If they exercised the power of creativity to make life rich, if they re-cognized that their reality is an unconsciously-created interpretation, would they consciously create a healthy reality and thereby be healed?

Heal Thyself! is not only of interest to people in care-giving situations; it will be key for anyone trying to manage change.  This is a microcosm, a test case, for healing the sick world.  Can we, in our homes, develop inspired economies?  When we live in love, work is love made visible.

We profess that imagination and play are the most efficient and ecological ways to improve our economy. By collaboratively deconstructing the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, we will make room for the power of creativity to make our lives rich.

The title "Heal Thyself!" expresses our frustration - we've done all that should be necessary to bring about healing, now heal! The title also contains the double-entendre that if we cannot heal our friends we must heal ourselves of our need to heal them.

Creative Process - Research

Creative Process - Music, Costumes, Lighting and Set

Music composition by Peter Jarvis will be integrated throughout the creative process. 
   Peter writes: I will create a sound canvas which embodies the emotional landscape of the characters through specific tones and metaphorical sound textures.  This project is interesting musically - Christine says she doesn't understand why music is not everyone's religion, yet she has never tried to create or play music, and reportedly has no interest in discussing what makes her favourite music so powerful.  Since age 15, Kirk has immersed himself in music and expressed himself through it.  With his abilities now constrained, he watches some TV and spends almost the entire remainder of his every day listening to music.  This project's theme of 'deconstructing the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves' resonates with my interest in music.  I hope to tap the 'psychic scores' of Christine, Kirk, Jonathon and Carlynn - without reducing these multi-faceted, dialectical people - and to capture and motivate the dramatic changes in the characters.  I'll incorporate some of Kirk's music.  I hope to honour their inner music while also deconstructing it to unleash the possibility for creating a healthier score - perhaps Christine will discover her creative ability, and Kirk's cells will sing a new song, reverberating to vitality, as his music emerges, now lucid and conscious. 
   Above all this is the drama - the characters fight for and against transformation - of themselves and each other - both collaboratively and in dramatic conflict.  The music will not be emotional lakes representing the internal lives of the characters.  The slow but steady onslaught of degenerative disease forces change.  This external conflict makes manifest the inner conflicts.
   The music will be fraught with the drama of fighting for and against change, needing to simultaneously fight and accept decay, and the exquisite excruciation of being deconstructed and daring to deconstruct your self.  Not every dance scene needs music - sometimes silence is more intimate and dramatic. Most scenes without dance will not include music, but the sound canvas will support the entire production.  The music will partner with Carlynn & Jonathon's extraordinary ability to integrate movement, vocalization and verbalization. 

Since we will be performing scenes from different times in our character's lives, costumes will reflect our characters' changing self-valuations and semiotic meaning-making strategies; to 'get into our characters' skin', we intend to wear their clothes.

Lighting will be designed with the goal of being as integral to the world we create as the script, movement and soundscape, but with the serious constraint that we intend for this to be portable theatre.  This same goal and constraint applies to the set, so we will evoke our stage world by our use of - and relationship with - the space. We will explore couch as relief from pain but also as a final resting place / quicksand, and crutch as helper, accuser, weapon, freedom, prison.  By inter-acting with the crutch and the couch, we will bring them 'to life', multiplying meanings, contrasting meanings.

Dates and Venues

2005

2006 - 2009
see calendar

Constituency & Audience Development Strategy

Our audience development strategy develops our audience in three ways: quantity, quality, and empowerment.

As a result of our performances of man&woman and Mountain Top Talk last year, and our involvement in various communities, we already have a supportive audience base.  We have a large and high-quality email mailing list. We expect to extend that base through our research participants - we have already found that seemingly-everyone who hears about this project enthuses about it to their network.  We have already been approached by a health care facilitator about using this piece as part of a conference for training care-givers.  As previously stated, we will also be running Improv/Forum Theatre classes on themes central to Heal Thyself!  In addition to mounting runs at one or two theatres, we are interested in how diverse audiences will respond to Heal Thyself!, so we will go where they are.

This includes schools.  Much of Carlynn's work outside this project involves semi-annual productions with youth. Conversations erupt in rehearsals about problems in their own homes with alcoholism, neglect, rigid belief systems, and stuck relationships; about friends or acquaintances at school who are 'a little different'.  How do they change their family system? How do they create a school culture conducive to learning/self-expression/collaboration?  Heal Thyself! is about restoring power to the powerless.  Young people will want to experience this show; schools will want to host this show.

We will ask our audiences to give verbal and written feedback with pre-designed questions as a guide (including whether they want anyone else to see it and why, and asking for contact information if they want to know about future performances, or if they want to be connected with study groups for Improv/Forum Theatre and/or Care-Giving by Co-Creating Theatre).  We see enormous potential in following performances with an open forum dialogue.  In  specified performances, we will invite the audience to take the stage and try to enact their own co-creative transformative theatre.

Our mission is to cultivate creativity, and our medium is our message.

	The Hospital for Sick Children's Therapeutic Clowns
	OISE's Centre for Arts-Inspired Research
	Organizational Behaviour faculty and students at Rotman School of Management and Schulich School of Business
	ISIS (Expressive Arts Therapy College)
	Learning through the Arts
	Mixed Company, Toronto Theatre Alliance's DIS THIS!
	John Neville (former Artistic Director of the Stratford Festival)
	Canadian Pain Society, Arthritis Society, Alzheimer's Society
	DAWN (the Disabled Women's Network), Older Women's Network
	CareGiver Network Inc.
	North York General Hospital's social workers
	YouthLink Inner City Drop-In, SKETCH (art for & by street-involved youth)
	all of Kirk's doctors and therapists.

The City of Toronto expects all recipients of grants to be positive change agents, reducing barriers to access and equity. In Heal Thyself, we hope to dissolve the ‘healthy care-giver’ / ‘sick care-receiver’ dichotomy.   Although it is not always evident, care-receivers care-give, and care-givers care-receive; by subverting the artificial distinction and hierarchy, a family culture emerges where giving and receiving are inseparable.  Indeed we have found that ‘the obstacle leads us to our goal’ – we have discovered depths of love and awareness which may never have been realized if we had skimmed along in a life of ease.  In this co-creative process, the “healthy” members will undergo the same critical/creative inquiry as the “sick”. Christine and Kirk will participate in the creative process by consensus decision-making and by creative input.  We are eliminating barriers by providing opportunity for creative engagement with their experience.