December Meetings

In early December, Sigrid Gilmer and I met with David Kietzman and Mayra Esparza at Youth Speak Collective in Pacoima. David is the Executive Director & Co-Founder and Mayra is the Youth Services Coordinator. Marya is also a lifetime resident of Pacoima.

“Founded in 2005, Youth Speak Collective is a non-profit organization that empowers low-income, at-risk youth and their familes with the skills necessary to pursue higher education and create strong communities in the northeast San Fernando Valley. YSC has a youth-driven model: youth act as planners and stakeholders in all our programs while developing education and professional skills.”

David and Mayra enthusiastically support our project in Pacoima and want Youth Speak to help in whatever way they can. We talked about recommendations of any of the youth they work with who might be a good candidate to assist us in the story circle process as a translator and/or participate in some dramaturgical conversations. They are also giving some thought to a possible Institute Student from/in Pacoima. We’re planning to have a story circle with their Youth Council and another with a group called Speak Up.

David and Mayra shared some information with us about their organization and the community of Pacoima.

Pacoima shares a zip code with Arleta, the neighborhood to the west, but Arleta might be defined as more residential less business/industrial than Pacoima. Other neighboring communities are Sun Valley (south), Sylmar (east) and the city of San Fernando (north). Pacoima is uniquely mixed residential and not just business but industry. Mayra says there are 40 different gangs in Pacoima and so there is a complicated system of invisible boundaries that area youth contend with. The neighborhood looks very different at night than during the day.

We talked briefly about some venue possibilities. One intriguing idea is Humphrey Park- performing the play on the walled in soccer field or on the handball court there. Humphrey Park is part of the Summer Nights Lights program, which means that during the summer the park lights are on until midnight and there is security provided at the park.

Also in early December, David Guerra met with Xanthia and me. David is an actor and organizer. He’s been working as the Outreach Coordinator for a series of Unusual Suspects projects (in partnership with El Nido & GRYD- Gang Reduction Youth Development) in Pacoima. In fact they are doing a theater project with parents who live in San Fernando Gardens housing project, directed by Daniel Chacon (past participant in at least 2 big Cornerstone projects). That show is performing on 12/7 at 7pm at Pacoima Charter School and at noon on 12/9 at San Fernando High School. They also have a staged reading of youth written and performed project at 2pm on 12/12 at the Youth Community Center.

David G. characterized Pacoima for us as working class and proud of that. They struggle with poverty and gangs, but they are much more than that. A lot of people are engaged and hungry for knowledge. They want self-made art. The community is bi-lingual and a lot of participants he worked with really enjoyed the opportunities to just chat in Spanish with company members. “A colloquial approach can be helpful.” He recommended some people and organizations for us to contact.

A slightly left-field note: folklorist Bess Lomax Hawes passed away recently which brought to our attention a film she made of Pacoima girls singing schoolyard song/games. It’s called Pizza Pizza Daddy-O and is fantastic to see and hear:

-pd

Pacoima Hey!

Cornerstone’s 2010 Institute Summer Residency will take place in Pacoima, a neighborhood in the City of Los Angeles.

Pacoima is a multi-cultural, working class community located in the northeast San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California. Adjacent to the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and nestled between 3 freeways, Pacoima is about 7 square miles with a population of approximately 80,000. That population includes many families and a lot kids. Even with youth-focused organizations offering resources, gang involvement, violence, and a high drop-out rate are some of the challenges local kids and their families face. Pacoima has industrial and residential properties mixed together which leads to a number of environmental and health challenges for the residents. There is a strong force of civic pride in Pacoima. People work hard and the community cares deeply for its youth. Residents are largely bi-lingual with some monolingual Spanish speakers as well.

In 1993 Cornerstone collaborated with residents in Pacoima to produce a our second Los Angeles community production: a new play called Rushing Waters. It was written by Migdalia Cruz and directed by Bill Rauch. The play was performed at The Boys and Girls Club of San Fernando and featured a cast of 45 actors and musicians.

We're happy to be working with the Boys & Girls Club again many years later. We are gathering support and making connections with other community organizations. We'll be reaching out to see if we can find participants from our previous project. I hope they might come meet us for a story circle and consider giving theater another try.

Cornerstone Ensemble member Sigrid Gilmer is in process with story circles and interviews, getting ready to write the script for this project.

conversations planning for pacoima

from November--

Timeline
November: We decided that we should meet with Pacoima Beautiful and Youth Speak Collective this month. Whether those meetings are informational interviews with individual staff members or with multiple people will be determined by what we learn in making arrangements for the meetings. If they are game for have a bunch of folks in a meeting we might add some elements outside of the basic introductory conversation to make it a story circle. We talked about Sigrid's schedule, availability and best days and time-frame for meeting with people and writing, etc. (Sigrid is out of town at a writer retreat the month of December. She’s back in California on January 4. The
best time for Story Circles is January 5 through 17 and February 8 through 21. She'll plan to write in March/April and have a first draft mid-April.
Then we can have an in-house reading at Cornerstone in late April and a community reading in Pacoima of a second draft in May.

I’ll be looking for existing community events that we might attend as well as looking to plan events we can offer like workshops with the local schools, maybe elsewhere with all ages, too.

