CPCP Catalyst Initiative: Harrisonburg

Catalyst Initiative ROUND 3

Heidi Winters Vogel, a theatre artist and university professor

partnered with Father Daniel Robayo-Hidalgo of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Harrisonburg, Virginia to support his work in confronting issues of racism and anti-immigration sentiment.

Their work together focused on how theatre and storytelling can be used as tools to build connections between residents with different faith, racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. Their story over a year of collaboration is one of building relationships, deep listening, establishing trust, and creating the conditions to seed coalition building within an often divided community.

Harrisonburg

CENTER FOR PERFORMANCE AND CIVIC PRACTICE

Question —How can a theatre company support a faith community

in their anti-racism work and help build foundations for relationship-building and reconciliation?

“While we may not be able to desegregate Sunday morning, there is a good chance we can meet each other on another day of the week.”

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THE PARTNERS

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THE IMPULSE

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THE PROCESS

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THE EVENT

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The Partners

Heidi Winters Vogel

Father Daniel RobayoHidalgo

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Father Daniel Robayo-Hidalgo is the rector of Emmanuel Episcopal in Harrisonburg, Virginia and a rising appointee to the Commission on Race and Reconciliation of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. Father Robayo-Hidalgo, an immigrant himself, has been a tireless advocate for community engagement around issues of privilege and inequity and a leader in both interfaith advocacy and civil actions.

The mission of the Committee on Race and Reconciliation is to support the Diocese, its churches, committees, commissions, and related organizations in eliminating racism and encouraging cultural diversity, recognizing and incorporating the diverse and enriching gifts of all races and cultures.

The Committee has four mutually supporting functions: 1. It conducts anti-racism training for diocesan and congregational leadership, as mandated by General Convention, using the “Seeing the Face of God in Each Other” curriculum.

2. Many Faces - One Faith is [its] educational and information materials for presentations and discussions such as for congregations to use in adult forums.

3. In response to the charge of General Convention to each diocese, the Committee is preparing a report on the history of slavery and discrimination in the state, and the role played by the diocese.

4. The committee is studying how the diocese can become an anti-racist multi-cultural organization. Where the organization is on the continuum of seeing racial and cultural differences as deficits, being able to tolerate difference, and seeing differences as assets.

Heidi Winters Vogel is co-founder and former artistic director of Inside Out Playback Theatre. Inside Out is committed to bringing audience stories to life through music, movement and dialogue. Inside Out Playback Theatre began eight years ago in Harrisonburg, Virginia to facilitate re-entry for students returning from study abroad. Since then, Inside Out has curated storytelling events with trauma and abuse survivors, racial reconciliation groups, international peace-builders, folks transitioning out of incarceration, middle and high school students, migrant workers and refugees, professional organizations all over the United States, and with people from all over the world. Inside Out is a partner company of the International Centre for Playback Theatre and upholds excellence and ethical Playback practice. Heidi is an Associate Professor of Theater at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

Playback Theatre’s co-founder Jo Salas describes the work as “an original form of theatrical improvisation in which people tell real events from their lives [and] watch them enacted on the spot…Any life experience may be told and enacted in Playback Theatre, from the mundane to the transcendent, the hilarious to the tragic–and some stories may be all of these.” A core belief of this work is: a story shared is a connection made and a community begun.

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/ dovracerelations/

T H E PA R T N E R S

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The Impulse For several years, the Commission on Race and Reconciliation of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia has been studying and compiling a history of the diocesan complicity in slavery and white supremacy. Daniel, as part of his work with the commission, was tasked with helping the commission expand their resources for education and advocacy.

He began to envision a multi-year series of conversations hosted by houses of worship throughout the Shenandoah Valley that would involve building partnerships with other social justice organizations and exploring long-term strategies to scale the project throughout Virginia.

