The Chalk Project

Here at Rights Readers, home of Animals for the Ethical Treatment of People, we are always excited about good street theater. I'm sure a few of our Loyal Readers remember the Pasadena Posada tradition of chalking the names of loved ones who had died of AIDS on the steps of Pasadena City Hall.  Here's a similar commemoration of the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City which happened 100 years ago today. What a creative way to remind everyone about the real people behind this tragedy! More info here.  See my earlier post about the fire here.

Our November Author: Hector Aristizabal and The Blessing Next to the Wound

Our November author, Hector Aristizabal is a dear friend and collaborator. In case you're just getting to know him through his book The Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism, and Transformation here are a few links. First, he will be speaking at our favorite bookstore, Vroman's on November 12.  If you can't make that this KZSU Stanford University Radio interview will give you an idea of what's in the book.

Next, be sure to checkout the website for ImaginAction, where you can learn about Hector's work to bring about healing and social justice through theater and the arts (you can also keep track of Hector's theater projects on Facebook). To learn more about "Theater of the Oppressed" listen to Rights Readers friend and host of Uprising, Sonali Kolhatkar interview Hector about Augusto Boal, founder of the movement. Then grab the first chance to be a part of one of his workshops!

A brief video introduction to our author:



A couple of video glimpses of Hector in theater mode can be found here and here. You might also check out this old Pasadena Weekly profile: Playing through the pain. For more on Hector and School of the Americas watch check here.

Hector's collaborator, Diane Lefer has written several articles revolving around Hector's recent visit to Colombia, The return to Medellin of Hector Aristizabal,  Social Justice Theatre for Colombia, Torture: Peace Crimes. Hector explores some new territory:

Men are changing behavior, too, said Aristizábal, noting the movement called La Nueva Masculinidad and even a group called El Machismo Mata, in which men try to end the ways in which violent behavior has become connected to the male identity.

"They did a scene in which one guy is knocked over during a soccer game. One member of his team just says, 'Get up, jerk,' and when another player asks instead if he's OK and tries to give him a hand, the others shout homophobic insults at him for being soft and showing concern. So what do you do in that moment? How do you respond to the situation?"

It's Hector month at Rights Readers and Vroman's is the place to be. Join our Loyal Readers there to support Hector and his work!

Elephants and Landmines

Warning! Adorable baby critter ahead! Last fall some of our Esteemed Readers were fascinated by this New York Times report about the deterioration of elephant society and the parallels and intersections with human rights concerns. So now I bring a more upbeat elephant story about a hospital in Thailand that fits pachyderms for prostheses after the animals are injured by landmines. CNN has video.

And here's a fun bit of street theater: place frisbees that resemble landmines where those picking them up will find an anti-landmine message on the reverse. Considering the number of times I've walked across a college campus and been nearly beaned by a wayward frisbee from a game of frisbee golf, I'd say it would be a great student outreach project. Where can we get some?

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You!

Whoa! Persepolis the movie?

Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project

Sister Helen Prejean, author of Rights Readers selection Dead Man Walking, and Tim Robbins, director of the movie by the same name have created the Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project in an effort to promote order public discourse on the death penalty, are offering the stage version of Dead Man Walking for performance at colleges and universities. The project's website offers photos of student performances of the play, accounts of student research for their parts, including prison visits. There are many useful resources on the site, including a lists of films about the death penalty. Converting theater into action are accounts of student projects that go beyond the play: students at Elms College in Chicopee, MA marked the 1000th execution in the US since the death penalty was restored in 1974 by building a display of 1000 small wooden crosses. Hmmm, your Faithful Reader put together a similar display a few years ago. An ambitious project! We salute past and future college thespians and look forward to more accounts of student theater on the stage or in the street!

Tags: Helen Prejean, death penalty, teaching resources, drama, theater

Pasadena Event: Nightwind

Group 22 Members are looking forward to a the up-coming performance of Nightwind, our friend Hector Artistizabal's one-man play,

--a harrowing solo performance, Hector Aristizábal reenacts his arrest and torture by the US-supported military in Colombia and explores possible outcomes. Violent rage? Or a channeling of the impulse and energy into the peace movement? He is accompanied onstage by Enzo Fina, providing a live soundscore.

More about Hector's work in this previous post and at his website. Look for us at the event with Denounce Torture! and Colombia actions.

Saturday, July 8, 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Forum at All Saints Church

Evening opens with an interfaith prayer service and light supper at 5:00 pm. Following the performance of Nightwind, Hector Aristizabal will lead the audience in a creative workshop session. For reservations and for more information, please call Ruby Gallegos at 626.583.2734.

Technorati Tags: torture, Colombia, drama, Group22Events

“Art is a Wonderful Way to Open the Heart”

Friend (and drama coach!) of Amnesty International Group 22, torture-survivor Hector Aristizabal has scored himself a cover story in the Pasadena Weekly for his one-man play Nightwind.

“Art is a wonderful way to open the heart,” he said. “When the heart is open we are able to have the difficult conversations on issues that most people prefer to deny or not to look at.”

...

“Many times I have felt like a terrorist, like I could be vengeful, and I can find all the rationalizations in the world to justify becoming a killer. But that would make me one more person who has become so dehumanized as to have to dehumanize others, which I feel we, as a society, are becoming now under the cloud of fear and fundamentalism that allows us to go across the ocean to kill civilians in other countries,” he said.

Fat Tuesday Reflections

Not exactly Mardi Gras, but in honor of Fat Tuesday, here is a photo taken in 1997 at Amnesty's Annual General Meeting in New Orleans. The demonstration/jazz funeral was focused on the theme, "Refugees have Rights." I thought a lot about the musicians in this photo during Katrina and that's why my brothers and I exchanged benefit albums, Higher Ground and Our New Orleans, this past Christmas. Proceeds go to Habitat for Humanity's Musician's Village and now I've got some great tunes to get into the Mardi Gras spirit. Meanwhile, the NYT has an article on the new edginess in New Orleans music and I really enjoyed Andrei Codrescu's recent opinon piece in the LAT (also at Common Dreams), "Another Mardi Gras, after the Deluge," about the subversive, political nature of Mardi Gras:

In Mardi Gras' 400-year history, the societies that ruled the krewes and parades were the same power brokers that ruled New Orleans. The festival itself, imported from medieval Europe, was a mechanism for letting out the true feelings, the frustrations of the populace. On Mardi Gras day, mobs rule the streets, and the rulers are obliged to shower the unleashed masses with gifts...

He goes on to describe the current politicization:

This year, the same krewe put our profound anxiety and distress on display: Hundreds dressed as taped-up refrigerators marched in frigid weather; two enormous nude figures named Katrina and Rita, one black, one white, had explicit sex atop a float; a sea of FEMA blue tarps flapped in the wind from balconies, on floats, as capes on marchers. A sign proclaimed "Take us back, Chirac!" The blue tarp is the new flag of New Orleans, and the desire to return Louisiana to France is heard often, only half-facetiously.

We here at Rights Readers are into the subversive parade thing (see the Flickr Photo sidebar!). I can recall a Louisiana activist at a different Annual General Meeting admiring my display of photos and masks from our Doo-Dah Parade entry (Animals for the Ethical Treatment of People), asking permission to borrow it for Mardi Gras. Permission granted of course! Though I don't know if he ever followed through. Now I look to this year's New Orleans Mardi Gras parades for lessons in the possibilities of street theater as a force for change. For more street level views on how New Orleans is faring these post-Katrina blogs well worth exploring: Library Chronicles (Rights Readers love funky librarians!), Operation Eden (Amazing photo chronicle!), Voices of New Orleans (News, reviews and more!).