Can community theater help mend our broken and conflicted communities? In this episode Ash Hanson shares the story of what she and her many citizen collaborators have learned about how our place stories can help our communities not only heal but find new resilience and common ground.

BIO

Ash Hanson (she/her) has two decades of experience working with rural communities to activate stories, connect neighbors, and exercise collective imagination. She is the Creative Executive Officer (CEO) of Department of Public Transformation (DoPT) -- a nonprofit organizations that works at the intersection of creativity and civic life in rural communities. She is a member of the Center for Performance and Civic Practice Leadership Circle and she was an Artist-in-Residence in both the Planning Department at the City of Minneapolis and with the Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership, where she employed creative community engagement strategies for equitable participation in urban and rural planning and development processes. Previously, she was the Program Director for the Minnesota Theater Alliance—where she managed statewide regional networks and resource sharing—and the Program Director for Public Art Saint Paul—where she produced large-scale participatory public art events and projects, including the Saint Paul City Artist-in-Residence program. In addition to her work with DoPT, she is the founder of PlaceBase Productions, a theater company that creates original, site-specific musicals celebrating small-town life. She holds an MA in Applied Theater with a focus on Rural Community Development, and she was named an Obama Foundation Fellow and a Bush Fellow for her work with rural communities. She believes deeply in the power of play and exclamation points!

To learn more about Department of Public Transformation visit www.publictransformation.org

Notable Mentions

Department of Public Transformation: We are an artist-led nonprofit organization that works to develop creative strategies for increased community connection, civic engagement, and equitable participation in rural places. We believe in the power of rural creativity in activating solutions to address community challenges.

PlaceBase Productions: Some of America’s most inspiring stories are nestled in the communities of rural towns. PlaceBase Productions is using community theatre to bring these stories to life—and shift the narrative about what it means to live and work outside of big cities.

Ignite Rural: Ignite Rural is an “at-home” artist residency operated by the Department of Public Transformation focused on uplifting and supporting emerging rural artists that engage in social/civic work. To be considered for the Ignite Rural program, artists must reside in rural communities with a population of 20,000 or less within the colonial state borders of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the 23 Native Nations that share that geography with priority given to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and Native artists and culture bearers.

Partnership Art. In 2015, SWMHP was one of six organizations that received funding through Artplace Amercia to participate in the Community Development Investments (CDI) Program. The CDI Program was launched to investigate and support place-based organization incorporating art and culture into our core work, allowing us to better fulfill our mission of creative thriving place to live, grow and work. The three-year journey with Artplace allowed our organization the opportunity to learn, share our journey, develop strong relationships and projects with the art and cultural sector, and better serve the communities of Southwest Minnesota. 

Andrew Gaylord, Andrew Gaylord is a listener. If you ask him a question he’s more than likely to want to hear your answer than to give you his own. As one-half of PlaceBase productions he’s traveled across Minnesota collecting the stories of communities and spinning them into site-specific productions

Sonia Kuftinek: Professor Kuftinec teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on Twin Cities theater, performance and social change, early modern theater and performance, critical literacy, storytelling, and drama. Her research includes community-based theater, conflict transformation, arts-based pedagogy, and the work of story to counter individual and historical amnesia. She has published widely in her areas of research including her award-winning "Staging America: Cornerstone and Community-Based Theater" and "Theatre, Facilitation and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East" 

 Luverne Seifert: is Co-artistic director of Sod House Theater and has been acting professionally for over 30 years. He received a National Fox Fellowship for 2017, a Mcknight Fellowship for Theater Artists in 2003 and an Ivey Award in 2009 for his Performance as Phillip K Dick in 800 Words. He is currently a Senior Teaching Specialist in the Department of Theater Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota where he teaches beginning acting and physical performance. 

SuperBloom: In May 2022, the Cuyama Valley was the stage for a community play about Cuyama, by Cuyamans, for Cuyamans. On this page you’ll find information about the cast, crew, and artists that made it happen, photos from the performance, as well as full-length videos and audio performances.

