"PHR has been working for years to stop torture by US forces. Especially important to us is ending the use of the healing professions to design, supervise, and implement a regime of abuse intended to break the bodies and minds of detainees.

Now, New York State has an amazing opportunity to establish accountability for health professionals who engage in torture or ill treatment of detainees - and we need your support to make it happen."

Sign the petition TODAY urging New York lawmakers to stop torture. http://actnow-phr.org/ct/npXN_ln1Vmfm/Stop-Torture

For the full post and more information: CLICK HERE

An Invitation to Puppetistas and Street Theater People to join ImaginAction in “Creating the Images of the World We Want.”

We hope to see you at the following events:

ImaginAction invites you to join us at the USSF (US Social Forum) – June 22-26 in Detroit, Michigan. Click on the link below to see how ImaginAction will be participating in this event.

(http://organize.ussf2010.org/workshops)

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ImaginAction is also planning to take as many puppets and street performers to the streets of The G8/20 Leaders Summit that will be held in Huntsville, Ontario, from June 25-27, 2010.

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Join ImaginAction at Fort Benning, GA this November. As with past years, ImaginAction will be participating with puppetistas from all over the country at the SOAW vigil at Fort Benning. The November Vigil to Close the School of the Americas at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia will be held from November 18-21, 2010. The annual vigil is always held close to the anniversary of the 1989 murders of Celina Ramos, her mother Elba and six Jesuit priests at a the University of Central America in El Salvador. November 2010 will mark the 20th anniversary of the vigil that brings together religious communities, students, teachers, veterans, community organizers, musicians, puppetistas and many others.

More information: http://www.SOAW.org

Hector will return to India in December 2010 and participate in Jana Sanskriti’s Theater of the Oppressed Festival. More cities in India and events to be announced – stay tuned!

MUKTADHARA IV

The Forum Theatre Festival

By

Jana Sanskriti – Centre for Theatre of the Oppressed

BACKGROUND

The idea of Theatre of the Oppressed was born in South America in the early seventies from the work and practice of Brazilian theatre theoretician and director Augusto Boal. Jana Sanskriti was the first group to bring Theatre of the Oppressed and Forum Theatre to India.

In Forum Theatre members of the theatre team select, construct, and narrate a social problem from their daily life. With artistic direction this play is taken to an audience who must now find a solution to the problem. Passive spectators then become engaged spect-actors. Spect-actors come on stage to enact the solutions they have thought of, debating with trained activists about the feasibility of the solutions suggested.

Since 1991, Jana Sanskriti has removed itself far from conventional theatre and spread the practice of Forum Theatre to remote villages of the Sunderban in Bengal. With 20 theatre teams active in rural Bengal, Jana Sanskriti is today perhaps the state’s largest theatre group. Jana Sanskriti has also taken this theatre pedagogy beyond the boundaries of the state to different parts of the country – to Tripura, Orissa, Jharkhand, Delhi, Utranchal, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

Jana Sanskriti believes that every individual is essentially intellectual. Not only great men thinks but also all men think, philosophy exists in the thought of so called illiterate human beings. But they are not aware of it all the time. The political culture never takes care of this intellectual faculty of the people. They are made blind followers. Jana Sanskriti on the other hand wants to develop rationality within the people.  Through out in last two decades this is where Jana Sanskriti has focused her artistic activities. They have always tried to make the qualities of human being visible which is normally invisible to the people.  Creating rational people is the main focus of Jana Sanskriti’s work. This is how they want to bring change in the society.

Jana Sanskriti believes the biggest form of violation of human rights is not to create democratic space for the people to think. They should not be seen as the implementers only they can contribute in the making of the policies. That is the reason Jana Sanskriti left propaganda theatre and started Theatre of the Oppressed devised by Augusto Boal. They are the first exponent of Boal here in India and the largest and long-lasting Theatre of the Oppressed movement in the world according to Augusto Boal.

Today Jana Sanskriti has created the Federation of Theatre of the Oppressed, India where a number of large activist movements are present. They have handed over theatrical means (means of making theatre) to the poorest of the poor, to the tribal communities, lower caste, to the rural people.

