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Our History
Also in 1995 we were invited by Native Families in Crisis to do a THEATRE FOR LIVING workshop on residential school issues at a healing centre on Meares Island. The workshop created two plays, one about things that happened in residential school and another about how those experiences are affecting people's lives today. They were performed as audience-interactive Forum for about 250 people in Tofino. Because of that workshop we were invited by Native Families in Crisis, the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, and seven other First Nations throughout BC to duplicate the THEATRE FOR LIVING process throughout the province, creating plays and training counsellors as we went. This larger workshop project was named Reclaiming Our Spirits and toured to Port Alberni/Tofino, Lillooet, Vancouver, Kamloops, Gitsegukla/Hagwilget, Prince George, Terrace, Kitimaat Village and Gold River/Campbell River. Every workshop and public performance was surrounded by counsellors. The response was truly profound, with entire families reconciling, people putting themselves into treatment and "finding their voices" on an individual and a community level through the language of the theatre -- sometimes for the first time in their lives. During this period Headlines also did an extensive anti-racism workshop tour with the sponsorship of Multiculturalism BC. This project went into communities for two week periods. The communities were Fort St. James, Vancouver, Prince George, Ucluelet and Mount Currie. In addition, Headlines gave approximately 20 other THEATRE FOR LIVING workshops. During 1996/97 the Generations Project was a very successful collaboration with S.U.C.C.E.S.S. that went to live, regional TV (Rogers Community TV). Generations looked at inter-generational conflict inside an immigrant family when the parents bring the family from another country but the kids are growing up in Canada. Another project from 1996/97, the "Ice" Project, with Dance Arts Vancouver ,used the THEATRE FOR LIVING techniques in collaboration with choreographer Judith Marcuse and playwright John Lazarus to create a youth oriented dance project. Another collaboration with the Grunt Gallery (the Positive+ Project) created a photographic exhibit on issues around HIV/AIDS. The THEATRE FOR LIVING vocabulary increased in 1998 with the addition of Your Wildest Dream to the workshop list. During the session we distil two images -- the group's "image of oppression" and the group's "wildest dream." These images are captured on Polaroid film. The focus of the workshop is then mapping the steps, through image creation and photography, that it takes to get from the image of oppression to the wildest dream. The community is left with the photographic, symbolic "map." Your wildest dream can be conducted as an exercise that is the focus of a one day workshop or as a longer journey that involves a deeper three day process. The very popular THEATRE FOR LIVING Cabaret was also started during this time: no actors, no play, no script, just David and a group of people who want to use the language of the theatre to tell their stories. The Cabaret evolved into a sponsored event, for which Headlines works in co-operation with a community organization, using the event to focus into a particular issue. Other highlights in 1997 (which contained 30 community projects) were a very powerful workshop and community performance in Ahousat with 43 Nuu-chah-nulth youth looking at issues of violence, and a workshop with the Progressive Intercultural Community Services Society (PICS) that led to a public Rainbow of Desire event on issues of diversity in the workplace. This event was videotaped, the video then edited into a 20 minute teaching tool for employers, available through PICS.. A big event in 1997 was the Society's purchase of office space. After saving money for 17 years, Headlines became a property owner. 723 sq. ft. (with kitchen and bathroom, no less). It's great. No more rent. In February of 1998, Headlines produced a powerful public Forum event at the Roundhouse Community Centre on issues of death and dying. The project was called The Dying Game(15) and was loosely based on David's experiences helping his mother die two years previously. The project generated a great deal of media, timed as it was to coincide with the court case in Halifax of Dr. Morrison, who was charged with murder after a terminally ill cancer patient of hers died mysteriously. Feedback from various people about this project indicates that it has helped people redefine relationships with death and dying, making the subject easier to discuss with family and loved ones. The Dying Game was also broadcast live on Rogers Community TV. May 1998 saw Headlines return to Kispiox BC for a project with the Gitxsan Nation. David and Hal Blackwater collaborated on a workshop with youth, creating new Gitxsan Dance. On August 22, 1998 dance group, Dancers of the Mist, performed the resulting dances to celebrate the opening of the new Community School in Kispiox. This was the first time in over 100 years that the Gitxsan had made new dance. Then in June, David traveled to Colorado for two projects on racism and violence -- one in Durango and the other on the Ignacio Reservation, organized by Dr. Mukti Khanna at Fort Lewis College. This work in the USA marks a growing trend of the THEATRE FOR LIVING workshops reaching out beyond BC and Canada. See photos from this project. July 17, 1998 we did our first Corporate Rainbow of Desire workshop sponsored by Go Direct Marketing. We used the THEATRE FOR LIVING vocabulary to investigate the tensions and stresses arising out of expectations of change with the coming millennium. It was a very successful afternoon and we hope to do more theatre inside the workplace. Headlines has facilitated over 200 community-specific theatre projects. Detailed information on this work (including video or DVD) is available on request.
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