En mayo de 2022, el valle de Cuyama fue el escenario de una obra de teatro comunitaria sobre Cuyama, por Cuyamans, para Cuyamans. En esta página encontrará información sobre el equipo y los artistas que lo hicieron posible, fotos de la actuación, así como videos completos y actuaciones de audio.

Blue Sky Center: We are building models for resilient, thriving, and inclusive rural economies in the Cuyama Valley. As a place-based organization, our creative team prioritizes projects and collaborations that celebrate the abundance of Cuyama.

Alex Barreto Hathaway earned his BA at the University of Minnesota under former Jeune Lune members and his thesis project exhibited Mask, Puppetry, and Street Theatre practices studied in Pernambuco, Brazil. Barreto Hathaway creates and performs with Twin Cities groups Open Eye, Exposed Brick, Red Bird, WLDRNSS (or Theatre Forever), Sod House, and Children’s Theatre, as well as touring summer performances in greater Minnesota. He is drawn to original work, mask and physical theatre, clown, stories that celebrate the Latinx experience, and productions that partner with local communities. 

Citizen University: Citizen University’s mission is to build a culture of powerful, responsible citizenship across the country. We design gatherings, rituals, and workshops for people who are searching for new ways to strengthen civic culture in their hometown. In our programs, these civic catalysts explore ideas (like power + character = citizenship), pick up new tools, develop connections, and build a renewed sense of civic spirit. They’re sparking new ways of thinking about citizenship, deepening the resolve to take responsibility, and rekindling faith in our democracy and one another.

social prescribing: In social prescribing, local agencies such as local charities, social care and health services refer people to a social prescribing link worker. Social prescribing link workers give people time, focusing on ‘what matters to me?’ to coproduce a simple personalised care and support plan, and support people to take control of their health and wellbeing. Social prescribing links people to a wide range of community groups and services. This may include creative activities such as art, dance, and singing or other activities such as knitting, cooking or sports, for social support and to improve wellbeing.

 (Change the Story / Change the World Episode (# 88) – Arts on Prescriptions. Social Prescribing and the Arts.

Tasha Golden: Is an international speaker, trainer, and consultant; a career singer/songwriter; and a PhD health scientist. As an expert in arts and health, I leverage my background as both a performer and health scientist to help leaders and organizations think bigger and ignite change.

Jill Sonke PhD, is the research director in the Center for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida, the director of national research and impact for the One Nation/One Project initiative, and a codirector of the EpiArts Lab. She has written dozens of articles on the benefits of the arts and serves as a consulting editor for the Health Promotion Practice journal.

Arts On Prescription, A Field Guide for U.S. Communities: offers a roadmap for communities to develop programs that formally integrate arts, culture, and nature resources into local health and social care systems.

Ash Hanson

From the Center for the Study of Art & Community, this is Change the Story / Change the World. My name is Bill Cleveland.

But what was this, anyway? A dance, a celebration, some kind of town musical? Yes, yes, and most definitely, yes! But these are only the most obvious manifestations of what was, in fact, an audacious, change producing community development initiative sponsored by the Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership (SWMHP) through a program they call Partnership Art.

It was also just one of the dozens of similar celebratory place-based theatrical provocations created in partnership with rural communities by PlaceBase Productions over the past decade. In this episode Ash Hanson is going to share the story of that work and reflect on what she and her many citizen collaborators have learned about how our place stories can help our communities not only heal but find new resilience and common ground.

Act 1: Exclamation Points

[00:02:04] Ash Hanson: Well, how I answer what I do in the world, I think, I really appreciated the invitation to think about, um, metaphor or a phrase and. I'm a rural arts and culture enthusiast is what I, is what I landed on because I think that that really encompasses the advocacy work, the passion, and the desire to share the stories of people in places that I care about.

Also, I'm a huge fan of exclamation points, and I have a deep appreciation for rural culture. And I love getting to know the uniqueness of people and places and finding where our overlaps are and where our cultures intersect and what the kind of rich meat in the middle of those intersections are for us to explore our humanity and our relationships and our connection to community.

