Imagine teenagers having a safe platform to share their voices & creative self-expression – where they can freely address the issues in their lives that most concern them – exactly the way they are …. Like the experiences of prejudice, bias, stereotyping, bullying, depression, anxiety, trauma, addiction, relationships w/friends & family, self-worth, etc.
This actually happened here in South Jersey. In 2003 I co-founded an award-winning non-profit called The Changing Our World (COW) Project, which I co-directed until 2012, with 30-40 members from diverse (racial, religious, academic, socio-economic) backgrounds. Teens created original music, videos, skits, spoken word, dance, comedy, and interactive exercises for the audience … for multi-media shows that they performed for school assemblies, community events and government functions throughout the state of New Jersey. We impacted and helped change so many lives, for the members of COW, their families and their audiences.
At the time we started COW, I was raising our then 7 year old daughter and pursuing my own music career. I co-directed the group on a volunteer basis. Although it often felt like a full time unpaid job, it was one of the most fulfilling periods of my life. To this day I’m still in touch with many of the young people, now in their late 20’s to 30’s.
I want to share with you about our first and last performances … and how these courageous teens made a profound impact in the world through sharing their authentic voices.
Our first show:
We really didn’t know what we were doing. My partner, Eileen, was a teacher in the high school and a voice student of mine. We wanted to do something to empower teens to realize that their lives matter! Just the way they are. So we put out a call to gather teens together for a meet-up, where they each shared what mattered to them and challenged them most in life. From there, we began to write a script for a show that combined acting, music, dance, art, comedy, and spoken word.
It took us about 4 months to write the show, and another 2 months of rehearsals. It was hard to get everyone to show up regularly, so we could have productive rehearsals. One of the girls, a senior, took on a leadership role, and was pivotal in moving the project forward. She loved the project, and was a natural leader. She spent a lot of time working on the show, while her parents wondered what she was doing and why, and were not entirely supportive of her participation in the group. They were pressuring her to follow the college prep plan they felt was right for her. She was torn, between what COW was awakening in her, and what she felt was expected of her.
After our show, which was a major success, we heard from her that her parents had a big change of heart. That her father even told her that he finally understood why she was so passionate about the COW Project. They eased up on her, and I recently saw that, now in her mid-30’s, she is a director of an international development company that seeks to make a better world. It seems like this amazing woman really chose to trust in her calling and is making her life matter every single day.
Following the positive response to our first show, the Board of Education asked COW to write and perform a show specifically for the board that summer, to demonstrate to them what we were all about. So we quickly put another show together and performed it mid-summer, to their small but impressed audience. The students begged us to continue the project into the next school year…which we did. And within a couple of years, we evolved into an official 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization.
Our last show:
The principle of a middle school here in South Jersey had seen COW perform at the NJ Human Relations Council’s annual conference in Trenton (sponsored by the NJ Attorney General’s Office) and pleaded with us to come to her school to do a show specifically for them. They were a mostly white population, with a minority of mixed races who were being bullied and ostracized by both students and staff. It was ugly. I won’t even repeat the names they were calling the minority students.
We re-wrote our show to be especially targeted for their situation. On the bus ride to the school, our COW kids were nervous, worried that the audience would not be receptive… and might actually call them names or even throw things at them. We kept assuring them they would be protected, and to just focus on sharing their hearts.
One of our opening skits was borrowed from the book title, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum. In the skit, the ‘teacher’ stood before a semi-circle of her ‘kindergarten students’ and spoke to the audience, “They say that everything we need to know, we learn in kindergarten. So, children, let’s show these nice people how well we learned our ABC’s.” And then, the COW ‘kindergarten’ students launched into an enthusiastic version of the ABC song….BUT… each letter was a word that was a racist slang. Oh yes we did, we went there. It was SHOCKING! We would hear gasps, nervous giggles, and then…. stunned silence, indicating … MESSAGE RECEIVED! Then the ‘teacher’ would turn again to face the audience and say, “Yes, shocking, isn’t it? It seems ok to us when it’s just one name calling here or there…but when you put it all together… it’s horrible! HOW do you think OUR CHILDREN feel?!”
And from here… we usually had the audience in the palms of our hands. They couldn’t look away, or stop listening.
So our last show continued from there, addressing the cost and impact of bullying, stereotyping and ‘othering’ people. Mind you, this was 2012. We closed the show with a group sing of “We Are the World” and to our surprise, about half of the audience of middle schoolers spontaneously joined our kids, arms around each other, standing on the stage and tables, singing together through tears and smiles.
Then, after long outbursts of applause and cheers, we settled down, sitting across edge of the stage, for a Q&A with the audience. After a few questions, a tough looking girl came to the microphone, and called another student up to the mic with her. She began to apologize to this other student, explaining how she had been bullying them all school year, and now could see the impact of that… and felt horrible, and just wanted to own it and publicly apologize and make things right. Our jaws dropped, tears welling up in our eyes.
Then… more students came to the microphone, forming a line…calling up other students to join them… with more and more apologies and requests for forgiveness. It went on for an hour. We finally had to leave and get back to the high school…but the bus ride back was a whole different mood.
The kids were high on life, exuberant from the experience of watching life transform before their very eyes… all as a result of speaking out their own truths.
These are only 2 of many, many examples of personal victories that these teens experienced at a very formative time in their lives. Those bus rides home from events are what gave me the juice to keep on going. It is clearly possible to improve the quality of life… by just giving people a safe and compassionate space to express their truth. No judgment. No condescending. No criticism. Just open hearts, open minds, and an open forum for truth to reveal itself.
Isn’t this what we all want in life? In our relationships, our jobs, our communities?
This is why the arts & entertainment are such powerful forces for the expression and evolution of our humanity…individually and collectively.
Believe in your own creative spirit. Give voice to your own unique experiences and points of view. Trust that you have a story to tell, the telling of which, will be a source of encouragement, inspiration, validation. It may just change someone else’s life. Or your own.
Please join our Awakened Artist Community – private group on Facebook. It’s FREE. Be part of a creative community that cares about making a better, kinder, more compassionate world.
*Photo: Members of The Cow Project, glowing right after our last show, 2012