Riot Youth!

I did not land in Ann Arbor, Michigan for the reasons that I thought I did. Well, for those reasons, but not in the order of importance I thought. This trip was supposed to be about promoting my novel, and I would also facilitate a young people's theater and writing workshop and see some old college friends. The friends and the young workshoppers turned out to be more significant than the self-promotion, though that went very well, too. What I learned from my old friends will be the subject of future blog pieces. For now I want to pay tribute to all I learned from the fabulously out and creative members of Riot Youth, the young LGBT group at Ann Arbor's Neutral Zone teen center.

I had two challenging hours planned to bring the participants all the way from "webbing" (the technique of starting with a random phrase and free associating on paper, prior to writing); all the way through writing; working with large pieces of cloth as flexible props to experiment with and build a character's spirit and body; and finally adding another random prop to complete a short performance based on the writing previously done. In two hours. If I talked too much, which I usually do, it was to encourage the young people to let go of rules or how it "should be." One young woman started "webbing" but transitioned almost immediately to list making. A young man included drawings in his web of words. Some transitioned from webbing to intense writing - long pieces stuffed with feelings and ideas. Others wrote only a little. One young man wrote a piece that sounded like random sounds when read aloud, but could be deciphered into recognizable words when read on paper - but only when read on paper. Everyone made penetrating and supportive comments about the pieces of writing, and I don't think anyone declined to read at least a part of what they wrote.

Using a big piece of cloth (like a bed sheet) to build a body and a character is a favorite theater exercise from a college acting class. Then, the cloth was used by us students as we were directed by our professor to experience the seasons of life in our bodies. The cloth was flung outward by energetic hands and arms in spring, used more provocatively in summer, assumed more stately uses in fall, and at last became the very source of our waning energy as we wrapped it around ourselves in winter. With Riot Youth, I did not have the time for such explorations. Instead I turned the participants loose, first to explore all possible uses of their cloths (used bedsheets we harvested from a thrift shop and frantically laundered the night before, the washing machine sliding off balance and thumping from the basement); and then to use in building up the character that had written, or might have written, their piece. Once the cloth work brought that character into focus (many were bound up in or covered with their cloths), each character had to choose favorite text from what that participant had written. Did they like the whole piece? Or just one sentence or phrase? Or just one sound? Did they wish to improvise off the piece? Or paraphrase it? Or disagree with it entirely?

At this point, my plan was to discard the cloths and have the young people move to randomly selected props (also harvested at the thrift shop, these ranged from a hair dryer to a nutcracker to a toy hard hat and were huge fun to pick out). They would deliver their chosen text and employ the prop. (One step too many in here, I know, but everyone was game and cooperative and creative.) Many, however, had made their cloths a part of them or turned them into something, another character in their evolving piece, perhaps. So I gave the option of keeping the cloth and adding the additional prop, or discarding the cloth and using the prop alone. Almost all kept the cloth, and all used it in different ways in their (semi-) finished pieces.

We made other adjustments as we went, too. Some moved through one stage or another of the workshop rapidly. Others lingered over certain stages. One young man began performing his piece long before I gave the formal direction for performances to begin. His performance continued quietly, all the way to the end of all the others. He had chosen the hair dryer, and he lay on the floor, arms out, Christ-like, the cord placed around his neck (loosely) and plugged into the wall. When finally he unplugged it, when everyone else had performed their pieces, that signalled the end of his performance.

One young woman made a bear den of her cloth and made a point of discarding her previously written text as "litter." (Litter...literature...more than coincidence?)

A young man repeated "I'm gay" as he shed his cloth and a pair of sunglasses he had taken from the prop table. With these encumbrances removed he repeated "I'm gay" one last time, while holding his arms up and making muscles.

The list maker rang a set of chimes as she read items randomly from her list. (Thus, a request to perform her piece a second time elicited a different list; a request for a third run through elicited yet another.)

One young woman asked someone to take the mop she had chosen (no handle; just strings and strings and strings) and tie up her wrists with it. This image made me want to see scary and powerful things from her, so when her first recitation came out simply and quickly, I began directing her to elicit more struggle and emotion. I pointed out to the group that I was now not just facilitating or requesting a repetition in order to see what might happen. I was guiding and "improving"  as a director does. The young woman gamely went through five iterations of her piece, the struggle against the tied mop strings becoming fiercer and fiercer, her vocal shifts more defined, and her tendency to look at me for approval at the end diminished.

I wish I had room to describe everyone's piece, but I can speak for everyone when I say the explorations were creative, brave, and unexpected, and that everyone took full ownership of the exercises and of their pieces. It was also sobering how many of the pieces, as you can gather from the descriptions above, involved images of binding, confining, and hiding. (I should mention that all of this was portrayed safely. No materials or props or activities posed any hazard, and all youth were under adult supervision at all times.)

So they are cooking and creating in Ann Arbor! They are supporting one another and they are putting themselves out there. You let them say it, and they will. You let them do it and they will do it and they will think up the next thing to do and they will do that, too.

Look for them on pages and stages near you in the years to come.