So, you know, what that often looks like is participating in things like bingo and rodeos and karaoke and county fairs and, and then writing plays about, The stories that I hear and get to, um, the honor of, of listening to.

BC: So how does that show up on the ground, in the communities you work with?

AH: So I, um, run a theater company called PlaceBase Productions, and I've been doing that work for 15 years, but I've been doing kind of community-based storytelling work for a little over two decades now.

And then I also run a nonprofit called the Department of Public Transformation. And we're really seeing ourselves as an intermediary at this point in time of finding ways to redistribute resources to rural arts and cultural workers doing change-making and storytelling work in small towns, uh, primarily across the upper Midwest, but we also do work nationally as well.

So, supporting the other rural arts and culture enthusiasts, uh, as best we can with different programs and offerings across the country in small towns.

[00:04:16] AH: Yes.

[00:04:20] AH: Of course. So, you know, I think this really started when I was, doing what I, what I now know as community organizing, but theater work, right? When I first started our theater company, the question really is how do you get people to show up to participate in creating an original site-specific musical about their town, especially if they've never participated in anything like that before.

And, we, myself and my collaborator, Andrew Gaylord, found that exclamation points were a really great part of that recipe for getting folks to get excited about it. So it's like, you know, we have a part for you. We are excited about you; your story matters and this place matters.

And saying it with that kind of enthusiasm and joy is contagious, and it gets people excited about showing up and for each other. And for the places where they live.

So our mantra always, as we're like starting the rehearsal process after we do our warmups and all of our silly theater games, is we have everybody turn to their neighbor and say, trust me, and then they turn to their other neighbor, and they say, trust yourself. And then they turn to somebody across the circle, "and y'all have fun." And, in each of those cases, we put an exclamation point at the end of those statements. It's just like, "turn to your neighbor and yell, trust me" exclamation point. I mean, what does that do to our psyche as a community to say like, "You can trust me; I'm enthusiastic about it.

You can trust yourself. I believe in you. Let us have fun together. Let us create this thing together. Let us build something together in the kind of Augusto Boalian theater for life rehearsal for life approach." Um, what does that do outside of the rehearsal room? What does that do outside of this, the practice of theater?

I think exclamation points help us feel excited about that kind of participation and belief in each other.

[00:06:22] AH: That is accurate. You know, for the theater work, if you are, being playful with your mayor, for example, standing across the circle and shaking it out and making silly faces at each other, you are being vulnerable together. You are trusting each other with that vulnerability and that playfulness that comes out of those kinds of shared experiences.

I think it also breaks down certain barriers and ways that we see each other roles that we might play in the community. And it allows us to bring out some of those childlike tendencies to see our places and our people again with maybe new eyes or renewed eyes, to fall back in love with the places that we live and and with the people who live there.

Act 2: Changing the Rural Story

AH: I'm going to start just with my mom and dad. I met the child of teenage parents in rural Minnesota, who got divorced when I was under the age of 10. And I learned a lot of different things from both of them. But from my dad, I really learned the importance of self-care and adventure. And from my mom, I really learned the importance of finding the good in people in places and the value of play.

But I learned from both of them kind of a sense of resilience and resourcefulness that I think comes from the rural landscape and rural upbringing. I was a really shy and curious kid. I found theater, as a lot of shy young people might have this, had this transformative experience of stepping into other people's shoes and having the practice of trying on other stories.

And that really helped me think about my own narrative. Of what was possible for my life, but also now, looking at the ways in which rural communities were or were not represented in theater as I started along my journey. Um, and wanting to tell different stories about ruralness. It wasn't just the Pollyanna pastoral view of ruralness that I experienced as a young person growing up in rural Minnesota.

And it also wasn't the kind of hillbilly elegy version of that either. It was way more complex and nuanced than that. And then as I started doing this work and getting to know, more and more rural communities and more and more rural practitioners, um, understanding just the vast diversity of that complexity of place and how these stories are so dynamic.

