Side Notes on the End Table by tayla ealom

Project Two: Side Notes on the End Table is complete, but far from over. 

This book, which I was forced to write in about one month (procrastination is delicious) has been printed, bound, given barcodes and an ISBN, stocked, and it looks like sold and reviewed. It's been listed online- although without an image- and intrinsically connected to my name all over the interwebs.

For all the weird phobia's and self conscious behaviours I have found myself experiencing, I stand today to say that I am truly proud to have completed this book. It has always been a dream of mine and to see it realized set the spark for works to come. It's a balancing act of humility and pride, of doing the work and then being willing and able to talk about it. Perhaps it's being trusting enough to assume that people care, that they want to hear it, and that they like it....perhaps it's loving it and letting it go. I haven't figured it all out yet, but I am proud to say that I am a published author working on my second book. (Check Back for that!)

I am looking into book signings and will be attempting to sell it through performing some of the pieces locally here in LA. I don't know how to do all this. I don't know how to be published, how to have a book signing, how to deal if nobody shows. But I'm willing to wing it, and learn along the way.

This book has become part of the larger goal. It will be the fuel that will get me on a plane in January, headed toward the base of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. I am beginning the adventure and will be heading there for a week of volunteer work in a school. This book is full of the fires that have brought me this far, awakened me to where I am to go, who I am to be, what I am to do with this healthy and happy life that I have been so graciously gifted. 

If you are so inclined to support your local author, you can order Side Notes on the End Table online at Borders or Barnes and Noble.

You can also find it through my publisher at publishamerica.net

I hope you buy it. I hope you read it. I hope yo tell me what you think.

Peace be with you.

 

Look Out for My Book Out!

Well Hello.
Hello.

A book, printed and bound, my author's bio on the back cover, my words scribbled on the inside. It is written, waiting eagerly to make it's way to the printing press.

Check that one off the bucket list.

Look for it Summer 2011.
Read it before the world ends.
Tell me what you think when you're done.
I'd love to know if you liked it....or hated it.



Side Notes on the End Table
.Thin Wheezings of Humanity.
By Tayla Ealom


To be so lucky.

Be Well.

Closing of Project 1

What an amazing experience. My time spent in the little diverse town of Silver Spring, MD was invaluable. I met people I will never forget and that I hope to work with in the future. I discovered the meaning of light and saw amazing art for a full three days. That is not to say that it was perfect, but my experience has put some pep in my step and really helped me move forward toward a new project, new interactions, and a new understanding of why I do what I do. It was remarkable. I just want to thank everyone who participated in the festival, who gave me kind words and unending encouragement, and those who shared in the passions of art and human rights. it was absolutely amazing. Onward and upward.

Thank you Silver Spring.
April, you are a beautiful month.

Be Well

As it Begins

Happy Earth Day!!

The trip has begun. I've spent hours in many airports since Monday morning. I've collected images and jotted notes at terminal D03 or C18. Made messes of notebooks on tray tables in the unlocked and down position. Made small talk with the anxious passenger stuck between her and I, and I don't know names but they are part of the adventure, white knuckles and all. I've slept in foriegn beds like a baby and woken to new trees and sunny skies and warm hearts. DC bagels and cream cheese. East coast wine. Virginia humidity putting curl in ly LA lifeless hair. Hugs and kisses. Love love love.
The adventure has been serene and blissful. I feel recharged and ready for whatever may come my way. And come it will. Tonight is the night of press and feeling like someone in the crowd, no longer faceless in the sea. Telling them all "you know, you could use somebody. Someone like me."

So here we are and off we go.
Keep smiling and enjoy the adventure and the experience. Be open. Take in all that's about to unfold, beyond what has already been absorbed.
Peace and Love.

Off to Maryland.

The Countdown has Begun!

The time is quickly approaching for the festival and I am all nerves and self-doubt. I will be among people I fully respect, admire, and sometimes envy for a full three days and I cannot seem to wrap my head around the fact that I am going to be their colleague and fellow artist. For so long, I have been the pupil, the attendee, the workshop participant, but this time I get to call the shots, and share my story, my work, and engage complete strangers in the very personal experience of creating and sharing art. It's a feeling I cannot describe, and I hope to never have to. It's what's keeping me going!
That was just a brief blurb about this process so far. Process makes perfect. I will keep posting as the festival unfolds next week!

Peace be with you.

