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Theatre
for Living Report Organizers: Angelo
Lam, Catherine Ho, Emma Lagerstrom May 23, 1998 Point and turn Emma organized a workshop about eight months ago on diversity issues, so she knows what the work is. The BC Arts Festival is on in Prince George this week-end. I didn't clue into this until yesterday when I arrived. If we had a full-time publicist, whose job it was to keep track of opportunities like this, we might have been able to help Emma marry this workshop onto the end of the Festival. As it is there are all these community theatre events around town ending Sunday and we have a performance Monday and there are no connections, even though we are working in the same building. Catherine is using this workshop to try her hand at Joking some games. This is good -- a good way for her to spread her wings. She did well today with Balancing and Lead the Blind. It is a nice group. Very diverse. Eleven is a good number but Emma is disappointed. She thought she had 25 or 30 and in the last few days has had about a 50% drop out rate. We got a lot of work done today, though, and by the end of the day there were some very strong images. Part of the pleasure is that most of the participants know why they are there and really want to do the workshop. One young man is an Environmental Planner and someone (he can't remember who) who did a workshop with Headlines suggested he do this workshop to study the way it is facilitated. There are also four First Nations teenagers from the Vanderhoof area. I am not certain if they really want to be here. They seem to have been 'brought' into the workshop. The moment that stands out for
me today, though, comes from an Image from the First Nations
Youth. One is on the ground and the other two are kicking the
shit out of him. In activation a participant who arrived in Canada
from the Philippines three months ago placed himself in between
the oppressors and the oppressed, trying to stop the beating.
Many people in the room thought this was 'magic' which led to
a conversation about the isolation in
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