“As Rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Harrisonburg, I daily encounter the debilitating impact of personal bigotry and systemic racism on the many groups of people in our community. The very parish and diocese in which I serve has a history of complicity with this social disease, and we are bringing repentant hearts to the task of transforming our community to a place where God’s restorative love is experienced fully by everyone-no exceptions.”

Daniel

“We believe that houses of worship can provide the necessary, accessible container to promote cooperation between congregations, denominations, and ethnicities. Churches in the Shenandoah Valley serve as the centers of our communities.

Whether it is the Episcopal churches serving populations since colonial times; the Catholic churches offering mass in Spanish and English; the Mosques inviting the burgeoning immigrant Muslim population; or AME churches that have served their neighbors through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement, most residents of the Valley share a commitment to their religious homes.”

Daniel

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THE IMPULSE

THE IMPULSE

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Roger Foster and Heidi, congregants of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Harrisonburg and fellow Inside Out Playback Theatre cofounders, approached Daniel about partnering to use theatre and storytelling as tools to help the commission in their work to host conversations about race and immigration bias in Harrisonburg and neighboring communities.

“We want to use the medium of Playback Theatre storytelling to elicit community members’ stories of experiences with white privilege and latent white supremacy in our traditions and centers of power, to build awareness, insight, and collaborative action in resistance to a culture based on the myth of white supremacy.”

Heidi

“We are seeking to explore how storytelling can be used as a tool to build empathy and compassion among community members. We hope that this approach will enable members of our community to see the ‘other’ in new ways, in ways that will lead to collaborative action based on our commitments to one another.”

Daniel

THE IMPULSE

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The Process Heidi and Daniel, along with the other members of the Catalyst Initiative cohort, attended a two-day capacity building convening led

by Center for Performance and Civic Practice in Phoenix, Arizona in December, 2017. At this convening, Heidi and Daniel conceptualized what these community conversations might look like and how Inside Out Theatre could help co-design both structure and content.

Once they returned from Arizona, Daniel, Heidi, and Roger began to identify potential partners who could provide input on the content of these conversations and explored organizing strategies to invite diverse groups of residents.

“Our first step is to build relationships, to identify community partners to connect with, to talk to community leaders and see who they think we should connect with. And once we have these leaders together in a room, leaders who will be bringing with them lots of different agendas and visions, how will we make space to listen, but also focus on our core values of getting these folks to talk to each other? We’re interested in having an organizing meeting with partners in May, working towards the goal of having a community conversation in June or July. We’re interested in making this first event happen by mid-summer, as I might be moving from Harrisonburg in September.”

Heidi

“I’m thinking about the partnership building we need to do locally and then thinking about scale; our dream has been to take this initiative to the whole diocese of Virginia - but even as we are in the early stages of the planning, we might be more effective thinking smaller scale, first with this summer event here in Harrisonburg and then thinking of how to create a model that could be shared throughout the Shenandoah Valley.”

Daniel

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THE PROCESS

THE PROCESS

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Throughout the beginning of 2018, Heidi, Daniel, Roger, and other members of Inside Out Theatre reached out to and met with several faith leaders and representatives from social justice organizations to share their plans for this initiative.

“These past two months has been about building relationships and connecting with community organizers in anticipation of our story sharing event in the summer. We have curated an event with the Scholars Latino Initiative from the local high school, scheduled an event with the local senior center, connected with the ELL [English Language Learner] program and immigrant students at the high school, and reached out to local faith leaders in churches serving immigrant congregations.”

Heidi

Shortly into the process, the team experienced a significant setback.

“Our biggest challenge right now is that one of our major collaborators suffered a heart attack in February. As a group, including Father Daniel, we have been reeling from this blow. We need to refigure our scope and determine what we have capacity for with this new normal.”

Heidi

As they were dealing with this news, and as the Inside Out team member began their recovery to health, the team took some time away from the process of partnership building to reconceptualize what they would be able to accomplish within their current capacity.