We can learn a lot from them. And so, two people that really influenced me in that early stages, Sonia Kuftinek and Luverne Seifert. They were both professors of mine. Sonia was, teaching performance and social change at the University of Minnesota, and then Laverne was my clown teacher.

And I think the combination of thinking about performance and social change, like what are the stories that. I want to tell about my experiences, but really my people in my place. And, and ruralness rose to the to the surface for, for me in that, exploration of, uh, the stories that I felt like were really important to be telling at this time.

And clown, for clowning, we did a project in Fergus Falls called the Kirkbride Cycle. It was a bicycle theater project. And it was about physical and mental health, on the grounds of a former state hospital. And we invited Luverne Seifert to come up and do a clown class with the cast of the show.

And one of the participants in the play, after the clown workshop, I asked you know, how was that for you? And he said, "I will now define my life in two phases, before Clown Workshop and after Clown Workshop.

And I felt like I knew exactly what he meant. I was like, I completely agree with you. So the idea of clowning and how we see the world through the eyes of the fool, Um, has really informed my practice and like being as open as possible to receiving that information from the place that the clown receives it, which is the blank slate, which is unbiased, just awe and wonder of, of who we are and the practices and cultures that we have. so the stories that I wanted to share were ruralness and the reasons why is because I think I was just inherently a clown from the beginning.

So those are two, two of the ways of, kind of entering this work. PlaceBase productions then was the result of that and, and starting the theater company, which, we've been working in, in with small towns, again, primarily across the upper Midwest, but also doing more work nationally over the last five years, uh, telling stories of towns of 10,000 or less, and these large-scale site-specific musicals in which the town is cast in the play to share stories.

These stories are in places that are significant to the community. So, the plays are always outdoors, always moving around from scene to scene. The audience is interacting with the performers in various ways. We've done bicycle theater, paddling theater, bird-watching theater, hiking through landscapes, and really celebrating the assets and, resources and, stories of that community. And, and exploring some of the complex histories and narratives and hidden narratives that often aren't shared, in the dominant narrative of place.

I I got a little yellow school bus called Gus. The bus traveled around the country, interviewing artists in small towns, and asking them the question, what is our role in this really tense moment in our political history, in our communities, and these divisive narratives that are being portrayed about our places.

In Granite Falls, one of the primary advocates, and supporters of this work, Dave Smiglewski, who has just recently passed away, the former mayor of Granite Falls, Minnesota, was such a yes person for this work and could really, small town, civic leader, see the power and potential of this work.

Working with artists to transform community life. And, without that kind of leadership in small towns, people who are willing to say yes and take those chances, who can see the power and potential of arts and culture as a change-making agent, um, how important they are in, in this work.

[00:14:06] AH: How Mayor Dave got that way?

[00:14:24] AH: ...Andrew Volstead.

So, yeah. I think that that being the mayor of a river community, there was this more dynamic way of thinking about the of of life and change and the river community. And, uh, jumping on to the flow of, and the momentum of the art scene that was being cultivated in that region, not just, called PlaceBase Productions, there is a very robust ecosystem of artists in Southwestern Minnesota. Um, and I think like in Granite Falls specifically, when we started working there about 10 years ago, it was on its peak. upward trajectory. And we also jumped in on that wave of people who have already been doing the work for a long time. So yeah, I think Mayor was, Dave was really good at picking a good line, the, in the river and following the flow.

There are people who, trust certain people without ever having to say, "I trust you". And there are people who don't trust other people in town, uh, and sometimes that doesn't get articulated either; in urban environments, these things can come and go so quickly that we'd hardly even notice it, but in a smaller town where people depend on each other, you know, there was a time when Mayor Dave didn't know you, and then he did, and then it sounds to me like he came to trust you and your clown troop and join it in a sense. And could you talk about what what that takes to make that happen?

The outsider coming in especially in rural communities with extractive histories of economies and people benefiting off of rural labor for. Centuries, right? So I get it. And I think the way of entering a community and being gracious and gentle with what already exists and, honoring what already exists, and celebrating the culture of that place is the first step to building that trust, being genuinely curious and genuinely open to learning.

