wordLife: using poetry & performance to transform pain to power

"I approach different creative works in different ways, but the core place I start is what is urgent in our world? What is really needed?" said Daniel Beaty, whose one man play "Emergency!" hits the Arts Emerson's Cutler Majestic Theater this weekend.

What was urgent with "Emergency!", a production in which the award winning actor, poet, singer and storyteller plays forty-some characters who react to the mysterious appearance of a slave ship at the Stature of Liberty, was Beaty's sense that "so many people feel bound."

"Why do so many people feel not happy in their lives, not free? What's the root of that, and what story do we tell ourselves about ourselves so that we can feel free to create the lives of our dreams both for ourselves and for our children?" he wondered.

"All these characters in "Emergency!", they're fighting to be free," Beaty explained. "Free from past pain, free to make their dreams happen, free to make their relationships work, free to be joyous."

"I care about are the state of the African American community and places where we're disenfranchised or certain parts of our community are without hope," Beaty said. "I focus on [how] we can tell the story of our overcoming and our brilliance so that we can be reminded of the truth of who we are as we face challenges such as issues around fatherhood, incarceration, education [and] poverty. People are struggling to get by, to pay their bills, to make their lives and their relationships and their families work. I try to create experiences that ultimately cause us to feel we can keep going. "

Here, he talks about what provoked him to become a performer, the ways the performing arts can help transform pain to power, and the importance of supporting black theater.

When did you know you wanted to be a performer??
I grew up in an environment that had a lot of addiction and incarceration. My father was arrested 58 times -- [he was a] heroin dealer and addict. I had an older brother who battled with addiction to crack cocaine, and sometimes, he would get violent. I would run across the street to the church and wait until my mother got home from work. One time, I was standing in the church parking lot about to enter, and something stopped me in my tracks. I saw myself as an adult: I was standing in front of a theater in front of thousands of people and I was on a stage. That experience caused me to know at an early age that though I [and] my family was in this place of a lot of pain, there was a greater purpose. From that point, even as a ten year old boy, I began to ask myself what is it I can give, what is it I can say that might mean something to people?

You've taught and continue to teach performing arts to youth and young adults through workshops and as an adjunct professor at Columbia University. What motivates you to share your gift and your skills with the next generation?

Finding a love of the arts gave me a safe place to heal and to find out who I was different from my father and brother. The arts is going to save a lot of our young people. The experience of young people participating in the arts gives them a healthy place to put their emotions, it gives them a way to express the things that they're going through. I really a make a commitment to doing work with young people because not everybody is going to find their place in athletics or traditional academics.?

You're publishing a children's picture book based on your poem "Knock Knock". How did that come about?

Sometimes we have experiences at a very early age that if we don't heal them, it impacts us all throughout our lives. In my work as a performer, I continually discover that people have experiences in childhood that really have an impact on their core self concept. The idea with the children's book is to speak to the issue of loss and abandonment by fathers that too many of our children experience at a young age in the hopes that the healing process can begin early so that they do not have to grow up living out of that pain.

It seems like healing and empowerment are the heart and soul of your work.?How do you integrate those elements into your productions?

As I'm working, I always ask myself, "How can I make this entertaining?" People need to laugh, people need to jump to their feet. How do I talk about something that is about our healing but at the same time create an experience that's fun, that's passionate, that's enjoyable? So much of our entertainment, this "reality TV", speaks to the lowest parts of who we are, and it may be enjoyable, like candy is enjoyable, but if you eat too much candy, it's not good for you, and it doesn't have any nutrients. What I try to do with my creativity is create something delicious that's also nutritious.

Does the African American community engage enough with theater and the performing arts? As a black performer, do you see enough faces that look like yours when you're on stage?

I would love to see more of our people coming to the theater. At the same time, I think people are skeptical right? Theater sometimes don't do shows that speak to our experiences as a people, so people don't feel like their going to go there and experience something that they'll like. Sometimes the way some of the stories are told, they don't honor or tell the truth about who we are. But I think if somebody is telling stories that are really about the best of us, we have to do a better job of showing up to make sure those artists continue to have a platform. I believe we as a black community have the power to say this is the kind of story I want to hear, and we're going to call our friends, we're going to organize a group and we're going to show up and support these kinds of stories.

ArtsEmerson presents "Emergency!" featuring Daniel Beaty, Friday, March 22 through Sunday, March 24, Cutler Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont Street, Boston. Tickets are $25 - $79; visit artsemerson.org for more information.

Source: http://www.wordlifeonline.com/2013/03/using-poetry-performance-to-transform.html

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