A thought about sexual violence prevention
Growing up as a male, my culture taught me that I owned everything: social space, intellectual space, physical space, sexual space. I was taught that all my ideas were good and everyone needed my input.
I placed myself in the center of the circle.
Then, my parents, friends, and some incredible women in my life took me to task about what my large presence meant. I noticed how loud I was, how big I was, and how many spaces were dominated by men.
So, in shame, I placed myself outside of the circle.
Only through following the lead of artists working in sexual violence prevention, sex positivity, and emotional health did I learn how to listen, how to speak, how to cry, and how to work.
And now I work to simply join the circle.
With Each Other
Role: Stage Manager / Logistics Coordinator
Partners: Arizona State University
With Each Other is a 30 minute Sexual Violence Prevention show that was devised by Arizona State University Students and designed and produced by a team of professional creators.
The show explores the landscape of coming out in college, supporting survivors of sexual violence, maintaining safe communities, and standing up for each other in times of need.
The show was performed for over 15,000 ASU first-year students over the span of 3 year run.
A Body, Home
Role: Stage Manager / Logistics Coordinator
Partners: Dance Exchange, the Next/Now Festival
A Body, Home is a narrative soundscape that captures a broad spectrum of trauma. A body, home uses the metaphor of the moving truck to ask: What are the traumas we’re moving from? What needs to get packed and unpacked to move beyond a culture in which sexual assault is prevalent and normalized? What is the world we want to move toward?
By asking and exploring these questions through movement and words, A body, home posits that because the body is the site sexual violence, it must also be—and undeniably already is—the site of healing, of strength, and of resilience.
Re-riting Masculinity
Role: Facilitator / Writer / Performer
Partners: The CounterAct Initiative
ReWriting Masculinity is an interview and performance project about men talking about what it means to be a man. Jamal Brooks-Hawkins and I interviewed 30 men about their gender, how they felt it had changed or grown, what their definition of maleness was and what is the next step in their development as a man.
The work culminated in a presentation at the Arizona Department of Health Services Sexual Violence Prevention Conference and a script of the collected monologues
