Theatre for Living Report The Gagged Voice #4, Merritt Organizers: Angelo Lam, Catherine Ho, Howard Baker Sponsor: S.U.C.C.E.S.S. and the Merritt Secondary School Focus: Racism and Violence Facilitator: David Diamond Dates: November 4 - 6 1998 Participants: 20 Venue(s): Merritt Secondary School Drama Room Attendance: 142 November 4, 1998 Point and turn Balancing Hypnosis Find the Spot Lead the Blind Blind Magnets Glass Bottle Energy Clap Complete the Image Groups of 4 Circle This is the fourth and final in the 'Gagged Voice' series of workshops. How this one came about is that Multiculturalism BC liked the project so much that they went to SUCCESS and offered to fund one more. Howard Baker was here in Merritt, and had sponsored a POWER PLAY a couple of years ago and was keen to do another project. It was a great match. Howard seems to have done a good job of organizing. The group is very diverse and committed. No coaxing necessary. We also have four people from Canada World Youth (CWY) in the workshop. Three from Canada and one from Indonesia. This is bringing a maturity and also a political consciousness into the work that might not otherwise be there. I was impressed today with the depth of the images so far. We got half way through the Groups of 4 exercise. Already, though there are images of deeply violent racism. Many coming from First Nations participants. Lost two participants part way through. One young man had to go to Kamloops all of a sudden, part way through the day. I explained that in a 2 1/2 day process this was going to make it impossible for him to step back in. I think he was relieved. The other, also a young man, had detention in the middle of the session. This coincided with our lunch break -- but he never came back. Don't know what happened there. There are no counselors in this workshop. I don't feel that this is a big problem. There are counselors available......a woman showed up at around 4PM. We are working 1 - 6. It just felt all wrong for her to enter and 'observe' all of a sudden, which would have been her role. We were in the middle of our first trust game. I explained the problem to her and she understood -- also explained that she would have just been there for that afternoon and another man would arrive at 4PM tomorrow. I would rather just deal with anything that comes up myself, and access the resident school counselors if necessary, than deal with the 'traffic' inherent in this arrangement. It would have been very disruptive. In the final circle almost everyone spoke. Interesting that two of the CWY participants mentioned that they do circles after their work, too, and it usually takes up to seven months for people to start talking! They were amazed at the depth of sharing that happened on this, our first day. Next Back to Headlines Past Work