And doing our best to reserve judgment, of why a place is the way it is or why the people there act the way that they do to try to understand it better. Now, we have been working in the community of Granite Falls for 13 years. And, uh, have a longer-term presence in the community.

The Department of Public Transformation has a building on Main Street in Granite Falls called the Yes House. And we see ourselves as stewards of that space for community gathering and collective imagination. and, uh, it has not been easy. There hasn't always been a strong sense of trust and I think, especially over the last four years has been really challenged, um, and fractured in rural communities. Specifically, but across the world.

BC: So, you're talking about the disruptions of the already fragile civic and social ecosystems that many communities have endured as a result of the pandemic and its multiple ripples.

So, it's like creating a script and then sharing back with the community and saying. "Are we accurately representing you and your story here? And is this really what you want to see, in your community?" And then receiving that feedback in an iterative process to really build it together. So, it doesn't belong to us.

Ideally, it belongs to the community. And so, it's always putting the narratives and stories and ideas of the people who live there First, and understanding like we are the shepherdsare facilitators of those experiences, but not the owners of them.

Act 3: SuperBloom

BC: So, could you take us to one of your, places and tell a story of what happened there?

called Super Bloom, and it was in the Cuyama Valley in California. Cuyama Valley has about a thousand people that reside throughout the Valley. We were primarily working in New Cuyama, which has about 300 and some folks living there.

This was a grant issued by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and was given to an organization called Blue Sky Center, an amazing community development and arts and economic organization in the Valley to look at community care and repair post-pandemic. And so PlaceBase Productions was one of the artists groups that were invited to do something around the vaccine hesitancy, caring for our neighbors, you know, how do we move forward into the next phase of our community life after all of this fragmentation and isolation. And so we began with our process of interviews and story circles and, we were still all masked at that time.

And the collaborator, collaborator that I worked with, Alex Barreto Hathaway, He's a Puerto Rican puppeteer and, director, writer. The community there is about 70 percent Hispanic, primarily Spanish-speaking. So, our play was bilingual.

And one of the things that happened during our story circles that I mean, just this, another one of these like life changer moments was as we were asking folks about their experience with the pandemic and how they are feeling in this kind of like post-pandemic time, everyone started doing this, this gesture with their hand, where they would say,

"You know, I was about to open this business, and then, the pandemic happened," and they'd make this flitting motion with their hand or like, "Oh, we were going to go on this vacation. Or my daughter was going to get married. Or I couldn't go to the funeral because the pandemic happened." And, there was this gesture that was just like for us all to then just say, "Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We get it. We know. We understand."

But Alex and I were like, "Hold on a minute. Let's unpack this gesture that we're just collectively dismissing this year and a half of tragedy, and grief, and loss." And because there isn't really a third-party witness for us, right?

When we're grieving the loss of somebody else or something else in our life, we can turn to somebody who's maybe not experiencing that loss and say, look at this loss I'm experiencing, right? But we all went through this together, and there isn't a third-party witness, so we don't want to burden anybody else because they had their own loss and grief.

And so we would pause and say let us unpack this gesture. What did it feel like to not be able to open your business or not be able to have the wedding of your dreams and, let these stories flow of the things that we lost. And so we could collectively grieve them in that moment.

And then once we began the process of grieving together, right, and sharing those vulnerabilities and building that trust, and then starting to look towards the future, what are the hopes that we have? Um, how can we repair and mend these deep wounds moving forward? We ended up looking at the narrative of this place through the super bloom, which, usually, each spring, all of the wildflowers will bloom at once.

This is beautiful, colorful display of kind of like joy, the earth exploding, right? Enjoy. And the super bloom hadn't happened in a few years during the pandemic in real life. And so, in the world that we created for this production. The flowers hadn't come for so long that the young people had forgotten what they looked like. They had never seen flowers before. And so there was a lot of stories about what flowers were like, and you know, the metaphor of hope, or the metaphor of this kind of, future looking dream. But they had never seen flowers before. And in this world that was created, there was a lot of division and, animosity and no flowers.

