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THE SQUEEGEE
FINAL REPORT
How would it work? We would attach a lawyer to the project. His/her role would be to attend all the performances and function as a scribe, notating all the interventions from the audience that had to do with youth safety -- particularly those that could be interpreted as a Legislative impulse -- a desire for law or by-laws that really created safety in the street. These notes would be gathered over all the performances, collated, and then translated into a report that spoke in a language that could be readily understood by Legislators. The report would be presented to City Council. It would be a way for the public to communicate their concerns and desires regarding these issues to Government through a creative process. The theatre. Legislative Theatre. I started talking with various staff-people at the City, in both Culture and Community Services. The feedback was cautious but positive. I spoke with a City Councilor who thought it was a tremendous idea and who offered to help. I brought the concept up at a community meeting that we held with stakeholders in street-youth issues. Two of the people present at that meeting were Adrienne Montani (Child and Youth Advocate for the City of Vancouver) and Rina Zweig, (lawyer and youth activist). Response here was very enthusiastic. With this support, I decided to approach the Mayor's office. I sent him a letter asking that the City endorse the project in a simple way: by agreeing to designate a person to deal with the media, whose role it would be to say "Yes, we know this is coming and we are very interested to see what it will be," and to agree to look at the report officially when it came. No commitments beyond that necessary. Silence. I spoke with the City Manager, who is very familiar with Headlines' work, and who offered to try to help. I sent her paper. Silence. I spoke with the Chief of Police who asked for and got paper. Silence. I called Adrienne. We agreed that although my first impulse had been to not do the experiment without the overt support of the Mayor and City Council, this, in fact, was not necessary. The supportive Councilor and some Staff were already telling me to "just do it" anyway. Anyone can make suggestions to the City. Adrienne was the Child and Youth Advocate. Certainly, we agreed, it was in her job mandate to involve herself in something like this. She could be the conduit for the report. We decided to forge ahead. I spoke with and hired Rina Zweig to be the Lawyer who would create the report. One week before the workshop started Michael, Sam Bob (counselor), Bree Wellwood (Technical Director) and I did interviews with the 15 youth who wanted to be in the project. If someone wanted to do the workshop they could. The reason for the interviews was to decide on who the cast would be, and also who would move into the technical side, helping Bree with design. I didn't want the THEATRE FOR LIVING workshop to be an audition. Having the participants in the workshop thinking that if only they could "perform" really well they would get into the play would be a bad dynamic. If people wanted to be in the play (not all did) I did some improvising with them. My decisions, though, were not based solely on the improvisation. My task was to put together a "family". Five people who I thought could really do this together, bring various perspectives to the play, who looked different from each other, and also who sparked an interest in me. Its a gut decision, in the end. The cast was: Shelly (21), Jake (19), Tom (17), Linda (16), Maggie (16). All of them needed to sign various contracts and release forms both to be in the play and on TV. Not all of them could legally do this for themselves or had accessible parents or guardians to go to. We worked our way through this, contacting guardians across Canada and in Vancouver, and also dealing with Government agencies. April 26, 1999 Introductions point and turn balancing hypnosis stand/walk blind lead the blind blind cars/busses complete the image fox in the hole sculpting partners groups of 4 image of the images circle We have begun! Fourteen out of the fifteen participants showed up. Pretty good. We started with all the personnel in the room -- all the participants, Headlines' staff, the photographer, Sam Bob, Mike Keeping from Rogers Community TV and Adrienne Montani. I wanted everyone there so that non-participants could come and go without disrupting the group. It took about an hour to lay out the history both of the work we were embarking on and the possibilities of this particular project. The games went very well in the morning -- high engagement and energy. By the time we got to lunch we had started playing with the idea of images through the Complete the Image game. As soon as the group started making shapes the violence started. The very first shapes were violent. By the end of the game they had created a complex image of "criminalization" and were, I think, genuinely moved by the simplicity and depth of what had come from them. Some of the images from Groups of 4 were very, very powerful. In one of them, the Police were making a bust and had a Youth on his stomach, the Policeman's knee in the youth's back. I asked if any of the participants had ever been any of these characters. Almost the whole room lined up, their bellies on the floor, in the same position as the youth being busted. When I asked later how many of the participants had experienced what they believed to be random, unprovoked violence from the Police, every single one of them raised their hand. Later in the exercise a young woman made an image.......two men in cars on either side of her. One is leering at her, the other is talking on a radio. She is looking at the leering man and has pulled her sweater off her shoulder. She is a child, hooking. This image opened up a long discussion about options on the street and how the message from authorities seems to be that they would rather that youth were invisible -- doing whatever is necessary to survive behind closed doors -- as long as it doesn't tarnish the City's tourism image. I have been doing a lot of thinking about this very thing, and that Vancouver has become known as a global child sex destination -- the "sexual exploitation of youth" conferences are happening in BC for a reason -- so interesting that it came from the youth on the first day of the workshop. At the end of the day many of the participants seemed exhausted. In the circle, though, many expressed how wonderful the day had been, how supportive and creative the group was and how the process "kicks ass". Knowing they don't have money we issued all of them $50 cheques to help see them through the week, along with bus fare for the week. We are also providing food every day and they will all get $250 honorariums for the workshop. |