"It's Time": The Creative Thinking Project
Nearly 5 people in Los Angeles die every single day from homelessness issues. That is nearly 1,800 people every year.
I have been working with The Los Angeles Poverty Department theatre company for nearly a year and was enlisted in this 5 day applied theatre workshop and performance with Dr. Peter O'Connor From the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
He is the Author of "Applied Theatre: Research, Radical Departures."
This devised theatre/applied theatre production utilized performers that have been affected by homelessness, trauma, and security issues on Skid Row and the surrounding communities. This type of theatre was designed to tell stories that happened on Skid Row and to bring about awareness and curb issues of homelessness.
Although nearly all were non-professional performers, all performers were paid (except for me. I was there as a participant leader and for academic facilitation and research).
I performed with the group and assisted in creating these performance installations.
There were three days of initial rehearsals, consisting of a few hours each day. The production was considered successful with a packed audience for two performances at MOCA.
Journal Entries for the Creative Thinking Workshop: “It’s Time” at MOCA in DTLA.
Journal Entry #1
11/05/2019
Day 2
Creative Thinking Project.
I missed day 1 due to being kept in the E.R. for an entire day.
I have been excused from voice class today in order to participate in a five-day workshop on applied theatre with Dr. Peter O’Connor at the Geffen Museum of Contemporary Arts (MOCA) in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles (Adjacent to Skid Row). The workshop includes performers (non-professional) from the Skid Row Housing Trust, The Los Angeles Poverty Department, The Urban Voices Project and “My Friends Place.” All are community outreach programs in the Skid Row Arts District in downtown LA. Today we focused on creating new movements with improvisational exercises. We also did improvisational singing exercises where we would connect words and random phrases within a created community circle. Each person would add a word or a phrase to the previous person. While doing this, we created rhythm with clapping, tambourines, drums, and maracas. Through this, we develop our theme song called, “It’s Time to Go.” ‘It’s Time” became the title of the Program.
Journal Entry #2
11/06/2020
Day 3
We expanded on the theme song to “Hurry Up it’s Time to Go.” For the last two days we had a media content creator taking video footage of the process and accomplishing interviews with the performers. The goal of doing this, seemingly is to create a documentary reel of what it is like to be homeless, issues of homelessness, and how performance and art have affected them in a positive way. The theme song is supposed to cue the audience to get up after the documentary reel is played and join the performers as participants by circling and watching seven rectangular performance installations marked by blue tape on the concrete MOCA floor.
Journal Entry #3
Day 4 of the Creative Thinking Workshop.
Our daily warmups for the last few days consisted of:
• Improvisational movement exercises.
• The use of improvisation rhythm and percussive instruments.
• “Yes AND” exercises of embodying connection and disconnection.
• Talking and discussing themes of everyday people, fighting corrupt power, and attempting to get people to put themselves in in other people’s places (i.e. homelessness, poverty, hunger, etc.)
We met early in the day. We rehearsed for a few hours. At 7pm we had our first performance at MOCA. We continued to expand and rehearse our movements and miniature stories within our rectangular installations. We incorporated and expanded our dialogues from the day prior. Dr. O’Connor and Mr. Christie (Music Director) went around the room and gave some direction to each performance installation scene. At this point we all had expanded each of our scenes to be about a minute to a minute and a half. Each scene installation was instructed to repeat about about 10-15 times in order to give each member of the audience to walk around each installation and see all the performances in full. During breaks, we all decorated a large tapestry with a variety of art supplies to the tune of Skid Row issues, themes of homelessness, poverty, and hope for change. We used this tapestry in the ending performance installation (installation #7, in the middle of all the others).
Journal Entry #4
11/7/2019
Day 5 of the Creative Thinking Workshop
For today’s workshop warmups, we stood in a circle and bounced an imaginary ball, while singing two-three lines (improvised). The person that caught the ball had to repeat the lines/actions/song of the previous person and then add to it (“Yes AND”). This exercise went around the entire circle until everyone participated. We also did an acting exercise called, “Go, Stop, Clap, Jump” with partners and the entire group. Other exercises included dancing and mirroring. We put on music, thought of a story in our minds, picked a point in the room and enacted what we imagined, to the music, to a specific point that we had picked out in the room.
We discussed and enacted through movement, music, and dialogue. We used different tempos, levels, curves, angles, spatial velocity, and repetition. This is what we called “movement vocabulary.” We also did this while singing our new song that we created, “Hurry Up It’s Time to Go.” We utilized themes of going toward something, away from something, escaping from something, retreating, above, down, at attention, in a rush, and slow to action. The live performance program consisted of:
1. Audience sits down.
2. Black and white video documentary of the history of the performers and the creative thinking/performance process of the project.
3. Performers interrupted the end of the documentary with the theme song, “Hurry Up, It’s Time to Go,” canon style (rounds) group vocals, drumming, and flash mob.
4. Led the audience to the seven rectangular performance installations. Audience followed.
5. Installation stories began simultaneously and ended with the seventh, where all the performers consolidated in the middle for last scene. Scene ended, performers continue with theme song and created thematic tapestry and led audience back to their seats for presentation on the making of the documentary of the program and a Q & A /talkback audience.
We performed in front of a live, full house audience again at 3pm. Affiliates from The Skid Row Housing Trust, the Los Angeles Poverty Department, the Urban Voices Project, My Friends Place, representatives from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and others from across Los Angeles, including theatre of the oppressed and applied theatre expert, Professor Doug Kaback (California State University, Northridge) attended the performance. It was our second performance.
Photos Credit: Bobby Buck.
