Changing Lives @ the Voices Erupt Event

Our tour has officially begun! We had our kickoff performance at the Voices Erupt Teen Dating Violence Prevention Month Kickoff this week. We performed alongside some fantastic artists and had a great time.

If you'd like to see a clip of our performance, check out the video below.

See www.startstrongaustin.org for more!

Check Out Our Upcoming Performances!!

It's finally that time . . .

We're kicking off the Spring Tour of our new play, "Perhaps Tomorrow. . ." next week.

We'll be appearing at the George Washington Carver Center in East Austin this Monday, February 1st as part of SafePlace's Start Strong event. "Riot the Silence to End the Violence" is a community kickoff for Teen Dating Violence Prevention Month. If you live in the Austin Area, please stop by and check out all the amazing youth groups who use the arts as a force to inform their peers about healthy relationships.

We'll be performing along with other local artists like The Cipher - Austin's Hip-Hop Project, P.U.B.L.I.C. O.F.F.E.N.D.E.R.S., DJ Chicken George, Gidon, and Georgia Napolitano.

Where: Boyd Vance Theatre, George Washington Carver Center

1165 Angelina St., Austin, TX 78702

When: Feb. 1st, 2010 6-8pm

Price: FREE!!

If you'd like to catch the Changing Lives Youth Theatre Ensemble at one of our local tour stops, check out our schedule and pay us a visit. For a list of all the stops on our tour, see our tour flyer below. We'll also be posting reminders about all of our performances, so make sure you click "follow" on the right side of the page to receive the updates!!

Thanks for your interest & support.

It's Production Time!!

Our ensemble has been hard at work during the first month of 2010!

Here's a little of what we've been up to.

After our staged reading, we had an extensive talkback with the audience. This process is very helpful for us as artists. We tend to spend so much time with our script that it can be easy to lose perspective and forget that audiences will only see this story once. Keeping an open dialogue with our audience was helpful for our last minute revisions on our draft!

revising, revising, revising

We have been working so hard! Our ensemble is fully committed to the work, taking a Saturday and MLK day to rehearse. These rehearsals consisted of acting intensives where we experienced our characters through the lens of the Rasa Boxes activity. This activity has ancient roots in Indian dance training.

Rasa (a Sanskrit word) literally translates to "flavor."

Our goal with this exercise is to reflect upon the emotions and individual connections we each have to them. In performance, a genuine connection to our real feelings and attitudes will result in more specific and truthful acting.

We begin by writing and drawing. This activity is fun because we're all different and have a unique perspective to offer.

What images come to mind when you think of anger?

Does a line in one of your favorite songs sum up your idea of what love is?

What color comes to mind when you think of fear?

The next step in this process is to discover what our bodies have to say. We experiment with frozen images, or statues to fully embody the range of emotions. This is a great way to "feel" where each emotion lives in your body.

Where does your body hold tension when you're angry? Where is it released when you feel a surge of joy? How can your body reveal your attitudes about other characters and point of view about what's happening in the play?

These kinds of activities can help us develop blocking. Blocking is a term that describes the movement and positioning of actors on a stage. It clarifies characters, relationship and helps us get the play up on its feet.

Here we are in a recent rehearsal -- running through the piece!

Reading at the Griffin School

Congrats to the ensemble!!

Our reading at the Griffin School was a smash hit!  Families, friends and community members joined us on December 10th for a sneak peek of our work in progress.

Vanessa reads the role of Lola - our play's blogstress extraordinaire and narrator

Students focus intensely as Remandra reads

After the script was read aloud, we received some very helpful feedback from our audience in a talkback.  In the theatre world, talkbacks are a form of structured dialogue between artist and audience.  People on both sides of the performance then discuss issues in the play, explore ways to clarify our writing and get to learn a bit about the creative path that leads us there. 

These kinds of conversations can give the artists great insights about the audience's experience of the piece and guide us through the next steps.  More on our revision process to come !!

Reading at the Griffin School

We are pleased to announce a reading of our play (a work in progress) on Thursday, December 10th !  

Our currently untitled piece is a work devised by teens for teens about issues like bullying, cyber-safety, rumors and homophobia.  

If you are a high school student interested in becoming a part of Changing Lives, an adult curious about the work we're doing, or are a theatre aficionado in the Austin area, please feel free to drop by the Griffin School tomorrow evening to hear how it's going.  

The Griffin School is located at 41st and Red River, across from the Hancock shopping center.

The Reading will begin at 7pm with snacks and a short talkback to follow.  Come on down and meet our ensemble of awesome artist activists!!

Art Imitates Life

If you've been tuning into our blog, you know that we've been working as an ensemble for several months to create a play about issues that affect teens.  When it comes to interpersonal relationships, we've discovered that teens go to each other for guidance more often than they do adults.

This is one reason we take our mission of peer education so seriously.  Our ensemble members are not just performers.  Through the course of their artistic work, they do research about issues like bullying, sexual harassment and gender expectations.  Their lived experience becomes a rich context for their artistic work.  Who knows best about the realities of what it's like to be a teen?  Teens in the ensemble are our network of experts on this topic.

Last week we undertook revisions on our play in progress.  One storyline in our piece centers around the common practice of "sexting" among teens.  Sexting is defined as "the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photos electronically, primarily between cell phones."   

During the course of our research into sexting, we were trying to discover ways our character, Alyssa might respond after photos she sent to a boyfriend got posted online.  This led us to discover the sad but true story of Hope Witsell, a 15 year old Florida teen who committed suicide after semi-nude photos she sent to a boy she liked were circulated.

The number of parallels we saw between Hope's real story and the character of Alyssa in our play were jarring.  The pressure she faces to succeed, the pressures to be in a relationship, the brutal bullying that occurred after her photos went public and the hesitation to discuss the situation with parents are all themes these two stories have in common.  

As an ensemble, we were deeply saddened to hear of Hope's passing.  We send condolences to her family and friends.  We hope our work will inform young people about the consequences of these kinds of behaviors before it is too late.  

If you are a teen, here are some tips to consider before you hit SEND:

• Don't assume anything you post or send is going to remain private
• There is no changing your mind in cyberspace - anything you send or post will never truly go away
• Don't give in to the pressure to do something that makes you uncomfortable, even in cyberspace
• Consider the recipient's reaction: just because a message is meant to be fun doesn't mean the person who sent it will see it that way
• Nothing is truly anonymous

If you are the parent of a teen, communicate with them about their use of technology:

• Talk to your kids about what they are doing in cyberspace
• Know who your kids are communicating with
• Consider limitations on electronic communication
• Be aware of what your teens are posting publicly
• Set expectations

(The above info is from a sex tech survey created by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and Cosmogirl.com)

If you would like to read more about Hope Witsell or respond with a message for her friends and family, please see this article:  www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article1054895.ece 

Ensemble Marches Against Violence!

Here we are, proudly marching in the Youth On It event.  This local event includes a march, resource fair and performances by other Austin youth groups.We like to get involved in community events like this to meet other groups of young people who use their creativity and energy to work against violence.  

After the march, we did a short performance of some of our poetry.  We performed alongside other groups like the Cipher and the Public Offenders, who use hip hop and spoken word poetry to speak out against violence.

                          

 

from left to right: Nygia, Courtney, Darryl, Cassandra & Remandra