Reflections on the Ties that Bind

While we'd done our best to keep the momentum flowing from one workshop to the next, the day of the last workshop we had only 3 people showing up. Cheena and I both wanted to cancel, but Dana from Forward Together said, let's roll with it. It ended up being intimate and awesome, and I left feeling so glad to have continued on.

Folks came back and shared what they'd created - which was super compelling and beautiful. I was again pleasantly surprised with how raw and real people were willing to get. Since there were so many fewer participants, we really had to improvise and toss out much of our plan. I felt really good about being transparent and asking where people wanted to go next, and also about our ability to adapt. We ended up doing a big group activity and improvised poems with one another's language while doing another embodiment exercise. 

Mostly, I feel like the work that we started moving towards in this workshop is life long work. We took on a huge question: how to reinvigorate arts with movement work and movement work with cultural work? Of course this question wouldn’t be answered in two workshops. Of course it is a question that’s been being asked for a long, long time and will continue to be asked. With amazing guidance and support from Forward Together we framed the whole workshop as an experiment, but also took the work seriously, it both relaxed my concerns and allowed us to see the things that were arising from the workshops in useful ways.

A few days after the workshop we went to a Forward Together staff meeting to report back on our workshops and talk about what might be useful things to think about for the Strong Families Initiative. In a moment of appreciations, one of the staff described an egg that was broken, and explained that this idea of arts and organizing meeting towards culture shift is really about putting back two pieces that broke apart and that need one another to be whole. That struck me as exactly the right metaphor for this whole process. It has been strange and difficult and filled with the emergence of the intense tension between organizing and art spaces both external and internal. But it has also been an incredible learning experience and felt, often, like little steps towards integration. 

Hope all of you are finishing the semester well.

Love,

t

Poetry Off The Page

Greetings All,

I hope all is grand. 

I am gearing up this week to start The POETRY OFF THE PAGE PROJECT with the East Oakland Boys and Girls Club and I am nervous as well as very excited! Though, I confident that this will be a very productive and enlightening experience for both the youth and myself.

Poetry off the Page: PROJECT

Performance Poetry, Spoken Word and Hip Hop Workshops

The Poetry off The Page Project seeks to empower today’s youth and young adults to tell their stories by exploring their creativity and gifts, while developing their authentic voice through the use of creative writing and performance. These workshops will be open to middle and high school age youth wishing to explore his/her own thoughts, feelings and abilities. In addition, these workshops seek to educate individuals in the area of craft, structure and history of the art of poetry, spoken word and hip hop. Over the course of 6 to 8 weeks, participants of the Poetry off the Page Project will be introduced to the following artistic areas and more; as they will be given the opportunity to expand and explore creatively and artistically:

• Creative Writing Prompts: self identity, my community, power and struggle, what is truth, non-consent in dating relationships
• Historical Glances: spoken word and its historical importance

·         Performance Prompts: enhancing ones voices (What is the difference between ACTORS and PERFORMANCE artists?)

·         Business Minded: publishing, self publishing, marketing 101 (and more)

·         Guest Poets/Writers/Spoken Word Artist and More:  Latasha Warmsley (Writer), Sam Sax (Spoken Word Artist), Shampale (Poet/Spoken Word Artist)

As a Finale Project the participants will be given the opportunity to share with the community in the following platforms:

·         Poetry Slam

·         Feature Showcase

·         Chap Book

·         CD

·         Community/Grass Roots “Guerilla” Marketing/Promotions

Mission:

The Poetry off The Page: Performance Poetry, Spoken Word and Hip Hop Workshops empower all youth and young adults to BOLD, DARING and ORIGINAL through all Fine Arts Experience.

Goals/Objectives:

Short/Long Term Educational and Performance Goals

·         Program participants will leave with improved reading and writing skills

·         Program participants will leave with improved and increase knowledge of literature, art and hip hop

·         Program participant will leave with improved skills in public speaking/communication and performance

·         Program participants will leave with a bank of increased personal creativity

·         Program participants will leave with increased self esteem and determination

·         Program participants will leave with an appreciation for the arts

Demographics:

This program will serve currently enrolled/active middle and/or high school youth (adolescent/teen boys and girls) attending the East Oakland Boys and Girls Club attending the Oakland Unified School Districts and surrounding areas.