You can find out more at:
www.lahsa.org
www.lapovertydept.org
I have been working with The Los Angeles Poverty Department theatre company for nearly a year and was enlisted in this 5 day applied theatre workshop and performance with Dr. Peter O'Connor From the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
He is the Author of "Applied Theatre: Research, Radical Departures."
This devised theatre/applied theatre production utilized performers that have been affected by homelessness, trauma, and security issues on Skid Row and the surrounding communities. This type of theatre was designed to tell stories that happened on Skid Row and to bring about awareness and curb issues of homelessness.
Although nearly all were non-professional performers, all performers were paid (except for me. I was there as a participant leader and for academic facilitation and research).
I performed with the group and assisted in creating these performance installations.
There were three days of initial rehearsals, consisting of a few hours each day. The production was considered successful with a packed audience for two performances at MOCA.
Journal Entries for the Creative Thinking Workshop: “It’s Time” at MOCA in DTLA.
Journal Entry #1
11/05/2019
Day 2
Creative Thinking Project.
I missed day 1 due to being kept in the E.R. for an entire day.
I have been excused from voice class today in order to participate in a five-day workshop on applied theatre with Dr. Peter O’Connor at the Geffen Museum of Contemporary Arts (MOCA) in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles (Adjacent to Skid Row). The workshop includes performers (non-professional) from the Skid Row Housing Trust, The Los Angeles Poverty Department, The Urban Voices Project and “My Friends Place.” All are community outreach programs in the Skid Row Arts District in downtown LA. Today we focused on creating new movements with improvisational exercises. We also did improvisational singing exercises where we would connect words and random phrases within a created community circle. Each person would add a word or a phrase to the previous person. While doing this, we created rhythm with clapping, tambourines, drums, and maracas. Through this, we develop our theme song called, “It’s Time to Go.” ‘It’s Time” became the title of the Program.
Journal Entry #2
11/06/2020
Day 3
We expanded on the theme song to “Hurry Up it’s Time to Go.” For the last two days we had a media content creator taking video footage of the process and accomplishing interviews with the performers. The goal of doing this, seemingly is to create a documentary reel of what it is like to be homeless, issues of homelessness, and how performance and art have affected them in a positive way. The theme song is supposed to cue the audience to get up after the documentary reel is played and join the performers as participants by circling and watching seven rectangular performance installations marked by blue tape on the concrete MOCA floor.
Journal Entry #3
Day 4 of the Creative Thinking Workshop.
Our daily warmups for the last few days consisted of:
• Improvisational movement exercises.
• The use of improvisation rhythm and percussive instruments.
• “Yes AND” exercises of embodying connection and disconnection.
• Talking and discussing themes of everyday people, fighting corrupt power, and attempting to get people to put themselves in in other people’s places (i.e. homelessness, poverty, hunger, etc.)
We met early in the day. We rehearsed for a few hours. At 7pm we had our first performance at MOCA. We continued to expand and rehearse our movements and miniature stories within our rectangular installations. We incorporated and expanded our dialogues from the day prior. Dr. O’Connor and Mr. Christie (Music Director) went around the room and gave some direction to each performance installation scene. At this point we all had expanded each of our scenes to be about a minute to a minute and a half. Each scene installation was instructed to repeat about about 10-15 times in order to give each member of the audience to walk around each installation and see all the performances in full. During breaks, we all decorated a large tapestry with a variety of art supplies to the tune of Skid Row issues, themes of homelessness, poverty, and hope for change. We used this tapestry in the ending performance installation (installation #7, in the middle of all the others).
Journal Entry #4
11/7/2019
Day 5 of the Creative Thinking Workshop
For today’s workshop warmups, we stood in a circle and bounced an imaginary ball, while singing two-three lines (improvised). The person that caught the ball had to repeat the lines/actions/song of the previous person and then add to it (“Yes AND”). This exercise went around the entire circle until everyone participated. We also did an acting exercise called, “Go, Stop, Clap, Jump” with partners and the entire group. Other exercises included dancing and mirroring. We put on music, thought of a story in our minds, picked a point in the room and enacted what we imagined, to the music, to a specific point that we had picked out in the room.
We discussed and enacted through movement, music, and dialogue. We used different tempos, levels, curves, angles, spatial velocity, and repetition. This is what we called “movement vocabulary.” We also did this while singing our new song that we created, “Hurry Up It’s Time to Go.” We utilized themes of going toward something, away from something, escaping from something, retreating, above, down, at attention, in a rush, and slow to action. The live performance program consisted of:
1. Audience sits down.
2. Black and white video documentary of the history of the performers and the creative thinking/performance process of the project.
3. Performers interrupted the end of the documentary with the theme song, “Hurry Up, It’s Time to Go,” canon style (rounds) group vocals, drumming, and flash mob.
4. Led the audience to the seven rectangular performance installations. Audience followed.
5. Installation stories began simultaneously and ended with the seventh, where all the performers consolidated in the middle for last scene. Scene ended, performers continue with theme song and created thematic tapestry and led audience back to their seats for presentation on the making of the documentary of the program and a Q & A /talkback audience.
We performed in front of a live, full house audience again at 3pm. Affiliates from The Skid Row Housing Trust, the Los Angeles Poverty Department, the Urban Voices Project, My Friends Place, representatives from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and others from across Los Angeles, including theatre of the oppressed and applied theatre expert, Professor Doug Kaback (California State University, Northridge) attended the performance. It was our second performance.
Photos Credit: Bobby Buck.
You can find out more at:
www.lahsa.org
www.lapovertydept.org
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