A first for Vancouver in North America

Headlines Theatre brings to debates on urban issues a true-to-life recounting of what urban issues really mean

by Matthew Burrows <mburrows@republic-news.org>

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City chambers were full last Thursday, May 6, as Vancouver-based Headlines Theatre presented its legislative theatre project "Practicing Democracy" to the planning and environment committee at 12th Avenue.

The findings came in the form of a packed 27-page document, outlining pressing issues-housing, temporary and permanent shelters, access to food, and help for those cut off from services and living in the urban bush. The committee unanimously voted to adopt the report and take the first steps towards implementing some of the suggestions.

Headlines co-founder David Diamond gave the presentation with legal consultant Carrie Gallant, and was quick to remind those present what it was all for and how it all began.

"Augusto Boal [who founded Theatre of the Oppressed] has helped pass over 20 laws using this Practicing Democracy in the district of Rio de Janeiro," said Diamond. "It is the first such project in North America, so this is historic."

Diamond added that it was the response to an extensive public survey (through Headlines extensive lists) that led to the choice of topic: effects at the local level of cuts to welfare.

Practicing Democracy was then performed at three locations all across town from March 3 to 21 and via Shaw cable. All input was from citizens, adds Diamond.

Back in the council chambers there was some more input from the convened committee, chaired by Councilor Anne Roberts.

Councilor David Cadman said he has a "deep appreciation" for David Diamond and Headlines, and said the project is a wake-up call for a city wanting to welcome the world in 2010.

"It is amazing to think that years ago we wouldn't have thought it possible that we'd have homelessness," he said. "This has forced us to readdress what this society is. In 18 performances Headlines took this to the community. It's not just a two-minute sound-bite. We need to struggle with what has got us here."

Councilor Fred Bass agreed. "Poverty and homelessness are invisible to most wealthy people," he said. "Society is made that way."

Police brutality was the one other issue really flagged by Diamond as problematic to those on the streets, and his report suggested the VPD treats the homeless differently (and more brutally) than other members of society.

It is worth noting that Mayor Larry Campbell, also the chair of the police board and former coroner, excused himself from the chambers for this entire segment. On top of this, the VPD was invited to attend the performances, but Diamond said he saw no representation throughout from them.

As councilors discussed the issues back and forth, one other event came to light. Just before Headlines went to council, Augusto Boal, Brazilian theatre director and founder of the Theatre of the Oppressed, was taken ill while on tour in the US and had two emergency knee surgeries in San Francisco.

"He is on the mend, but the situation has been very serious," wrote Diamond in a widely-distributed e-mail on Friday. "As I write this he is still in hospital. We are estimating that the hospital bills are going to be approximately US$60,000 to 80,000. He has no US medical coverage. Obviously, this is an enormous sum."

Diamond encouraged people to help where they can, and they can find details of that or about Practicing Democracy at www.headlinestheatre.com

"Boal has dedicated himself to the struggle for social justice all over the world and is now in a situation where he could use our help," said Diamond.

Elaine Brière's "Testimony"

Last Wednesday, documentary photographer and filmmaker Elaine Brière was at the Vancouver Public Library, talking in the Alice MacKay Room about her new book, Testimony.

The book is new, but for Brier it represents a body of work that started when she was on the "Hippy Trail" that took her to East Timor in April 1974.

Little did she know that pictures she took of a people she found at once endearing and fascinating, would be so historically significant 30 years later.

It turns out that these were the last pictures taken by a visitor before the Indonesian invasion.

After Brière left East Timor and the invasion happened, she returned to Vancouver Island, where she said she "lived as a hippy and wanted to get a boat."

"Then someone said I should read this essay on East Timor in a book by Noam Chomsky, and I was blown away," she said. "It was only then that I realized what was happening, and this was in about 1985. I had no idea about the role of the west in exploiting East Timor. I didn't know any of that, because I wasn't very political. But it's amazing how quickly things change when you get interested in one thing."

Chomsky then put Brière in touch with East Timor activists, and the rest is history. With the wheels in motion, she worked tirelessly for the plight of a people to whom she had a special attachment.

Though she has been invited all over the world to present black and white slides on the country, the 118-page, large-leaf book she unveiled is a visual collage of all images, with a foreword and some accompanying text explaining the different stages of Brière's involvement from beginning to the present day, along with essays from Carmel Budiardjo, Noam Chomsky and James Dunn, among others.

(Brière returned to East Timor with German journalist Klemens Ludwig in 2000 and was thus able to "complete the body of work.")

The audience at the launch included many activists and also Brière's own documentary photography group, Narrative 360. On May 18 she heads to Toronto to speak on the book.

"East Timor Testimony" is published through Toronto-based Between The Lines and is available for $44.

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