The Ties that Bind part 1

Last Wednesday was the first session of the Ties that Bind two part workshop.

What I was most struck by was how amazing and present the participants were. We had a really rad group of people, all across the spectrum of artist/organizer. More writers than anything else, but including a graphic artists, a performer and mover, a painter. Folks came in saying how grateful they were to be invited into a space that is trying to think about the bridging between creation and movement building.

Two participants with lots of experience as artists and organizers helped us open up the space and open up the intention of the workshop by reflecting on their experiences of bridging arts and justice work. Vanessa spoke to my heart particularly as she talked about the tensions of fitting artists/poets urges into the traditional form of organizing. She talked about the economy of scarcity and how that flows into not just a lack of resources, but a culture of feeling impulses and time at odds. Folks really added a lot in a discussion of the relevance of creative processes and art in movement building, and the spaces in which political art finds (or does not find) home.

The activities were really exciting, and I was really inspired by people's engagement. We wrote from one another's language (the activity of sentence stems that we rehearsed in class) and people got really real with their responses. We also took a leap and tried an embodiment exercise which people seemed to love.

I general I felt really happy about the workshop, while also letting myself notice that we could have organized time better and that I could be have been a little bit less shy. I've been sitting with a lot of philosophical questions as we prepare for part 2, but those are question that I don't expect to be answered in this workshop series. How does movement building and art making bridge back and forth into one another is a question for the ages.

One thing I wanted to share that came up in our reflection process was the kinds of trauma/shut down so many folks have experienced in finding or losing their voice in organizing contexts. New and different outlets for reconnecting to ones own creative spirit and artistic voice is part of the work of building individual and collective resilience. That, I think, is a lesson for all forms of community teaching.

water, water, water!!!!

Monday night was an amazing night for UNdoing writers. We did our 'water logic' workshop which was a combination of free writing, exquisite corpse/erasing/ rewriting, sharing, and meditating. The writing collaboration was so incredible--I had a member of the group tell me she has been waiting for something like this all year.  I was bashful and dismissive, but went home feeling, honestly, really proud.

We had eight members, which I am finding is really the best number for the group because it allows for everyone to share their work. If we had more writers, I think the intimacy would be lost.

One of the most powerful prompts/moments we shared on Monday was: we held hands in silence with the people next to us for three minutes. Then we wrote after the experience. The group really seemed to gel after that. They seemed to have a new loyalty towards each other.

Basically I couldn't have asked for a better version of the last UNdoing Poetry workshop. The greatest testament, the thing that makes me believe in it, is the writing seems to be totally out-of mind, spontaneous eruptions of creative flow.

I'm in awe.

PS, the same member who told me she liked the workshop offered me the suggestion that I should rename it to UNbinding Writing...thoughts?

The Ties that Bind

Tonight is the night!

After months and months of meetings with Dana from ACRJ, we are finally about to embark on our workshop. Tonight at EastSide Arts Alliance nine artists and activists will gather for a two-part workshop called The Ties that Bind: Changing the Culture around our Strong Families.

I’m, of course, feeling apprehensive and excited. I keep telling myself- if I were participating, I’d be thrilled. It is just a bit different to be holding the space.

The preparation for this workshop has been really different than I imagined it would be. Because we are working in collaboration with a social justice organization with really particular organizing practices and really developed campaign visions, we’ve ended up doing lots and lots more behind the scenes work. We’ve met every week at ACRJ’s office to develop a vision for the workshop that supports the work of ACRJ. When I approached them, they were just beginning to ask the question of how culture change happens, and how cultural work can be integral to their policy and community work. Through national conference calls and many thrown out ideas, we finally found that we’d do this workshop with artists within the context of ACRJ’s Strong Families Initiative. reproductivejustice.org/strong-families.

