CLAIMING THE JUSTICE NARRATIVE

This theatrical event will counter popular stereotypical narratives that persistently drive criminal justice discourse in this country. This production will be collaboratively-devised and determined by TCA’s Arts, Justice, and Safety Coalition, which is made up of arts programs and arts practitioners working at the intersection of the criminal legal system in the New York region and are integrating safety, accountability and justice into their work.

TIMELINE AND PHASES

We have created a three-phase process: recruitment, workshop, and production, to culminate in a production in November 2021. 
  1. Recruitment Phase - Identify key organizations and participants from those organizations to take part in the collaborative process.
  2. Workshop Phase - will take the form of a circle of sharing between organizations and participants to create a hybrid, intergenerational, cross regional community. To encourage orientation towards the development of material for a final product, the workshop phase will also include a variety of sharing opportunities, including but not limited to open mics and coffee houses to share works-in-progress over the course of the summer.
  3. Production Phase - we will debut the artistic performance in front of our targeted audience.
We are working with an intergenerational cohort of approximately twenty five artists who have been directly-impacted by the criminal legal system. We are currently in the middle of our Workshop Phase, in which we provide eight total workshops, hosted by four different organizations (Recess, Theatre of the Oppressed NYC, Dances for Solidarity, and Pheonix Players Theatre Group) towards the development of material for a final multimedia theatrical event in the Spring of 2022 that we are planning to present collaboratively for leadership figures and general audience in the public safety/criminal legal space in the spring

In this series of 8 workshops, participants will share in a cross-generational dialogue, which centers healing and the undoing of narratives surrounding the ‘criminal’. Exploring various artistic mediums, the group will collectively convey truer, more complex, personal stories that portray their humanity. Each workshop will take as its starting point:

How has your story been mistold?

We request individuals who self identify as impacted by the criminal legal system to submit their interest below. We ask that each person commit to at least one set of two workshops listed. After those two workshops, participants may opt to stay on for any number of workshops in the series. Participants will be offered $100 upon completion of the first set of two workshops, then $50 per workshop thereafter.

The material developed within these small-group workshops will build performance craft and unearth ideas for a theatrical presentation in spring 2022.

Email inquiries to: claimingthejusticenarrative@gmail.com