Jana Sanskriti is a work of art and the name of a space where total transformation is constructed. It is an organization founded in 1985 which practices Theatre of the Oppressed among the most disadvantaged sections of Indian society. From its inception in one remote village, Jana Sanskriti now has constructed theatre teams consisting of men and women agricultural labourers. These actors come together transcending divisive social and political affiliations to plan constructive action and provide dynamic leadership for social justice and community development. Their plays onstage and their political activism offstage feeds one another to mobilize around issues as wide-ranging as domestic violence to political violence, from reconstruction of public institutions to resistance against aggressive forms of development. Rather than use theatre to deliver development messages and services, Jana Sanskriti has used theatre to establish dialogue in society. They believe that dialogue allows for informed critical thinking and prevents a human being from following blindly – whether in pursuit of material things, an ideology, or a person. This form of dialogue is an aesthetic experience of life, an internal transformation which inspires action for external transformation. This is what we mean by total transformation.

WHY A FORUM THEATRE FESTIVAL

In our work on Forum Theatre we have dealt with a range of issues which are relevant to different groups in different regions – Displacement, malpractices in the public distribution system, communalism, exploitation by contractors, undemocratic culture of political parties, and corruption in the Panchayat, blind superstitions, domestic violence, insurgency and terrorism etc.

The important reason for holding this Festival is that it becomes a meeting ground for the Forum Theatre teams trained by Jana Sanskriti all over India. Each of these teams is active in their own regions; most of them are also heading organizations engaged in struggles to assert the rights of the marginalized. Though all these teams are linked to each other through their commitment to the Forum Theatre movement, they have had very little opportunity to interact with each other and see each other’s work. At this Festival we were able to provide this valuable opportunity. This interaction has, as seen from the last three festivals, no doubt, imbued each individual and team with the feeling that they are not alone in this challenging task of establishing dialogue in society.

Usually Forum Theatre is performed before audiences who are also facing the problem portrayed in the play. Since problem solving and understanding the problem sociologically through collective action is the primary intention so the spectators and actors form a homogenous group. But in this Festival like the previous three that we had we will again try to have all kinds of interest groups involved and interested in theatre of the oppressed in the audience, from all over the world!  And since Forum Theatre allows room for debate and discussion, the audience emerges from the experience with a more human outlook.

Finally, the name ‘Muktadhara’! ‘Mukta’ means free and ‘Dhara’ is a flowing steam. A flow that is free from dogma and all those structural constructs that prevent a dialogue between people, is what is implied by the term Muktadhara – celebrating movement in peace and togetherness! This is when the glory of development is said to have taken place – participation in togetherness.

Where

• The festival will be held at an open air venue in the centre of Kolkata.
• Workshops will be held either in a Mango Garden or by the side of a river.
• There will be one more workshop on Rainbow of Desire, we will place it in the festival schedule and will let you know.

Dear Friends,

Imaginaction will join the Colombia Peace project and Witness for Peace on this action. Please read the letter below for more information on the project and details on how to participate.

COLOMBIA PEACE PROJECT

Dear Friends, Each year in April, a number of national human rights organizations  sponsor a series of events referred to as the Days of Prayer and  Action for Colombia. This year the actions revolve around the issue  of Colombia’s displaced. Colombia has the second highest number of  internally displaced persons in the world, after Sudan.

Forty displaced persons in Colombia have made their portraits  available for this project. The idea is for people in the United  States to write letters to President Obama on papers containing one  of those portraits. There are various ways of doing this. In some  cases, the photo takes up most of the page and people write above,  below, and around the photo or paste it on a larger sheet of paper.

The portraits and letters will then be displayed at various events  around the country. Then they will all be sent to Washington DC for  a large display. After that they will be presented to somebody in  the Obama administration.

Attached is one of the portraits to this message. It is a picture of Enrique Petro. We met him in our delegation to the Curvarado region last July and expect to meet him again this July. Perhaps more than anyone else, he led the effort of displaced persons in that region to return and establish a foothold by creating humanitarian zones. Please print out the page with his picture: LINK Then write your own short letter to President Obama.

Here are some points that can be made:

. End the aerial fumigation of fields in Colombia.

. Do not promote the so-called free-trade agreement with Colombia.

. End U.S. military involvement in Colombia. This means ending the  military aid and reversing the policy of establishing a U.S. presence  in Colombian military bases.

. Support reform and strengthening of Colombia’s judiciary.

. Support the return of land to the small farmers from whom it has  been stolen.