Using the frame of families, we are asking artists to participate in improvised collaborations, and then a longer-term collaboration in order to get a better collective sense of how creative work supports movement work and how movement work can infuse creative work with strength.

The process of multiple re-envisionings of the use and framing of workshop with ACRJ has felt like a huge element in the process of community teaching. Working so closely with a community organization, with lasting community change as its mission, means that the teaching must be relevant and useful to this long-term vision and to the community it involves. It’s been, in the end, a lesson in organizing. We’ve been trained by ACRJ to do outreach in the way they do outreach. We’ve worked through the framing of issues, and pushed back on that framing as well. All the hours of preparation, have actually felt like a process of community teaching and learning, all this before we’ve even gotten to the workshop space.

So, after all that, we are embarking. I think that we have a really tight and exciting balance of conversation, activity and reflection. We have amazing, inspiring people coming, and have delegated and practiced so much that I was giving directions last night in my sleep.

More soon, about how it goes.

Love,

Tessa

ACRJ Workshop

So, after months of working on this project and meeting weekly at Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, we are finally going to teach our workshop this Wednesday, April 11. A little back story for folks, since I feel like this has evolved a lot since our class last semester-- our original frame was aiming to parallel the work of ACRJ's Strong Families Initiative, a 10-year initiative to change the way people think, feel, and act in support of all different sorts of families and works towards culture and policy shift so that all families can thrive. Our syllabus and lesson plans aimed towards participants creating one piece of writing to be archived on a public online forum, with the archiving work supporting ACRJ's cultural work in redefining Family. After a series of meetings with Dana from ACRJ, we realized that we needed something more dynamic and engaging, something with a little more leverage that would help them figure out some of the ways cultural work could help them with this movement building. After another series of meetings, we ironed out a different workshop context and model--instead of focusing on simply creating writing for their collection of family stories, we are getting cultural workers and community organizers together to collaborate. We are attempting to explore the role that collaboration and art making has in movement building and community organizing.

This new workshop feels very exciting to me. It has also been a totally amazing experience working so closely with an organization and essentially working with them to create a new program. ACRJ has been very open and flexible and encouraging with us trying out this new thing with them. We are expecting about 8-10 people, a mix of artists/writers/etc and activists/community organizers. Despite my excitement, I'm also feeling very nervous, and probably for the same reason--this is something new and something I haven't done before, cause for both excitement and hesitation. Mostly I'm nervous because while I feel confident in my abilities in the creative side of things, and though I have a strong interest in community organizing, I've had little experience with it. I'm happy to have been working so closely with Tessa who does have some of that experience, as well as ACRJ and our point person there, Dana, who is an organizer extraordinaire. I think we all make a pretty good team!

Update on the workshop to come...

xo
cheena

Oh, ps, I am attaching the save the date that we sent out so y'all can see.

A two-part collaborative art and change workshop

The Ties that Bind: Changing the Culture around Families

Save the Date!

Wednesday, April 11^th and Monday, April 30^th  

7pm – 9pm @ Eastside Arts Alliance (2277 International Boulevard, Oakland CA 94606)

As influential artists and social justice movement leaders in our community, we cordially invite you to explore the relationship between art, culture work, and organizing by participating in a two-part movement building and art making workshop called The Ties that Bind: Changing the Culture around Families. Join us for two evenings of dinner, conversation and creative collaboration with local cultural workers/artists and organizers!

Together, we will create art pieces that respond to the cultural framework and organizing goals of Strong Families, a 10-year initiative to change the way people think, feel, and act in support of families of all shapes, sizes, and experiences. The Strong Families Initiative (a project of Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice) seeks to be a part of the progressive solution that bridges culture work and movement building and provide a platform towards culture and policy change so that families of all kinds can thrive. On April 11^th, we ask participants to come prepared to pair up and collaborative create a piece of art/performance/creative practice that engages the core questions raised by this initiative.

In the following two and a half weeks, partners will continue to build and collaborate together 

Then on Monday, April 30^th, we will return together for a showcase of the pieces (or works in progress) and reflect on the process of collaborative art making in a social justice context. Additionally, we invite the work that emerges from this process to be performed publicly, whether it is on a street corner somewhere or online.

