|
|
Canyon
Sam, nationally-acclaimed theater artist, writer, teacher,
and activist, has created a unique and highly effective
medium for teaching race awareness and cultural competency
using imaginative theater exercises, based on Augusto
Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed.
As an activist in the San Francisco Bay Area in the
late 1970’s Ms. Sam initiated and helped produce
community anti-racism education in the form of theater
sketches, and as a performing arts teacher some twenty
years later with the San Francisco Mime Troupe Youth
Program, learned the Theater of Oppressed form.
Beginning in 2000, at the behest of the University
of Nebraska’s Artists Diversity Residency Program she
began integrating more consciously her work with Boal’s
form to teach race awareness and conflict resolution.
This
unique synthesis of creative art, social justice work, and
spirituality offers a way to empower communities and
organizations crippled by distrust and disunity.
It provides methods for groups to heal together and
move past adversarial dynamics and hurtful histories to
tap their collective wisdom, energy and purpose.
Groups explore shared solutions in a safe, creative
environment that builds communication, cooperation, and
confidence. The
program assumes no previous performing or theater
experience and works best for groups of 12 - 40
participants.
This
interactive form can also be used for issues of sexism,
racism, classism, gay/straight/trans issues and general
conflict resolution.
It is applicable in a variety of settings:
corporations, communities, academia, religious
groups, nonprofit organizations, small businesses, etc.
We take care to customize the program to each
groups’ needs.
"This
format invited us to be part of the solution, rather than
made to feel defensive or personally indicted. It established a trust for the first time between the
teachers and [the people of color] and got us talking,
putting things on the table and asking real questions.
The program had an immediate effect on my teaching.
Everyone was awakened around issues of race in this
landmark day."
|
| Sylvia
Boorstein, Founding Teacher, Spirit Rock
Meditation
Center, Bestselling author, It’s
Easier Than You Think:
The Buddhist
Way to Happiness
|
|
|
| "Enacts
issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation
in a manner than invites students to analyze their own
locations and the ways their own attitudes towards
difference have been shaped by the culture in which they
live." |
|
Professor
Joy S. Ritchie, Department of English
University
of Nebraska, Lincoln |
|
|
| "This
playful and engaging form provided us with a
communal medium allowing a creative and evocative
investigation into our relationship to culture,
class, race, and power. It helped take us out of the 'talking about’ mode into an
embodied enactment, dialogue and communion." |
|
Eugene
Cash, Teacher of The Diamond Approach and Founder
of the Insight Meditation Community in San
Francisco
|
|
|
| "Allowed
for our community to discuss issues in a way I previously
thought would be close to impossible.
Absent was any sense of blame in this wonderful day
of partnership and learning.
I heartily recommend this training experience. THANK YOU!"
|
Evan
Kavanagh, Executive Director,
Spirit Rock Meditation
Center
|
|
|