. Provide Colombian courts and families of victims with access to  paramilitary death squad leaders who have been extradited to the U.S. on narcotics  charges. This issue is important to our Colombian friends.  Paramilitary leaders who demobilized were beginning to confess their human rights atrocities, implicate others, and tell where victims were buried. Then many of them were extradited to the U.S. and much of the truth-telling ended.

Please send your letters with the pictures to:

Tanya Cole

Witness for Peace Southwest Regional Organizer

10432 Amigo Avenue Northridge, CA 91320

Please try to send your pictures and letters to arrive before April 18. On that day there will be a couple actions in the Los Angeles  area using displays of the pictures and letters.

For more information, pictures, and additional action look at the  Witness for Peace web site, www.witnessforpeace.org

And consider joining our July 5-15 delegation to Colombia.

Best wishes,

Patrick Bonner

In This Month’s Newsletter:

Ripon College, Wisconsin – April 20
Topanga Mountains – April 25
Ohio University – April 29/30
Ohio Workshop with Burning Feather – May 1
Oberlin College – May 3-8
Diane Lefer – Performances – April 10 and 23
Street Theater Demonstration with/JYC
Afghanistan – post-trip update
Theater for Social Justice – Palestine Campaign
The Blessing Next to the Wound – excerpt

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Ripon College Ethical Leadership Program (ELP) in Wisconsin presents

Hector Aristizabal in NightWind and Awaken the Imagination workshop

April 20th

Location: TBA

For more information contact:

Lindsay A. Blumer, Executive Director Harwood Union
Phone: (920) 748-8316 Fax: (920) 748-7243
e-mail: blumerl@ripon.edu

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Topanga Dare’ Healing Circle – NightWind performance

Topanga Dare’ Healing Circle
April 25th, 2.30pm
Topanga Mountains
(Location and directions will be provided upon registration)

For reservations and more information, please contact Danelia Wild: dwild4deena@ca.rr.com or 310-815-1060

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Ohio University – April 29/30

Thursday April 29th: Lecture – The Popular Theater as a Tool for Social Change

In this interactive lecture Hector will explore with audience participation some of the main techniques he has been developing while traveling the world and working with communities at risk.

Time: Noon- 2:00 PM –- FREE Event

Venue: The Frank W. Hale Jr. Black Cultural Center, MLK Jr. Lounge/Room #100-A

Address: 153 W. 12th Ave. Columbus OH 43210-1389. Phone: (614) 292-0074

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Friday April 30th: Nightwind – a solo play & workshop

Time: 6:30- 8:00 PM — FREE Event

Venue: TBA

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Ohio Workshop with Burning Feather – May 1

Saturday May 1st, 9am-12pm and 1pm-6pm

Wild Goose Creative
2491 Summit Ave
Columbus, Ohio

Admission: $35

For reservations and information, call: (614) 975-1085
and visit: http://burningfeather.org

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Oberlin College – May 3-8

Hector will return for his fourth visit to Oberlin College. He has been invited by Oberlin Latin America Activists, Oberlin Street Law and Oberlin High School to offer a 5-day intense workshop that will culminate in a Forum Theater piece and a street theater performance/parade, on May 8th.

For more information, please contact Allison Swaim at:
Allison.Swaim@oberlin.edu

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Diane Lefer – Short fiction performances

Come and enjoy Diane Lefer performing her own pieces of short fiction:

San Francisco – Saturday, April 10, 2010, 7:30 PM
Writers with Drinks,  hosted by Charlie Anders, 3225 22nd Street
www.writerswithdrinks.com

Los Angeles – Friday, April 23, 2010, 7:30 PM
Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA
www.beyondbaroque.org

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Street Theater Demonstration with YJC – March 8th

ImaginAction participated with Youth Justice Coalition in a street theater demonstration in front of the LA Superior Court, to raise public awareness of the extreme sentences (including life without possibility of parole) being handed down to minors.

