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GLOBAL PLAYBACK FOR KINDNESS - CASE FOR SUPPORT THE EVENT This is a request for funding for Global Playback for Kindness - a coordinated series of performances of personal stories told by audience members and enacted by playback theatre companies around the world. The event is in observation of World Kindness Day, November 13, 2005, with the shared theme ”Acts of Kindness”. The fit between a focus on kindness and playback theatre has been widely explored, and found to be remarkably effective. The kind of social change embodied in this work is not top-down (changing the laws or structures of governments as a way of impacting individual lives). It is bottom-up (changing the hearts of individuals, one at a time).
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In Hungary, Gábor remembers the day a stranger helped him
carry heavy luggage in the driving rain, and then insisted on paying
for a taxi to his hotel. On 5 continents, in 30 countries, in 10 languages, at 80-100 events, several thousand people will participate in this event on the same day. Trained actors and musicians will listen carefully to personal stories of kindness, and many hundreds of these stories will be “played back” through theatre improvisation in front of widely diverse audiences. Imagine CNN and other major media covering the event. Imagine video crews capturing moments of true theatre in many languages, and a video documentary being produced which is seen by millions on public television. Imagine empathy and compassion being ignited. Imagine increased awareness of kindness as a result. Why does the media focus on bad news? Yes, there’s plenty of bad news to report. And yes, there’s the occasional human interest story that gets included in TV or radio reports, or the “living” section of newspapers. But for the most part, what people hear about, and as a result, what people talk about, is bad news. They come to expect it. And that leads to increased fear, hopelessness, isolation, and the perpetuation of hostility towards whatever is perceived as “different”. This proposal is for a project aligning the missions of two global movements - playback theatre, and kindness organizations – to reflect on what happens when people focus on kindness. Playback theatre, founded in 1975 by Jonathan Fox and Jo Salas, is an original form of improvisation in which audience members tell stories from their lives and watch them enacted (“played back”) on the spot. Whether in theatres, workshops, educational or clinical settings, playback performances help people share their common humanity, modeling a process that can transform how people relate to each other. When a story is told and then enacted spontaneously, a deep bond of understanding is established between the storyteller and the audience. The feeling often shared by audience members is that the teller’s story is their story too. When people join together in sharing their stories and watching the re-enactments, a profound shift occurs in their willingness to focus on commonalities rather than judgments of otherness. “My religion is simple. My religion is kindness.” - The Dalai Lama THE MISSION The mission of this event is to use the power of Playback Theatre to:
EXAMPLES Playback theatre has been remarkably successful in promoting attitudes of compassion in many challenging arenas. Performances have been used to help middle school students understand why bullying of others is not to be tolerated. Playback troupes have made a huge impact bridging cultural gaps between Palestinians and Israelis, between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, between Maoris and whites in New Zealand, and between upper castes and “untouchables” in India. The human face of suffering has been shared and more deeply understood through performances in Germany with concentration camp survivors, and in New York City with survivors of the World Trade Center attacks. In prisons throughout the world, playback has drawn out the stories of inmates, and provided major boosts in rehabilitation and forgiveness. In Botswana and other African countries, playback has been used to help people with little education understand the threat of AIDS and what they can do to avoid the epidemic. In each of these situations, there has been strong potential for increased compassion to lead directly to increased kindness. WHAT IS EARTHSTAGE PRODUCTIONS? EarthStage Productions is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation, founded in 1993 to produce high quality theatre designed to educate audiences about social and environmental issues. In its early years, EarthStage partnered with the Walden School (for emotionally disturbed youth), Fairchild Tropical Gardens, and the Center for Fine Arts, all in Miami, with significant funding from the State of Florida, Metro-Dade County, and American Express. After relocating its base to Asheville, NC, EarthStage collaborated with Warren Wilson College’s Environmental Leadership Center and its Theatre Department in creating an hour-long production dramatizing the history of how people have related to the environment in the North Carolina mountains over four centuries. The show was presented in schools throughout western North Carolina. EarthStage was also the producing organization for Asheville’s Earth Day celebrations in 2000 and 2001; a huge Womens’ Solidarity and World Peace event in Kathmandu, Nepal in 2001; and has produced Asheville Playback Theatre in frequent performances since 2003. The founder and Producing Director of EarthStage Productions is Mountaine Mort Jonas. Mountaine has a lifetime of experience in nonprofit organizations. He was Director of Finance and Administration at the Florida Grand Opera, has done consulting for many nonprofits including the Asheville Symphony and MAGIC Community Gardens, and is a consultant to the Metropolitan Opera. He is also active with playback theatre as an actor, musician, conductor, and trainer. THE NEED The budget includes several components designed to enhance the impact of the proposed worldwide performances. These components include a website, media consultants and publicity, the creation of a film documenting the event, and travel and general support for the project director. For further information, contact Raphael Peter at raphaelpeter@buncombe.main.nc.us, or (828) 665-4774. All donations are tax deductible to the full extent of the law, and may be sent to EarthStage Productions, PO Box 567, Asheville, NC 28802, USA. Send
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