This is the start of a creative process and conversation around how art, culture, and organizing build strong and sustainable social movements. You can expect interactive activities, creative prompts, new relationships and connections, live collaborations, brainstorming and performance all mixed with movement building strategy.

Let us know whether you are able to participate on Wednesday, April 11^th, and Monday, April 30^th, or if you have any questions or comments about the workshop. We are looking forward to hearing from you and working with you to put culture and art at the center of our movements!

     

    Many thanks and much excitement,

    Poets Cheena Marie Lo, Tessa Micaela and Dana Ginn Paredes of Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice

    http://reproductivejustice.org/about-strong-families            

UNdoing first session

It was great! 

I talked about UNcrafting, how to connect back to the heat of our creativity and tone down the muscle of the inner critic. It is sure hard to be clear when speaking about such an abstract and often unheard-of concept. But, over all I think that it was a helpful introduction.

After some talking, and some snacking (we had great snacks thanks to Kiala) we began writing. We UNattempted 2 prompts:

1. First thoughts-- The point is you have to write down all first thoughts, which means you breath and think, and breath and think and resist to get on the idea-train where you follow an idea.

2. Synesthesiacs-- In this one, you pick out a prompt out of a hat, each prompt has a situation and one of the five senses. The sense and the situation are not congruent, which leads to cosmic writing. Some examples of the prompts were: Flying:Taste/ Giving Birth:Smell/ Sunrise on the Moon:Hear

The second prompt really brought out some fantastic writing. I was humbled and pleased to the upmost power.

There were seven of us including me. This surprised me since there were 13 facebook yes's and about 10 email inquiries. I later found out that some writers were lost and went to the Alumni House.  I had first told them the workshop was going to be there, and had forgotten to tell them that the venue had changed. I was informed about the mix-up by an unfriendly email. This sort of a put a damper on the night... It never feels good to make a mistake. But it's good practice to do what I preach; to stay in the present moment, and not blow a paper-cut into a knife wound by compulsive itchy thinking patterns. 

Luckily, for me, I was in the state of mind to be direct and compassionate in my email replies because the meditation at the end of the session was really powerful. I felt my blood pressure go way down. What a treat.

My hopes for next week are:

1. Everyone knows where to go, and those who were lost attempt again to show up

2. That my nerves cool and I can be an example of staying present

3.  I see surprised faces at how electric the writing is.

UNdoing Poetry coming soon...

The first UNdoing Poetry workshop session is tonight! Last night I was up thinking about the final wrap things about the workshop, like how it would be nice to have name tags, how I should make a mix for the interludes (which means I need to remember by iPod player), how some people might show up without paper and pens and I should have extra. But despite these somewhat petty add-ons that I'm worrying about, I feel like tonight is well prepared for:

I am expecting 15-30 participants, the emails have been rolling in this week
I have my notes ready
I have the beautiful Bender Room, with all of its literary history to support me

Its noon and I am trying to emotionally prepare now. I will take a long walk and try to stay present so that I can model what staying in the present looks like tonight--no matter what form the workshop takes. That's the whole point of this anyway...

A funny moment:

I am a TA for the Place for Writers at Mills where I coordinate the works in progress, student and faculty reading series. It has been an exciting year because Mills partnered with OSA (Oakland School for the Arts) to have high school students from the literary arts department open up each WIP with a reading. The reason I mention this is because I and one of my students from OSA read on the same night. This student gave a shout out to Kate and I calling us Krittany and explaining that "we kept bringing in poetry that didn't make any sense but sounded good" needless to say it was hilarious-she went on to say that what she got most out of the class was experimentation with form and then went on to read an exceptional poem she had written for our class. It was a proud moment. Her joking aside though it was a wonderfully tender moment and even though she was teasing us, as usual, she really sort of hit the experimental nail on the head!