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Afghanistan – post-trip update

Hector Aristizabal is happy to announce that the young boy, Sayed Abdullah, whom he met during his visit to Afghanistan and who was badly injured by American forces during an aerial attack to his village, is now being reevaluated in Kabul by German doctors to see if he needs further treatment. With the help of Cole and Ann Miller from No More Victims (www.nomorevictims.org) and a group in Michigan, HCC, Healing Children of Conflict we have been able to facilitate real help to at least one child at a time. We are also working on helping others and will keep you informed. If you would like follow Sayed’s case or to help, please contact HCC at http://www.healingchildrenofconflict.org/sayed.html

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Theater for Social Justice – Palestine Campaign

A huge thank you to everyone who has donated so far through Hector’s birthday campaign. We appreciate all of your support and donations to this project. We invite you to keep up-to-date through the website:
LINK

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The Blessing Next to the Wound – excerpt

“Four AM. A low-income housing project on the outskirts of Medellín, Colombia. The whole neighborhood shook as military trucks rumbled into the barrio on the hunt for subversives. It was 1982, I was 22 years old. We were living under the Estatuto de Seguridad, a repressive law which looked on almost any opposition to the government as Communist-inspired. It was dangerous to talk politics. Sometimes even more dangerous to create art. Friends of mine from the university had been seized and disappeared only to reappear as cadavers found in a ditch, bodies covered with cuts and burns, toes and fingers broken, tongues missing, eyes gouged out”.

from The Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism, and Transformation, available in June from Lantern Books

In this Issue:

Anderson University, Indiana

Ohio University – performance and talk

Ohio Workshop with Burning Feather

Oberlin College, Ohio

Paths of Initiation

‘The Blessing Next to the Wound’- excerpt

‘Maybe a Poem’ – by Vivien Sansour

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Anderson University, Indiana - February 23rd – 25th

Hector recently performed NightWind at Anderson University, Indiana. The performance was followed by two workshops; ‘Awaken Your Imagination’, which was open to all, and ‘Transformational Teaching’ with the students and faculty of Anderson University.

Here is what Marian Osborne Berky had to say about Hector’s visit:

Dear Hector, students are still talking about your work with them last week.  One student in class this morning said, “I miss Hector.”  You did have a profound influence on a number of folks here.  You stretched some, you encouraged and invigorated others, and you challenged all of them to work out of their passions.  Thank you!

Marian Osborne Berky

Anderson University Peace and Conflict Transformation Program

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Ohio University – April 29th and 30th

Thursday April 29th: Lecture – The Popular Theater as a Tool for Social Change

In this interactive lecture Hector will explore with audience participation some of the main techniques he has been developing while traveling the world and working with communities at risk.

Time: Noon- 2:00 PM –- FREE Event

Venue: The Frank W. Hale Jr. Black Cultural Center, MLK Jr. Lounge/Room #100-A

Address: 153 W. 12th Ave. Columbus OH 43210-1389. Phone: (614) 292-0074

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Friday April 30th: Nightwind – a solo play & workshop

Time: 6:30- 8:00 PM — FREE Event

Venue: TBA

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Ohio Workshop with Burning Feather – May 1st

Saturday, May 1st, 9am-noon and 1-6pm

Wild Goose Creative

2941 Summit Ave,

Columbus, Ohio

Admission: $35

For reservations and information, call: (614) 975-1085

and visit: http://burningfeather.org/

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Oberlin College, Ohio – Week of May 3rd – 8th

Hector will be returning to Oberlin, Ohio, during the week of May 3-8 to offer an intense ‘Awaken Your  Imagination’ workshop, along with street theater training. Details to follow! Check our website for updates.

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Paths of Initiation

A Mentoring Retreat for Younger and Older Men

Mendocino, California ~ August 17-22, 2010

Mendocino Woodlands Camp, Mendocino, CA

Proceeds support Voices of Youth and Intercultural Projects.

For more information and registration visit the Mosaic website at: www.mosaicvoices.org or contact the Mosaic office at: 206-935-3665.

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The Blessing Next to the Wound – excerpt

“Hernán Darío was a sissy. He was a Mama’s boy. When we played soccer in the street, he cried, afraid the ball might hit him. Was it my fault? my mother sometimes wondered. After three boys, I wanted a little girl so bad, is that why Hernán Darío came out like a girl?

I was also capable of crying like a girl. One night I heard terrible whimpers and found a kitten in the yard. It had been horribly injured, its body half-crushed, and I looked on its suffering and had no idea what to do. Then along came Hernán Darío, incapable of hitting a ball or hurting a fly. Do something. I was crying, Someone has to do something. My brother picked up a rock. Do you want me to put it out of its misery? All I could do was cry. Do you want me to kill it? he said. Hector, please stop crying, and he smashed the little creature’s head. I should have realized then that when it came to killing pain, Hernán Darío wouldn’t falter.”

—from The Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism, and Transformation, now available for pre-order from Lantern Books. Available June 2010!