“In the past couple of weeks, we have gotten some renewed energy. We were able to do some internal planning and thinking, and based on these new circumstances, we’ve limited our scope—working towards a single event, a community meal and conversation that will take place in July.”

Heidi

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THE PROCESS

“We’re realizing that we have to concentrate on how we can make the most impact when we have reduced capacity. I think we’re doing a good job on those perceived limitations and turning them into opportunities.”

Daniel

“We’re working on inviting different sectors in our community to have a planning conversation for the July event, to see how they would envision it, to learn what we need to accomplish for this event to be worth their while to attend. Father Daniel has so many connections and he’s helping us connect with leadership of different churches in Harrisonburg. We’re talking to a mosque and a huge megachurch (one here that is truly diverse), the Spanish churches, the historic Black churches, and congregations consisting of primarily white folks.”

Daniel

“We’re discovering that there is so much going on in this town around this issue, but conversations are happening in separate pockets.

Maybe one of the gifts we have as a theatre company is to bring together all these active groups into a shared space.”

Heidi

“As we meet with more people, I’m mindful of how crucial this work is and that we’re coming at it from a creative side and not the usual manner we approach it. I think we can do it better this way, it’s a more fun way to approach this work.”

Daniel

THE PROCESS

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During the spring of 2018, as Heidi and Daniel worked to confirm partnering organizations, they began to establish goals for the event in July, which would host a space for both community storytelling and dialogue.

“We have 56 languages spoken here, but for this first conversation, we’ve decided to work in English. Our first priority is bringing together members of the African American and white communities.”

Daniel

“On the Inside Out team, we have a number of Spanish speakers, so we have that capacity as we think about potential future conversations. We also have a lot of Arabic, Russian, and Kurdish speakers here in town, so that’s something to think about- how to bring those language groups together in the future.”

Heidi

“We have a lot of populations living together, but never really talking to each other. Our goal is to invite diverse communities who have often been separated to come together and talk and have a shared experience.”

Daniel

“One of our goals for the July event is to include some time for folks to mingle and talk, but we’re also structuring the time for more organized storytelling and opportunities to listen to each other’s journeys. In my mind, one of the biggest goals for this event is to host a space where folks who have not been connected can see and hear each other. This makes the space where we host the event even more important.”

Heidi

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THE PROCESS

“We’ve been talking as a team about something other members of the Catalyst Initiative cohort told us early on, we should not be holding this event in a space predominantly used by white folks, especially one that African American folks have been historically excluded from, but to think of a welcoming space that allows people to take ownership over their participation.”

Heidi

THE PROCESS

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In May 2018, Heidi and Daniel hosted an organizing meeting with representatives from partnering organizations and communities, to learn about the partners’ priorities and values and to envision together what will help the July event be useful for the residents in attendance. Michael Rohd from CPCP was invited to attend and co-lead this meeting, which took place at the Lucy F. Simms Continuing Education Center, a historic African American school now being used as a community center by an African American community.

The organizing meeting was catered by a local Kurdish catering company. Participants included representatives from: − Harrisonburg City Public Schools − Virginia Organizing − Emmanuel Episcopal Church − NAACP − Our Community Place − Unitarian Universalist Church and RJ Practitioner − Tri-side Theater − Inside Out Playback Theatre

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THE PROCESS

THE PROCESS

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During the organizing meeting, the group identified a theme for the July conversation to explore: ‘the ways identity unites and divides us in Harrisonburg.’ This was followed by a conversation about how to engage issues of institutions, power, and systems into work around identity. Michael Rohd reflected on a couple of key moments during this conversation:

“In this meeting, we talked about the invitation strategy for bringing leaders and diverse residents to the first event in July. Some participants shared that they often think about engagement in terms of getting different constituencies in dialogue; Republicans, people out in the county who voted for Trump, people who don’t want to come into African American parts of town. But lately, participants are noticing that they can’t get their own stakeholders to show up anymore. They are seeing that people, in general, are so disheartened by the lack of change, they are so disheartened by the national conversation, they are so disheartened by the betrayal they often feel by community-led, often white-led, efforts for bridge building. I heard someone say that they believe in the need for bridge work in Harrisonburg, but the people they represent feel the weight of a historic and daily trauma, they feel frustration, and they are tired. They are not going to come into rooms unless there is a promise of accountability and action on the part of those who actually have decision-making and leadership power. Someone said they have never seen a lack of trust and the absolute need for accountability shut down efforts to build cross cultural community movement work the way they see it today, and they’ve been doing this work in Harrisonburg for a long time.”