BC: So, the story that you created with the community was of a place where the absence of blooms that Cuyama had experienced during the pandemic, and of course the drought we in California had been dealing with, was permanent, so no flowers for a long time.

AH: Yeah, and then our protagonist, Marie Flor, did a good deed, and a flower bloomed. Um, no one would believe her, that she saw a flower. That she's experienced hope, right? And so she wanted the whole town to believe her. And she was visited by this giant 12-foot chaos monster, um, a huge puppet that we created that convinced her the best way to get her community to believe her would be to create a bunch of fake flowers because once they at least saw the fake flowers, then they would believe in flowers again, and then the flowers would bloom. So she does that, a big wind blows, the fake flowers disappear, and everyone gets really upset again.

And this is looking at, these waves of hope and despair we went through during the pandemic as well, of like, "Okay, it's over. No, it's not. Oh my gosh. Okay, we can do things again. No, we can't. Um, but can we plan something? No, we can't, you know?"

And so there was, we just like, we're in this survival mode, but we were afraid to reach out or to move into the next phase or to dream or to plan. And so, uh, the community goes through this together and, Marie Flore explains why she did this act and, you know, it ends up being that yes, the town comes together and the flowers bloom.

Do they really bloom in real life or is it a metaphor for their hope and faith in the future of their place? Um, either way, yes, it's the flowers bloom. And we had about 50 members of the community in the production and about an audience of 250 in a town of around 300 folks, right? So, it was like a full community experience.

And the conversations that we had, with our cast about exploring the metaphors being shared or why Mari Flor sees the flower, what it means to have this kind of hope and to hold it, and what it means to like convince people to have hope were just really a powerful intergenerational experience. They had a lot of young people in the show and, and older folks as well. And, and really varying political beliefs, from extreme conspiracy theorists about the pandemic not existing, to folks working on the ground and in the healthcare field.

So it felt like We had a microcosm of what it means to collectively grieve, collectively heal, collectively hope, and then rebuild. We're going back this year to do a sequel to Superbloom, so what happens after the flowers bloom is our next production there, and we'll keep you posted on what we find out.

So, now a technical question: CDC came up with money to do an arts-based initiative inside a little community, that clearly needed it. I'm sure there are people going, "How does something like that ever come together?"

AH: So this Center for Disease Control put out, a call for how arts and cultural engagement can decrease vaccine hesitancy, And, so so, Blue Sky Center received the grant and then did a call for artists and we applied for the call for artists.

[00:30:46] AH: And that's a major part of our model. We always have a local host that has invited us in to do this work, for Placebase. So there's, there's a local trusted entity that has either helped us raise the funds to do the project, or is the primary connector, or organizer of, of the work. And We rely really heavily on, on their network and they're vouching really for us in the community.

And with Superbloom, we were really exploring neighbor-to-neighbor connection and how, if we care about our neighbors, then we'll want to, take care of them and we should all get vaccinated. So

building confidence, around caretaking for our neighbors is a direct and obvious fit for artists, right?

Act 4: Rebuilding the Horizon

You know, one of the aspects of something like a pandemic is the narrowing of your field of vision and the loss of your horizon at the same time, which is really dangerous for humans. So, like hope or, planning for next year are all horizon line things.

And who to trust is, the question that comes up When the peripheral vision starts to narrow too, and at the end of the day, one of the post-epidemic epidemics, of course, is loneliness and isolation. And you. Um, came into town and, created an antidote to that and people accepted it which they didn't have to do,

So, given this experience and the thrust of your work, what's the role of the creative process going forward, um, not just in rural communities but in, in places that are struggling, uh, to even have a, a civil conversation about the most important and basic things that face our communities.

You know, there's one response to that: as arts and cultural workers, do we create collective moments of joy and celebration that balance out those kinds of collective displays of grief and anger?