LINK

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Maybe a Poem

By: Vivien Sansour

I thought maybe a poem would save me

From wishful thinking

From escapism

From a bomb dropping on my life

Two stories told in two stories falling

We did not have to go to Jenin to see

Men rolled over by 80-ton tanks

Women forced to be naked and a young girl warrior

No we did not have to go to Jenin

But someone suggested that perhaps these people driving those tanks

Were clones

No way humans

A heart missing

An old man sobbing and I am packing

Going to Jenin and no poem will save me

From life stories that will force me to see the smallness of my scope

From loneliness self imposed

From cold days passing ever so slowly

No poem is going to save me from thoughts drilling my skull:

You belong here, you don’t belong here

You belong there and you don’t belong there

You are Palestinian

You are not Palestinian

You are woman

You are not woman

You are a diamond and you are a shit

No poem has come running through wheat fields to rescue me from my last collapse      and my next escape

I will fly away from here

Like I did ten years ago

I did it once I can do it again

And I pack my bags going to….

Leaving Jenin

Going to….

Yet another beginning

Until…..

We are now in the midst of the storm

Stories about myself don’t go away when I write

They don’t abandon me when I complain

Stories about who I am

You are lazy

You are good for nothing

You never finish

You never stick to it

You you you you quitter when the going gets tough

And that savior poem is still in the waiting

Like Godot she never comes

And like the things I end

She carries a beginning

And I understand

A poem is waiting for me to come,

Perhaps I can save her

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Donate

Donations to ImaginAction can now be made online!

Help us to continue our work and expand our reach.

To make your tax-deductible donation, please click on the link: PAYPAL

February 23-25, 2010

Hector Aristizabal recently performed ‘Nightwind’ at Anderson University, Indiana. The performance was followed by two workshops: ‘Awaken Your Imagination’, open to all, and ‘Transformational Teaching’, with students and faculty members from Anderson University.

Here is what Marion Osborne Berky had to say about Hector’s visit:

Dear Hector,

Students are still talking about your work with them last week.  One student in class this morning said, “I miss Hector.”  You did have a profound influence on a number of folks here.  You stretched some, you encouraged and invigorated others, and you challenged all of them to work out of their passions.  Thank you!

Marian Osborne Berky

Anderson University Peace and Conflict Transformation Program

For more information about this visit, please click on this link: Anderson

“In the Fall of 2009, U.S. and Colombian officials signed an agreement granting the U.S. military access to seven Colombian bases for ten years.

SOA Watch is extremely concerned about the drastic increase of U.S. militarization in Latin America. The bases agreement operates from the same failed military mindset that has given rise to the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC). The purpose of the bases and the purpose of the SOA/ WHINSEC are the same: to ensure U.S. control over the region through military means.

Already, the SOA/ WHINSEC is deploying “Mobile Training Teams” to Colombia and other Latin American countries, that train hundreds of soldiers annually. Over 10,000 soldiers of the Colombian military (the military with the worst human rights record in the Americas) have received SOA/ WHINSEC training and used the lessons learned in their brutal war that has left thousands dead and millions displaced.”

In their article ‘Seven Bases’, Diane Lefer and Hector Aristizabal look at the history of each of these bases as well as conditions in the surrounding communities and Colombia as a whole. Below is an excerpt – please click on this LINK to read the full article. After the excerpt is a 21-minute video about the agreement

Seven Bases

by Diane Lefer and Hector Aristizábal

U.S. and Colombian officials signed an agreement granting the U.S. military access to seven Colombian bases for ten years. The United States thereby increased its ties to the military known for the worst human rights abuses in the Western Hemisphere and is a troubling indication of what can be expected of the Obama Administration and its promise of change. Does this agreement (signed in the fall of 2009) really change anything? We take a look at the history of each of these bases as well as conditions in the surrounding communities and the nation as a whole.

