Street Spirits Theatre Company

On June 29 2008 Street Spirits presented “Gettin It Right” at YAP Friends. This is one of a series of Street Spirits “own shows”, plays created by Street Spirits members on issues they feel strongly about. Gettin It Right contains two stories. Part one is about betrayal and gossip in a relationship. Part two is about the challenges of living with epilepsy. The plays were presented in forum with audience members finding ways to push back against the problems the characters deal with. We got a smaller audience than we had hoped for but participation was good. The event coincided with  our Annual Meeting.  

On June 6 2008 Street Spirits provided a performance of a new play about gang violence to students at John McInnis Secondary School. Krista, Shelby, Amber, Ryan and Destry created the play. The story follows the life of Lexi, a young woman with a drug habit who gets caught up with drug traffickers who are part of a gang. James is a violent and controlling dealer. Clark is another gang member who has known Lexi for a while and tries to protect her from James and from herself. Lexi tries to draw her younger sister Ashley and her friend Amber into the drug trade. The more they get involved the worse their life becomes. About 45 students attended the show. Members of RCMP Community Policing also attended and were able to add some detailed information about gang violence to the event. Response to the performance was great with many interesting interventions.

On Saturday May 31 at 7:00 PM the Prince George New Hope Society held a fundraiser at Artspace to support their work with sexually exploited people in the region. Street Spirits provided a performance of “Shadow of a Scream” a play about sexual abuse as part of the event. In the cast were Jay, Krista, Destry, Tasha and Amy. A small audience responded with many well thought out interventions. Of special note was the young person (age 5 or 6?)  who intervened to play the mother and gave a wonderful interpretation of how to deal with a youth in trouble.

On Wednesday May 28, 2008 a cast from Street Spirits journeyed to Hazelton for a collaborative project with Gitxsan TRYAMF (Tobacco Reduction for Young Aoboriginal Mothers and their Families) and with UBC. Representing Street Spirits were; Andrew, Chelsey, Ryan, Stephanie, Mike, Clayton and Shayla. On the Wednesday night we led a workshop with participants from the area. During the workshop we used narrated image techniques to generate an original play showing issues and concerns from the community. On Thursday morning we performed vignettes highlighting some issues around smoking and second hand smoke.  Just before lunch we performed the complete play we had created in workshop the day before. Following the performance we took part in a group discussion with people from UBC and people from the area about smoking related issues. Response to our work was positive. In the coming weeks Street Spirits will begin work on a video on smoking and second hand smoke based on the findings of the project.   

On Wednesday May 21 Street Spirits travelled to Fort St James to take part in a project with UBC. Ryan, Chelsey, Mary, Stephanie and Destry made up the crew. We created a new play, “Pressure” about issues related to birth control. We performed in  Music Maker Hall to a small but attentive audience. Participation was excellent and the audience was appreciative of our work.  

On May 15, 08 Street Spirits provided two performances of a play about bullying. Ryan, Amber, Mary and Destry created and performed the play. In the morning we performed at Carney Hill School for grade 5, 6 and 7 students. In the afternoon we took the show to Heritage school for the grade 7 students. The play covered issues of family violence, school bullying and internet bullying. Participation was good with students generating ways to deal with incidents of violence at school and in the home.    

On May 7 we left Prince George. On the crew were Andrew, Jay, Amy, Chelsea, Destry and Tasha. We spent the night in Kamloops then went to the Skeetchestn community near Savona. The people in Skeetchestn had planned a special event to bring together local people and people from all over BC to talk about problems related to violence with a goal of finding ways to prevent and effectively deal with violent events. Our team presented a play that showed how violence can affect people. In the play a young woman witnesses violence in her home and chooses to cope with it by drinking. Her anger over the violence lead her into a conflict with her friend and into being taken advantage of by a young man at a party. When her father finds out that she was drinking and getting involved with a guy he punishes her violently and assaults the young guy, which leads to an ongoing back and forth of violent incidents. The play was well received with audience members intervening to find ways to resolve the problems in a good way. A high point for us was when an audience member set up a traditional spiritual way to resolve conflicts. He created a powerful and moving moment that affected us all. The welcome and response we received in Skeetchestn will stay with us for a long time. We woud like to thank Darcy and all of the people from the community for their hospitality.        

For 5 days from April 7 to 11 we provided a theatre workshop to the participants in the Future Cente program. The group worked hard exploring problems in the community and creating theatre presentations about them. On the last day the participants gave a public performance featuring two plays that showed how drug use affects people’s lives and about the problem of gangs in the community.   

A short time ago the Prince George YMCA asked Street Spirits to produce a video about what young people need to know and about the skills they need to have to stay home by themselves. Working collaboratively with the YMCA we were able to create a short video  that explores the issues. Many Street Spirits members took part in the production. Shelby and Amber made their film debuts as the stars. Amanda, Mike and Teresa were in the film as well as four year old Ariana in her first Street Spirits role. We will be announcing the official premiere in the near future.        

April 2, 2008 we were invited to perform in Revelstoke. Revelstoke is a beautiful community nestled between high mountains. At a little over 700 km it was a long drive through some breathtaking scenery. We had free time between performances so we were able to sightsee and get to know a little of the area. Community Connections invited us to do two performances about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. We performed in the high school Wednesday morning to a large and enthusiastic group of students. Our approach was to try to go beyond the idea of FASD prevention but to also look at how people with FASD are treated in our society. Participation was good with a lot of thought provoking interventions from our audience. We also performed for an audience of the general public in the evening. This performance took place following a presentation by Kathi Hughes from  “POPFASD”  (Provincial Outreach Program for FASD). Attendance for the evening performance was low but the show went well and we had some fun interactions with the audience. We also had the opportunity to stop and visit our friends at the 100 Mile Youth Centre on the way.