Or do we think about a potentially more productive way of collectively grieving and being in our loss and in our anger together so that we can heal so that we can come together and? I think that that's one place that rural arts and cultural workers could really step into.

One of our programs that we offer is called Ignite Rural, and it, is a program that supports BIPOC and Native artists in an at home residency. So, we invite them to do their work in and with their home communities. Around issues that are important to their place and pay them for their time and give them a project budget to work with their community on, challenges that their facing and, witnessing, you know, their work and stepping into their leadership. Or stepping further into their leadership and exploring themes of, of mental health and wellness and tradition and, um, culture with their communities, has given, I think, our organization a lot of hope for the role of rural cultural workers.

The challenge is, continuing to, to find the resources to do that work. As I'm sure you know, right, there's 18 to 20 percent, depending on how you break it down, of folks live in rural places in this country. Less than 5 percent of philanthropic dollars goes towards rural places.

In the arts, it's less than 2%. So a lot of our work is around that advocacy to say, look, what would be possible if we could get the resources to the people doing collective healing and repair work, to the scale in which it's just equitable across, across the country.

We, we see that in rural communities when you do this kind of work, the impacts ripple out even further because of exactly what you were saying earlier, right? These social networks are tighter, the roles that we play, the ways we interact with each other, we need each other, we rely on each other. And so the impacts Can ripple out further and be that much greater and more immediate, I think, as well, right?

I think of this one example of needing to close the streets when we were working in the town of less than 500 people. And you know, in Minneapolis, it's a whole permit process. Many weeks have to go by and you have to prove that you have all of these things in place. And in this community, it was like, "What day do you need it? Sure. I'll let Bob know." And then, the streets are closed.

[00:36:32] AH: Yeah, so it's it's like there's an immediacy to it and relational work in rural places that I think really benefits rural cultural workers and organizers if you are willing and able to work within the culture of the place and I think that especially Is true if it is your community as well

Okay. You are doing that work.

00:37:14] BC: Here's theater. Here's dance. Here's writing. Let's bring people together. They have stories. If they feel safe, they will share those things. This is thousands and thousands of years old that people do this, and they need to do this. And now We're struggling with the fact that fewer and fewer places, spaces, and systems accommodate these things that are absolutely critical for people. Where do you do the things you just described, and how do you do them? We've forgotten.

And so, how does the richest country in the history of the earth, turn around and find the resources for these communities to heal themselves? Right? What's the model? What's the metaphor? Okay, we're talking about health, thriving. When you talk about grieving, we're talking about people who hurt physically, mentally, spiritually, and then whole communities, and you're talking about, in essence, making a sanctuary for healing and for people to create their own space for doing that.

[00:38:23] BC: Yeah. Yeah. So the most formal version of this started in the United Kingdom, you have a national health service and doctors who have less and less time for establishing relationships with their patients.

So, The National Health Service now has established a position called a link worker, whose job it is to engage with patients, learn who they are, learn what they need beyond the pill and surgery for improving life outside of the hospital.

[00:39:01] BC: And then, the doctor can prescribe, "Uh, there's a wonderful gardening program that's about three blocks from where you live. And we're going to prescribe you to go to the gardening program for the next six weeks. They're ready for you. They're really excited you're going to be there."

[00:39:22] BC: "Oh, there's a dance program over here. And, I know when you were younger, you were really into dance. And so, that dance company now is going to receive a fee and have created a program as a partnership with the National Health Service." Okay, so these are doctors who can prescribe social prescriptions.

[00:39:46] BC: uh, The (Change the Story) episode (# 88) that, that I'm going to refer you to is these two amazing, women, Tasha Golden, and Jill Sonke. There are 20 pilot programs in the United States, and they went and studied them all, And they have been working to collect the research and make the case: It promotes healing, reduces costs, make's people feel better... They have, written, uh, a field manual for communities...

[00:40:15] BC: ...to undertake this. Its called Arts On Prescription, A Field Guide for U.S. Communities. Okay, that's a digression.