#1: Tolemaida

This base, located in Melgar, Cundinamarca, has been sending students to the School of the Americas for Army Ranger training for more than 50 years. The US military and its contractors already have a long association with the base where they have enjoyed immunity from prosecution for such crimes as the rape and sexual abuse of Colombian girls as young as twelve (documented by video), and the trafficking for profit of arms to illegal paramilitary groups. The new agreement will allow unparalleled access by the US armed forces and will apparently continue diplomatic immunity for US personnel, both military and civilian. In Bogotá, just 43 miles to the northeast, more than 1,000 people arrive each day as they flee violence aimed at stealing their small rural landholdings usually for the benefit of paramilitary bosses, narcotraffickers, transnational corporations and their government allies. The US-supported Colombian military has done nothing to protect approximately 4 million internally displaced people, 75 percent of whom are women and children, left homeless and impoverished.While US policy is to fund the war on drugs and the war on the FARC, the cocaine trade provides employment and income to more than one million Colombians and the armed conflict is one of the nation’s largest sources of work. In Colombia, a minority of the population has steady employment. Most of the potential workforce consists of the unemployed, those who’ve given up looking for work or who participate in the informal economy of day laborers, street vendors, armed insurgents, and criminals. Workers lucky enough to have steady employment for a 48-hour week at the minimum wage do not earn enough to purchase a basic market basket of goods for a family of four. The Colombian Ministry of Defense has estimated that more than 4,600 FARC members and more than 1,300 ELN members are minors and that most guerrilla fighters had joined the guerrilla ranks as children. Witness for Peace learned of a school in Bogotá where 80 children dropped out in a single semester to join the FARC, motivated not by ideology but because their families couldn’t afford to feed them. Education and employment opportunities will have more impact on the civil conflict and the cocaine trade than more weapons, more military training, and more war.

Video about the agreement

In this issue:

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Upcoming Workshops

AFSC, Los Angeles
March 5th and 6th 2010

Awaken Your Imagination!
Theatre Workshop With
Hector Aristizabal

Join us for
Awaken Your Imagination, an experiential workshop for anyone seeking personal or social change. Using experimental techniques based on Theatre of the Oppressed, drumming, dance, storytelling, council circle and more, we will co-create a space that invites the freedom of imagination and the possibility of joy. We invite you to join us in the very serious work of change through play.

TO REGISTER, CONTACT: Sophie Thomas
EMAIL: thomassophie@hotmail.com
TEL: 323-388-7523
COST: $80

Flyer
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Anderson, Indiana

“Nightwind” performance, followed by workshop.

Date: Tuesday, February 23, at 10 am
Location: Reardon Auditorium on the campus of Anderson University.

Tentative second performance/workshop for Wednesday evening (to be confirmed).

For additional information please contact: moberky@anderson.edu or call 765 641-4559.

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Ohio Workshops

OSU/Columbus, Ohio
April 29th-May 1st 2010

Tentative Schedule
“Nightwind,” a solo play about torture, written by
Diane Lefer and Hector Aristizabal
Thursday, April 29, Blank Hall, OSU

Theater of the Oppressed: Lecture/workshop with Hector Aristizabal
Friday, April 30, Blank Auditorium, OSU

Theater of Imagination:
An All-Day Workshop with Hector Aristizabal,
May 1 at the Wild Goose Creative, Columbus Ohio (Produced by Burning Feather)

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AHRDO website launch – Afghanistan

Our friends in Afghanistan have created a powerful web site documenting their work using Theater of the Oppressed Techniques, Play Back theater and other applied / interactive theater techniques as a tool for community empowerment and sustainable social change. Hector Aristizabal from ImagionAction, Marc Weimblatt from the Mandala Center for Change and Karin Gisler from Play Back Theater Zurich visited  Kabul, Herat and other small towns and villages. Hector performed Nightwind and led participatory theater workshops, trainings, and performances with a variety of groups including victims of war and genocide, women, orphans, mental health providers, teachers, university students, community activists, and professional actors. These intense trainings are part of a sustainable effort by AHRDO and other human rights organizations to use creativity as a tool for social justice. Please visit AHRDO by clicking on the link below.

Link to AHRDO -  Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization

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AFSC Speaker Series

As part of AFSC Los Angeles’ monthly “Friends” Peace Dialogue series, Hector Aristizabal will be speaking on Thursday, February 11th, at 7pm. Featuring Hector, Liz Grover, and other guests, “this series is dedicated to promoting peace and nonviolence through positive communication.” Hector will be speaking about his recent travels to Afghanistan.

Location:
American Friends Service Committee
634 S. Spring St.
Los Angeles

This series is free and open to the public. Seating is limited, so please arrive early.

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KPFK Interview with Hector Aristizabal

Hector was interviewed by Eisha Mason for KPFK,
January 11th, 2010. Click here INTERVIEW to listen to the interview.