Michael Rohd, Lead Artist for Civic Imagination, Center for Performance and Civic Practice

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THE PROCESS

“This led us into another half hour of conversation that was fairly vulnerable for folks, not always satisfying, but absolutely affected what the project will take on, and what it will and won’t ask of folks. And it forced/allowed folks in the room to ask- what goals, processes and commitments are necessary to ask participation of community members who have so many reasons to not attend, and what work do folks in this room need to do in their own spaces before bridge work is even appropriate and useful?”

Michael Rohd, Lead Artist for Civic Imagination, Center for Performance and Civic Practice

THE PROCESS

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In the meeting, the planning group shared valuable insights and questions that helped to shape what the July event would look like and they committed to helping prepare for that conversation. After the meeting, Michael Rohd worked with Heidi and Daniel to clarify their values and principles to guide the process moving forward into the July event. As they continued with preparations, Heidi and Daniel shared with the group these guiding principles for the next steps of this work:

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T H E I M P U TL H SE P R O C E S S

PURPOSE

− To explore the ways identity unites and divides us in

Harrisonburg.

WHY

− To build new relationships, strengthen the bonds of community. − To lay the groundwork (catalyze) for coalitions to collaborate on

local policy and system change. − To demonstrate the utility of Playback Theatre for holding the space for this work.

HOW

− Through Playback Theatre, an approach that uses storytelling

and improvisation, we will share and examine our stories as individuals and as a group.

VALUE STATEMENT

− We believe dialogue, trust, and relationship are pre-conditions

for change. We believe this story-sharing/dialogue process contributes to that pre-condition.

Throughout June, Heidi, Daniel, the Inside Out team and the partners connected in a series of brief meetings to strategize on invitation strategies for the July event, including language, publicity, and outreach as well as expanding the planning group to encompass additional perspectives.

THE PROCESS

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THE PROCESS

THE PROCESS

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The Event The community storytelling and dialogue event took place in the afternoon of July 7, 2018 at the Lucy F. Simms Continuing Education Center in Harrisonburg.

“We started the event with music and food, we had a wonderful variety of food from different caterers. We began with a drum circle, and then broke the attendees into small groups for story circles, approximately 6-8 people per group.

We started with questions such as ‘What do you like about Harrisonburg,’ and ‘What would you like to see improved?’

We then encouraged people to continue to chat in their small groups while the Playback team set up, and then we finished the day with Playback. We invited people to share stories that emerged from those conversations, or how they felt about the event, and then we ‘played back,’ that is, improvisationally performed what we heard. That seemed to work very well. There were a lot of responses, and some very vulnerable stories were shared by a variety of people.

There was lots of diversity of opinions and values shared and people were honoring each other’s stories. I was happy to see that that the white folks did not dominate those conversations.”

Heidi

“The process was led beginning to end by the Inside Out team. One member of the company acted as the emcee, and members of the company facilitated each of the story circles. Heidi was the director of the playback section, it was really well done.”

Daniel

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THE EVENT

THE EVENT

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“People really resonated with the storytelling and the opportunity to both share and hear stories from others. The connections that were made were positive. We were hoping for 50 people, and we had 51 in attendance. We were hoping for a greater racial, ethnic and cultural diversity and for greater numbers of African American, Latinx, and Middle Eastern communities, and we had representation from all those groups, but the room was predominantly white. We had a really good mix of ages, some elders, some young adults and some kids who joined in the story telling. We were happy that we got folks out, that we had good conversations, that the process seemed to really resonate with people, but we didn’t get the cross section of the community that we had hoped for. However, many white participants had never been in the Lucy Simms Center before and marveled at the history of Black education in Harrisonburg demonstrated in this landmark.”

