"The things that different people need to express are different flavors of the same experience, because we're all human. We have different cultures, we have different beliefs, but at the core, we're all human," says Cynthia Henderson, founder and director of Performing Arts for Social Change (PASC), a CTA program. "There are women's rights issues everywhere, there are  diseases, eating disorders, poverty, PTSD. What PASC offers people is an opportunity to express themselves through the arts -- express what they're dealing with."

Cynthia Henderson, directing

PASC has worked with a wide variety of communities -- villagers in Cameroon, students in Beijing, war veterans in Ithaca, NY -- empowering them to take a stand for their own lives. No matter the context, the process facilitated by PASC helps people express and then stage their stories. Through this process, participants find new ways to understand, discuss and deal with often painful or taboo subjects. For example, Ruminations, was a project that helped students at the Lehman Alternative School in Ithaca work on the issue of being disabled in a world created for the able-bodied. At the MacCormick Secure Center, a detention center for youth, residents examined their situations and life choices, looking for possible new approaches to achieve what they want out of their lives. In Cameroon, West Africa, villagers used theater to raise awareness for AIDS education. At Ithaca High School, students created a performance called Voice Suspended, that dealt with racial unrest and violence in their school, for which they won the Distinguished Youth Award from the Tompkins County Legislature. A complete list of PASC's projects can be found here. 

Origins

This work stems from Cynthia Henderson's roots in theater and social action. In the 1980s, Henderson worked in Harlem with the New York Urban League, a non-profit organization for equal opportunity. Here, she created a series of monologues with youth about "why they chose the life they chose." For those youth, many of whom were gang members, theater "gave them an opportunity to be heard outside of violent action," says Henderson.

Henderson was also inspired by the Theatre of the Oppressed, a framework designed by Brazilian stage director and social activist Augusto Boal in the early 1970's to address and overcome community issues. The Theatre of the Oppressed quickly spread across Brazil and is practiced in over seventy countries today.  

Because the direction of these projects is determined by the participants themselves, it unfolds organically, in a way that can not be predicted at the start. Over the years, Henderson has come to anticipate this element of surprise. "We never go in with a written project. The first rule of PASC is that we listen and find out what it is participants need to say and then, together, we create the pieces."   

While the purpose of most performance art is to have an effect on the audience, Henderson intends for these projects to transform the performers--those telling their own stories, as well as the audience.  "Some of our pieces go public ... and some of the pieces stay in house because it's really about their work," explains Henderson. While the experience is quite personal, individual expression often leads to community transformation. For example, after one young man at a New York State correctional facility participated in a PASC project he was surprised, according to Henderson, to discover "he really wanted to do something to help other people, rather than doing something for himself."  

In 2007, with the assistance of then Ithaca College student, Amanda LaForge, Henderson formally organized what she had been calling "Theatre for Social Change," into "Performing Arts for Social Change," a CTA strategic initiative. LaForge and Henderson decided on a name that emphasized the power of all art forms--music, dance, creative writing and theater--to effect personal and collective transformation. "My work with Cynthia Henderson and PASC changed the way I look at theater," LaForge recounts. "Art has the potential to change lives, and PASC uses that potential to bring a voice to those who are so often unheard, misunderstood, and mistreated. Because of my experience with PASC, I feel a responsibility to pass on this knowledge and help my own community through theater and dance." Today, Amanda LaForge is a performing arts activist with PURE Sarasota, a collective of dancers and drummers in Sarasota, Florida that takes music and dance out into the streets for the purposes of creating community, healing, and peace.  

What's Coming Up 

PASC's newest initiative, Teach our truth. Reach our youth. Engage our communities. Explore our world. (TREE), combines improvisational theater games, creative writing, visual arts, music and more, in a proactive and creative way.  An improvisation theater-and-music game, for example, might ask one participant to expresses his- or herself verbally, while another responds by interpreting that expression on a musical instrument. This program  is specifically designed to include a variety of arts so participants can "express themselves in a way that is most comfortable to them," says Henderson.

This coming summer, PASC will be working with La Poderosa, a community-based visual arts program in Bahía de Caraquéz, Ecuador, to teach an acting workshop. Latin American youth and students from the United States will create a 30-minute play in English to highlight issues in the town. The resulting production and a follow-up Q&A will be part of a film and theater festival taking place later in the summer.  

Back in New York, PASC will team up with Acting Out NY, an acting and film-making program for youth. In a one-week summer camp, "PASC will help kids write a script to send an anti bully message and use the kids' own experience to facilitate the writing of that script," says the program's director, Darcy Martin-Rose.

Get Involved!

PASC is always open to new volunteers and supporters, as well as donations, sponsorships, and grant opportunities. Your support helps PASC grow and transform communities and empower individuals through theatrical and artistic expression. For more information, click here or contact Cynthia Henderson via email at performingartsforsocialchange@gmail.com

The Center for Transformative Action (CTA) helps to create communities that work for everyone. We do this by providing fiscal sponsorship to innovative social change agents in New York State, as well as financial, human resources, and grants management services. CTA is an educational non-profit organization affiliated with Cornell University.

We envision change makers everywhere engaging and strengthening the power of the heart to remake the world.

We are an alliance of individuals and organizations inspired by principles of nonviolence and committed to bold action for justice, sustainability, and peace. CTA supports change makers with the tools to build thriving, inclusive communities that work for everyone. We serve our projects, the public, and Cornell University by offering educational programs and strategic organizational resources.