TRANSFORMATIONAL THEATRE FOR RENTAL HOUSING

FREE TRANSFORMATIONAL WORKSHOPS

The Housing Project 101 #maketheshift is a creative, community-building consciousness-raising response to the global financialization of housing come to roost in Victoria, and in this instance, any neighbourhood within walking distance of downtown Victoria.

It engages you in story-making activities, rooted in Theatre of the Oppressed, and steeped in multi-disciplinary creativity! The workshops are a call to all who are experiencing the housing crunch. Bring your creative spark, help build a symbolic bonfire.

Drawing on the fire of your lived experience of rental housing, you will become an illuminating torch bearer, helping create a series of small neighbourhood story-fires in each community we visit. Ultimately we will be a troupe of players highly skilled in transformational experiential story collecting and presenting, and we will have visited many neighbourhoods within walking distance of downtown Victoria.

You do not have to be an actor. Though you might be. You might also be a story teller, a singer-songwriter, a poet, a dancer, a musician, a comic or a clown. Or perhaps have only dreamed of being that! You may already identify as an artist, or you may have a shy artist tucked inside. Or maybe you’re a more concrete type, good at organizing and following through. The project needs people like you too!

Some call the resulting presentations we will make storytelling, or plays. I call the process Transformational Theatre or Transformational Story-making, or Community-Story-Making – the goal to ultimately create Forum Theatre that will seek to create a transformative process for our rental housing communities #maketheshift.

Confirm your spot in the James Bay New Horizons workshops.https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-housing-project-101-create-a-community-story-on-rental-housing-tickets-93866941549

or by email: transformationaltheatre@gmail.com

FIRST WORKSHOPS March 7 and 21, 2020 (If you can’t make it the 7th, please join us on the 21st.)

The creative journey begins Saturday March 7, 2020 at James Bay New Horizons. This location chosen as it’s here where our community profoundly lives the sting of the financialization of housing, and it’s here where many seniors have been hard hit.

At 11:00 am we will start with indigenous ceremonies led by Lyle John, CREE elder from Saskachewan, living here on Lekwungan Territory, and one of our emotional support persons for the workshops.

Then I’ll lead us through some dynamic warm ups to get us ready for the day; followed by some relaxed group games and craft activities to make some PROPS* and help us better understand the lived experience of “Walking Distance to Downtown Victoria”, and perhaps get a glimpse of how the affordability and availability of rental housing within that geographical zone, and the very fabric of the communities therein, are threatened by the financialization of housing #maketheshift.

Those activities will also help us better understand how can The Housing Project 101, Transformational Theatre for Rental Housing #maketheshift  help with the housing problem, and the rental housing problem in particular? (After all 60% of the city’s walking-distance-to-downtown residents are renters, NOT homeowners looking to upgrade or downsize to a luxury condo. Most are renters who just want a stable, affordable home In My Great Neighborhood, Walking Distance to Downtown Victoria!)

And while we’re at it, what IS Transformational Theatre? …and what IS this #maketheshift anyway? …and are there any jobs**?  …and can it help me find a place to live***?

Hopefully, what we do during that first hour on Saturday March 7 and Saturday March 21 will answer those questions, and people seeking to gather together to creatively address the problems of the world, and in this particular instance, this very serious systematic destruction of our communities, will come out and add their energy and experience to this creative process.

Ultimately – within the next six months (the City of Victoria’s My Great Neighborhood Grant has a deadline of January 31, 2021)we will make and present Forum Theatre for Rental Housing #maketheshift

POT LUCK LUNCH @ NOON

After the introductory hour, we’ll break for lunch. During this lunch break you can decide if you want to join the project and what you want to do. James Bay New Horizons is providing tea and coffee, and I invite you to bring some easy-to-serve-and-clean-up-after, finger-food snacks to share as a potluck.

2-HOUR THEATRE WORKSHOP STARTS @ 1:00pm SHARP:

The afternoon workshop brings creative games and activities rooted in Theatre of the Oppressed, and steeped in multidisciplinary creativity to start the story creation process.

*The Props we create in the morning will be taken into every neighborhood where we do workshops, to help people share the lived experience of “Walking Distance to Downtown Victoria”, and what that means for different neighbourhoods. The props are added to the pool of possibilities to possibly be used as props or set pieces for the Forum Theatre play we create. Thomas Boston, Med Counselling, who is also an ESP for The Housing Project 101, has offered to collate any statistics collected while making the props during the “My Great Neighbourhood, Walking Distance to Downtown Victoria” activity, and will speak briefly about that during the introductory session.

**VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES CAN BECOME PAID GIGS: There are interesting volunteer opportunities that with the right energy can become paying gigs!

***Who knows what might happen when you get out of your comfort zone and open yourself to new possibilities! Finland has almost eradicated homelessness.

The Housing Project 101 gratefully acknowledges the support of the following community organizations and individuals: City Of Victoria, My Great Neighborhood Grant program; Victoria Multicultural Society; James Bay New Horizons; Taiwo Afolabi (Belfry Theatre); Larry Wartels (SEA Social Environmental Alliance); Victoria Downtown Residents Association; Volunteer ESP Team: Lyle John, Cree Elder; Kara Udel; Rabbi Louis Sutker, Phd; Thomas Boston, MEd.

Confirm your spot in the James Bay New Horizons workshops.https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-housing-project-101-create-a-community-story-on-rental-housing-tickets-93866941549

or by email: transformationaltheatre@gmail.com

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