January 7, 2016
Little Compadres
She seemed so small and vulnerable: the girl with the green rattles. I sometimes find myself thinking of her at this time of the year. We have just passed the holidays and are entering a new year. We are asked during the holiday time, in our darkest of days as we turn towards the light, to think of the small and vulnerable children from far away places that need our help. The forlorn faces on the television ads remind us to give to the fragile and needy boys and girls in the spirit of the season. In this time I sometimes think of her: the girl with the green rattles.
In recent years I have thought of her often. There have been so many stories in the news about vulnerable children in trouble. There were the Central American children who came across the US border and surrendered themselves to our country with hope and trust. There was a drowned three year old Syrian refugee boy who washed up on the shore and shook the conscience of the world. There was our Michigan Governor's administration covering up the poisoning of children's drinking water in the City of Flint. There were the cries for justice for young black men and boys killed by police, including 12 year old Tamir Rice. As each of these stories flashed across the television screen, I thought of her again: the girl with the green rattles.
This girl had green rattles in her hands because she was getting ready to perform. For many years my wife, my son and I ran a touring theater company where we brought children out on stage to perform ancient stories and myths. The woman who hired us for this particular performance was named Judith Stanton. We had done events for Judith for over 10 years, at several venues: First at the Chicago Youth Center and then at the Boys and Girls Club of Benton Harbor and finally at Camp Rosenthal (where I would meet the girl with the green rattles). The first venue where we were hired by Judith was at a Chicago Youth Center on the south side of Chicago. One of their members had just been killed in a drive by shooting. We helped the students there create a performance to help them work through their feelings in the aftermath of this violence. Judith and the Chicago Youth Center came to my mind when I heard the news about a year ago of the death of Tamir Rice, a 12 year old boy killed by a Cleveland policeman in a manner that looked more like a drive by shooting than anything else.
After we did our workshops with the teens at the Chicago Youth Center in the wake of the drive by shooting there, my wife commented on my ability to walk into that group of big black guys as a little white guy without any hesitation. The lack of hesitation on my part may have come from some part of me that simply knows that teens are teens and kids are kids where ever you go: black kids and white kids and muslim kids and hindu kids. 10 years after that Chicago Youth Center project, Judith hired us to create a performance with the kids at Camp Rosenthal, in Dowagiac, Michigan. The kids at Camp Rosenthal came from the south side of Chicago to the woods of Michigan based on a philosophy that Judith referred to as “no child left indoors”. The kids at Camp Rosenthal are like the kids you remember from school and camp and playgrounds, no matter what color you happen to be. When I saw a photograph of Tamir Rice I remembered the boys from Camp Rosenthal. A lot of them looked much like Tamir Rice looked while he was still alive: bright, young, playful and curious. That does not surprise me at all. Kids are kids and I am accustomed to encountering all varieties of kids without getting unduly surprised. Still, when I met the girl with the green rattles at Camp Rosenthal, she did in fact manage to surprise me. It is that surprise that makes me think of her when there are stories about vulnerable children that come across my television screen.
As I write this, we are entering into a new year and leaving the holiday season. In the holiday season, we are reminded of the holy refugee family who searched through the night for a place to stay. As the nights grow longer we feel our own vulnerability in the cold and the dark. We recall the homeless family who finds a manger where the mother can give birth to an infant so tender and mild. We give thanks for our own shelter and warmth and comfort as the faces of those less fortunate appear on our televisions and devices. These vulnerable children in the charity ads tell us that they need welcome and refuge, just as the holy family needed help on that cold December night. We are asked to have pity and to give. There are times when I see the pleading looks of these children on my television during this giving season and I think back to the girl with the green rattles.
We arrived at Camp Rosenthal ready to get to work on creating our play and in good spirits: a sunny summer day in the beautiful woods of South West Michigan. There were hundreds of kids hiking, swimming, boating and playing. One particular girl stood out. The kids were from the South side of Chicago, almost 100% black. This girl was in the youngest group and looked to be about five years old. Her skin was light brown. I didn't know her ethnicity. Latino? Asian? Polynesian? Whatever her background, it was different from most of the other kids. The other thing that made her stand out was an unusual facial structure, with either a cleft palate or some other condition or injury that had created some disfigurement around her mouth. When I saw this I paused. Normally when I work with children I work with a strong regard for their energy, strength, presence and creativity. I meet their vigor and spirit with a vigor and spirit of my own. This time, as I passed by this little brown girl with a twist in her mouth, my normal vigor and strength melted away. I saw her sitting on a park bench, and as I saw her I felt a momentary collapse into pity and sadness for this little girl far from home and looking so different from everyone around her. Everyone at Camp Rosenthal came from challenging circumstances, but she seemed to stand out as especially challenged. I felt something in me give way as I bent my head down and took a moment to gaze forlornly at this most fragile and vulnerable child. I do not remember her name. I remember her by the part that she played in our performance: the little girl with the green rattles.
