Theater To Consciousness

Some of the girls participating in the program in Uttar-Pradesh.

It started out for Melanie Closs when she created her own solo performance for The Other Side in San Francisco, to tell a story of cultural consciousness and being on the outside. After engaging in another performance in NYC, she departed for nine months on a world journey, ending up in India. She ended up teaching and directing theater at PARDADA-PARDADI EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY in Uttar Pradesh.

Meeting teenage girls in this area of India was eye-opening. Eighty-five percent of the girls from this part of India do not receive any education and usually end up in arranged marriages by the age of 15. That was the venue into which Melanie brought theater education. It wound up making a big difference in these young women's lives, giving them confidence, the ability to share experiences, and realize they could be leaders.



What if the theater process and experience could be shared across national boundaries, between the women of two different cultures? That led to the establishment of THE OTHER SIDE NYC. The outreach on this side of the ocean involves 13- to 16-year-old girls in Brooklyn. Theater for this group allows them to become introspective about their own experiences and be able to communicate with the young women in Uttar-Pradesh.

Why add the international element? Melanie says, "I added the cross-cultural component, so that girls from two sides of the globe could learn about each other, tell stories of their struggle, and come together as a collective of support for one another and for girls around the world." It may also lend a sense of commonality among women across cultures, that women face challenges related to their gender, frequently relegating them to second-class citizens and vulnerable to exploitation. But it happens in different ways, since the girls in Brooklyn have had access to an education that the girls in Uttar-Pradesh did not.

The Other Side NYC works with a small group of staff from different backgrounds, coming from the fields of education, theater, women's studies, and other expressive arts. It allows the staff to wear many hats, while they create meaningful experiences for the girls at such a geographic distance from each other.

Some of the NYC girls getting stage time.

According to the website, the group is holding two summer camp sessions for the girls from Brooklyn. There are also school workshops in various schools in the NYC area and also in Uttar-Pradesh, and now in a rural area of Chile. The program is still growing and that's a good thing for the marginilized girls for whom the group gives a voice.

One of the signs about the group posted in the NYC area.

Thanks to this article from the Pollination Project: https://thepollinationproject.org/grants-awarded/melanie-closs-side-educational-theatre/; and the above links.

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