“There were Giants in the sky. The Giants of Mental Illness, Poverty, and Drug Abuse gathered on her horizon, ready to attack...”
Union Settlement, East Harlem, NYC
New York, East Harlem. A group of Social workers gather in a community center for a combination workshop/show. They’ve come together to discuss self-care. They begin with an exercise where they line up in alphabetical order of their favorite food. They go deeper, rating their level of self-care. Colleagues smile and laugh as they easily share about their ratings. They are warming up to the conversation. After a few more exercises the show begins in earnest. The participants form an audience. The conductor begins to solicit stories, and someone shares her dread of the stack of e-mails she’ll have waiting for her after this workshop. The actors play this back using a Fluid sculpture, a moving collage of sounds and feelings. After a few short forms like this, a woman gets up to tell a longer story. She tells of one of her clients, and how she feels like they are both beset by gigantic forces beyond their control. The players start to play her story back, acting out an epic battle between her and giants in the sky, giants that she may never defeat, but she will continue to fight. The audience, deeply moved, some in tears, carry her story with them as they return, refreshed and with a deeper appreciation for one another, to their work.