Be Well,
Tayla

Discussion Panel: Theatre for Social Transformation

 







Living Stage Theatre
 Washington DC

'To reconstruct society means, above all, to empower individual persons to remake it.' - Ivan Illich:

I have been asked to join a panel of individuals to talk about the use of theatre for social transformation during the festival. For some reason, this proposition seemed a little daunting to me. Being only 23, I doubted my capability to discuss such a huge and important topic, but I've come to understand that this is what my whole workshop piece is about and that I am one of the many people our there who are creating theatre in the hopes of educating their audience and motivating them to then act in anyway they can to rectify the injustices that are uncovered. This seems lofty and idealistic, but I remain firmly grounded in my belief that all art has a purpose, and the purpose of my own work is to bring about social change through education and awareness. It just takes one audience member to mention the topic to a friend, to Google the issue, or post something on Facebook to get the snowball rolling and create conversation which will then lead to action. There are only so many ways to tell people about the many injustices throughout the world, and not everyone is impacted through the news or pamphlets. Some people need to see, hear, smell, and feel the story for it to truly have an impact and make a mark on their memory. With live theatre, you can create an entire world for your audience, put them close enough to touch you, separate them from the world outside the room and give them a full sensory experience that will leave a longer lasting impact on their view of the topic. Now, that is not to say that everyone is going to run out and begin changing the world, making donations, volunteering, etc. but they will talk, and some of them will act and that is the best outcome to hope for.
The danger, I feel, with socially focused works is their tendency to get preachy and push people away. I feel that this comes from lack of authority or lack of knowledge on the topic. You can have a cast screaming and ranting about saving the whales and all the audience will hear is screaming and ranting. Nothing more. The artist has to understand their stance before they take it. They must be as fully educated on the topic as possible, they have to understand why they are compelled to tell the story, and most of all, they have to remember whose story they are telling. Theatre for social change is a vehicle for a voice and it has to be about the voice that the artist is carrying, not the vehicle. If those priorities are always kept in line and the artist understands the importance of the voice, that is what their audience will hear. Nothing more.

This is a summation of my stance. Theatre is a way to think globally and ACT locally. A way to say the difficult things, show the ugly truths, and plead for the help that's needed while remaining engaging, entertaining, and artistic. It's one way to try to change the world.

But...that is not enough for me to feel confident talking among my highly esteemed panel-mates about the issue. I have started to do some research into organizations, individuals,  that use theatre for social change, how they use it, and the impact that it has made. Check out some of the following links to see what these organizations are up to and how they plan to "heal the world. Make it a better place..."



Arlene Goldbard
This essay originally appeared in Theater, Volume 31, Number 3 (Spring 2002)

• Arlene Goldbard writes on her experience with and the history of theatre for social change. She discusses a wide range of topics from why this form may exist, different target audiences, and the astonishing willpower of artists to keep creating social work when all the odds are stacked against them.

Quotes :
"Skeptical of constituted authority and entrenched institutions, convinced that the deepest social transformations are grounded in the deepest individual epiphanies, artists have persisted in making theater to change the world."
"...in our age of politics as a form of commerce, a lot of smart people seriously doubt the efficacy of conventional paths to social transformation."
"...people look to their own experience, and for most of us, many life-changing moments have been encounters with art...""pain-how we turn it into beauty, into grace, into an arrow aimed at the heart of the matter."

ActNow Theatre for Social Change

This is a Australian Youth based theatre company that works with youth and professionals to create social change. Just an interesting resource to browse because of it's focus on youth and classic material.

Patrick E. Idoye
A comprehensive documentation of the activities of the University of Zambia Chikwakwa Theatre. This group used the medium of theatre to help bring about the social changes in the central African nation of Zambia between 1969-1979. What are today known as the "Chikwakwa concepts" have become part of the universal theatre language of the southern African region. This text explores these principals which include: that theatre and politics are inextricably linked in Africa because "cultural discussion is frequently political discussion"; that the socio-political functions of the theatre are more crucial than the entertainment or aesthetic values; and that for theatre to be effective it must be rooted in the traditions of the people. 

Theatre of the Oppressed

The Theatre of the Oppressed is a method elaborated by the Brazilian director Auguto Boal,  starting from the 60s, first in Brazill and then in Europe. This method uses theatre as means of knowledge and transformation of the interior reality in the social and relational field. The public becomes active, so that the "spect-actors" explore, show, analyze and transform the reality in which they are living.

Collective Encounters: UK 

Collective Encounters is a UK theatre based company that does site specific works to stimulate social change for specific needs and demographics, invite and involve community members in the creation of new work, and contribute greatly to the development of theatre for social change.

Theatre for Social Change Essay

An anonymous essay about the purpose of theatre and it's ability to enact social change stating "Theatre is meant to challenge the audience."

Activist Theatre: Edwidge Danticat on Art and Injustice

Essay by Edwidge Danticat.