This holiday season we saw the television images of vulnerable children against a backdrop of politics, as we entered the election year of 2016. This past year, we have seen the politics of vulnerable children emerge in strange and unusual ways. The Sandy Hook parents became counselors and advocates as the next set of families went through the next round of grief after the next set of shootings. Presidential candidates responded to Syrian refugees by saying no to orphans under 5 years old or yes to Christian children but no to Muslim children. Then more announcements about vulnerable children came over the airwaves during the December holidays. There would be no state prosecution of the policeman who killed 12 year old Tamir Rice. Michigan's Governor gave an inadequate apology for the poisoning of the children of Flint. Then there was the announcement that the Department of Homeland Security would begin rounding up and deporting the families and children from Central America who showed up on the border in the summer of 2014. This was a jarring announcement during this holy time. Is this the season to turn our backs on the children who are fleeing from systemic violence? Have we forgotten that this Central American violence is fueled in part by our country's drug wars and our drug money? Do we really want this to be our country's holiday message: There is no room at our inn for the refugee children?
When I hear news stories like these, my heart aches and my spirit sinks. It feels a bit like that moment when my heart sank in sad and helpless pity as I passed the little girl on the park bench at Camp Rosenthal. I did not know what to do. The television ads promise us a way to make a difference by donating to the children in need. Perhaps they have the way. I do not know. Our better angels want to make a difference and the television ads and politicians and religions each claim to be showing us how. Recently, a very powerful man who is now the Speaker of the House (third in line to the Presidency) came up with a proposal to help the vulnerable and the needy: mentorships. He presents some real world evidence that such programs have had a big impact in some cities. He may be on to something. Perhaps this is what I felt as I passed by the girl on the park bench, the girl who would soon become the girl with the green rattles. She looked so vulnerable and powerless and small and I felt that she needed someone to help her and mentor her and protect her from harm. My heart ached and my spirit sank as I looked down upon her in that moment.
The play we put together at Camp Rosenthal was an all day project, and as the day went on I noticed something about the little brown girl with the unusual shaped mouth that I had seen earlier on that park bench. She seemed to be getting along with the kids and counselors just fine. She was laughing and playing without any problem and she was not being picked on or pitied or singled out in any way that I noticed. I began to wonder whether my sadness for this girl was premature. Perhaps I had been too quick to place such sombre sadness on this girl who was soon to be cast as the girl with the green rattles.
The day went by quickly as we did one workshop after another. This was a production with everyone in the camp participating: about 200 performers. We put the entire show together in one day. This was something our company had done at venues throughout Michigan – at elementary and high schools and camps over many years. My wife tells the story into the microphone, an ancient creation myth from the Aztec people about how music and color first came into the world. Music plays through the loudspeakers and the kids can improvise movements out on stage within the choreography we have provided for them. Each group performs a different scene from the story. They move as a group: as a group of waves in the ocean or as a group of stars in the night or as a group of clouds in a storm... depending on the scene in the story they are assigned to portray. We rotate the groups in and out of rehearsals as each group learns their scene in a series of rapid fire workshops that we do throughout the day. The kids are holding blacklight props that “glow in the dark”. When it all comes together, the whole effect is a dynamic spectacle.
There is safety in that spectacle. By keeping the kids in groups they have safety in numbers. The stage is not a safe place. As the comic Jerry Seinfeld once commented, there have been polls showing that people are more afraid of public speaking than of dying, leading to his joke that most people at a funeral would rather be in the coffin than giving the eulogy. The stage is a terrifying place for most people. At our company, we are adept at bringing people out on stage who are not used to being out on a stage. This is not easy. We have to get people to face and conquer primordial fears. One thing that helps in this process is the speed of the rehearsals. We get the kids moving before they know what they are doing so that they start having fun before there is any time for the fear to kick in. This day, this was working as the groups rotated quickly in and out, rehearsing their scenes. Then the youngest group came in, including the little brown girl with the unusual mouth who I had passed by on the park bench. She was one of the smallest kids in the youngest group. We often pick four of the smallest kids to do a particular scene where there is no safety in numbers. It was likely we would pick her to be one of the kids in this scene. This is a scene that requires a kind of courage that small children sometimes have in greater abundance than big adults.
