stella41b
Posts: 4258
Joined: 10/16/2007
From: SW London (UK)
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I love it that I've just been given confirmation of my performing arts project (theatre, film and music) going ahead working with a major homeless charity and rough sleepers in London. Basically from scratch I'm directing a film adaptation of one of my comedies (about the government and civil servants) involving actors who are currently street homeless and which I'm hoping to put together an endtheme of an a capella version of the hit 'Caravan of love' formed of the street homeless participants singing together in a special arrangement.
This was the same night shelter I was admitted to four years as a rough sleeper myself, though back then in 2005 the winter was much milder than it is today. This is something special to me, as it's my first major cultural project in London and through its development we (not me, but 'we') have the chance to change public perception of homeless people in London. It's also a first for me, as I'm offering to put together a music video based on the a capella version of Caravan of love. However this isn't about me, nor about the charities involved - it's about the street homeless themselves who hopefully will become involved in the project and bring it to life. Without them nothing is going to happen.
Certain things have been going through my mind. Especially two days ago when I watched part of a documentary of seeing how Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson put together the song 'We are the world' for USA For Africa. It's interesting to note that then, when the poverty and issues were so far away there was far more interest, more donations, than it would appear to be now when the poverty is here among us and we can walk past the street homeless in any major city.
This comes just days before I release my own theory of modern theatre to the world, in the form of a PDF document, available for download for anyone and everyone who - provided it's not for profit and non-commercial - can make use of it in any way they wish to bring people together, share talents, experiences, skills, things to bring people together in some sort of unity. That day is New Year's Day 2010.
This idea has been with me for some years. I first had the idea one freezing cold January night back in 2003 in Warsaw, Poland. I had finished my Saturday evening performance in the theatre in Warsaw and was heading home to a town in the centre of Poland, Wloclawek, by night train. It was around 11pm, and the station I wanted to catch the train from was Warsaw East.
I arrived early, and wandered through the station in the waiting room. The waiting room was full of homeless people, mainly older men and women, in their 40's, 50's and older. When I talk that I am a product of the Polish Solidarity movement this is what I am talking about. I am not writing about Adam Michnik, who distributed Lech Walesa's pamphlets and became the owner of Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland's first democratic national newspaper, who's journalists promoted my work between 2000 and 2005. Nor am I talking about Aleksander Hall, who was behind some of the support for the youth and community schemes I set up.
I'm talking about the men and women who worked in the factories, on the collective farms, those who made the Polish Solidarity movement possible. I'm talking about the men and women who when told went out on strike for Walesa, who battled with the Polish Milicja (police force), who protested, who placed their families at risk by engaging in activist activities and staged 'happenings' which made Solidarity so successful, who did what they could to bring Walesa to power as their hero, their leader and their President. These were the same people who, when he became president, lost their jobs, were thrown out of work in the factories and off the collective farms, because they were 'not profitable enough' for potential investors from the West.
I'm struggling to put into words to describe the scene of having five or six grown men, wiping back tears as they asked me in Polish to do something to help people like them.
I can only hope and pray that as many of them as possible are still alive, I can only wish that some of them are in better circumstances. But this Christmas this is for them, this is not just for them, but for everyone. The slogan of my work and my charity work is 'solidarity with the people'.
Some people have talked about their anger about what happened to me in Poland. It doesn't matter. Others may remember, and have also spoken of their disgust at what happened two years ago in Atlanta when I was refused entry to the States. That too doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter at all. Not to me. All that really matters is that we can let go of the anger we are feeling, we can perhaps accept that things didn't go as planned or were done in error, for these are things done by humans and no human I know is perfect. All that matters is that we come together, share our lives, our experiences, reach out and try to have a good time. All that matters is letting other people know that we think of them, we wish them well, we want them to be happy.
All that matters is that we take whatever opportunity that comes to show our support, and to take the chances for happiness, for ourselves and others.
That's all what really matters. Just like the support so many of you have shown me over the past few years has mattered.
I just thought I would share..
< Message edited by stella41b -- 12/17/2009 6:00:42 AM >
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