Heidi

“One African American participant shared a story about growing up near a school when she was a child, a school that wasn’t officially for whites only, but in effect it was. She wondered aloud, ‘Why am I being left out? Why can’t I go to a school that was supposed to be a great school?’ Then a member of the audience, a white person said, ‘I was in that school and I wondered the same thing. Where was everybody who didn’t look like me?’ They connected over those stories, there was validation that occurred, there wasn’t defensiveness about it.”

Daniel

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THE EVENT

THE EVENT

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THE EVENT

“This event represented two things that are not part of daily life for the average person in Harrisonburg - one was the kind of mixture of people. It was mentioned in the conversation that we are wonderfully diverse as a community but that we live parallel lives. We were trying to break that parallelism by putting us all in one room. I’m not too surprised that we didn’t succeed in having the racial and ethnic diversity we had hoped for, that it was still predominantly white. We were aiming towards something different, but we made strides in that direction. The other thing that was different was the role of Playback Theatre in this event. Most people didn’t know or hadn’t experienced what that was. Those two things made it an unusual event. I thought it was a very good day, people were really engaged in conversations, once we got the groups in conversation, they didn’t want to quit talking.”

Daniel

“The event was supposed to end at 5:00 pm, but we weren’t out until 6:00 pm because people wanted to keep talking. We invited people to sign up for an email list to continue these conversations and be part of the coordination to build these types of connections in Harrisonburg and a lot of people signed up.”

Heidi

THE EVENT

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Ripples Since the July 2018 storytelling event in Harrisonburg, the local NAACP team began a series of discussions and collaborative proposals with Our Community Place, an organization providing access and support for those struggling with poverty and addiction. Our Community Place has also hosted storytelling events for their stakeholders and for the wider community.

Participants representing the Community Mediation Center, the local School Board, and City Council have continued conversations on how they can work together in addressing community issues.

Other participants have begun advocating for the commemoration of the historic lynching of an African-American woman in Harrisonburg through the Legacy Museum and Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.

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R I PR P ILPEPSL E S

RIPPLES

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Reflections “I’m moving to Indiana the first part of August, 2018. We’re currently working on a strategy for my leaving and thinking about possible concrete next steps that Inside Out might be involved in. One thing we’ve been thinking about: offering our services as a theatre company to the groups who attended or who were invited to attend; if they wanted to have one of these storytelling events in their community, we can offer that as a grant funded opportunity. We really want to follow through on what was started, we want to continue these conversations without an agenda.”

Heidi

“This work isn’t finished, but we’ve taken a critical step forward. In thinking about the future, I’m wondering, rather than trying to have another larger conversation with people from different cultural groups, how we can try to target specific communities and work with the folks who signed up for the email list to create and shape an event to achieve what they envision. That would be a great service to do one among African Americans, Latinos, and Middle Eastern immigrants, who are the majority group beyond Latinos.

I would love to see something like that happen. And I’m grateful that the Catalyst Initiative has made it possible for us to dream and do something we haven’t done before.”

Daniel

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THE REFLECTIONS

T HTEH ER ERFELFELCETCI TOINOSN S

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Center For Performance + Civic Practice © 2019 The Catalyst Initiative is an action research initiative — a model for supporting, advancing, and learning from innovative artist and community partner collaborations in order to reveal new possibilities for artistic contributions to community problem-solving and growth.

Written by Rebecca Martínez Designed by Tanya Rubbak Additional support by Soneela Nankani, Michael Rohd, Sara Sawicki, & Shannon Scrofano THE ANDREW W.

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MELLON FOUNDATION