Spanish
We discussed the need for a Spanish-speaker to help with community engagement and maybe with dramaturging. Sigrid is particularly interested in such a person being someone who maybe is a poet and who maybe doesn’t look like they are a Spanish-speaker. (“Like me,” Xanthia said.) We might get other ideas from the folks at Youth Speak Collective, too. Ongoing conversation.

Community Exploration
We talked about observations from visiting the community and the need to make choices about how to further define the community within the neighborhood geography. Pacoima Beautiful still seems like a great starting point. The location of our housing and venue will also be helpful guiding factors in those decisions. I’m trying to arrange a meeting with The Unusual Suspects’ Outreach Coordinator to learn from them what we can about the recent and ongoing projects they have in Pacoima. Sigrid is interested to learn more about MEND and is intrigued by the ranches in/near Pacoima. We'll all explore Pacoima again very soon...

september field trip

I first "saw" Pacoima on a map. The map was from the LA Times neighborhood mapping project, and it drew Pacoima out for me in a salmon-colored rectangle-ish shape. It is a bit difficult to think of Pacoima as its own town because it is still part of Los Angeles city. Much like the physical landscape of the Downtown Arts District, it is a little difficult on first glance to discover the "borders" of the community. Where exactly does it begin and end? Is it necessary to know where it begins and ends?Paula and I walked and drove the neighborhood on a hot mid-September day.Here are some of the things that struck me:

• The Look. There is lots of concrete, lots of big, wide, busy streets. Car dealerships, flags from the United States and Mexico, words on signs are in English and Spanish.
• Language. The dominant language on the street is Spanish.
• Who did I see? Lots of women and children, lots of older men, lots of Latino/as, a moderate number of African Americans. (When I talk about race here, I’m making some assumptions based on looking at people and how they “read” on the street. I didn’t ask anyone what race they were).
• Who did I not see? Young men (Ages 18-35ish), Anglo people, animals
• Youth programming. There is a LOT of youth programming! It is everywhere. It is widely varied from swim teams, to visual arts programs, to the Boys and Girls club, to a youth recording studio, to a community beautification organization. A community with THIS MUCH youth programming in such a small area clearly is making an effort to engage and involve young people in the community in positive and constructive ways. This is cool to me.

• Eagles and Lions and Fences. The majority of single family homes in Pacoima have metal fences bordering the houses. Atop those sometimes ornately designed fences, are often statues of Eagles and/or Lions. I was struck by this. I wonder if it means something.

• The Hansen Dam. There is a big dam in the distance that you can see from atop a hill in the park. The park is beautiful.
• The Fake Beach and Lake. There is a fake beach that is really a swimming pool but made to look like a beach. Huge, lots of concrete, some sand, looks very fun to swim in. The lake looks like it is human-made, and like it might be overflow space for the dam water.
• The Schools. There is a beautiful high school (which is actually in San Fernando). It has a giant gymnasium and auditorium. In Pacoima, the Discovery school is small, but nice looking. We found another elementary school that looks nice—it has murals on the walls and is big. It was also across the street from a pool. The school is Hillery T Broadous Elementary.
• The Boys and Girls Club. When we first arrived, we stopped in at the Pacoima Boys and Girls Club, where Cornerstone performed Rushing Waters in 1993. There were two guys at the front desk-- Hector, a facilities manager, and Dwayne, the art teacher. Since they’ve been working at the B & G Club for 23 years, they remember CTC being there last time. Neither one of them saw the show, but they remembered the company immediately.

-xw

10 days

Hello friends,

Are you dying of suspense for installments 3-6 of Jason & The Argonauts?
I bet you are.
I don't think I am going to post them, but you can find them via the link to the right here-->.

Granted I am sitting at home now after a long day in the rising temps of 708 Traction Avenue, with a lovely glass of wine and some music and, sadly, a to-do list next to my elbow.
We'll ALL be in it in 10 days. I leave town-- with the 3 tremendously good companions-- very soon. Mieke, Andres, Jeff and I drive to San Francisco on Thursday. I like to think about all the various journeys in progress or soon-to-be in progress. It's a happier place than my to-do list.

I'm really looking forward to us all gathering together in Eureka soon, to meet face-to-face, and to get started with our Institute and our play. Our design team is awesome, by the way. Did you know? Playwright Peter and Director Laurie had a good long meeting today to talk through the script and to talk about possibilities. They are a couple of brilliant and fun collaborators.

I hope you are all ready. I hope you are ready for the big picture. We'll have a LOT to do. Almost all the time. But we'll have great people to do it with. Are the unknowns scary or exciting to you? Nothing to do but jump in.
Well, that is not totally true: you can read around some of this stuff we've shared on the blog. Have you looked at the NorthCoast Journal? It's a pretty great free weekly paper. Gives you real news and backstory as well as fluff and wackiness.

Some things I am looking forward to next month:
Relaxing moments at the Blue Ox- visiting with each other and with the Hollenbecks. Having a quiet side conversation with the dog.
The moments before sleep when i really think about being in a new place, in unusual circumstances of my own choosing, listening to the sounds around before I fall deeply asleep.
The anticipation of first audience: who is going to come see the show? Will they get it and love it?
The meals and the cooks! and the communal housekeeping.
The inevitable thoughtful leadership of my colleagues.
A way-too-long day softened by brownies or ice cream during end-of-day meeting.
Sharing, giving up to 17 people, the knowledge and care of this community and the tasks of seeing the production through to the end with care.