Sorry for the delay! I am back post workshop with some things to ruminate on-

Kate and I spent most of the 6 weeks with two students that showed up for every class and were very engaged with occasional random showing of some of our other students. By the end we had three and another OSA high school student that just started showing up for the last couple of classes which was dedicated to zine making. This was a very fun and interesting collaborative process in which the students made pages, decided the order of the zine and titled it. Another interesting part of these zine sessions was the conversations that took place. The students spent a lot of time around identity, race, gender and sexuality. Kate and I mostly just listened perhaps jumping in with a question or anecdote. It was exciting to listen in on these conversations, see the students willingness to articulate the complexities of identity. It spoke to the environment of the class, the space we had created collaboratively as students and facilitaters. I found it refreshing and exciting!

Hey All,
As a reminder, Mazuri and I are working with Upward Bound youth cultivating their public speaking skills through the use of the personal narrative, music, art, and all things creative. Originally we had planned on teaching 5 classes that was to start the first week of classes at Mills (Jan 21st), and continue for the first five Friday's. However, we received one of the highest compliments we could, I think. We were asked by the students to continue the workshop for as long as we could! So now, our workshop is slated to end the second or third week of April.

A typical day in our workshop would be that we begin with snacks, and a brief check-in. From there we go into writing exercises that sometimes include talking about music, the latest videos, and what's happening in our home life. This has been an eye opening experience for me. I have learned to expand, visually, my personal definition of what a diverse group of students look like. I also understand more clearly the stresses of getting good grades means for Asian students.

For the first five or six classes, the main topic of discussion was grades, GPA, and parents perceptions of the students. Where these topics seem somewhat taboo in american culture, at least for strangers to come together and openly discuss, it seemed second nature to room full of Asian students. This was really eyeopening for me. That the students seemed to be only being able to get to know each other through establishing GPA's was fascinating.   Though grades are not one of the first conversations we open up with now, they still check in from time to time, and when someone is not doing so well they support each other with kind words.

Right now, we are planning our final class. And by "we," I mean the students. They are planning a final performance. They get to decide who they want to attend and what they wan to do. They seem to be having fun with it. They have created a lot of poems, art, and speeches to perform. Well that's it, I think.

 Love to hear your comments

LaTasha!

Hey everyone! Just checking in. Kate and I just started our Experimentalism Workshop at Oakland School of the Arts this past Friday. We were supposed to start last Monday. Kate and I showed up on Monday enthusiastic with folders, notebooks and a power point in hand but unfortunately there was a scheduling mix up. We sat in the little circle of desks with EXPERIMENTALISM IN ART projected on the wall. Finally, one of our students passed by and recognized us. We had met her before on our visit to OSA. She realized the mix up. We are learning quickly that flexibility is key. It was a blessing in disguise. We chatted with our new found student and joked around and I think it dissolved any anxiety we had going into it.

The workshop is a very casual setting and has been fun and easy to relate to the students (of course, we've only had one class). This was enough time to be wildly impressed with these students willingness to "go there" if you will. We did our found object exercise that we demoed-the free write where we passed the objects around- anyway, the work these students produced was deep and provocative. It was very cool. They gave us positive responses during check in about the workshop and seem as excited as we are about it.  We have our next class on Monday and are doing a section on Visual Art and Translation.

Well that sums up the experience thus far but here are some things I'm thinking about:

* adjusting to the role of facilitator in a school setting with students younger than I am. Kate and I are certainly not acting as authority figures. I plan to look closely at how I operate in the classroom and consider what it means to found one's workshop facilitation around collaboration.

* also I am thinking about the abstract concepts we are presenting to these students. Although we include discussion and lecture in our workshop the nuances of experimentation I think can only be truly investigated and discovered through its practice. I am interested and eager to see how these ideas and concepts manifest in the students work.

Hope everyone is well.

Welcome to the Spring 2012 Community Teaching Blog

This year, our teachers have planned an amazing line up of workshops for the Oakland community. Working with a variety of people throughout the Bay Area, we've managed to build relationships with schools and organizations that we are excited about working with.

Stop back by to see what our teachers are talking about, sharing, and learning.

Kiala Givehand
CTP Coordinator