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Under Pressure
Having opened in November 2009, Under Pressure is running successfully in Rotterdam! Under Pressure is a Forum play about everything young people don’t really want, but do anyway. The main issues are alcohol abuse, game addiction, unsafe sex/teenage pregnancy, discrimination and conflicts with parents. The play was directed by Hector Aristizabal and Luc Opdebeeck of Formaat. It is targeted for at least 120 performances until mid-2011.

Link to Poster

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Youth Justice Coalition

Juvenile In/Justice? In California, young people–primarily youth of color–are tried as adults and face sentences as harsh as life without the possibility of parole. Kids are pushed out of school. Cutting class leads to criminal arrest warrants. These are just some of the issues being addressed by the Youth Justice Coalition, an extraordinary grassroots activist organization, its membership and leadership made up exclusively of young people who have been, or are currently under arrest, on probation, in detention, in prison, or on parole or whose parents/guardians, brothers, or sisters have been incarcerated for long periods of their lives. More than 100 youth a week are engaged in leadership development, organizing and advocacy through the YJC’s chapters or legal education workshops.
ImaginAction artists and interns are now working with YJC members to develop Forum Theatre pieces to involve the community in exploring strategies for change. This would be an excellent opportunity for those interested in learning the application of Imaginaction’s methods. If interested, please contact Hector at: haristizabal60@earthlink.net

For more information about the YJC, click on the link: YJC

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The 16th Annual Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed (PTO) Conference

As a member of the Board of Directors of PTO I want to invite you to participate in this upcoming event:
The 16th Annual Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference
“Flex and Flexibility: When to bend? When to stretch? When to engage?”
Austin, Texas, June 3-6, 2010
(with pre and post-conference workshops TBA)
Hosted by: University of Texas at Austin Department of Theatre and Dance and the PTO Austin 2010 Organizing Committee
Information about accommodations, keynote guests, a pre-conference workshop with Julian Boal, and post-conference workshops will follow on the website very soon!
http://www.ptoweb.org/cfp.html

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The Blessing Next to the Wound

Hector Aristizábal and Diane Lefer
Published by Lantern Books
Available June 2010

LINK to book page at Lantern Books

This June, Lantern Books will publish The Blessing Next to the Wound by Hector and Diane Lefer, the story of his surviving civil war and torture in Colombia, his exile in the US, and accounts of seeking healing for himself and others through activism and art.

Hector and Diane are also contributors to the forthcoming anthology, Peace Movements Worldwide (Greenwood/Praeger) due for publication April 30th, 2010, and have been invited to write about ImaginAction’s theory and practice for an anthology about new approaches inspired by Boal.

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Vivien Sansour

Vivien Sansour will be working in Jenin, Palestine collecting the stories of the organic olive oil producers of Canaan Fair Trade. She is also working with director Naomi Newman on a solo piece based on personal stories, dreams, and poetry.

Stolen Pomegranates
By: Vivien Sansour

Longing
Lonely
Missing el loz
Longing wanting
Tofah
Pomegranates stolen from my neighbor’s garden
Juice running like sugar water
Pomegranates and mishmish

Have you had mishmish before? I asked him
He never tasted mishmish baladi
Homegrown apricot
Grapes dangling in drive ways
With people sitting on small chairs
Separated only by a cup of tea
And a glass of lemonada

It is afternoon
It is really el asir- the time of day you cannot name in English
I walk into Aziza’s drive way
I have come carrying the olives from our harvest
Press these for me please
Pickle these for my father he wants to have olives from his trees this year

I pack them firmly
Two bottles of oil
I must find a way to get them to him
This year he wants to smell his land from the bottle
I put them back
No way will they get through
Liquids are dangerous carried by an Arab
Liquids like oil and blood and memory

Memory is our greatest friend and our worst enemy
I wish to forget
Then I wish to always remember
I save pieces of an old dress
A stone
And then I cry for forgetfulness
Never want to forget the smell of the press
Figs in August
And the seedlings of fakous
Straight from Beit Sahour

I wish I could forget
And so I remember in details
He gave me a stone
From El Lid he said
His mother’s hometown
She walked three days and three nights
No luggage
No gold
Just this stone
He gave it to me so I may never forget
And then he left
My hand clenching on the stone
I wish to forget
And I wish to always remember
A kind of love that lingers
And leaves you
Longing
Lonely
And missing the stolen pomegranates

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