New BAY-Peace Theater of the Oppressed Program (TOP)!

BAY-Peace youth have just finished being trained to use Theater of the Oppressed as a tool for gaining a deeper understanding of the role of institutional violence in the lives of young people in Oakland. Our "TOP" performance/workshops are now available for your classroom or youth group 

Please let us know if we can schedule a workshop for your youth group or classroom this Spring! 510-863-1737, baypeace@baypeace.org

BAY-Peace supports and empowers Bay Area youth to confront militarism and other forms of violence through youth organizing and artistic resistance. We cultivate creativity, critical thinking, and understanding among working-class students of color who are the targets of institutions and cultural norms that increase the level of violence in their lives. Our Youth Action Team develops Hip Hop, spoken word poetry, and theater as tools for self-reflection and critical analysis. We use “Resistance Art Projects” that help guide young people toward greater awareness of oppressive social structures and ways to actively resist them.

Thanks to recent grants from the Left Tilt Fund, the San Francisco Foundation and the Peace Development Fund's Mother Jones and Patricia Silver Funds, BAY-Peace has been able to expand beyond our school regular school day program and now offers an after-school Theater of the Oppressed Program.

The BAY-Peace Youth Action Team recently completed a 20 hour intensive training by John Scott, a world renowned drama therapist, to learn to facilitate Theatre of the Oppressed exercises that will draw out the experiences of young people who are sencouraged to transform the violence in their lives.

The workshops we now offer are highly interactive, utilizing Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed structures and exercises to draw upon social justice related stories from the participants. In our interactive youth-led presentation-performances, audiences are encouraged to be ‘spect-actors.’ In this way young people are able to bring their minds, hearts and bodies into play as they explore ways to transform the violence which is often part of their experience with institutions like the military, the police/prison system and immigration enforcement (ICE).

If you are part of a youth group and would like to host a BAY-Peace theater workshop/performance with your group, please let us know! 510-863-1737, baypeace@baypeace.org
 

"BAY-Peace 2012" — A six-minute journey
 

Video by Abe Velazquez

PLAY VIDEO  Thanks to Abe Velazquez for editing some highlights of a great year into this six minute video. It includes our street actions, forum theatre work, our "Instruments of Peace" workshops at Emiliano Zapata Street Academy, and our Lyrical Circles poets. And thanks to all the amazing young people who have contributed their talents, intelligence and passion to BAY-Peace. Together, we are making a difference in Oakland!

"Train of Thought" — Poetry in Action
Senior Project by Tele'Jon Quinn

PLAY VIDEO  Tele'Jon Quinn, together with Christsna Sot, Brian Piera and Megan Torio, shared their original poetry on the BART trains in an effort to raise consciousness about the issue of youth homicides—in particular those being carried out by professional and vigilante law enforcement officers. Tele'Jon Quinn is a member of the BAY-Peace Youth Action Team who graduated from Met West High School in June 2012 and now attends Laney College. He, Megan, Christsna and Brian have all been active with BAY-Peace and participate in the Friday night Lyrical Circle Writers Group at BAY-Peace.

BAY-Peace Tax Day Action in Oakland!
On April 17th BAY-Peace Youth Leaders and students from our Resistance Art Projects Class at Oakland Emiliano Zapata Street Academy teamed up with youth from 67 Sueños, war tax resisters and a coalition of other anti-war activists including Code Pink, Grandmothers Against the War, Courage to Resist on Tax Day.  We used poetry, theater and dance to let folks know how the youth of Oakland feel about  the fact that half our federal taxes are used for war!

Thanks to Ces Rosales, Siri Margerin, Jeff Paterson & Lucinda Daly for taking these beautiful photos of our Tax Day Action!

And thanks to David Nelson for creating this video of our Flash Mob dance.

Check out our Video "BAY-Peace Anthem"

"BAY-Peace Anthem" is a short video created by the BAY-Peace "Cost of War" class at Emiliano Zapata Street Academy in the Spring of 2011. It is set to original music by Luis Montoya, and co-directed by Egypt Claxton. It was featured at the 2nd Annual If I Had a Trillion Dollars (IHTD) Youth Film Festival in Washington D.C. 
To see other videos that were selected, click here.

The IHTD Youth Film Festival asks young people to speak out on the federal budget and asks them to consider:
  The $1 trillion spent yearly on the U.S. military
  The $1 trillion spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
  The $1 trillion plus in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans
    
The IHTD Youth Film Festival is sponsored by American Friends Service Committee and National Priorities Project (NPP) with the purpose of involving young people in the debate about federal budget priorities. Participants will be receive training and will spend a day on Capitol Hill talking with legislators about where our taxes could better be used!

If you'd like to participate in the Third Annual 2013 IHTD Youth Film Festival, here's more info: http://ihtd.org/2013-film-festival/

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