[00:40:43] BC: Exactly, and I mean we're talking about healing individual humans. Healing communities, healing democracy,

[00:40:51] BC: and it's interesting because when we worked at the Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership you produced that incredible community play in Milan and we helped them establish an arts-animated arts-infused halfway house for single moms re-entering their communities. That is the essence of art on prescription.

AH: Well, we are still working very closely with the Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership. The Department of Public Transformation is, James Aronson, the architect there, is still working with us on the Yes House project pretty consistently, and I will occasionally get phone calls from him or other members of the team saying, "Hey, we want to do an arts project. Can we pick your brain on what would be the best approach?"

BC: That makes me so happy to hear that.

Act 5: Change Happens at the Speed of Trust

So, you have people who you've nurtured and stewarded who go, God, you know, Ash, I want to do what you do, or I want to follow in this path.

I want to do this kind of work. What do you say to them that is both encouraging, but also realistic about the work.

And also, this idea of really trusting yourself and trusting the process. It is, as you said earlier, and as all theater artists know, really, that's where the special sauce is. It is in the process. And, for us, the play itself is just one part of this really incredible magical experience, all the way from the first interview through the, long term relationships that we have with the people who are part of our projects. The play is just one little piece of it, but it is all about the process. so trust it. Trust that process.

[00:43:04] AH: Yes.

But we're not going to take pleasure in it if we also don't feel that same kind of support and love and care back for us. So it is, it is reciprocal. And so I think if our communities could really think about if we take care of and love and, tend to our community's collective desire and excitement to see the potential of their place and their dreams coming to fruition there, then our people will be, More likely to invest back in that place and have that deep sense of love and connection.

[00:44:28] AH: Yes. I live in Utah now. And I've been getting to know the Red Rock Desert and I'm currently working on a play about Moab. And I've been diving deep into Terry Tempest Williams. And her work, primarily the books that have been sticking out to me are called Red and Erosion.

And I think that she really embodies this idea of loving a place so deeply that you must act. And I'm learning a lot from her and that work. I think also just the, the deep dive into geology of this place. I'm getting a much better understanding of humans relationship to time and landscape and, our impact on this earth, just by being surrounded by the Red Rock Desert.

And and this is just like a, call to action around, however we can tap into, our connection to the land, the landscape and the history of that place, through the sensual nature of it. That's really where my heart is right now is: feeling the landscape of the place and feeling human's impact on it. That's where I've been drawing a lot of inspiration.

[00:45:48] BC: And a perfect place to close. What a treat it has been to catch up.

[00:45:54] BC: All right. And to our listeners thank you for the time you have spent with us here, and I know, if you are like me there are times when you want to jump in and say Amen, or are you crazy, So if that hankering for dialogue lingers beyond this moment, please indulge it by dropping us a line at csac@artandcommunity.com. That's csac@artandcommunity, all one word and all spelled out, dot com.

Change the Story / Changed the World is a production of the Center for the Study of Art and Community; our theme and soundscape spring forth from the head, heart, and hands of the Maestro, Judy Munsen, our text editing is by Andre Nnebe. Our effects come from free sound.org and our inspiration. Comes from the ever-present spirit of UKE235. So until next time, stay well, do good, and spread the good word. And once again, Please know that this episode has been 100% human.

And. Speaking of human. To close with a little extra here. I'd like to take us back to myelin for a moment. Now, near the conclusion of the production, This Land is Milan, the townsfolk onstage, and in the audience, listen, in fear as a respected community, elder delivers a dire warning about the terrible threat posed by the sea monster lurking in the nearby lake. As a nervous rumbling spreads across the frightened crowd. A nine-year-old girl comes forward and begins to sing. Her bright. Beautiful voice and simple message bringing a very calm and much needed perspective to the gathering.

“What on earth is a sea monster anyway It seems kind of crazy to me

Seems instead like a fictional reverie to hide our insecurities

We may be inclined to run from our fears But we're better off if we face them

Let’s put this sea monster where it belongs,

and talk about what's really on our minds.”