In this Aztec story of how the first colors came into the world, the Four Musicians (Yellow Flute, Red Drum, Blue Conch Shell and Green Rattles) are being held hostage by the Sun. Meanwhile, the people of earth below suffer, for they have no color, play, music or laughter in their lives. The God of the Wind must find and rescue the Musicians, and there are many scenes with action and adventure along the way to the climactic battle with the Sun. After all of these big scenes with loud sound and wild spectacle, there is a small, quiet scene that happens when the four Musicians arrive on earth. In this poignant moment, there is a hush in the still darkness, and then each of the Musicians comes forward, one at a time, to bring their music and color into the world. We usually pick four of the youngest kids to do the roles of the four Musicians. We selected out the four smallest kids, including the girl I had seen on the park bench. By this time, I saw her as simply one of the other kids. I had no doubt that she would do fine. I handed her the green rattles. My wife and my son and I were quickly moving back and forth between different groups of students as we taught them their parts. Somewhere in all of that directed commotion someone gave the the girl from the park bench her instructions and she learned her cue for coming out to improvise her dance with the green rattles. We then moved on to the next group and the next and the next....
Imagine yourself in the position that young girl was in. You have just been told that you will be improvising a dance on stage in front of 200 of your peers at a summer camp, where you will be out there alone on center stage with the entire spotlight on you. This may not be something you would be up for and it is not something we normally ask kids to do. In this particular scene in this particular story it has always worked. Younger kids are far more game for this kind of thing, and the charm of a young child performing brings this tender scene to life. Still, there are limits to what you can expect from any performer thrown into the deep end of center stage in this way. We are asking the kid to take that stage and to command that spotlight with almost no choreography, direction or rehearsal. Even a professional performer would find this difficult. In show biz, they would refer to someone who could do such a thing as having “star quality” or the “it factor”. My wife has this ability. She is herself a small brown woman, a child of migrant farm workers who got her Ph.D. and then went off to “join the circus” with me. She stands 5' tall, and yet she can step forward and command a spotlight with a natural poise that you either have or you don't. I don't. I have to work at it, and it never feels comfortable and instinctual. If you are not a performer, chances are that your blood runs cold at the very notion. Young kids have less fear in this arena and so they are willing to try such things that are likely to terrify us as we grow older. Still, even a young child will tend to be somewhat hesitant and clumsy improvising alone on stage. The scene with the four Musicians of the Sun tends to work well in spite of this. It works due the charm that any young child has when their elders watch them play and perform. I was not worried. I expected that all four Musicians would do fine, including the young girl with the green rattles.
I love what I do. It has been very difficult for us to continue our work in recent years, due to a number of factors in our personal and professional lives. It is blessed work and it is not easy work and even in the best of times it can be a challenge to keep a theater company going. As I write this, I know that we have not done a large blacklight production of the kind I am describing in many years and I don't know if we will get a chance to so again in the future. Being an artist sometimes involves making your own luck against the odds and I do hope that luck comes my way again. I am a lucky soul. I have had the chance to do work where I know I will see children inspired and audiences applauding. They are surprised, and it is our job to create that surprise in them. My wife and I are not as surprised since we know the show, the process and the arc of the event from having done it so many times before. Occasionally that dynamic flips around and we are the ones surprised, startled and stunned. Something emerges out of the performance that I never saw coming. I live for those moments. Those moments are the moments I hang on to in times when I forget what I am doing here and my future feels as though it may be slipping through my fingers. The moments when I get surprised remind me of why I do this work. These moments become the thread that I hold onto when I am lost and sinking. The moments that stun me become the moments that save me. The sun went down and the darkness signaled that it was time to begin our blacklight performance of Musicians of the Sun at Camp Rosenthal. I was about to be surprised. I was about to be stunned.
The performance began with a group of stars bursting out into the night sky with a fun and energetic spectacle, just as I expected. Next came the scenes on the earth, the ocean, the sun and the storm. It was more fun spectacle, just as I expected and had seen so many times before. The youngest kids playing the Musicians came from the sky and down to the earth to bring color to the people. They went to the four directions to establish order in the world. Red played his drum, Yellow played her flute and Blue played his conch shell. Each was hesitant yet playful, raw yet endearing and clumsy yet charming. They each came forward much as I expected and much as I had seen dozens of times before. Then there came the moment for Green to play her rattles. The girl I had passed by on the park bench was ready to perform. It was her cue. I was no longer concerned for her in particular. I was no longer dreading nor delighting in the prospect of this moment. I knew what to expect because kids are kids and I expected her to perform much as the other kids had in this show and so many other shows and in so many other moments. The moment came and she leaped.