“We must create as though each piece of art is a stand-in for a life, a goal, a hope, a future,” she said. “There isn’t anybody else.”

Project 1: The Amnesty International Human Rights Arts Festival

This April, I will be conducting two workshops about my work as a writer and artist at the Amnesty International Human Rights Arts Festival. There will be two one hour workshops over the course of the weekend and in these workshops, I plan on discussing my piece The Gulf: Rwanda 1994, showing clips of the performance, opening the floor for questions and then getting everyone on their feet and having them work on a new poem that I have written specifically for the festival. It'll be a fun, high energy, high impact, full and fulfilling workshop where people of all walks of life get to put their own spin on something that they may have never done before.

What is The Gulf: Rwanda 1994?
 My senior year of my undergrad, we theatre students had to produce our own two evenings of art and live performance as our thesis project. For this, I studied and developed a piece about the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. This travesty in 1994 is something that has always fascinated, horrified, and motivated me to be the change I want to see, so I found stories of survivors. Stories of men, women, children, sisters, mothers, and fathers who all found ways to survive. And through their scars, they tell these harrowing stories about healing and hope and salvation. All I did was take these stories and put them into my own language. I wrote a collection of poems based on these stories, then with a cast of four, I set them to dance and other forms of movement. It developed into a 20 minute performance art piece about the healing and acknowledgment of  a horrifying scar on world history. I wrote it as a testament to the healing powers of forgiveness and the staining powers of forgetting where and what we come from. The project taught me so many things about myself as an artist, the power of art to say something critical and do something with purpose, the importance of thinking globally and acting locally.


The New Piece?
The new piece for the festival is entitled Cherish Bowl. There is a copy of the poem on my writing blog, cutediterewind.blogspot.com if you feel like checking it out. This piece was inspired by a woman who is part of Rwanda's healing process. For Christmas, my grandmother gave me a hand woven Cherish Bowl from Rwanda from a coalition called Rwanda's Path to Peace. This coalition of women offer economic trade for the country and have all come together to heal in the wake of the genocide. I researched and found the story of one woman, and drew from that to create the poem. This is the poem that we will work on in the workshops. Participants will be given images from many random sources and asked to find one that fits the sensation, smell, taste, and sound of the section of poem they are assigned. They will then be given five movements that they have to integrate into their telling. They will then recreate the image with the movements and the words. If there is enough time, all the groups will come together and do the whole poem as a performance. The goal is to work together, integrate other art forms with the words, tell the story fully and passionately, and have fun! My hope is that we can all learn and grow together, give voices to the muted, and really work together through art to come together in art.

The next few posts will be research and other information about the workshops and discussion panels that I will be a part of this year. Check back for updates and information on me and my work!

~tse

The Gulf: Rwanda 1994 (Script Excerpt and Stills)

The Gulf**

Poets will be sitting in various parts of the theatre, some of which will be kicking around a soccer ball and laughing. As the lights dim, one guard at the front of the house shouts

Guard:

Interahamwe!!!!

Lights out-

The lights come up on two poets dangling from various set pieces. George Gershwin’s Summertime fades up as the poets speak.

Poet 1:

As bodies recline after hours in the sun

Hearts settle to the rhythm of the world they inhabit.

Dirty bare feet skip along gravel-

Dust laden shorts create clouds of joy

As ashy heels find contact with a perfect

If only half inflated

Ball.

It is time for play.

Poet 2:

And as the Virunga mountains have a passionate kiss with the evening sun, children laugh at the thought of going inside.

The dusk fills the air, clouding all vision

Of the photographic green

Of the unimaginable wonder

The intangible taste

The perfection

The dips and curves and secrets

Of the glorious woman that Rwanda has become.

Poet one finds his/her way to the audience seating, this is a direct address to one person they find.

Poet 4:

Brash and curt, men in suits

Break free from their confinement within the

Kingdom of Kigali.

Rushing past motor vehicles

as wings with no body

they find a banana beer

and feel complete that the day is at its end.

Poet 3 emerges on the floor from a previously unimposing location while reciting the following section, trampling over Poet 2’s attempt to recite the lines.

Poet 3:

The brisk night slides onto the valleys and hills.

No longer illuminating the world

Rwanda radiates a green luminescence

That lulls all those eyes

And settles the world for sleep.

Hutu and Tutsi discover stillness,

ready to find one another again

Just as the mountains made love to the sun.

Enter Poets 1&2, they share the final lines of the poem.

Poet 1 and Poet 2:

Mothers.

Kiss your children on their prefect heads

(beat)

When we wake

It will be

All Poets

April 7th, 1994.