableau riding along with them, and engage in a little of their own
"training". Another example of how art, rooted in the spirit, may be used to
communicate and explore some of our own struggles; how it can challenge us to
face those sides of ourselves that lurk unacknowledged much of the time. More
than just a study in the physical and emotional responses to conflict, many
people took stories home with them that afternoon. In Joseph's words: "People
just don't want to get involved, but when situations like these arise, it is
simply unavoidable." 

Held March 29-31, 1995 in the Columbia Heights neighbourhood of Northwest
Washington, the workshop employed the techniques of Augusto Boal, creator of
'Theatre of the Oppressed', a form of popular theatre of, by, and for people
engaged in the struggle for liberation. Using Boal's established methods, as
well as other performance approaches and Peace Troupe's own unique
developments, the three-day event provided an opportunity for participants to
learn and practice performance techniques, discuss relevant performance
issues as they might apply to their own experiences with conflict and
community organizing, and try their hand at several on-your-feet
"interventions" in real-time situations of struggle. 

Working out conflict (unnaturally?)
"Acting is an unnatural act," said Joseph, one of the workshop participants.
"It is all about working out conflict in a created space with a created
agenda. I did not always feel comfortable playing a part I would ordinarily
never play in 'real' life. I was stressed out trying to stay in character,
and concerned about being seen by someone who knew me." 

A group of participants, ranging in age from early 20's through their 60's
and from such diverse homelands as South Africa, Canada, Puerto Rico, and
Peru, as well as a core of long-time local residents, came together for the
training presented by Peace Troupe and sponsored by Christian Peacemaker
Teams' Project in Urban Peacemaking. They return to work in the DC public
school system, at the Washington Office of the Church of the Brethren,
Community Action / International Alliance (CAIA), World Peacemakers among
other organizations. Some wear three-piece and others only sweat suits to
work. The group included professional activists and several students from
colleges and universities studying conflict resolution, theatre,
international relations and law. 

Common understanding
The Mission of the Workshop was to develop a common understanding of
nonviolent peacemaking within a cultural arts context; then to strengthen and
support persons committed to nonviolent action in situations of imminent or
actual social violence. The range of experiences and expectations within the
participants themselves led the workshop in a number of directions from
forming a response to global militarism in this, the 50th anniversary year of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to how to keep oneself safe on the streets of urban
America.

Our nation lets us know clearly that violence is a rightful response to
aggression from others, but we know this has never turned an enemy into an
ally. And in such a city at such an hour, we need all the allies we can
muster, as we increasingly all find ourselves as a nation of urban dwellers,
and urban 'worriers' instead of 'warriors'. This workshop stands as a unique
study of that point where faith and culture intersect. What does our faith
say about the engaging the principalities and powers, and what do our
cultural arts have to offer us in this struggle? 

"We hoped to offer the tools of performance and cultural arts activism to be
taken into the daily life of home, workplace and community, and to help build
a network of activists skilled in interventionary techniques," says workshop
trainer David Grant. 

The workshop was hosted by Sojourners Neighbourhood Center and the Continuing
Education Department of the University of the District of Columbia, two
organizations that have been delivering quality education to neighbourhood
urban youth and adults for many years in the Washington, DC community.
Primarily led by Grant and Stevie Engelke from Peace Troupe, it also included
session time from other activists from a diverse spectrum of organizations,
including Christian Peacemaker Teams, Nonviolence International,
Peaceworkers, and Pax Christi Metro DC.

Grant lives and works in North Carolina, and is a co-founder of Peace Troupe.
His vision of a growing team of performance artists, musicians, visual
artists, peace activists, mediators and community organizers trained to
dramatically, musically and visually present nonviolent response skills to
people in conflict was rich fuel for the training.

Working with the neighbourhood
The Christian Peacemaker Teams' (CPT) Project in Urban Peacemaking, an effort
sponsored by the Church of the Brethren, Mennonite and General Conference
Mennonite churches, seeks to reduce the potential for violent conflicts by
working with neighbourhood individuals and organizations. They have been hard
at work in Columbia Heights for over a year now in trying an array of
techniques to bring the neighbourhood violence into check. 

This was the third training for Peace Troupe, and their first in partnership
with CPT. Previous workshops were endorsed by major civil and human rights
groups. Peace Troupe is a Provisional Member of Alternate ROOTS (Regional
Organization of Theatres South) and the Association of American Cultures.
Participants were encouraged not only to take the "tools" they forged at this
training back to their home communities and neighbourhoods, but to consider
joining the larger Peace Troupe network of persons available to respond to
crisis situations on short notice. 

For more information, you can call Peace Troupe's 24-hour voice mail
announcement and message service: +1 404-371-9609 (Atlanta GA). You can also
send a self-addressed stamped envelope (with stamp or International Reply
Coupon) to: Peace Troupe, 2650 Rock Creek Road, Burnsville NC 28714. Fax: +1
404-371-1077. Internet: gwood@igc.apc.org or troupe@tmn.com.
Cole Arendt
Reprinted from Peace News, May 1995, with permission from The Christian
Peacemaker Teams.

Peace Troupe videos
Learning Boal
Fifteen compact minutes from a week-long workshop at Rural Southern Voice for
Peace. Intercut with interviews of Jan Cohen-Cruz, Mady Schutzman (editors of
Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy and Activism) and David Grant. Explains
Theatre of the Oppressed and Nonviolent Peace Teams. Example of Forum Theatre
with "spect-actor" interventions in a scene about parental molestation.
Professional quality, engaging and provocative.  Excellent introduction for
anyone exploring creative response to social conflict. $20 sale, prepaid
only. 

Youth and Nonviolence
This tightly-edited thirty-minute video extends Peace Troupe's investigation
of performance and conflict resolution work with a week-long encounter of
fifteen adults and fifteen high school students at Horizons School, Atlanta,
Georgia.   Footage includes: techniques from Theatre of the Oppressed,
including teenagers dealing with sexual and racial harassment; Invisible
Theatre on the streets and in the shops of Atlanta; Simulation Game of
cross-cultural conflict;  interviews with participants. $25 sale, prepaid
only. 

To order videos or for information about workshops, please send a
self-addressed envelope to Peace Troupe, 2650 Rock Creek Road, Burnsville NC
28714.

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