She leaped and time took a breath. In that breath, she danced. She burst forth in a singular whirlwind moving in all directions at once. Her arms swung round in wild tight circles. They were churning through air, flowing in water, energized by fire and forming earth. Arms, elbows and wrists sliced through space in a crazed and perfect arc. So many hands. So many feet. The movements were quick and a blur and in our trance we saw them in exquisite slow motion. A green rattle shook, just so, to the left. A green rattle shook, just so, to the right. A rattle shook and the sky shook. Each shake sent waves crashing and rumbling and roaring and humming and exploding and birthing and rupturing through every space around us and inside us. A foot landed on the ground, pounding out a huge beat going deeply and heavily down. A foot lifted back up and sprung up and flew as if floating weightless. A foot came crashing down and a foot came lifting up. Each step turned floor into clay and clay into soil and soil into life. Storms formed from hands and from rattles as seeds formed from feet and from leaps as this moment and this breath and this life became fertile and vibrant and alive and green. She was the only one in the room, dancing this dance for herself and her earth in her time and in her place and in her rhythm and in her heartbeat and in her joy. We were all with her, all of us, in her dance and in her movement and in her sway. All was in motion. All was still. In a moment yet to come, the whole cast would come out in the next scene for the finale, with dozens of children coming out in a burst of color as the rainbow of hues and sounds and music and play would fill the earth. This climactic moment waited in the wings, while she prepared the ground. She, the girl with the green rattles, prepared the ground. She danced, and the ground was made pregnant and ready. She danced, and the world where wonder and play and love and laughter can happen was made possible and given pulse and possibility. She danced, and time took a breath. She danced. She danced.
She danced as though she was working with a choreography and practice and training that we knew well had never taken place. Her dance emerged fully formed, instinctual and yet crafted. In twenty five years of doing this work, there are a few moments where performances that I have seen by children stunned me and etched themselves into in my memory. This one stands out at the top. Here she was, the girl I had passed by on the bench. I felt my heart sink as I saw what I thought was someone who was disfigured. Seeing the flaw in her beauty, something in me wanted to offer something to her. All that switched as she danced and in that dance she was teaching me about beauty. I had passed her by and felt a twinge in me as I wondered whether she might feel awkward and out of place. All this turned around as she danced and in that dance she was teaching me a lesson about owning your place in the world. She was teaching me a lesson about grace. I had passed her by and I felt that sadness because she looked so helpless. All this was reversed as she danced and in that dance she taught me a lesson about power. I passed her by and wondered what I might offer her, having no clue as to what she would soon offer me. It was she who taught me these lessons about beauty, grace and power.
When I find myself in a hopeless place and when I feel myself turning my pity inward and need to be encouraged I am happy that I can draw upon the lessons and spirit and energy that I received on that day and in that moment when the girl with the green rattles stunned me with her dance, her genius and her resilience. She is for me a mentor, teacher, muse and guide. This is why I sometimes think of her when I hear something on the news like the man who is the current Speaker of the House proposing mentorship programs for people who are needy and less fortunate. I have no doubt that his intentions are sincere. There is a program called Big Brothers that does such work and I am sure that such work is needed. Still, I have a tendency to think back to the time when the girl with green rattles turned the tables on me and how rewarding that moment has been for my life. I thought I was big and she was small and I found out how wrong I was and I gained much from that moment. Instead of being her big brother, she became my little comadre. Today, as I look out on our country I see so many people who need the kind of lessons that she taught me and who may need it even more than I did. We have seen in recent times the sad and sorry spectacle of big and powerful people who are afraid and nervous around five year old orphans, 12 year old boys and young refugee children. These “powerful” people seem to lack the very things that the cowardly lion and the tin man sought in Oz: a heart and a spine, compassion and nerve. I think of these things and I think of the girl with the green rattles and the gifts she gave me with her lessons on beauty, grace and power. Then I think of the refugee children from Central America who are about to be deported. They too have lessons to teach and by deporting them I think we may be missing an opportunity.
I did a thought experiment when the Central American children appeared on our border in 2014. In this thought experiment I wondered whether instead of deporting these children we could pair them up, one on one, with members of Congress and Administration department heads and Governors throughout the country. Just as the girl with the green rattles became my little comadre, they could become little compadres for the rich and “powerful”: the Little Compadres program. They could learn about our system while mentoring these politicians in qualities that so many seem to have lost: generosity, hospitality, humility and courage. These young refugees come from the land that gifted this world with the myths and stories that we work with in our theater; the stories of the Aztec and the Maya. Along their journey, these children overcame hardships and ordeals that most of us can scarce imagine. They may well have stories to tell and lessons to teach. Could they help those people and politicians in our country who have lost their way in their confusion and fear? Of course I do not have the power to turn this thought experiment into a real project. The power that I do have is the power of story. I can tell you the story of what the girl with the green rattles gave to me. I can imagine the stories of love, devotion, grit and courage that the Central American refugees have to share with the world.
As we begin this new year, I will remember the girl with the green rattles: How she brought new life to all of us lucky enough to be there in that moment when she danced. I will spare a thought for the beautiful and courageous and powerful children who arrived from Central America at our border with hearts and dreams wide open and trusting and hopeful. I am holding on to lessons I learned from my little comadre, the girl with the green rattles. I take these lessons with me as I awake and arise and work to bring forth new life in my world and in the world around me. Her dance changed me in a moment I never saw coming. May we be ready for new life in this new year and the new years to come.
She danced, and time took a breath. She danced. She danced.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.